When Bo Melton was signed off the Seattle Seahawks practice squad in December 2022, Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur toyed with the idea of moving him from wide receiver to cornerback, but never pulled the trigger.
Not until this offseason, that is.
With the Packers breaking a 23-year drought of taking a wideout in the opening round of the NFL draft by selecting Texas standout Matthew Golden with the 23rd overall pick and then adding TCU's Savion Williams in the third round at No. 87 overall, Melton took a bit of a tumble down the depth chart.
As such, during offseason workouts, LaFleur had Melton splitting time between wide receiver and cornerback. And with training camp now underway, there isn't much of a split going on at all, as the 26-year-old now appears to be a full-time cornerback. But what's obviously a risky move is actually going better than anyone expected.
During Thursday's practice, Melton reportedly made several impressive plays. First, he shut down a read-option keeper from second-string quarterback Malik Willis, which isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. He then followed up by breaking up a pass and shutting down the aforementioned Savion Williams.
WR-turned-CB Bo Melton is already exceeding expectations at Packers camp
So, maybe this move is actually going to work out. Yes, it's only one practice and a few plays, but it's certainly encouraging, especially given the Packers' overall issues at the cornerback position.
Jaire Alexander is obviously out of the picture, as is Eric Stokes. So, outside of Keisean Nixon, Carrington Valentine, and the newly acquired Nate Hobbs, Green Bay is ridiculously thin at the position, as no other player on the roster took a regular-season snap in 2024.
So, even if Melton isn't any sort of major threat to crack the starting lineup, he at least adds some depth. And it's not as if he had zero experience before this transition, as he played some cornerback in high school and even a little during his freshman year at Rutgers.
Furthermore, he's got a contact he can learn a few things from, as his younger brother, Max Melton, was a full-time cornerback at Rutgers and was taken in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals. So, that's a nice little bonus as well.
It's obviously impossible to know if Bo Melton will continue to impress as training camp progresses. But he's off to a solid start, and that's all LaFleur and the Packers could have asked for at this point.