Packers Sign Elite Size-Speed Linebacker Prospect to Practice Squad

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers are signing rookie linebacker Jack Dingle to the practice squad following a Wednesday workout, according to a source.

Dingle will take the place of Kristian Welch on the practice squad; Welch is taking the place of Edgerrin Cooper on the 53-man roster.

Dingle went undrafted this year but there’s plenty to like from a skill-set perspective. Before this year’s draft, he measured 6-foot-4 18 and 232 pounds. He posted elite testing numbers, including a 4.57 in the 40 and a 20-yard shuttle of 4.17 seconds.

His Relative Athletic Score was 9.82. That means he’s in the 98th percentile among linebacker prospects over the last four decades.

Jack Dingle is a LB prospect in the 2026 draft class. He scored a 9.82 RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 65 out of 3460 LB from 1987 to 2026.https://t.co/FvjagUF5bb pic.twitter.com/gGoxszCYea
— RAS.football (@MathBomb) April 6, 2026

The Packers worked out a bunch of linebackers this week to fill Welch’s spot on the practice squad. They included Penn State’s Curtis Jacobs, Florida State’s Cam Riley, Michigan’s Josh Ross and Georgia’s Channing Tindall on Wednesday and LSU’s Deion Jones and Mississippi’s Chris Paul on Tuesday.

By far the most accomplished was Jones, a second-round pick by Atlanta in 2016 with 91 career games. He played in 17 games for the Buccaneers last season. Tindall was a third-round pick by the Dolphins in 2022 who appeared in 51 games with zero starts during his career. Paul was a fifth-round pick by the Seahawks in 2025 who has not played in a game.

Ultimately, the Packers zeroed in on Dingle, who was selected to the famed Freaks List by The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman.

As a senior at Cincinnati, he had 60 tackles, including four tackles for losses. In four seasons, he tallied 164 tackles, with four sacks, 9.5 TFLs and two passes defensed.

In The Beast, The Athletic’s Dane Brugler called him a potential core special-teams player.

“Dingle passes the eye test with his tall, athletic build, and NFL scouts praise his “old-school” style, both on the field and as a worker behind the scenes. His instincts aren’t quite fully developed, but he can unlock and go once he diagnoses the play. He attacks with pop, which helps him disengage from blockers. Stiffness through his core and lower half hinders him at times, both as a tackler and in coverage.”

Dingle went undrafted and signed with the Cincinnati Bengals but failed to make their roster.

“I'm an undrafted player. I have to be the best communicator on the field,” he said while with the Bengals. “I've got to get the playbook as fast as I can so I have every detail to prove myself out there. Just take it one step at a time.”

The ticket for any undrafted player to make it in the NFL will be special teams. That’s how Welch has carved out a long NFL career.

“That’s the No. 1 thing,” he said at the Bengals’ local pro day in April. “Get on a team and start learning special teams right away. That’s very important to these coaches. I’ve talked to a lot of current NFL players and they say, ‘Learn that kick-step on punt man. If you make the punt team, you’ll make the team.’”

His father, Nate Dingle, was a linebacker who played a combined 17 games for the Eagles, Jaguars and Rams in the 1990s.

“He says he was a beast, that’s what he tells us, but we don’t really know,” Jack said. “He was definitely a hard worker; that’s who I learn from a lot.”

He wasn’t exactly a natural because he was late to mature physically.

“I told his mother his sophomore year of high school, if you would have seen him, I said he wasn’t going to play at Trinity,” his dad said. “He was this gangly, small, thin, maybe 5-10 kid that was uncoordinated. His brother used to make fun of him.”

Obviously, Dingle won’t be a reason why the Packers persevere without Cooper. It will be up to the new linebacker tandem of Zaire Franklin and Isaiah McDuffie to pick up the slack left by the budding star’s torn Achilles.

“Obviously, J.G. is going to put us in good position, but I got a lot of faith in Hopp and Duff,” Franklin said on Wednesday. “Both of those guys have played a lot of ball, made a lot of plays on Sunday – made plays against Chicago before. I think those guys will be ready to play.

“We’re close and I think we have a talented linebacker room since I’ve been here. Obviously, it was headlined by Coop who’s an amazing player, but I think those guys will do a good job of stepping in and making plays, as well.”

Packers star Tucker Kraft raised the bar on his comeback when he said, "... if you’re not coming back off your injury the same, then what are you doing?"

It's been a slow start statistically, and even his brothers have had a critique. ⬇️https://t.co/M9xyrdW81E
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) October 8, 2026

SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY PACKERS NEWSLETTER

Add us as a preferred source on Google