Waiver claims and street free agents come in all different shapes and sizes.
Exhibit A: Tavon Austin; 5’8″/179
Exhibit B: Damon “Snacks” Harrison; 6’3″/350
And then there’s the case of offensive lineman Jared Veldheer. A player who – due to COVID-19 rules – was allowed to join the Packers hours after starting at left tackle for the Indianapolis Colts in the wild card round of the playoffs.
“Give Gutey [Brian Gutekunst] a lot of credit for understanding the rules and figuring that out,” ESPN-Wisconsin’s Mark Tauscher tells Wisconsin’s Afternoon News. “Here you are in Indy, everyone is cleaning their lockers out, and Veldheer’s like ‘Nope…I gotta roll. I got another playoff boys’.”
Veldheer returns to the Packers roughly one year after starting at right tackle in place of Bryan Bulaga in a divisional round playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks. If Veldheer plays on Saturday, he will become the first player in NFL history to play for two different teams in the same post-season.
“Veldheer did a nice job when he was here last year. He filled in and obviously started that divisional round game against Seattle and played well. He understands his role. He knows this offense because he was in Green bay last year. It really is the perfect storm.”
Veldheer’s arrival comes roughly two weeks after the Packers lost All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari to a knee injury.
Tauscher’s conclusion: “It would be really cool to be Veldheer right now.”
