Why Will Kaleb Johnson Be Successful With Packers? Watch This, Iowa OC Says

GREEN BAY, Wis. – New Green Bay Packers running back Kaleb Johnson was an All-American at Iowa in 2024. The game to watch from that blockbuster season, Hawkeyes offensive coordinator Tim Lester said, was Johnson’s worst statistical performance.

“If you want to watch a game, you watch the Nebraska game,” Lester told Packers On SI on Thursday, a couple days before Iowa’s season-opening matchup against Northern Iowa. “We had a walk-on quarterback playing, I had no backup – I had a safety as my backup quarterback if my walk-on were to get hurt – and we literally just kept handing him the ball against loaded boxes and he just fought and fought and fought and fought.”

Iowa trailed 10-3 to open the fourth quarter. But not for long.

“And then finally we threw him a swing screen. He broke like 12 tackles and won the game for us.”

The Hawkeyes won 13-10. Johnson was held to 45 yards on 17 carries – his 2.6-yard average about 4 yards under his season average – but one play in which he refused to be tackled made the difference.

It was that play – and that game – that spoke not only to Johnson’s tackle-breaking prowess but his hunger – two traits that should come to the forefront following the trade that sent Johnson from Pittsburgh to Green Bay last week.

“The want-to, right? That’s just the chip on his shoulder,” Lester continued. “They were loading the box. There’s nothing we could do about it. We weren’t going to throw it. They knew we were going to run it, and he was patient. Finally, we threw him a swing screen just to try to get him in some space. It was one of the single greatest plays I’ve ever seen. He pretty much put the team on his back and said, ‘We’re going to win this game,’ and we did on one play.”

Lester was the head coach at Western Michigan from 2017 through 2022. After he was fired, he spent the 2023 season with the Packers as an analyst. In 2024, he was named offensive coordinator at Iowa, where he inherited Johnson and brought along coach Matt LaFleur’s offense.

“He should have unbelievable familiarity with the system, that’s for sure, because that’s exactly what we ran his senior year of college, which is good,” Lester said “And so I’ve been excited for him to get his shot and kind of get settled. The NFL normally takes a little bit of time to get adjusted, but definitely a talented kid.”

The schematic familiarity should be huge considering Johnson’s late arrival in Green Bay. The plays and the terminology won’t just be similar.

“The parts [of the playbook] that we do carry are pretty much verbatim, word for word,” Lester said. “I’d have to give you two numbers. I have to say verbiage-wise, it’s probably 98 percent Green Bay, and I would say the amount of playbook that we run of the Green Bay Packers’ playbook is probably 60 to 70 percent. That’s by choice. I think if I gave them the whole thing, it’d be too much for them to handle.”

Johnson rushed for 1,537 yards and 21 touchdowns in 2024. Of his 6.4-yard average, 4.4 yards came after contact on the strength of 66 missed tackles, according to Pro Football Focus.

While that skill didn’t come to the forefront with the Steelers, who drafted him in the third round last year, it could in Green Bay because he’ll be asked to do the same things that he did so successfully at Iowa.

“He was a great one-cut runner,” Lester said. “I always referred to it like baseball. Everyone has their fastball, and so his outside zone game was pretty impressive, His transportation series was really good. He just had a knack of getting downhill, keeping his eyes and shoulders where they needed to be, and then really accelerating on one cut.

Kaleb Johnson. pic.twitter.com/JEtn8AX13U
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) September 1, 2026

“He’s not a super shake-and-bake type of guy; he’s more put a foot in the ground and accelerate and go. And so, when you’re running wide zone and when you’re running mid-zone, he was just a natural. Not that he was bad at the other stuff – he’s pretty good at counter, as well – but, man, he had a knack for those plays. That’s kind of the staple of what we do, so that’s really where his skill-set fit what we were doing in my first year here just because he’s a natural at some of the most important schemes within the offense.”

And Green Bay’s offense as it looks to adapt to life without Josh Jacobs.

According to PFF, Johnson during the 2024 season gained 1,060 rushing yards after contact. One look at him, and it’s easy to see why. He’s 6-foot-1 and 225 pounds of muscle, giving him the power to break through would-be tacklers. Even on an NFL practice field this week, he stood out.

“I had just come to Iowa from Green Bay and there aren’t a ton of people in a locker room that have the size-speed combination of a Green Bay Packers locker room or an NFL locker room in general,” Lester said. “I think that was super-unique. Guys that have his size and speed and weight and strength, when he got going, you really had to square him up because if you didn’t square him up, you were going to fall off.”

The key to Johnson’s success, just like it was for Jacobs, is to get him going with a head of steam instead of having to dodge tacklers at the line of scrimmage.

“Our goal was to try to get him to the second level clean,” Lester continued. “If we could get him past the first wave and get him to the linebacker level or, God forbid, even the secondary, if we could get him clean through there, once he got that thing rolling, he was hard to bring down unless you really squared him up.

“He did have a couple of runs where he broke tackles at the line of scrimmage, which was impressive, but if you got him clean through that first level and he got that speed up and he was rolling, people would hit him but you better wrap him up because he was physical and strong. So, that was a lot of his broken tackles is once he got through the first wave, it was really hard to bring down. You might as well just try to sweep tackle him and take his legs out because if you tried to take him high, he was rough to tackle.”

There’s more to being a running back than running the ball. In 2024, he had a combined 262 rushes and receptions and did not fumble. He caught 22-of-25 targets for 190 yards and two touchdowns. In protection, according to PFF, he stayed in to block 57 times and allowed two pressures (zero sacks).

“It’s the same protections” as the Packers run, Lester said. “He got better as the year went on. The one thing I talk about with running backs is the willingness, and he had that. That’s really all that mattered.

“Every NFL coach will tell you, like, no college kids are ready for the NFL pass protection, but the willingness is what they look for. Will he stick it in there? He definitely will. He’s got the body to do it, too. A lot of times, the Mike linebacker likes to chuck the running back and push him back into the quarterback. But Kaleb can anchor himself and take on. He can help in pass pro. He did a good job for us and got better every single time, and I’m assuming it’s just going to continue.”

Lester didn’t follow Johnson’s season with the Steelers – he was a bit busy on Sundays – but believes Johnson has what it takes to reach the prodigious potential he displayed on Saturdays with the Hawkeyes.

If he didn’t believe in Johnson as a player and as a person, he wouldn’t have agreed to an interview a couple days before his team’s season opener.

“I think he’s hungry. He’s always been that way,” he said. “He has the two most important boxes. He has the physical tools to be able to compete at that level, and he has the want-to, right? Like he wants the ball, he wants to make a difference, he has the hunger.”

It’s the traits he showed against Nebraska, when the Hawkeyes won a game while throwing only four passes 10-plus yards down the field.

“Just the willingness to keep going, because there’s going to be good and bad in the NFL. Keep coming back, keep getting up, and so he has that,” Lester said. “Those two are normally a really good combination. You know, there’s a lot of luck involved, obviously, in getting the ball at the right times and all that stuff. But those first two things are key ingredients to having success. So, I’m looking forward to watching him up there with Matt.”

Week 1 is just one of 17. Right?
Not so much.

There will be a lot at stake for Packers-Vikings in nine days. ⬇️https://t.co/ll4udfGjYM
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) September 4, 2026

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