HEADLINES

Anthony Belton

Packers To Reassess Zach Tom After Week 5

September 26th, 2025 at 11:26am CST by Nikhil Mehta

11:26am: Belton will be unavailable in Week 4 after suffering an ankle injury in Wednesday’s practice, according to head coach Matt LaFleur (via ESPN’s Rob Demovsky). That will likely position Kinnard to start at right tackle with Morgan likely continuing at left guard in Banks’ absence.

9:56am: Packers right tackle Zach Tom is unlikely to take the field for Sunday night’s showdown with the Cowboys, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Tom suffered an oblique injury in Week 1 that sidelined him for one game. He returned in Week 3 only to reaggravate the injury on the first snap. He has not participated in practice this week.

Green Bay is planning to reassess Tom’s oblique after their Week 5 bye in the hopes that he can quickly return to the field and ramp up for the team’s next game vs. the Bengals, per Schefter.

The Packers have tried three players at right tackle in Tom’s absence to varying amounts of success. Former Eagle Darian Kinnard and rookie Anthony Belton both stepped in after Tom went down in Week 1. Belton got the start in Week 2 and replaced Tom in Week 3, with Kinnard getting snaps in both games. The Packers also put 2024 first-round pick Jordan Morgan at right tackle for a handful of snaps in Week 3.

Belton was limited in practice on Wednesday before missing Thursday’s session, so Green Bay may rely on Kinnard and Morgan in Week 4 vs. Cincinnati, though the latter may be needed to replace injured left guard Aaron Banks. Like Tom, he was sidelined in Week 2, re-injured himself in the next game, and has yet to practice this week.

Tom has been durable in his career, appearing in 40 straight game since cracking the starting lineup as a rookie until his Week 2 absence. The Packers will be hoping that he can return to the field quickly and play the rest of the season without issue.

NFL Injury Updates: Wharton, Lions, Colts

September 11th, 2025 at 7:21pm CST by Nikhil Mehta

Defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton suffered a hamstring injury in his Panthers debut and will miss time as a result.

Head coach Dave Canales said (via team reporter Darin Gantt) that Wharton’s absence would be “somewhere in the two- to four-week range.” That could preclude a move to injured reserve, as Wharton would be sidelined for a mandatory four week after his placement. Given the nature of his injury, the Panthers likely want to get him back on the practice field sooner as he ramps up to game readiness.

Wharton, 27, signed in Carolina this offseason for $15MM per year with the hopes of combining with Derrick Brown and A’Shawn Robinson to upgrade the Panthers’ interior pass rush. The former Chief put up a career-high 6.5 sacks in 2024 and added two more in the playoffs.

Until Wharton returns to the field, the Panthers will lean on a backups Bobby Brown and Jaden Crumedy. Rookie Cam Jackson should also get more opportunities after sitting as a healthy scratch in Week 1.

Here are several other injury updates from around the NFL:

Packers Finish Rookie Signings After Inking T Anthony Belton

July 18th, 2025 at 7:50pm CST by Ely Allen

The Packers announced today that they have signed second-round offensive tackle Anthony Belton to his rookie contract. Belton was the last Packers rookie to sign his four-year deal, meaning that Green Bay has concluded its rookie signings.

Originally coming out of high school in Tallahassee as an unranked recruit but still wanting to play football, Belton took the junior college route, attending Georgia Military, where he was teammates with Buccaneers linebacker YaYa Diaby. After two years at the institution, Belton gained a bit more traction in recruiting as a three-star JuCo prospect, fielding offers from the likes of Houston, West Viriginia, South Carolina, and TCU.

Ultimately, he committed to NC State, redshirting his first year in Raleigh as the staff helped him get into good shape with a better weight room and training staff available to him. In 2022, he took over the starting left tackle job vacated by former first-round pick Ikem Ekwonu but was benched after only eight starts. He showed improvement the following year, as he returned to the starting left tackle role, and even more improvement in 2024.

In Green Bay, the Packers have watched two tackles drafted in the fourth and seventh rounds of the 2022 draft bookend the starting offensive line. Still, for the second year in a row, the team has drafted a college left tackle in the first two rounds of the draft. And, perhaps also for the second year in a row, that left tackle may not continue playing tackle. Last year’s first-round pick, Jordan Morgan, played 121 snaps off the bench at right guard and started one game at left guard in his rookie season after playing exclusively at left tackle over his five years at Arizona. Early reports show that Belton, who also played exclusively at left tackle, has been working at right tackle and guard so far in Green Bay.

While Belton may end up shifting inside like Morgan, he stands a better chance at sticking as a tackle, with some believing that he could be one of Zach Tom or Rasheed Walker‘s heir, as both are set to play the 2025 season on a contract year. While Belton only stands at 6-foot-6 (technically five and a half), he boasts a huge frame at 336 pounds. That stout form makes him a difficult player to move, and his long arms make up for a below average lateral speed. He’s a mauler that erases defenders and an active, aggressive blocker in the run game. He may not see time early in Green Bay, but he and Morgan seem to be the budding future of the offensive line.

With Belton wrapping up the rookie signings in Green Bay, here’s a final look at the Packers’ rookie draft class:

33 Unsigned 2025 Draft Picks Remain

July 9th, 2025 at 9:19pm CST by Ely Allen

The NFL has hit a logjam and is collectively lagging far behind where it normally is at this point in the offseason. Two years ago, the league hit its last 30 unsigned players before July. Last year, teams were signing rookies as quickly as they were drafting them, and only 10 players remained unsigned by June 17. A couple intriguing situations have caused pens to go quiet in 2025, and as a result, here are the 33 remaining unsigned rookies of the 2025 NFL Draft:

Round 1:

Round 2:

Round 4:

  • No. 107 (Jaguars): Jack Kiser (LB, Notre Dame)

In recent years, a trend has seen second-rounders lasting the longest, but what we’re seeing this year is unheard of. As rookies have been getting a bit of flexibility in negotiating structures of guarantees, getting deals done has become a waiting game of seeing what surrounding picks are getting for comparison. Last year, teams breezed through the issue, but 2025 has seen significantly increased troubles.

Texans wide receiver Jayden Higgins set the tone by signing a fully guaranteed rookie contract, the first ever for a second-round selection. The next day, the Browns were essentially forced to do the same for Carson Schwesinger, picked one slot before Higgins. Shough, the Saints rookie quarterback, is seeking the same deal, hoping that his elevated status as a passer will help convince New Orleans to continue making history. Shough’s efforts have caused every pick between him and Higgins to stand pat, waiting to see if they get to ask for full guarantees from their teams, as well. This would be a drastic development, as last year’s 40th overall pick, Cooper DeJean, received only two fully guaranteed years with only partial guarantees in Year 3.

The biggest story outside of the second round is that of the standoff between Stewart and the Bengals. Stewart has issues with what he perceives as a lack of protection in Cincinnati’s offer that causes a contract default in any year to void any guarantees in all the following years. It’s a new precedent the team is trying to set, and Stewart seems intent on preventing them from doing so.

It will be interesting to see which standoff gets settled first: Stewart’s or Shough’s. The latter standoff ending would likely set off a domino reaction of second-round deals that would help a large number of teams close out their rookie classes. To this point, only four NFL teams have done so.

Packers’ Anthony Belton To Work At RT, G

May 26th, 2025 at 10:50pm CST by Nikhil Mehta

After primarily playing left tackle in college, Packers rookie Anthony Belton is expected to develop versatility at right tackle and guard in the NFL, according to WISC-TV’s Jason Wilde.

At this point, learning a new position is practically a rite of passage for rookie offensive lineman in Green Bay. Former general manager Ted Thompson established a pattern of drafting college left tackles and developing them at other spots along the O-line in the NFL. A few, like David Bakhtiari, stayed at LT, but most, like Bryan Bulaga and JC Tretter, flipped to right tackle or moved inside to guard.

Thompson’s successor, Brian Gutekunst, has continued the draft-and-convert practice during his tenure. Since 2020, eight of his 14 offensive line picks have been college left tackles, though only current starter Rasheed Walker has remained on the blind side in the pros.

The reasoning is simple: college programs often put their best, most athletic offensive linemen at left tackle. Those players may not always have the size – in particular, arm length – to stay at tackle in the NFL, but they typically have better physical tools than prospects at other positions. The Packers then develop those athletic traits into starting-quality performance at other spots while maintaining a steady supply of backup left tackles, one of the league’s most important positions.

“That’s been a big emphasis for us,” said Gutekunst (via Wilde). “We like to have guys that can play both. You’re either going to be a tackle/guard swing guy, a guard/center swing guy or a tackle/center swing guy. You’ve got to be able to play multiple spots.”

The Packers hope that Belton will fit into one of those three categories, most likely the first. With a 6-foot-6, 336-pound frame and 34.625-inch arms, he has prototypical size for left tackle, where he played all but 11 of his snaps at North Carolina State over the last three years, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required). That could keep Belton at OT in Green Bay, backing up right tackle Zach Tom as a rookie and potentially succeeding him when his contract expires at the end of the season. (Walker is also in the last year of his contract; if he leaves Green Bay in 2026, Belton would be a candidate to replace him.) Belton’s power and length would also be beneficial at guard, though he may be too big to add snapping the ball as a center to his repertoire.

The Packers drafted another college left tackle this year in Cincinnati’s John Williams, who started 12 games on the blind side in each of the last two years. He has no experience along the interior, but will likely be asked to learn at least one new O-line position in Green Bay this summer.