The Green Bay Packers need to get better on the offensive line this offseason. Specifically, they need to get better at nose tackle. 

They've got a great defensive tackle/three-technique in Devonte Wyatt, and he should be fully healthy and rearing to go coming off a broken fibula he suffered on Thanksgiving Day 2025.

Wyatt is the highlight on the interior of the defensive line, though. The Packers asked Warren Brinson to step up in the place of Kenny Clark this past season, and though he wasn't terrible, he's notably undersized at 6-foot-4, 273 pounds.

Nose tackle is often called zero-technique or one-technique because they either play head-up on the center in the "zero" position or in the "A Gap" between the center and the guard, which the defense calls one-technique.

You've got to be big and hard to move in that spot, as the nose tackle is often dealing with double teams from the center and one of the guards. The bigger the better at nose, because the harder it is for an offensive line to root you out, the more the players around you can make plays -- especailly in the run game. 

To that point, backup nose tackle Nazir Stackhouse has the size at 6-foot-4, 327 pounds, but he was an undrafted free agent. It's tough to expect much out of a UDFA. Even one who played in 13 games as a rookie.

Perhaps thats why Justis Mosqueda of Acme Packing Company is linking the Packers to two interesting free agent nose tackles this offseason, because Green Bay is desperately in need of an upgrade up the middle.

In fact, Mosqueda believes the Packers will sign one of either Khyiris Tonga or Roy Lopez, as both have ties to new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon.

"The nose tackle free agent market is going to be pretty dry this year, as only three players currently under 30 years old have played half as many nose tackle snaps as Colby Wooden and also posted a better PFF grade than Wooden in 2025," Mosqueda recently wrote. "The good news? Two of those players, Khyiris Tonga and Roy Lopez, have previously played for Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon."

He's a 6-foot-2, 335-pound nose tackle who spent the 2025 season with the New England Patriots. Tonga had previously played for Gannon when both were with the Arizona Cardinals in 2024.

Tonga is a big run-stuffer who played in 14 games last season for the Pats, starting eight. He notched 24 tackles (nine solo), three stuffs and two passes defended. He was drafted in the seventh round of the 2021 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears and has also played for the Minnesota Vikings.

Tonga knows NFC North football; he just experienced making a Super Bowl run with the Patriots, and per Spotrac, the Packers could get him for about $3 million a year as a free agent. 

Lopez is a bit smaller than Tonga at 6-foot-2, 312 pounds, but that's still a big body for up front. 

He was a sixth-round pick of the Houston Texans in 2021 and he played under Gannon in Arizona in 2023 and 2024.

Last season, Lopez played for the Detroit Lions and per Mosqueda, he played 185 snaps at nose tackle for them last season and graded out at 76.3 overall per PFF.

Spotrac likes him at $6.4 million a year, but it's worth noting that his contract with the Lions in 2025 was for one-year, $3.5 million.

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