As we at Acme Packing Company continue our look at the Green Bay Packers' 90-man roster, we move from examining the established quarterbacks on the roster over to the one new addition to the position this offseason.
The numbers posted by Green Bay's lone quarterback addition were stunning at any level of football, and they certainly paint a picture of a player who has great ability and potential. However, the questions about playing college ball in Division III will likely haunt him as he looks to get his career off the ground, much as they haunted last year's fourth quarterback.
Last season, Matt Blanchard entered the offseason as the fourth option, having played at D-III powerhouse Wisconsin-Whitewater. This year's option hopes to have a job with the Packers when training camp concludes instead of being a repeat of Blanchard, who was released during final cuts.
#6: Joe Callahan
6'1", 216 pounds
Wesley College (Delaware)
2015 Stats: 346-496 (69/8%), 5,063 yards (10.2 Y/A), 55 TDs, 12 INTs, 187.3 college passer rating
Callahan was best previewed by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel a few weeks ago, when they reported that he was one of the Packers' pre-draft visits. As the newspaper noted, his Wesley Wolverines lost in each of his three years as a starter to Mount Union, another D-III blue-blood which has been in the championship game at that level for the last eleven straight years and who won the title in 2015.
He set the record in 2015 for the most passing yards in a season by a Division III player, while earning the Gagliardi Trophy as the best player in D-III. Callahan will turn 23 years old in June.
He will be battling with Ryan Williams for a shot at the third-string position on the Packers' depth chart, though it is entirely possible that whichever player earns that role may not get a spot on the 53-man roster to go along with it. The Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson-led Packers have been known to start the year with just two quarterbacks on the active roster, doing so each year from 2009 through 2013 before keeping Rodgers, Matt Flynn, and Scott Tolzien in 2014 and Rodgers, Tolzien, and Brett Hundley last season. It is a virtual certainty, though, that Green Bay will look to keep a third quarterback on the roster somehow - whether on the 53 or the practice squad.