NFL Player News

A 2016 redshirt, Van Lanen (6'4/305) spent five years in Madison, making just one start across the first three. The Badgers’ left tackle in 2019, he earned honorable mention all-conference honors. He made the first-team as a senior. Despite those accolades, NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein sees a player with “debilitating length and a lack of athleticism in pass protection that will force a move to guard.” On the plus side, Zierlein does laud Van Lanen’s “mass” and intangibles. Even if guard is Van Lanen’s future home, his extensive tackle experience will give him five-position versatility up front, enhancing his odds of sticking on the Packers’ 53-man roster.

They released K Lucas Havrisik from the roster for Krieg, who will now push (somehow a real name and not an invention of the Jim Rome Show) Trey Smack for kicker duties in Green Bay this offseason. Smack, who was a sixth-round pick this past offseason, is likely the favorite.

Multiple reports have said that this won’t be a long stay. Sweat lead the team with 10 sacks last year. Assuming he is indeed activated soon, Sweat should have plenty of time to be ready for the start of the season.

Olave was on blood thinners after a blood clot was discovered in his lung prior to Week 18, and had been taking them throughout the offseason program. That’s all done. It’s hard to call Olave “safe” to draft due to the long-term concussion issues he’s dealt with, but he’s as good as he’s going to be. Olave said he felt a contract extension was going to happen “soon” in June, so that’s probably the next tidbit of news incoming on him before the season. Loomis said when asked of an extension that “We’re just not there yet” but “we want to get it done.”

Powers played through a “previously undisclosed” Lisfranc injury over the final five games of the season, and Klis notes that “Powers refused to have an MRI exam on his foot until the season ended, telling the Broncos’ training staff he could play through it and they could examine it later.” Football players: They aren’t like us. Powers will reportedly have a training camp battle with Alex Palczewski to start at left guard. It was reported earlier this offseason that Powers wasn’t taking a pay cut by Klis, but the Broncos apparently changed their mind.

He did say they’d be “smart” about him and where he is strength and conditioning wise, so Jones may wind up taking a longer build up. But overall, this is a fairly positive update about a player who we weren’t completely sure would play in 2026 as recently as a few months ago.

Breer continues that the Seahawks are “going to be smart with him.” We’d be floored by a Week 1 return given Charbonnet suffered a torn ACL just last January, but the Seahawks haven’t really put out a real timetable on his status. Seahawks coach Mike McDaniel said in June that “everything’s possible” when asked about Charbonnet playing in Week 1, but didn’t elaborate much on the odds. It does sound like even if Charbonnet is placed on the reserve/PUP list at the end of camp, he’d have a real shot to play in October.

Levis, who has been in trade rumors at times this year, would appear to be the favorite to be released or traded from where we sit this offseason. We doubt that Brian Daboll brought in his old charge Trubisky this offseason just to instantly release him, but the fact that they’re positioning it as a real battle at least opens the possibility. Expect to see plenty of Levis in the preseason this year.

Indianapolis Star’s Joel A. Erickson puts it this way: “the Colts also find themselves at a crossroads. Ballard is headed into the final year of his contract; if Indianapolis does not win, the Colts could be headed for organizational change. A superstar running back might not fit in a rebuild.” It will be very interesting to see if Taylor holds in without a new contract. Ballard spent a lot of his press conference saying his own contract status — he’s a lame duck GM — won’t affect his ability to make long-term decisions. In his own words: We’ll see.

Nabers will “have a reduced workload early in camp” and avoiding the PUP list was “a promising first step, but it’s not the final checkpoint” per Duggan. That’s the bad news, but the overall trend is going enough in the right direction that Duggan believes Nabers could play right away. These things can shift fast — one rough practice could change a whole tone — but guarded optimism is probably the right way to characterize this update.

Atkins doesn’t seem impressed with Bennett (who has “fallen victim to a couple of greedy mistakes”) or Ty Simpson (“isn’t going downfield much”) early in camp and suggests that the unsigned Jimmy Garoppolo could just be a phone call away if Simpson isn’t able to win the QB2 job. We’ll see what happens, but Garoppolo lingering as a free agent could keep some upside injury runouts off the table for Simpson this year.