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The Green Bay Packers made just a single elevation from their practice squad to the active gameday roster in time for Monday night’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Coming up for the gameday roster is linebacker Kristian Welch, who has bounced back and forth from the practice squad to the 53 a few times this season.
Welch will join a linebacker unit that has just four players on the 53 at present: Quay Walker, Edgerrin Cooper, Isaiah McDuffie, and Ty’Ron Hopper. Expect Welch to suit up and play a prominent role on special teams as usual while providing linebacker depth in case of injuries.
That was the role that Welch provided for last week’s game, which was his first game action of the season. He had spent the first eight weeks of the 2025 season on the Packers’ practice squad without an activation before getting promoted to the 53-man roster in place of special teams ace Nick Niemann, who had landed on injured reserve. However, Welch was released after last week’s game and signed back onto the practice squad a day later.
The Packers can elevate Welch (or any other practice squad player) onto the gameday roster up to three times in a single season. After that, they would need to promote him to the 53 once again in order for him to be eligible to play in a game. However, because he was on the 53 for last week’s game against the Panthers, that game does not count against that three-game limit, so Monday night will count as elevation number one.
Now in his sixth year in the NFL, Welch is on his second stint with the Packers, having signed with the team in late March. He played his first three NFL seasons for the Baltimore Ravens, then signed with the Packers during the 2023 offseason and played 14 games in Green Bay that year. He surprisingly did not make the roster after final cuts in 2024 and instead signed with the Broncos, playing six games for them before being released and catching back on with Baltimore for the second half of last season.
