On Wednesday, the Green Bay Packers signed cornerback Gregory Junior and released cornerback Kaleb Hayes, who was previously under contract on a reserve-futures deal. Hayes spent most of the 2024 offseason with the New York Giants before signing with the Denver Broncos for two weeks last August. Hayes didn’t sign with a practice squad in 2024, but he was given a reserve-futures contract by the Packers, typically deals that they send to their own practice squad players, following Green Bay’s playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Junior played at Ouachita Baptist in Arkansas, a Division II program, before being selected in the sixth round of the 2022 draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was a member of both the Indianapolis Colts’ and Houston Texans’ practice squads in 2024, but had previously played in 10 regular-season games with the Jaguars. On May 13th, he was waived from the Texans’ 90-man offseason roster, where he was on a reserve-futures deal.

What’s interesting here is that the Packers have actually had their eyes on Junior for a while. Junior was brought in as a pre-draft visitor back in 2022, which is usually a sign that the team is heavily interested in drafting or signing a rookie player. Since that 2022 class, with Junior’s addition to the list, the Packers have taken 18 draft picks who were brought into Green Bay on pre-draft visits and now 13 other visitors who were brought to the team outside of the draft, be it by additions via the waiver wire, practice squad poaches or undrafted free agency.

Junior has played as many defensive snaps (111) as special teams snaps in his 10 regular-season games played at the NFL level. This is important to note here, considering that the Packers lost two core special teamers, Corey Ballentine and Robert Rochell, at the cornerback position this offseason.

With a cornerback room of Jaire Alexander, Keisean Nixon, Nate Hobbs and Carrington Valentine, all players with experience as starting NFL defenders who haven’t been significant contributors as non-returner special teams players, the Packers’ roster construction is going to heavily push them toward using that fifth cornerback roster spot on a true specialist, rather than a flier project defender.

From that angle, Junior has a leg up on his competition, which includes 2025 seventh-round pick Micah Robinson, 2024 seventh-round pick Kalen King and 2024 sixth-round pick Kamal Hadden. Both King and Hadden spent last season on Green Bay’s practice squad, where they failed to beat out Ballentine and Rochell, two players the Packers chose not to re-sign, for special-teams playing time. For perspective, both Ballentine (195 snaps) and Rochell (121 snaps) played more special-teams reps than kicker Brandon McManus (112 snaps) last season.