The Packers brought in Trey Dean III for a tryout and liked what they saw enough to sign him on the spot, according to Jordan Schultz. It's a low-cost, high-upside move for a safety room that just took a hit.
Dean's path here is anything but conventional. He went undrafted out of Florida in 2023 after four seasons for the Gators, bounced onto the Jets practice squad, and then landed with the Chiefs in 2024 — where he was a practice-squad member of the team that beat San Francisco in Super Bowl LVIII. That's the ring, even if he never took a regular-season snap to earn it.
From there it's been a tour of the league's fringes. A stop with the Browns preceded his move to the DC Defenders of the UFL, where he helped the club win the 2025 championship, before a brief run with the St. Louis Battlehawks this spring. Two title runs, two different leagues, zero NFL regular-season snaps — that's the resume Green Bay just signed off on.
The timing tracks. Green Bay's safety room leans heavily on Xavier McKinney, Evan Williams and Javon Bullard, but Bullard has been dealing with a foot injury that's kept him out of practice, pushing the Packers to work out extra bodies at the position. Dean walking away with a contract after one look says something about how thin things got in a hurry.
Nobody's projecting Dean as a Week 1 starter. But special teams snaps and camp bodies win real roster spots in August, and a guy who's already won two championships at other levels has a track record worth betting a futures deal on. Worst case, Green Bay gets camp depth. Best case, they found a late-summer steal.