GREEN BAY, Wis. — The long-snapping competition in Green Bay this summer was never really much of a competition at all.
Cal Adomitis, who held the job for the entirety of training camp and all three of the Packers’ preseason games, was released on Sunday. He was the first cut of the day as the Packers work to trim their roster down to 53 players by the 5 p.m. CST deadline.
By releasing Adomitis, the Packers are signaling that they’re moving forward with 31-year-old Matt Orzech. It’s also an indication that Orzech is healthy after missing all of training camp on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list with a calf injury. Still, the Packers are expecting him to be healthy by the time they take the field for the Sept. 13 opener against the Minnesota Vikings.
In a surprising—and admittedly perplexing—move, Adomitis will now be subject to waivers, where he can be claimed by any team over the next 24 hours.
Across three years in Cincinnati, Adomitis started 49 games before spending 2025 with the Philadelphia Eagles. He was their long snapper for nine games in place of Charles Hughlett, who was placed on injured reserve with a core muscle injury he sustained early in the season.
Adomitis spent five seasons at Pittsburgh as a true freshman. He played in 64 consecutive games for the program and earned first-team All-American honors, as well as the 2021 Patrick Mannelly Award, which is presented to the best long snapper in the nation. He certainly has the resume that the Packers—or any team, really—would covet, but it wasn’t his resume that was worthy of winning him a starting job in Green Bay.
General manager Brian Gutekunst last week stressed the importance of the holder—a job occupied by punter Daniel Whelan—as opposed to the snapper when it comes to the operation. That may or may not have foreshadowed the Packers’ decision to move on from Adomitis, no matter how well he performed in Orzech’s stead.
Rookie kicker Trey Smack was flawless this preseason, converting on all nine of his field-goal attempts across three games. Adomitis was part of that operation, but the Packers are going to attempt to fix something that wasn’t broken.
Orzech is just one year into the three-year extension worth $4.8 million that he signed with the Packers last summer, so he has some semblance of job security. However, it would cost the Packers merely $562,000 in dead cap if they were to move on from him if they felt that Adomitis was a better fit. At the time of the signing, Orzech became the third-highest-paid long snapper in the league at $1.6 million per year, but has since dropped to eighth.