With Rasheed Walker entering his final season under contract, left tackle is an under-the-radar need for the Green Bay Packers entering the 2025 NFL Draft. In a seven-round mock draft at ESPN, Matt Miller addressed that need with Texas’ Kelvin Banks.
At 6-foot-5 1/8 and 315 pounds with 33 1/2-inch arms, Banks has the requisite side to become Jordan Love’s future blind-side protector. He’s an above-average athlete, as well, with 5.16 speed in the 40 and a 32-inch vertical leap.
“That profile suggests he should be off the board by now,” Miller wrote as part of a larger explanation, “but concerns about his play power have teams saying Banks could slide.”
Left tackles must be able to pass protect. That’s the most important job, by far. Banks allowed one sack and 10 total pressures in 2024 and four sacks the past three seasons, according to Pro Football Focus. Strong run blocking helped make him a unanimous All-American.
“My approach to run blocking is to try to dominate my defender,” Banks said at the Combine. “Sometimes that kind of gets me in a bind because I get too aggressive, but that’s my approach. Every time I try to attack a defender, just dominate at the line of scrimmage.”
Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst was at Texas’ pro day this week.
“He’s a poised pass protector and has held up against top-level college competition, but he might be better as a run blocker because of his hands and athletic movement,” Miller continued. “I'm higher on Banks than the league – he’s in my overall top 10 – and this would be a steal for the Packers at this spot.”
On the offensive line, Banks was the choice over Ohio State’s Josh Simmons. By taking a future need over an immediate need, the Packers passed on the likes of cornerbacks Maxwell Hairston and Trey Amos, edge defenders Shemar Stewart and Mykel Williams and receiver Emeka Egbuka.
The Packers got their cornerback in the second round with East Carolina’s Shavon Revel, who might have been a top-20 draft pick if not for a torn ACL suffered after he intercepted two passes in the first three games of the season.
Revel, who “would be a perfect fit for Jeff Hafley’s scheme,” should be ready for training camp. At 6-foot-1 7/8, he would add badly needed size to Green Bay’s secondary.
Revel will take a predraft visit to Green Bay next week.
The Packers got their receiver in the third round with underrated Tory Horton of Colorado State.
Like Revel, a knee injury will push Horton down the board a bit. Unlike Horton, he should be good to go from the start. Five months after his injury, he ran a 4.41 in the 40 at the Scouting Combine. At 6-foot-2 1/2, he’s an excellent size-speed prospect with outstanding production.
Horton caught 71 passes for 1,131 yards and eight touchdowns in 2022 – when he caught 17-of-32 deep passes – and 96 passes for 1,136 yards and eight touchdowns in 2023. In five games in 2024, he caught 26 passes for 353 yards and one touchdown.
Plus, he had a punt-return touchdown each of the last three seasons with a career average of 16.3 yards per runback.
Via Steelers Depot, Horton described himself as a “6-3 guy, I played a lot of slot and outside, move around, vertical threat, so I feel like I got a lot of versatility in my game of moving around and working deep and even under routes a lot.”
The Day 3 picks were spent on a playmaking running back, athletic defensive tackle, an athletic and productive pass rusher, a small-school guard and a small-school quarterback.
The pass rusher was Miami’s Tyler Baron, a sixth-round pick. As a fifth-year senior, he recorded 5.5 sacks and 11 tackles for losses. His pass-rush win rate of 18.7 percent ranks among the best in the draft class.
At the Scouting Combine, he measured 6-foot-4 5/8 and 258 pounds, ran his 40 in 4.62 seconds and posted a Relative Athletic Score of 9.33.
“I think you get a real special type of player in me,” Baron said at the Combine. “I think for me, it’s how hard I play. I feel like I’m a guy that makes a lot of plays, not only thanks to skill but also because I play really hard and I don’t take any plays off. I’m a high-effort rusher, and that’s something that I hang my hat on.”
