Packers Draft: Future 1st-round pass-rusher is brought in on a visit

Shemar Stewart is the 13th overall player on the consensus draft board

As we wrote about earlier today, draftable players that the Green Bay Packers bring in for pre-draft visits have about a one-in-two to one-in-three chance of actually being selected by the franchise on draft day, which is a pretty incredible rate considering that the team only controls 1-32nd of the draft on average. So when the first confirmed visit of the Packers’ offseason, Texas A&M edge defender Shemar Stewart, posted a photo of him taking a tour of Lambeau Field on Instagram, it should have been met with Green Bay fans circling his name for next month’s draft.

At the moment, Stewart is ranked the 13th overall prospect in the class according to the consensus draft board, the third edge defender in the class. The two players above him are Penn State’s Abdul Carter (2nd) and Georgia’s Jalon Walker (12th).

Stewart’s name will almost certainly bring out strong opinions. On one hand, he’s one of the most athletic players the sport has ever seen, on par with former Texas A&M product Myles Garrett, who went first overall in the 2017 draft. On the other hand, Stewart only has 4.5 sacks over three college seasons with the Aggies after signing out of South Florida as a five-star high school prospect.

Fans who want a highly-athletic edge defender will compare him to Rashan Gary’s career trajectory. Fans who don’t want a pass-rusher without the college production will compare him to Lukas Van Ness. This is life now, as college football has essentially tapped out of developing true edge defenders for the NFL.

At the college level, run-pass-options (RPOs) have completely taken over the sport, leading to most future NFL edge defenders playing out of position. For example, Stewart played the interior line often with A&M, something he won’t be doing in the NFL at 267 pounds. The same is true of Georgia’s Mykel Williams, a projected top-15 pick. Last year, Carter, who might be the first non-quarterback off of the board, was a true off-the-ball linebacker. Walker played a hybrid linebacker-edge position for Georgia and could potentially play either position as a pro.

Last year, the Packers took an A&M defender who was essentially a designated quarterback spy at the college level and turned second-round pick Edgerrin Cooper into a star true linebacker in Year 1. It’s safe to say that the Aggies aren’t doing a great job of refining their talent for the next level. The edge defender opposite of Stewart last year was Nic Scourton, a Purdue transfer who came into the season with top-10 hype. Now, it’s tough to find mock drafts where he’s being selected as a first-round pick following his five-sack 2024 campaign.

The NFL has found itself in an interesting position: They have to now develop box defenders in the same ways their coaching staffs have long had to do at the quarterback and offensive line positions because college techniques have little to do with what the position will see at the professional level. Hopefully, the Packers’ change at defensive line coach, bringing in former New England Patriots defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington, will help them get more Garys and fewer Van Nesses.

For what it’s worth, Stewart showed up at the combine significantly below the playing weight that the Aggies listed him at. In college, A&M reported he was 290 pounds. In Indianapolis, he was only 267 pounds.