Five Packers With Soaring Stock Who Flipped Depth Charts at Training Camp

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The hot starts to Green Bay Packers training camp for players like Jaylin Simpson mean everything and nothing, all at once.

“Honestly, one day at a time,” Simpson said this week. “I know it’s cliché as hell, but one day at a time, one play at a time. What happened today is already over.”

With the preseason starting on Thursday at the Steelers, here are five players with soaring stock because of their excellent training camps.

DT Anthony Campbell

Anthony Campbell was 82nd in our pre-training camp ranking of all 91 players on the roster. Maybe even that was too high. As a sixth-year senior at Miami, Campbell made one tackle. He went undrafted in 2025 and spent most of his rookie season out of the league until the Packers signed him to their practice squad toward the end of the regular season.

It’s from those humble roots where one of the daily standouts of training camp was born. He’s shown a surprising ability for getting to the quarterback. When he’s not getting to the quarterback, he’s shown a knack for batting down passes. And with long arms, he’s been a force against the run.

The Packers have an unexpectedly strong group of defensive tackles. Making the 53-man roster is going to be a challenge, but he’s shown he is more than good enough to play in the NFL, even if he apparently wasn’t good enough to play in college.

“It's not over yet,” he said on Tuesday. “It's working but, at the end of the day, I want to look back and I'm saying, ‘Damn, I'm strong.’”

We’ll have more on the native of Jamaica before Thursday’s game.

DT Warren Brinson

Warren Brinson was a sixth-round pick last year. He was a healthy scratch to start the season and finished with a half-sack and 13 tackles in 11 games.

Brinson needed to take a big step forward in Year 2. Instead, he’s taken a big leap. He’s been one of the best players on the field this summer, whether it’s as an interior rusher or as a nose tackle. Brinson seemingly has played his way off the bubble and into a key role on defense.

Brinson said he did “two-a-days” all offseason with Tom Bender, who was the performance coach for Justin Houston, the NFL sacks champion in 2014, and MLB home-run king Aaron Judge.

“I got a long way to go,” Brinson said after a huge Family Night. “He always tells me I’m only 70 percent of where he says I could be at. I just got to keep going back, keep working. He was up here like two days ago working with me. I got to keep my body straight and keep believing in the goals he has for me and the goals I have for myself.”

Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Warren Brinson (91) is shown at training camp Friday, July 31. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

G/C Jacob Monk

Speaking of players who went from the roster bubble to start training camp to earning a key role entering the preseason, there’s Jacob Monk.

Monk was a fifth-round pick in 2024. He played exactly zero snaps on offense as a rookie and the first 15 games of 2025. He got some garbage-time snaps in the blowout loss to Baltimore in Week 17 and started the Week 18 preseason-style game at Minnesota.

After the Packers drafted Jager Burton in the fifth round and gave hefty contracts to undrafted free agents Dillon Wade and Josh Gesky, Monk’s spot on the roster appeared precarious.

Instead, he is well on his way to being the team’s starting right guard instead of last year’s second-round pick, Anthony Belton.

It means, “Nothing,” he said after Tuesday’s practice. “It's nothing right now. I feel like our end goal is get better each and every day and then, hopefully, host the Lombardi. So, right now is not the end goal. It’s nothing really that we're thinking about.”

He did admit it was rewarding to see a lifetime of hard work paying off.

“Yeah, I know I've worked my tail off,” he said. “You know, I've prayed hard for an opportunity. But, at the end of the day, the person who looks back on yesterday loses today. So, I really can't look back at all.”

CB Jaylin Simpson

This offseason, the Packers signed Benjamin St-Juste in free agency and drafted Brandon Cisse in the second round and Domani Jackson in the sixth round.

It was a clear signal that good wasn’t good enough at a critical position.

To say Simpson, a fifth-round pick by the Colts in 2024 who made his NFL debut in Week 18 of last season, opened training camp on the roster bubble might be generous. With Keisean Nixon, Carrington Valentine, St-Juste, the rookies and Kamal Hadden, Simpson faced a serious uphill climb.

Injuries to Valentine and Jackson and last year’s injury to Hadden opened the door, and Simpson has taken full advantage. After a solid start to training camp, he strung together big-time performances at Family Night on Friday and again on Sunday and Monday.

With experience at cornerback, safety and the slot, which is where he lined up on Tuesday, he could provide multipositional depth.

“I had a good friend of mine and we would call it ‘magazine mode.’ We ended up being on the cover of a magazine one time. And so it would be midgame in high school and we would just look at each other and say ‘magazine mode.’ And that’s just like a reset – like lock in, being on the front of a magazine, you that guy. Just chill and go magazine mode.

“It was an inside joke. I still say that to myself to this day. It’s a sense of comfort. Just calm down, be cool, you been doing this.”

Simpson has spent most of training camp with the No. 2 defense. He figures to get a lot of playing time in the preseason.

“I think he’s really making an impact,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “I think he’s made a lot of plays. Certainly, you could see it on the last play of practice yesterday [a 99-yard pick-six on Monday], where he picked that ball off. But I think I see a guy that’s growing, that’s playing with more confidence. He’s like a lot of these guys – you’re just excited to see him play in preseason.”

CB Brandon Cisse

Brandon Cisse, of course, did not start training camp on the roster bubble.

His rise, though, has been just as noteworthy. Remember, Jaire Alexander was a first-round draft pick in 2018. He was not a starter to open his rookie season. Eric Stokes was a first-round draft pick in 2021. He also was not a starter to open his rookie season.

Cisse was a second-round draft pick this year. He is well on his way to being a Week 1 starter.

Following a promising offseason, Cisse figured to get his shot with the starters at some point in training camp. When Carrington Valentine suffered a hamstring injury early in the fourth practice, Cisse got his opportunity. Even when Valentine is fully back at practice – he took part in individual drills on Tuesday – Cisse has earned the right to stay in the lineup.

He is talented and athletic with a professional mindset.

“I set a really high standard, so it’s going,” he said of his camp. “Obviously, I’ve got really high expectations for myself. I’m just looking at the plays I can get better from, and I’m excited for those. Obviously, there’s going to be moments where you see flashes and things like that, but there’s a lot of growing pains I’m also going through. I need to get better at those things. I’m just excited to clean it up and continue to get better every day.”

What happened today at Packers training camp?

A lot, even with a shorter practice.

Here is everything that happned at Practice 11, including the latest on the cornerback battle, defensive domination, lineups, highlights, injuries and more. ⬇️https://t.co/Gyz94hfqKh
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) August 11, 2026

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