Green Bay Packers
Wide receiver Kaden Prather is going from the UFL to the NFL.
Prather’s agent told NFL Media that his client is signing with the Packers. The NFL’s daily transaction report shows that Prather tried out for the team on Thursday.
Prather was a Bills seventh-round pick out of Maryland in 2025, but he was waived off of injured reserve ahead of the start of the regular season. He moved on to Louisville in the UFL and contributed nine catches for 148 yards to the league champions.
The Packers also worked out long snapper Cal Adomitis, wide receiver Elijhah Badger, tight end McCallan Castles, wide receiver Elijah Cooks, long snapper John Ferlmann, tight end Brandon Frazier, long snapper Brent Matiscik, wide receiver Titus Mokiao-Atimalala, and tight end Briley Moore.
Packers Clips
Running back Ahman Green, a four-time Pro Bowler who played 12 years in the NFL, has disclosed that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Green revealed the situation during a podcast appearance with Tyler Dunne of GoLongTD.com.
“Last year, I got diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s,” Green told Dunne, via Jason Owens of Yahoo Sports. “I had a little bit of the feet twitching when I’m in my sleep and stuff like that. . . . I knew something was going on long before that. I just got a hold of some doctors that I was able to get in contact with. Get the diagnostics, get the testing. And finally got it tested last — it was January of 2025.”
He waited to go public until he informed his family of the situation.
A third-round pick of the Seahawks in 1998, Green spent two years in Seattle, seven in Green Bay, and two in Houston before capping his career with a return to Green Bay.
He made it to the Pro Bowl from 2001 through 2004 as a Packer, with a career-high 1,883 rushing yards in 2003. He finished with 9,205 rushing yards.
Because he retired before 2014, Green’s diagnosis makes him eligible for compensation under the concussion settlement fund.
The Packers made three moves on Wednesday.
They activated left guard Aaron Banks and defensive tackle Nazir Stackhouse from the active/physically unable to perform list. The team also placed wide receiver Brenden Rice on the non-football injury list.
Banks’ stay on PUP did not last long as he passed his physical.
He appeared in 15 games last season, starting 14, despite dealing with a back injury in training camp and ankle problems and a stinger last season.
The Packers claimed Rice off waivers from the Raiders in May. The son of Hall of Famer Jerry Rice joined Las Vegas’ practice squad late last season after also spending time on the practice squads of the Seahawks and Patriots.
He was with the Chargers in training camp last summer.
Packers General Manager Brian Gutekunst said earlier Wednesday that tight end Tucker Kraft will return “sooner rather than later.” Kraft, who is on the active/physically unable to perform list, echoed that later Wednesday.
Kraft said he expects to begin practicing “very soon,” Ryan Wood of PackersNews.com reports.
Kraft tore the ACL in his right knee in a Nov. 2 game against the Panthers. He underwent surgery later that month.
The season opener on Sept. 13 is still 46 days away, which is why Gutekunst says Kraft’s participation in Week 1 is “very much a possibility.”
Kraft caught 32 passes for 489 yards and six touchdowns in the eight games last season before his injury.
Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons is making good progress in his rehab from a torn ACL, but it continues to sound like he will not be ready to play at the start of the season.
While General Manager Brian Gutekunst told reporters that he’s open to the possibility of Parsons coming off the active/physically unable to perform list before the end of training camp, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen.
“Yeah, I’d like to have enough flexibility to leave the door open. But that would be unlikely, just from a timing perspective,” Gutekunst said in his Wednesday press conference. “We’ve invested a lot in him, so we want to make sure he’s ready to go before we even think about putting him out there.”
That being said, Parsons has made plenty of progress since suffering the injury in December.
“I may have mentioned it before, but he’s a little bit of a genetic freak, so things come pretty easy to him,” Gutekunst said. “Again, he’s still, obviously, got a long ways to go. These are major injuries, so as you go through these things and how hard they have to work to get back, there’s always going to be little setbacks here and there. But he’s doing great right now.”
Parsons registered 12.5 sacks with 12 tackles for loss and 27 quarterback hits in 14 games last season, his first with the Packers.
Packers tight end Tucker Kraft may have a couple of positive developments coming to him in his near future.
General Manager Brian Gutekunst told reporters on Wednesday that Kraft, who is returning from a torn ACL, playing Week 1 is “very much a possibility.” And Gutekunst noted that he’s hopeful the team and Kraft can reach an agreement on a new contract before the season.
On the injury, Kraft is currently on the active/physically unable to perform list after suffering his torn ACL in early November. But the tight end has been making significant progress in his rehab.
“In fact, I anticipate him being out there sooner rather than later,” Gutekunst said in his press conference. “The more work he can get with Jordan [Love] in particular — even when he’s not ready for the team [drills] part of it — the more individual work he can get done with Jordan is important for him as he gets into the season. So, we’ve had a lot of discussions about that and the timing of that.
“Obviously, we want to be protective. He’s coming off a major injury and he’s still at about that eight-and-a-half-month mark. But by the way he looks, you’d think he’s ready to go. When you see him out there, it’s a little bit like Christian [Watson], they look really, really good early. But there’s a lot of science behind the nine-month mark. So, we’ll be very cautious as we head into it.”
As for Kraft’s contract, Gutekunst confirmed there have been discussions on an extension. The tight end — a third-round pick in 2023 — is headed into the last year of his rookie deal.
“Certainly, I think for both us and him, it’s in the best interest to try to get something done,” Gutekunst said. “But these things take time. We’ve gone through a bunch of extensions this summer, kind of knowing this was going to be the one right about now.
“We have a little bit of time because he’s just not there yet. But I would expect, hopefully, that would get done. But you never know how they’re going to go.”
Kraft was in the midst of a breakout season when he suffered his injury last year, having caught 32 passes for 489 yards with six touchdowns in eight games. He had 50 receptions for 707 yards with seven TDs through 17 games in 2024.
Micah Parsons was not part of the initial batch of Packers players to land on the teams physically unable to perform list, but word was that the move was coming on Tuesday and it is now official.
The NFL’s daily transaction report shows that the defensive end has been moved to the list along with offensive tackle Brant Banks, long snapper Matt Orzech, defensive end Jordon Riley, and defensive tackle Nazir Stackhouse. The Packers also signed kicker Lenny Krieg and tight end Thomas Yassmin. Defensive tackle Dante Barnett and kicker Lucas Havrisik were waived to round out the day’s moves.
Parsons is not expected to be ready to return from his torn ACL until October at the earliest. He can move to the reserve version of the PUP list at the cut to 53 players, which would keep him out at least four games.
The Packers placed six other players on injury lists Monday and all of the players can be activated at any point during training camp.
The Packers can’t get their kicking situation settled, and Tuesday’s transactions showed that the position is still a work in progress.
The Packers drafted Trey Smack out of Florida in the sixth round this spring. They also had Lucas Havrisik on their roster to compete with Smack.
But the team released Havrisik on Tuesday, Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
The Packers signed Lenny Krieg to replace Havrisik in the competition, Bill Huber of SI.com reports.
Krieg tried out with the team on Monday.
Krieg, who is from Berlin, Germany, took up American football after getting burned out on soccer. He learned how to kick a football by watching YouTube videos.
Krieg kicked for the Stuttgart Surge in the European League of Football, which earned him an invite to the NFL’s International Player Pathway program.
He made all 14 attempts at the NFL Scouting Combine in 2025, the only kicker who didn’t miss.
Krieg spent last season on the Falcons’ practice squad and signed a futures contract with the Jets after the season, but the Jets cut him in June.
Back in January, there was an open question as to whether Packers CEO Ed Policy would elect to keep head coach Matt LaFleur after the club finished 9-7-1 in the regular season and fell to the Bears in the wild card round.
But then LaFleur, General Manager Brian Gutekunst, and executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball each received a contract extension to remain with the club.
At the Packers’ annual shareholder meeting on Monday, Policy again explained why he chose that route.
“We had 10 head coach openings throughout the league this past offseason, and that caused a tremendous amount of chaos in a lot of other organizations,” Policy said, via Steve Megargee of the Associated Press. “I believe that players, and especially quarterbacks, in championship-caliber teams, develop best in an environment of continuity — not chaos.”
That continuity means LaFleur gets another shot at leading the Packers and working with quarterback Jordan Love after falling in the wild card round in each of the last two seasons.
Going into his eighth year as head coach, LaFleur has tallied a 76-40-1 regular-season record with a 3-6 postseason record.
Five Packers will open camp on the active/physically unable to perform list, but outside linebacker Micah Parsons was not one of them.
The Packers placed tight end Tucker Kraft, tight end Luke Musgrave, defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, offensive guard Aaron Banks and defensive back Kamal Hadden on PUP. Matt Schneidman of TheAthletic.com reports that Parsons will join the list on Tuesday.
Running back Chris Brooks went on the non-football injury list.
It was a timing issue that delayed Parsons’ move to the PUP list, per Schneidman.
Parsons has said he does not expect to return from his torn ACL until at least October. He did not undergo surgery until Dec. 29 and needed a follow-up arthroscopic procedure on his meniscus, delaying his return.
Defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt and right tackle Zach Tom are fully cleared to begin camp. Wyatt fractured his left fibula and tore ligaments in his left ankle on Thanksgiving Day, and Tom required offseason surgery for a partially torn patellar tendon.