There are no shortage of quality players to choose from at the guard spots.
Our quest to define the best players of the last 25 years for the Green Bay Packers continues this afternoon as we move to the interior of the offensive line. The entire line has largely been a strength for the Packers over the last quarter-century, and the left guard spot — while never having a single player start for more than five years in a row or so — has managed to have several high-quality players nonetheless.
An intriguing angle for voting on the Packers’ guards, however, is how to judge players who switched spots over the years. Both Josh Sitton and T.J. Lang played left guard for stretches on either side of the 2013 offseason, when the two traded spots. Then there’s Elgton Jenkins, who has provided high-quality play at LG but has been asked to bounce around to several different positions.
Who gets your vote as the top left guard of the last 25 years? Let us know below.
Left Guard Nominees
Mike Wahle (2000-2004)
80 games played, 70 starts
The Packers’ last pick in the Supplemental Draft, Wahle heard his name called in 1998. After sitting most of his rookie year, he started most of the 1999 season between left guard and left tackle.
Starting in 2000, he manned the left tackle spot for the first six games until rookie Chad Clifton was ready to take over, then headed to the bench. But 2001 saw Wahle take over the left guard job after Ross Verba’s departure, and he started every game for the Packers over the next four seasons.
Wahle was a tough, nasty player on the interior, and he was a big part of the Packers’ excellent running game during the early 2000s. He left for Carolina as a free agent in 2005, earning his only Pro Bowl appearance that season.
Daryn Colledge (2006-2010)
80 games played, 76 starts
After a one-year dalliance with late-round pick Will Whitticker in 2005, the Packers found another multi-year starter in the second round of the 2006 draft. Colledge, who had played tackle at Boise State, stepped into the starting lineup in week two of his rookie season, never missing a game as a Packer. He did briefly get benched late in the 2007 season, but he bounced back into the starting lineup and remained a solid player for three more seasons.
Colledge’s final game with the Packers came in the team’s Super Bowl XLV victory over the Steelers, and he signed a free agent contract with the Arizona Cardinals a few months later. All told, he played five of his nine NFL seasons with the Packers, starting all but four possible games during that tenure.
Josh Sitton (2008-2015)
3x Pro Bowl, 3x second-team All-Pro (overall); 2x Pro Bowl, 3x second-team All-Pro (at LG)
121 games played, 112 starts (overall); 47 games played/started (at LG)
Yet another former college tackle-turned-guard, Sitton was the first in a long string of fantastic 4th-round offensive line draft picks by Ted Thompson. He spent his rookie season as a backup while adjusting to the position switch, then immediately hopped into the starting lineup in 2009 at right guard. Sitton would stay there for four seasons, earning a Super Bowl ring in 2010 and a Pro Bowl nod in 2012.
Then in 2013, the Packers flipped their entire offensive line, moving Sitton from the right side to the left. This was right around the time that the NFL and its media were learning just how good Sitton had become, and he was named second-team All-Pro in all three seasons for the Packers on the left side.
As an aside, Sitton even pitched in at left tackle for a game and a half late in the 2015 season with David Bakhtiari dealing with an injury.
However, Sitton’s time with the Packers came to a surprising and abrupt end in August of 2016, as the team shockingly released him at the end of training camp. They had been looking to trade him late in camp amid some concerns about his contract and long-term locker room fit, but could not find a partner to make a deal. He signed with the Chicago Bears shortly thereafter and earned one more Pro Bowl nod that season.
Sitton and T.J. Lang may be tough players to slot in given their switching sides of the line, but Sitton was arguably just as good on the right side (albeit with less recognition) as he was on the left.
T.J. Lang (2009-2016)
1x Pro Bowl (as RG)
119 games played, 94 starts (overall); 31 starts at LG
One year after drafting Sitton, the Packers took Lang in the fourth round to continue their trend. Another small-school tackle, Lang pitched in with some spot starts at tackle as a rookie, then backed up at guard during the Packers’ 2010 Super Bowl run.
With Colledge’s departure, that opened up a starting spot for Lang at left guard, where he started for the 2011 and 2012 seasons and solidified himself as a tough, nasty player in the Wahle mold. The 2013 offseason saw him move to right guard, however, where he would start for four more seasons in Green Bay, earning a Pro Bowl nod in 2016 before departing for the Detroit Lions in free agency.
Lane Taylor (2013-2020)
79 games played, 50 starts
Sitton and Lang were 4th-round draft picks, but Taylor was an undrafted free agent out of Oklahoma State in 2013. Taylor made the team as a backup as a rookie and spent three seasons in that role before Sitton’s release suddenly elevated him into the starting lineup.
Taylor responded with three years as a quality starter at left guard, missing only two games in that span. It’s easy to think of him as a bridge player between two All-Pro caliber guards, but Taylor was quietly one of the anchors of the Packers’ line during the middle part of the last decade.
In 2019, Taylor again started the season in the starting lineup ahead of rookie Elgton Jenkins, but landed on injured reserve with a torn biceps muscle after just two games. He returned as the team’s intended starter at right guard for one more season in 2020, but he injured his knee in week one and was done for the season once again. Taylor later signed with the Houston Texans, playing for them in 2021 before retiring.
Elgton Jenkins (2019-2024)
2x Pro Bowl
87 games played, 85 starts
Good luck truly defining Jenkins’ position, but if there’s one place he has played most consistently, it is here at left guard. A second-round draft pick, Jenkins took over the starting job in week 3 as a rookie after Taylor’s injury and has been a crucial part of the Packers’ line ever since. Jenkins’ 2020 and 2022 seasons earned him Pro Bowl honors, and he spent most of both of those seasons at left guard.
Still, he has started games at every position on the line except for right guard. Jenkins was the team’s first choice to move to left tackle during the 2021 season when David Bakhtiari was expected to be out for most of the year rehabbing his torn ACL, but he unfortunately tore his own ACL halfway through the season. He then entered 2022 as the starting right tackle before shifting back to guard after a few weeks. Jenkins has even pitched in at center — his primary college position — with injuries to Corey Linsley and Josh Myers.
This season, Jenkins is slated to move back to center full-time with Myers gone in free agency and Aaron Banks signed in to play left guard. But over the last six years, he has delivered consistently-excellent play when able to focus on a single position, and particularly when that position was the left guard spot.