Musical Chairs Led to Packers Being Out of Tune at Key Position

Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst was clear during his media availability on Wednesday. He had no sympathy for his offensive linemen having to play musical chairs along the front.

“You know how I feel about versatility,” Gutekunst said. “We’ve talked a lot about that up here. To me, they need to be able to play multiple spots, and I don’t really care where they think they may be better at. When they’re in there, they need to perform.”

Nobody on Green Bay’s offensive line moved more in 2025 than 2024 first-round pick Jordan Morgan, who started games at four positions.

Gutekunst was right when he said it would be “ideal” but perhaps “unrealistic” to let Morgan focus on one position, left tackle, in 2026. The offensive line is a war of attrition every season. It’s incredibly rare that a team completes a regular season with the same starting five on a weekly basis. It’s not coincidental that the best Packers offensive line in recent memory was in 2014, when four of their five starters played all 16 games and the fifth, right tackle Bryan Bulaga, missed only one.

Is there an answer to be had somewhere in the middle of cross training linemen for emergency situations but also allowing the starters to know who they’re lining up next to in a given series, let alone a full game?

The answer is yes. The reality is the Packers have done a disservice to their linemen by cross training them to play multiple positions. It’s not as simple as plugging a guy in and letting him play. Right guard is not the same as left guard, for example.

Josh Sitton had an incredible analogy about what flipping sides of the offensive line was like.

Josh Sitton just said playing RG instead of familiar LG is like "trying to wipe your ass with the other hand."
— Armando Salguero (@ArmandoSalguero) March 16, 2018

Building off that comparison, the Packers have been asking Morgan to clean himself with his foot with as much as they’ve moved him around during his two seasons.

Morgan played 748 snaps this season, third-most on the offensive line. They came at four positions: 358 at right guard, 191 at left guard, 148 at right tackle and 51 at left tackle.

“His versatility certainly has helped us, and it was one of the reasons that drew us to him in the draft,” Gutekunst said. “His ability to play all those spots has been a benefit to us.”

Mismanaged Offensive Line

Yes, versatility is the name of the game. Offensive linemen get injured, and others are asked to move around.

The reality can also be that the Packers have mismanaged their group the last two seasons. In an effort to find their best five offensive lineman, the Packers during the Matt LaFleur era have spit in the face of continuity by not allowing five individuals to gel into one unit.

In 2019, rookie Elgton Jenkins opened the season rotating with Lane Taylor at left guard. During the second half of 2023, Jon Runyan Jr. and Sean Rhyan rotated at right guard and Rasheed Walker and Yosh Nijman rotated at left tackle.

This year, Morgan, Rhyan and rookie Anthony Belton rotated series at right guard in games throughout the season. Belton and Darian Kinnard rotated at right tackle during a Week 2 win over the Commanders.

Most offensive linemen will tell you they like knowing who is lining up next to them.

“The difficulty with playing multiple players across different positions, especially with younger players, is that as a play-caller it’s tough to figure out what you are good at,” former Packers offensive lineman Mike Wahle told Packers on SI in September.

The reality is the issue of rotating players starts in training camp.

The Green Bay Packers offensive line is shown during the first quarter of their game against the Washington Commanders. | Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Yes, injuries have been part of that, but the Packers have mismanaged their resources.

Morgan when he was drafted was thought to be a versatile piece who could move all over the offensive line. That was the theory, but there wasn’t any merit in that theory other than projection. Morgan was a left tackle in college. He never played inside.

Despite that, Morgan played exclusively inside as a rookie while struggling with injuries. This season, he played both guard spots and right tackle before making his first career start at left tackle in the meaningless regular-season finale against the Vikings. A week later in the playoffs at Chicago, Morgan was back to right tackle, where he performed well.

Meanwhile, Belton was projected to be a guard when he was drafted. His size and strength projected nicely to a move inside. The Packers did not play him at guard during training camp or the preseason, instead rotating him at the tackle spots.

Of course, by the end of the season, he was starting at right guard, but he went through the growing pains associated with a midseason position change. Those growing pains could have been exorcised in camp.

Some of that is the reality of the NFL. Some of it is self-induced.

Pick a Side

Perhaps something the Packers will focus on during training camp in 2026 is keeping their linemen on the same side of the line.

“I think we’ll probably have to cross-train all these guys,” Gutekunst said. “I do sometimes think if you can keep a guy on a side, left or right, it’s helpful for him a little bit.”

It’s hard to step into games without practice. It’s even harder when there is a revolving door at certain positions by choice.

“I think there’s some merit to that, for sure, especially when you look at just yesterday playing multiple spots in one game,” LaFleur said on the Monday following a 13-10 loss to Cleveland when the offensive line, in general, and Morgan, in particular, struggled when right tackle Zach Tom was able to play only the opening snap.

“I don’t think that’s easy on anybody, especially a guy who’s still a relatively young player. That’s something we’ve got to look at.”

Keeping players on one side would be easier not just on Morgan, but the rest of the youth that is likely to occupy the offensive line if Walker is allowed to leave in free agency and Jenkins becomes a salary-cap casualty.

“Certainly, he’s going to get a lot of opportunity,” Gutekunst said of Morgan at left tackle, which is his preferred position. “I thought he played really well in the preseason at that spot. (He) probably did enough to win that job, but then we had some injuries and had to do what was best for the team.

“So, we’ll kind of see how it goes, but I think he’s excited probably to hunker down in one spot as well, but that’s not always the case in the National Football League, so we’ll see.”

Thankfully for Green Bay’s sake, there should not be much competition for the starting five in 2026.

Morgan, Aaron Banks, Belton and Tom are under contract. If they establish a center, either in free agency or the draft, they should be able to keep those five on the field in their respective spots during training camp to allow the group to gel.

At least until injuries hit, that has to be an approach the Packers take.

“Any one position as a sum of its parts is very difficult to master,” Wahle said. “Players entering the league have to refine or change their techniques, adjust to a new system with new language requirements and levels of complexity, and deal with the fact that every rep, every movement is going to be dissected like never before on the national stage.

“That’s tough sledding these days, not to mention the name of the game is winning our one-on-one matchups; putting together a game plan against two, three guys at one position is hard enough.”

If they want their offensive line, which disappointed in 2025, to be better this year, they need to turn down the volume in their self-inflicted game of musical chairs.

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Mismanaged Offensive Line

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