Packers Draft Report Card: Grade for Third-Round Pick Chris McClellan

GREEN BAY – Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said the team needed a true nose tackle to anchor the defensive line in the new 3-4 alignment.

In the third round of the NFL Draft on Friday night, Gutekunst took a proactive approach by trading up seven spots in the third round to select Missouri defensive tackle Chris McClellan.

McClellan is a good player, let there be no doubt about that. After two seasons as a reserve at Florida, he transferred to Missouri for his final two seasons. He had 2.5 sacks and 5.5 tackles for losses among 39 tackles in 2024, then had a tremendous final season with six sacks and eight tackles for losses among 48 tackles in 2025.

The question, which obviously will be unanswerable for at least a couple years, is whether Gutekunst picked the right player.

Iowa State’s Domonique Orange – the aptly named “Big Citrus” – is a 6-foot-2 3/8, 322-pound run stopper. If you needed to stop a fourth-and-1 running play right now, he’d be the man for the job.

Florida State’s Darrell Jackson Jr. has rare size at 6-foot-5 1/2 and 315 pounds. If you needed to stop that fourth-and-1 play right now, he would not be the pick. In a couple years, though, maybe it’ll be a different story.

McClellan brings some of everything. It’s no contest in terms of ability to impact a passing game and create havoc in the backfield. In 50 games in four seasons, Orange had one sack and seven tackles for losses. In 26 games in two seasons at Missouri, McClellan had 10.5 sacks and 17 tackles for losses.

McClellan is more seasoned than Jackson. While Jackson has rare traits, he had only 7.5 sacks and 12 tackles for losses in 50 career games.

It’s the ability to impact the passer that made McClellan the selection.

“Obviously, he played in the SEC,” Gutekunst said when asked specifically about McClellan vs. Orange vs. Jackson. “He’s a huge man. He has excellent length, and I think for me, the combination of being able to play the nose, the three and actually rush the passer, there’s a lot of these guys that don’t do that. He can. That was I think what set him apart a little bit for us.”

According to Sports Info Solutions, McClellan had 20 pressures in 2025. Orange (12) and Jackson (nine) combined for 21.

To be sure, media draft rankings aren’t the same as team draft rankings. With boots on the ground, a Rolodex of contacts and an army of scouts, general managers like Gutekunst are privy to so much more information than anyone.

Still, it’s at least mildly interesting that so many media scouts had McClellan judged as a fourth- or fifth-round pick but the Packers liked him so much that they thought about drafting him in the second round and eventually traded up in the third.

“We just really liked him,” director of football operations Milt Hendrickson said. “He was a guy that we had on the board at a spot that it made a lot of sense to go try to get. We’ve got half a dozen of us on the phone with other teams and, obviously, it takes a trade partner, and we felt like the value matched what we were willing to give up.

“You’re always hedging your bets, so to speak in terms of, can we wait a little bit? A pick is just a pick until it becomes a player, and so when we have a player that really, really liked and the opportunity presented itself to go get him, that’s ultimately what Brian decided to do.”

It will be fun – and easy – to judge the McClellan vs. Orange decision. (Jackson wasn’t drafted through three rounds.) The Packers traded up from No. 84 to No. 77 to get McClellan. In between, at No. 82, the Vikings selected Orange. That means the Packers will get up close and personal with the big nose tackle they could have had.

“We found it really incredibly valuable to add, really, a big-bodied nose tackle,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said. “A very, very difficult guy to move in there taking double teams, doing some of the dirty work.”

The other part of the equation is trading up cost Gutekunst a fifth-round pick. For a man who would be on NFL Network’s version of Hoarders because of how he loves to collect draft picks, Gutekunst swears he’ll be fine without it because McClellan’s availability stuck out like a “sore thumb” as the third round unfolded.

“From as soon as we made the pick at 52, I was interested in seeing where we could get to, what might make sense to give us a chance to get him,” Gutekunst said. “I didn’t have any specific [feeling] of, ‘He’s going to get taken.’ I just felt that it was important for us to try to acquire him. And as the third round kept going, he was kind of that one guy sticking out there.”

Grade: B.

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