The Green Bay Packers are done waiting for their offensive line to fix itself. The team is signing a veteran guard off the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad.

According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo, the Packers are adding Laken Tomlinson, a 34-year-old with over a decade of starting experience, to a unit that has been the single biggest problem on the roster through three games.

“At age 34, with 162 starts under his belt, Tomlinson will help an O-line that needs it,” Rapoport reported.

Tomlinson brings a specific kind of resume to Green Bay. The 28th overall pick in the 2015 draft by Detroit, he’s appeared in 173 career regular-season games and started 162 of them across stops with the Lions, 49ers, Jets, Seahawks and Texans, making the Pro Bowl with San Francisco in 2021.

In 2025, he was with the Texans where he made one tackle in 10 games. However, he hasn’t played in a regular-season game since Week 17 of last year, and spent 2026 on Dallas’ practice squad before Green Bay came calling. But he already has experience against the Packers themselves. As a 49er, he was part of two separate playoff wins over Green Bay in 2019 and 2021.

Packers Had a Tough Start

For the Packers, the need is impossible to overstate. In the first three games, among which they lost twice, Green Bay has started three different players at left guard through three games, with preferred starter Aaron Banks limited to a single appearance because of toe and knee injuries. Meanwhile, Jacob Monk has not been able to hold up at right guard. Right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele is also out of the season with a torn patellar tendon in Week 2, meaning essentially the entire interior of the line has been in flux at the same time.

The results have been about as bad as an offensive line’s results can get.

Through three games, Green Bay’s pass block win rate sits at 16 percent, the lowest mark by any team since ESPN Research began tracking the metric in 2017.

The running game hasn’t fared any better either. The Packers managed just 17 yards on the ground in Thursday’s loss to the Falcons and are averaging a league-worst 48.7 rushing yards per game for the season. Quarterback Jordan Love has taken the brunt of it, absorbing 15 hits in Week 1 against the Vikings and 12 more in the 35-14 loss against the Atlanta Falcons.

Head coach Matt LaFleur didn’t sugarcoat the situation afterward.

“Right now I don’t know what we’re doing well offensively,” LaFleur said, mentioning the offense’s struggles following the loss.

Tomlinson Will Not Have to Adapt Much

Tomlinson has played 99 percent of his career snaps at left guard, which lines up directly with the Packers’ most immediate vacancy behind an injured Banks. His five seasons in San Francisco also came under Kyle Shanahan, a scheme with real overlap to LaFleur’s own system, which should shorten whatever adjustment period is normally expected from a midseason addition.

Because he’s arriving off another team’s practice squad, NFL rules require the Packers to keep him on their 53-man roster for a minimum of three weeks, a formality that isn’t likely to be an issue given how thin the position group already is. Green Bay is expected to open a roster spot by placing Bako-Bewele on injured reserve.

No one in Green Bay is describing Tomlinson as a long-term fix. At 34 and removed from a full season of game action, he represents experience and a steady presence more than a return to his Pro Bowl form.

But for an offensive line that’s been rotating bodies weekly and bleeding pressure on every snap, steady may be exactly what the Packers are missing most.