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Michael Batton has played at four colleges since being a high school quarterback in Texas.
According to the NFL’s transaction report, the Green Bay Packers worked out linebacker Michael Batton on Tuesday. The very athletic, but undersized, linebacker has an interesting background.
The former high school quarterback got his start in college football at Houston Christian before transferring to Nassau Community College in New York for the 2021 season. After a year there, he transferred to Louisiana-Monroe, the rival school to where his father played linebacker in college, Louisiana-Lafayette.
After two seasons at ULM, he returned closer to home to play at Houston, where he ended his five-year, four-school college career. At Houston, he started every game as a senior and was named a gameday captain several times.
During the pre-draft process, Batton, only 222 pounds, ran an elite 4.53-second 40-yard dash time. Per Pro Football Focus, he played 421 career special teams snaps at the college level between his time at Louisiana Monroe and Houston, too.
According to NFL reporter Aaron Wilson, Batton worked out at the Houston Texans’ local pro day and received interest from the Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans leading up to the draft. While he wasn’t picked in April, he did get invited to both the Bears’ and Seattle Seahawks’ rookie minicamps, which he left as an unsigned player.
About a week ago, Batton received his first workout since rookie minicamp, an opportunity with the Carolina Panthers, along with 13 other players.
At the moment, the Packers have seven linebackers under contract. Quay Walker, Edgerrin Cooper, Isaiah McDuffie, Ty’Ron Hopper and Isaiah Simmons are expected to make the roster, leaving the team with only Kristian Welch and Jamon Johnson as options for their practice squad linebacker in 2025. When Green Bay cut Welch at the roster deadline in 2024, he was immediately signed by the Denver Broncos, where he played six games, and then landed with the Baltimore Ravens — where he started his NFL career. Welch played nine games with the Ravens last season before signing with the Packers in free agency on a one-year, $1.17 million deal in March.
So there’s real concern that the 28-year-old Welch might not re-sign with Green Bay’s practice squad if he hits the open market again. The same is true of Johnson, a highly-touted undrafted rookie who clearly had a market for his services after receiving $115,000 in guarantees from the Packers. Johnson was the second-highest ranked free agent signing for Green Bay this offseason per the consensus draft board, which had Johnson ranked as the 263rd overall player in the 2025 class in a draft with 257 picks.
If you’re Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst, you’d probably want to protect your team from a scenario where Green Bay only cuts two linebackers, Welch and Johnson, but both of them leave for other opportunities than Green Bay’s practice squad following cutdowns. That’s probably the...
