The injuries keep piling up for the 2025 Green Bay Packers. According to Matt LaFleur, he and Brian Gutekunst “have a plan” at tight end following another season-ending injury to one of their tight ends.
The tight end position in Green Bay has been through a ton of changes in 2025. First, it was losing Ben Sims on waivers to the Minnesota Vikings in October to make room when they activated Christian Watson to the 53-man roster. Then they lost superstar Tucker Kraft to a season-ending torn ACL in the Week 9 game against the Carolina Panthers. The most recent change was the loss of John FitzPatrick to a torn Achilles tendon against the Chicago Bears on Saturday.
The Packers entered that game with just two healthy tight ends. When they left Soldier Field, Luke Musgrave was the only man standing. With Josh Whyle still dealing with a concussion and now FitzPatrick done for the year, where does Green Bay go from here?
Replacing FitzPatrick might be tougher than expected. Their current options aren’t great, and they have to replace 57% of the offensive snaps he played since taking on a larger role in Weeks 11 through 15.
The hope is that Whyle can get healthy enough to play on Saturday against the Baltimore Ravens and that the Packers can slot him in as the second tight end. The third-year pro out of Cincinnati has only three receptions since being called up from the practice squad to take Kraft’s place on the roster. Still, he has a touchdown, and one of those catches went for 21 yards on a great play against the Bears in the first meeting.
In his limited snaps, he has shown enough that you don’t feel crippling anxiety when he’s on the field. As far as TE3’s go, the Packers could do worse. The issue is that, with FitzPatrick out for the year, Whyle moves into the primary backup role.
For a player who was on the practice squad until the midway point of the season, he’s going to see a significant increase in snaps. The good news is that he has experience in a decent-sized role, logging 345 snaps (31% of offensive snaps) for the Tennessee Titans last year. Ideally, he’d clear concussion protocol early in the week so he can get some practice reps in before Saturday.
However, the Packers don’t have internal options beyond him and Musgrave. They have two tight ends on the practice squad in McCallan Castles and Drake Dabney (yes, those are real people), although neither has ever appeared in an NFL game. Castles is in his second season out of Tennessee and has the most experience of the two.
The Philadelphia Eagles signed him as an undrafted free agent and have bounced around between them, the Los Angeles Chargers, and the Los Angeles Rams, before finding his way to Green Bay as a practice-squad addition when they signed Whyle to the active roster on November 4.
Green Bay signed Dabney on the same day and spent the summer and first two weeks of the season on the Tennessee Titans’ practice squad. It’s going to be a difficult ask to plug in two players who have never played a snap in the NFL right into a must-win game in a race for the playoffs. Alas, that’s where the Packers find themselves.
This late in the season, finding someone external who can realistically come in and contribute will probably be an even tougher ask. The most popular answer is going to be Marcedes Lewis, and I’m sure Gutekunst makes that phone call.
The 41-year-old is currently in his 20th professional season, a member of the Denver Broncos practice squad, and is out of elevations. He knows LaFleur’s system after spending four seasons in it and is still a well-regarded blocker. Lewis could assume the blocking role that FitzPatrick is leaving behind, and it’s likely the offense wouldn’t miss a beat.
I’m less sure he would come back to Green Bay without hesitation, even if it means getting a lot of snaps. The Broncos are the No. 1 seed in the AFC, and if the season ended today, the road to the Super Bowl goes through Denver.
The Broncos just lost their first home game, and with that defense and home-field advantage, it’s hard not to see them as Super Bowl favorites. As a player who has played in this league as long as Lewis has and has never made a Super Bowl, my guess is he stays there and chases that opportunity.
Aside from Lewis, there aren’t many experienced tight ends available who could be ready for the final two weeks of the season.
C.J. Uzomah is probably the best name left on the list of free agents, but he hasn’t played all year and wasn’t even in camp with anyone. Expecting him to come off the street and make any sort of impact is probably unrealistic.
Maybe someone like Jordan Akins, who is on the Jacksonville Jaguars practice squad. The 33-year-old has appeared in 107 career games, plus two more in the postseason. Someone who has played in that many games could likely find a role on a new team pretty quickly. Still, if he has much left, wouldn’t Jacksonville be using him in some role on their offense? No other free-agent names stand out as appealing options.
The Packers probably call up one of their two practice-squad players, then sign another to backfill that spot, and roll with Musgrave, Whyle, and either Castles or Dabney.
We are going to continue to see a ton of six-man offensive line packages, with Darian Kinnard lining up as a de facto tight end. They have continued to increase that usage each week since Kraft’s injury and will likely lean on it even more now that their best blocking tight end is out. Maybe we’ll get lucky and see a pass thrown his way.
Luke Musgrave just had a whole heck of a lot more pressure added to his plate moving forward. The former second-round pick has the chance to completely rewrite his NFL career, even more than he did right after Kraft got hurt.
