Anthony Campbell arrived at Green Bay Packers training camp as roster filler. Two weeks later, the undrafted defensive tackle is the hardest player on the depth chart to ignore.
Campbell signed with Green Bay’s practice squad on Jan. 7, 2026, a rookie out of Miami who’d gone undrafted the previous spring, according to the Packers’ official team site. At 6-foot-6 and 307 pounds, he has prototype size for the interior. What he didn’t have was production — just one tackle in his final college season and hardly any draft buzz, according to Yahoo Sports.
He tested well enough at Miami’s pro day to land a shot with the Seattle Seahawks, playing 23 preseason snaps before Seattle waived him and later returned him to its practice squad. Green Bay claimed him off that practice squad in January, a low-cost flier on length and athletic testing rather than tape.
A Long Shot Who Started Batting Down Passes
The Packers didn’t need another defensive tackle project. Devonte Wyatt, Karl Brooks, Warren Brinson and Nazir Stackhouse were already in the room, and Green Bay added veteran Javon Hargrave and spent a third-round pick on Chris McClellan. Campbell looked like he was fighting for a practice-squad spot at best.
Instead, he started getting his hands up. Campbell deflected two passes in a single practice during the first week of camp, then added another the following day, according to Packers.com. “I’m a tall dude. I’m 6-6, 300 pounds, so I gotta do what I gotta do to do my job,” Campbell told Packers.com. “We do a drill for it every day, we hit the pad and then get our hands up once the quarterback gets his hands up.”
By the fifth practice, he was up to four batted passes, prompting one Yahoo Sports live-blog entry to half-joke about putting him on the roster just to block field goals. According to Pack-A-Day’s Andy Herman, relayed by 247Sports, Campbell had batted down at least four passes through five practices while also becoming a problem for the interior of the offensive line in the run game.
The Sack, and What Gutekunst Said
Batted passes are one thing. A sack of Tyrod Taylor during the team’s seventh practice is another. Campbell got home on the veteran quarterback in a session Forbes covered as part of a broader breakout stretch, one where he turned heads with deflections almost daily.
General manager Brian Gutekunst weighed in directly. “He has excellent length,” Gutekunst said of Campbell. “I do think he’s getting better, and he’s certainly been impactful in this first week. But he has great length, and he’s really using it well. Not only just batting passes down, but you guys have seen him when he strikes and he locks those guys out.”
That’s about as direct a public endorsement as an undrafted camp body gets from the man who builds the roster.
Family Night at Lambeau Field brought a fifth deflection and pressure on Kyle McCord, according to the source material provided for this piece — a detail consistent with the deflection totals reported elsewhere in camp coverage, though it wasn’t independently located in this search and should be treated as a developing-camp detail pending direct confirmation.
Campbell’s Camp Production
| Player | Draft Status | Standout Camp Plays | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Campbell | Undrafted, 2025 (Miami) | 4+ batted passes, sack of Tyrod Taylor | Defensive Tackle |
| Jaylin Simpson | Round 5, 2024 (Auburn) | Circus interception, goal-line pick vs. Kyron Drones | Cornerback |
| Brandon Cisse | Round 2, 2026 (draft) | Multiple pass breakups, extensive first-team reps | Cornerback |
Not the Only Underdog Story, But the Least Expected
Campbell isn’t the only bubble player making a case in Green Bay this summer. Cornerback Jaylin Simpson opened one-on-ones on Family Night with what SI.com’s camp notebook called a sensational interception on a deep ball to Isaiah Neyor. He followed it days later with a goal-line interception off undrafted rookie quarterback Kyron Drones that he returned close to the length of the field, a play Packers.com detailed as the final snap of an Aug. 10 practice. “A ball in the air is ours. It’s mine,” Simpson said afterward.
Second-round rookie Brandon Cisse has also drawn praise, working extensively with the No. 1 defense while Carrington Valentine dealt with a hamstring injury, per ESPN’s camp intel tracker.
The difference is the starting point. Simpson was a drafted defensive back who already had NFL practice-squad experience. Cisse was the Packers’ first pick in the 2026 draft, brought in with expectations. Campbell arrived with one college tackle on his résumé and no guaranteed path onto the 53-man roster at all.
Why It’s Working
The batted-pass trend isn’t an accident of size alone. Campbell described a specific daily drill — timing his hands to the quarterback’s release rather than just standing tall in the lane. That’s a rehearsed skill, not a fluke of height. Combined with pressure reps against Jordan Love and disruption in the run game, it points to a player translating length into technique rather than just getting in the way.
He’s also caught a break in opportunity. Wyatt and Hargrave both dealt with injuries early in camp — Hargrave was activated off PUP, and Wyatt only recently returned to full 11-on-11 work, according to ESPN. That opened extra reps for the depth behind them. Opportunity explains the snaps. It doesn’t explain the production once he got them.
Campbell still sits low on the unofficial depth chart, behind established names like Wyatt, Hargrave and McClellan. Nothing here is confirmed as a roster spot — preseason games, not practice reps, will decide his fate. But the Packers now have to seriously weigh whether they can afford to cut a player who has made this many plays with this little draft pedigree, rather than simply penciling him in for the practice squad again.
Green Bay opens its preseason Thursday, Aug. 13, against the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to camp reporting — the first real test of whether Campbell’s practice-field flashes hold up against game speed.
