GREEN BAY – With Devonte Wyatt out with a season-ending ankle injury, the Packers have beefed up the defensive line with the addition of veterans Quinton Bohanna and Jordon Riley.
Bohanna (6-4, 327) has recorded 42 tackles (three for loss) in 39 career games (13 starts) over five NFL seasons spent in Dallas, Detroit, Tennessee and Seattle. The Packers claimed him off waivers from the Seahawks on Saturday.
Riley (6-5, 338) has racked up 20 tackles (four for loss) in 22 games (five starts) after spending his first 2½ seasons with the New York Giants. He joined Green Bay last week after the Packers signed him off the Giants' practice squad.
"Devonte was doing a heck of a job just playing with great fundamentals, great technique and he's one of our better run defenders," said Head Coach Matt LaFleur on Monday.
"So just to add a little bit more beef on our D-line, we thought that was an important part. Each week it's gonna be a competition in terms of who's gonna be the guys out there playing."
Here are five things to know about the Packers' new defensive linemen:
- Both are former NFL draft picks.
The Cowboys selected Bohanna in the sixth round (192nd overall) of the 2021 NFL Draft.
Most of Bohanna's NFL playing time came during his two years in Dallas, where he recorded 29 tackles in 27 games with 10 starts before being cut at the end of training camp in 2023.
The Giants took Riley in the seventh round (243) of the 2023 NFL Draft. The 27-year-old defensive lineman started five of the 12 games he played for New York last year.
Riley didn't make the Giants' 53-man roster this past summer but signed to the practice squad the day after final cuts.
- Bohanna is known as a space-eating, run-stuffer.
A former team captain at Kentucky, "Big Bo" is a massive defensive tackle who played in the 350-pound range while racking up 45 tackles and two sacks over 45 collegiate games with 31 starts.
A former three-star recruit, Bohanna was a finalist for the Tennessee Class 6A Mr. Football award in 2016 after recording 91 tackles (24 for loss) as a senior at Cordova (Tenn.) High School.
The 26-year-old defensive lineman's prodigious size for a nose tackle shot Bohanna onto NFL radars in 2021. Leading up to the draft, NFL.com's Lance Zierlein lauded Bohanna as a "two-gapping nose with good power" with the ability to "man the nose in even or odd fronts and plays with decent knock-back explosiveness coming off the ball."
- Riley works out with Colby Wooden during the offseason.
Along with Giants' All-Pro defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, Riley and Wooden trained with defensive line performance coach Mark Hall in South Carolina the past two summers.
The Packers' defensive lineman had a smile on his face when he learned during a meeting last week the team added Riley, who played 14 snaps in Sunday's 28-21 win over Chicago.
"Jordon's a heavy-handed guy," Wooden said. "He comes from the Giants, where they played a lot of shade, a lot of zero (technique). They've done a lot of different things. For him to come in, it's going to be an easy transition I feel like. He's a get-along guy. He goes along. He doesn't cause any (issues). For us, he's going to be great. He's going to fit right in with us."
Riley understands his value on early downs and makes it his priority to stop the run. Like Wooden, Riley was equally excited to have a fresh start in Green Bay.
"I'm blessed bro. Excited. Just excited, man," said Riley last week. "Watching TV at home, then getting a call from my agent telling me I got (signed). Man, never moved so fast in my life. Opportunity just to be around some winning culture, man. Something in the tradition here, bro, I was doing some research and just all the things that happened here."
- Bohanna has several ties to the Packers, as well.
Bohanna was draft classmates with current Packers pass rusher Micah Parsons, whom the Cowboys selected in the first round (12th overall) in 2021.
Bohanna played his first two NFL seasons for former Packers coach Mike McCarthy in Dallas and was teammates with current Green Bay cornerback Carrington Valentine at Kentucky.
Bohanna played for Arden Duren in both Seattle and Dallas. Now serving as the Seahawks' defensive coordinator, Duren is a longtime NFL assistant coach whom Head Coach Matt LaFleur holds in high esteem after the two worked together in Atlanta.
Bohanna's uncle, Brian Ingram, also was a former linebacker for the New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers in the 1980s.
- Riley played at four different colleges.
A native of New Bern, N.C., Riley played one season at North Carolina before transferring to Garden City (Kan.) Community College in 2019.
Riley spent his junior year at Nebraska, recording seven tackles (one for loss) in 10 games, before finishing his college career at Oregon, where he was teammates with Bennett Williams, the older brother of Packers safety Evan Williams.
Riley emerged as an NFL prospect in 2023 after posting a career-high 21 tackles in 13 starts. Prior to the draft, Zierlein praised him for his ability to take on double teams and absorb contact.
