The Green Bay Packers didn’t bring in a huge rookie class in 2026 - just six picks, and none in the first round - but halfway through the season, several of those newcomers are already shaping games on defense.
Brandon Cisse and Dani Dennis-Sutton have given the Packers real reasons to feel good about the draft, while Chris McClellan is starting to nudge his way toward a bigger role. On the other end of the spectrum, Jager Burton and Trey Smack have delivered the kind of swings that can make a rookie class feel a lot more chaotic than it looked on draft weekend.
Cisse has been thrown right into the fire, and the early results have been encouraging. Rookie cornerbacks usually get tested quickly, and Cisse got a harsh welcome in Week 1 when Justin Jefferson beat him for a 39-yard touchdown. The coverage wasn’t disastrous, but Cisse lost sight of the ball for a split second, and Jefferson made him pay.
Since then, though, the South Carolina product has shown plenty to like. He’s handled himself in coverage, attacked the line of scrimmage, and made plays in the backfield. Defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon has a reputation for using defensive backs creatively, especially as blitzers, and Cisse looks like a natural fit for that kind of role.
The numbers back up the eye test. Quarterbacks have gone after him, but only 57.9 percent of passes thrown his way have been completed.
He’s allowed two touchdown passes, including the Jefferson score, but his eight passes defended rank sixth in the NFL. He also has one interception, with a second erased by penalty.
Cisse’s impact isn’t limited to coverage, either. He has 1.5 sacks, two quarterback hits and two tackles for loss.
He’s been quick to diagnose screens and even faster to close on the ball. For the record, he has more sacks than Rashan Gary this season.
McClellan’s start hasn’t been nearly as loud, but there’s a little momentum building there. After a quiet first stretch in Green Bay, he may have turned in his best game last week against the Carolina Panthers. Pro Football Focus credited him with three defensive stops, which matched an uptick from the two he had over the previous seven games combined.
The rookie interior rusher came into the league with production on his résumé after posting six sacks for Missouri last season. He did have a sack wiped away in Week 1 because of a roughing-the-passer penalty on Carson Wentz, but he hasn’t stacked up many backfield plays since then.
PFF has him at four pressures and one quarterback hit. Still, Week 8 offered a more promising glimpse.
Then there’s Dennis-Sutton, who looks like the kind of Day 3 pick teams dream about. The athletic profile was already eye-catching - his 9.96 Relative Athletic Score ranked ninth among 2,257 defensive ends since 1987 - and the production at Penn State was there too, with 17 sacks and 25 tackles for loss over his final two seasons.
Now he’s translating that into real NFL disruption. PFF has Dennis-Sutton third among Packers defenders with 20 pressures.
Over the last four weeks, he’s piled up 14 pressures, two sacks and six defensive stops. Next Gen Stats, via Jacob Morley of Packer Report, has his 19.8 percent pressure rate ranked eighth in the NFL and second among rookies.
He’s also been part of a dangerous-looking pass-rush group in recent weeks. Alongside Lukas Van Ness and Brenton Cox Jr., Dennis-Sutton helped form a trio that each recorded a sack against the Panthers. And that’s before Micah Parsons enters the picture.
Not every rookie story has been so clean. Burton looked like he was trending upward all summer, turning heads in camp, flashing in the preseason and spending regular time with the first-team offense. But Donovan Jennings passed him on the depth chart in Week 1, with Matt LaFleur pointing to “time on task.”
When Burton finally got his first start in Week 3, it went off the rails. PFF charged him with 10 pressures and five quarterback hits allowed, along with a brutal 9.1 pass-blocking grade.
His 29.9 run-blocking grade wasn’t much better. The Packers reacted by signing three guards, and Laken Tomlinson has since allowed just seven pressures in five games - three fewer than Burton gave up in that one outing.
Burton still has long-term appeal, but it doesn’t look like he’ll be seeing much of the field this season.
Domani Jackson’s path has been different, but the outcome is similar for now. He missed a big chunk of the offseason program and training camp while recovering from core muscle surgery, and that left him behind before the preseason even started.
The results were rough: PFF said he allowed six completions on eight targets for 112 yards and a touchdown, while quarterbacks posted a 156.3 passer rating when throwing at him. Green Bay waived him after the preseason and brought him back on the practice squad the next day.
He may develop into something later, but meaningful snaps in 2026 don’t look likely.
And then there’s Smack, who has been one long roller coaster. Training camp was a mess, with misses piling up to the point that LaFleur asked officials to stop signaling whether his kicks were good.
Then the preseason flipped the script, and Smack looked like a different player entirely. He ranked second in FanSided’s Kick Value Added metric in the preseason, then carried that into the regular season by making six of seven field goals - with the lone miss blocked - and seven of eight extra points over Weeks 1-4.
Lately, though, the old version has shown back up. Over the last four weeks, Smack has missed four field goals and two extra points.
Two of those misses came from inside 40 yards and cost the Packers six points in a three-point loss to the Detroit Lions. He drilled a 59-yarder in Week 1, then missed a 26-yarder indoors in Week 7.
It’s been a baffling stretch, and the Packers are left trying to make sense of it.
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