With players reporting on Tuesday to begin training camp on Wednesday, we can count the hours until we finally have football back in our lives. And training camp not only begins the ramp-up to the 2025 season, but we’ll finally begin getting some answers about the burning questions we’ve had all offseason.
For the Green Bay Packers, the cornerback position has generated as much speculation as any on the roster this offseason.
Despite the departure of Jaire Alexander, the Packers have a solid trio atop the depth chart at cornerback. It’s a group that incudes Keisean Nixon, Nate Hobbs, and Carrington Valentine. The first thing to keep tabs on is how the three are deployed in Jeff Hafley’s defense.
Will Nixon and Hobbs be the two starters on the outside, or will one slide into the slot, allowing Valentine to start on the outside? Hobbs will be entering his fifth season; through the first four, he’s played nearly twice as many snaps at slot compared to on the outside.
Green Bay may have other plans, though, which Hafley talked about back in May.
Nate can play outside and Nate can play inside. We’re going to have him do both. When you’re getting ready for free agency and you’re evaluating tape, that’s one thing you love about him. He’s had a lot of success inside, and I thought his tape outside was equally as good. He is competitive, he’s tough, he is physical, he plays the game fast. You can tell he loves it. It just jumps off the tape.
Hobbs could have a similar transition in Green Bay to Nixon’s.
Nixon was primarily a slot cornerback before making a nearly full transition to the boundary in 2024. If that’s the masterplan, even though Hafley intends to use Hobbs’ versatility to Green Bay’s advantage, Valentine would serve more as a reserve corner who still gets consistent snaps every week.
Green Bay doesn’t boast a true lockdown cornerback with Alexander gone, but if this trio stays healthy, cornerback won’t be a glaring weakness.
One of the other items at cornerback to monitor throughout training camp is who is filling the depth spots behind those three. Green Bay should feel fine about what they have in Nixon, Hobbs, and Valentine, and how they can move around two of those puzzle pieces if need be. If any one of the three go down with injury for any significant time, though, the group’s depth will be seriously tested.
The Packers will have stiff competition for CB roster spots beyond their top three.
Micah Robinson was drafted in the seventh round in April but missed all of minicamp earlier in the offseason and is set to begin training camp on the Physically Unable to Perform. The PUP list works a little different in training camp than during the season, however. In training camp, a player can be taken off the list at any time, without delay. While there’s no clarity yet on the significance of Robinson’s injury, he’ll be starting behind the eight ball after missing all of minicamp and likely the start of training camp.
The Packers will give an extended look to Kalen King, Kamal Hadden, and Johnathan Baldwin, among others.
King was a seventh-round pick in 2024 who spent last season on the practice squad. Hadden was a sixth-round selection by the Kansas City Chiefs last year and was waived in August before the Packers added him to their practice squad. Hadden was active for two games last season. Baldwin was an undrafted free-agent addition to whom the Packers gave $115,000 in guaranteed money. Baldwin was a starting safety at UNLV in 2022 and 2023 before sliding to the slot in 2024. There will be multiple avenues for Baldwin to try and earn a 53-man roster spot.
The ace up Jeff Hafley’s sleeve here is Javon Bullard. A second-round pick in 2024, Bullard moved from starting safety down closer to the line of scrimmage at the slot as the season wore on. With Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams the likely two starters at safety in 2025, Bullard could see his most time spent at slot, and he could help alleviate some of the pressure if the cornerback room is tested.
There are reasons to be excited about what King, Robinson, Hadden or Baldwin could develop into, but none have played any meaningful snaps in the NFL and all were taken in the sixth round or later in the last two years. One of those four will likely be the No. 4 cornerback, who would be called into action should one of Nixon, Hobbs, or Valentine miss time. Green Bay will be banking on the hope that at least one of these guys will development quicker than usual.
Now that the Alexander saga has concluded and the rumored cornerback additions never came to fruition during free agency, we have a good idea of what that room will look like headed into the season’s kickoff. What remains to be seen is whether Nixon and Hobbs will both be used more on the outside than in the slot, or if Valentine will slide into the picture more. After that, there are legitimate depth questions and roster spots to be filled with unproven yet promising talent.
