Acme Packing Company
On Thursday, the American Bowl will be broadcast on NFL Network and the East-West Shrine Bowl will begin its week of events leading up to their game on Tuesday, January 27th. That’s right, folks, it’s full-blown draft season. It’s time to preview our second all-star game of this cycle. If you want to read our American Bowl preview, you can find it HERE.
We’re going to take you position-by-position through the Shrine Bowl, noting which players have draftable grades at each spot per the up-to-date consensus draft board. We’ll also mention general drafting trends and needs that the Green Bay Packers have, so we can slim this board down a bit. Draft season is all about not drinking water through a fire hose.
The top quarterback in this game is Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, who came into the year with some first-round hype. The Packers did a pretty good job of covering their bases at quarterback with the additions of Desmond Ridder and Kyle McCord in recent weeks, but maybe they’ll add Klubik to the competition if he slips a bit on draft day.
All four of the Packers’ top backs this year were listed at at least 219 pounds in 2025. It’s been a general trend in the Matt LaFleur era that Green Bay’s offensive players, specifically, have gotten much bigger to fit in with his inside run-leaning scheme (mixed results). That’s before you even include AJ Dillon, at 247 pounds, into the mix, too.
Generally, the Packers are in the market for bigger backs now. That sort of rules out Claiborne (estimated 195 pounds), but might keep Hemby (e210), Donaldson (e232) and Henry (e205) on the board.
Donaldson actually began his career at West Virginia, where he transferred from in 2025, as a “tight end.” At the college level, he ran the ball 517 times for 2,419 yards (4.7 yards per carry) and 40 touchdowns to go along with 47 receptions for 286 yards and two scores. He was Ohio State’s number two back behind freshman Bo Jackson this year.
Hemby recorded a 1,000-yard rushing season for Indiana after transferring from Maryland. He also returned kicks for the championship Hoosiers from time to time.
The Packers under LaFleur are also pretty picky about the size of their receivers, with players under the 205-ish pound range basically being delegated to the slot role (already filled by both Jayden Reed and Matthew Golden in 2026). If you’re going to watch receivers in this group, let it be Stribling (e6’2”, e210) and Thomas (e6’5”, e205).
Stribling caught 216 passes for 2,964 yards and 23 touchdowns in college, at Washington State,...
