GREEN BAY, Wis. — When Matt LaFleur said the Green Bay Packers will “look at everything” to find a fill-in for injured right tackle Bryan Bulaga, he wasn’t kidding.
The Packers added another veteran to that spot on Wednesday when they claimed retired veteran Jared Veldheer off waivers from the New England Patriots.
The 32-year-old never played for the Patriots after he signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with them this offseason. Instead, he retired during the offseason program.
The Patriots released him from the reserve/retired list this week, which made him subject to waivers.
A source said there was immediate interest from multiple teams, including a Packers NFC North rival, the Minnesota Vikings. But the Vikings did not put a claim on him because they would’ve been higher in the pecking order than the Packers.
The Packers lost Bulaga to a right knee injury early in Sunday’s blowout loss at the 49ers.
Although the injury is not a season ender, he’s expected to miss at least this week’s game at the Giants. The Packers replaced him against the 49ers with Alex Light, a former undrafted free agent, but when asked Wednesday if veteran right guard Billy Turner is an option to move to right tackle, LaFleur said: “We’ll look at everything. Our goal is just to put our best five out there and we’ll go from there. And we’ll take the week to figure that out.”
Veldheer has been living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and “got the bug to play again after being away from the game and wanted to see if anyone was interested,” a source told ESPN.
He has played in 118 career regular-season games (including 113 starts) for three different teams (Raiders, Cardinals and Broncos). He was a third-round pick of the Raiders in 2010, the same draft in which the Packers took Bulaga in the first round (No. 23 overall).