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The Green Bay Packers placed defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt on the injured reserve on Friday, which many (including myself) thought was a move to make room for the addition of receiver Jayden Reed from the injured reserve. General manager Brian Gutekunst seemed to have other plans, though, as the Packers actually used that roster spot to claim nose tackle Quinton Bohanna from the Seattle Seahawks.
Bohanna is now on his fifth NFL team, originally beginning his career with the Dallas Cowboys as a sixth-round pick in 2021. Since then, he’s spent time with the Detroit Lions, Tennessee Titans and Seattle Seahawks. This year, he played five games for the Seahawks, registering 32 snaps played on defense. In total, he’s played 640 snaps on defense in his NFL career and has made 13 career starts.
While he measured in at 327 pounds coming out of college, Bohanna is now listed at 6’4” and 355 pounds by the league. Make no mistake, he’s a nose tackle. It’s worth mentioning that the other defensive tackle the Packers added this week, Jordon Riley, is also a nose tackle.
So even though Wyatt went down in Detroit and is now out for the rest of the season, the Packers don’t seem to be too concerned about adding competition at the under tackle position. Instead, Green Bay used two roster spots to try to push Nazir Stackhouse, who was the Packers’ only backup nose tackle going into the week, as long as Warren Brinson’s role is now as the team’s backup under tackle (which is expected).
Because Riley was poached from a practice squad, he will be a member of Green Bay’s 53-man roster for the next three weeks. NFL rules stipulate that a player who is poached from a practice squad must be paid out those full three weeks and that the player must take a roster spot on the 53-man roster for those weeks, too, so there’s no reason for the Packers to turn Riley loose, even with the Bohanna addition. Meanwhile, Green Bay doesn’t have to make the same commitment for Bohanna, even though he’s coming from another team’s 53-man roster. This is just the mechanism that the NFL has chosen to prevent constant practice squad poaching.
Here’s my best read of the situation: Adjusting to the loss of Wyatt, the team has decided to make Brinson an under tackle full-time (he had played both positions this season). The team wasn’t comfortable with Stackhouse, who is playing fewer than 10 snaps a game, being their only option backing up Colby Wooden at nose tackle, and that’s why they’ve added the two nose tackles that they did this week.
