At different points in his college career, Green Bay Packers rookie fifth-round pick Collin Oliver was either a true edge rusher or an off-ball linebacker. Oliver, who injured his hamstring before training camp, has been missing from the practice field since the mid-summer, so fans haven’t gotten much of an opportunity to figure out how exactly the Packers will be using him moving forward. So when Oliver’s practice window opened up this week, people had a reasonable question: Is Oliver going to be a 4-3 defensive end with the team or a linebacker?
On Wednesday, head coach Matt LaFleur answered that question, stating that Oliver would start out at defensive end before potentially branching out to other positions once he’s comfortable with his base position.
That’s an interesting way to use Oliver, considering how deep the Packers are at the end position right now. Even without Oliver or Brenton Cox Jr., who also had his practice window open up this week, the Packers have six ends on their 53-man roster. Five of them are not at risk of losing their roster spot: Micah Parsons, Rashan Gary, Lukas Van Ness, Kingsley Enagbare and 2025 fourth-round pick Barryn Sorrell.
The only player who might be dropped, eventually, is Arron Mosby, who is more of a special teams player than a defender. Mosby is currently backfilling the special teams snaps that Van Ness used to play, as Van Ness is still dealing with a foot injury that occurred in the team’s win against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Maybe the team is just trying to bank some reps for Oliver and Cox, in case an end goes down later in the season. Otherwise, it’s going to be tough for either of them to make the 53-man roster, even if Mosby is eventually out of the picture (remember, Jayden Reed and MarShawn Lloyd also have open practice windows). Either way, the Packers have about three weeks to decide to bring Oliver and Cox up. If they don’t by the 21-day deadline after their practice windows opened, they will revert to the season-ending injured reserve.
