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Should the Packers bring back their beefy run stuffer?
We’re a little more than halfway through our series making the case to keep every one of the Packers’ 11 unrestricted free agents. So far we’ve covered low-level offensive linemen, game-winning kickers, and everything in between.
Today, we go big, diving into the heftiest defensive lineman on the Packers’ roster: T.J. Slaton.
Slaton is a big man with a specific role in the Packers defense. At 6-foot-4 and 330 pounds, he’s the stoutest man on the Packers’ defensive front, and through the first three years of his career, he regularly and effectively manned the nose tackle spot in Joe Barry’s 3-4 defense. He peaked in 2023, leading the Packers with 35 “stops” in the run game, Pro Football Focus’s measure of how often a defensive player prevents the offense from achieving a play they’d define as a success.
Unfortunately for Slaton, the Packers’ defense changed around him. With the arrival of new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley in 2024, Slaton’s role evaporated. Without a need for a space-eating nose, Slaton’s snap count dropped from 626 in the 2023 regular season to 427 in 2024. Percentage-wise, his playing time dropped from 56 percent of the total defensive snaps to 39 percent.
But even if the Packers have less use for Slaton, there’s one big thing working in his favor: the Packers don’t have many useful linemen in general. Devonte Wyatt was good, but Kenny Clark declined in 2024 and is far closer to the end of his career than the beginning regardless of how he plays in 2025. Karl Brooks and Colby Wooden have both landed somewhere between okay and fine throughout their still-young NFL careers, with Brooks being by far the better of the two. Beyond that, the cupboard is bare on the defensive line.
Clearly, the Packers need help here. Even if Slaton’s utility is limited, can they really turn up their nose at a known commodity who might be their best pure run defender?
If the goal is a complete overhaul on the defensive line, the answer is probably yes — but what if the Packers don’t want to completely gut their defensive line and start over? The smarter thing might be to bring back Slaton on something of a bridge deal, letting you build around the competent parts you do have while adding more talent both on the edge and up the middle.
That Slaton is a known commodity who has...
