Late bloomer.
That’s what the Green Bay Packers hope they’ve found with nose tackle Chris McClellan of Missouri.
The Packers selected McClellan in the third round of Friday’s NFL Draft, a player who had a big 2025 campaign after three somewhat quiet collegiate seasons.
Green Bay traded picks No. 84 and 160 to Tampa Bay for pick No. 77 and took McClellan.
“Really excited to get him obviously,” said Milt Hendrickson, the Packers’ director of football operations. “He was a guy that really I think checked a lot of boxes since the middle of the season through the all-star process. Just a guy that the more you watch the more he grew on us and that’s ultimately we made the decision to go get him.
“Big man, good length, he’s got a really good tag. He can do a lot of things. I think there’s a lot of versatility he’s going to be able to bring our defense. So at the end of the day it was a pretty easy decision.”
McClellan had six sacks, eight tackles for loss, six quarterback hurries and 48 tackles during a breakout 2025 campaign with Missouri. In his first three college seasons — two at Florida and one with the Tigers — McClellan had 4.5 sacks, 9.0 tackles for loss and 85 tackles.
“I wasn’t in love with this kid but he kind of came on this year,” one scout told golongtd.com. “He has his instinctual problems. He wasn’t getting off and making plays going into this season but he proved to me that he made that jump.”
McClellan started one game at Florida in 2022-’23, then 22 of 26 with Missouri in 2024-’25.
The Packers are transitioning to a 3-4 scheme and lack a true nose tackle. Hendrickson said McClellan could certainly fill that void.
“The thing I like most about Chris, I said before, is the versatility,” Hendrickson said. “He can play the nose, he can play the three, you know, in some of our base, some of our big end stuff he can do that as well. He’s just one of those guys that I think, even though he’s four years in college, he’s still scratching the surface a little bit.”
