Packers sign DL Josh Avery after tryout

According to Bill Huber of Sports Illustrated, the Green Bay Packers have signed defensive lineman Josh Avery after a tryout in July. Coming out of Southeast Missouri State, an FCS program that won their conference in Avery’s final season with the Redhawks, Avery was measured in at 6’3” and 318 pounds at his pro day.

Avery’s size, alone, should provide value to a team that only had four defenders that cracked the 300-pound mark. It’s simply tough to play a 3-4 defense without having size upfront. The combination of the roster locks of Kenny Clark, Tyler Lancaster, and TJ Slaton, along with roster bubble big bodies like undrafted rookie Jack Heflin and now Avery, puts the team in a much better position heading into preseason games, just from a numbers perspective.

Avery is also very athletic. According to Kent Lee Platte, who created an aggregate athletic score called RAS (Relative Athletic Score), the former FCS defensive tackle was one of the top-10 most athletic players, from a pure measurables perspective, who went undrafted in the 2020 class.

He scored above average in every drill he tested in, finished in the top 10 percent among defensive tackles in both jumps, and registered in the top-quarter among defensive tackles in the 3 cone and bench press, for an overall score that would put him among the top five percent of defensive tackle testers in Platte’s database.

Beginning his college football journey at Independence Community College in Kansas, of Netflix’s Last Chance U fame, Avery transferred to SEMO before participating in the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl and signing with the Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent. Before he could see the field in 2020, though, he was waived with a non-football injury designation.