The Green Bay Packers’ experiment to turn former Birmingham Stallions quarterback Alex McGough into a wide receiver has ended, and the NFL has added two wide receivers with Alabama football roots.
McGough had been the USFL MVP for Birmingham in 2023 and was on the field for the team at the end of back-to-back victories in the USFL Championship Game.
McGough spent the 2023 NFL season on Green Bay’s practice squad. After watching McGough help on the scout team by running routes at wide receiver, the Packers decided to give him an opportunity to play the position full-time in 2024.
But McGough sustained a leg injury in spring practices, and Green Bay placed him on the physically-unable-to-perform list on Wednesday when he reported for training camp. On Friday, the Packers waived McGough.
Green Bay also signed two wide receivers on Friday – R.J. Starkey and Jalen Wayne.
Starkey transferred to Samford after four seasons at Penn, and he had 27 receptions for 204 yards in 2023, his only season with the Bulldogs. Starkey had attended the Packers’ rookie minicamp in May on a tryout basis but did not receive a contract.
Wayne played in the final four of the Alabama High School Sports Association’s basketball tournament every season of his prep career starting when he was an eighth-grader, first with Faith Academy in Mobile, then as a senior with Spanish Fort High School.
But after catching 28 passes for 469 yards and three touchdowns and running for 279 yards in his final prep football campaign for Spanish Fort in 2016, Wayne appeared in six seasons with South Alabama. In his first three, he totaled eight receptions for 115 yards and two touchdowns when he lined up at running back and tight end as well as wide receiver. Then came 33 receptions for 418 yards and one touchdown in 2020 followed by 53 receptions for 630 yards and two touchdowns in 2021 building to 58 receptions for 816 yards and nine touchdowns in 2022.
Wayne played in the Reese’s Senior Bowl in Mobile in 2023 before signing with the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted rookie on May 12, 2023. The Bills waived Wayne on Aug. 29. He joined the Cleveland Browns for training camp but was cut in the roster reduction to reach the regular-season limit on Aug. 27.
This year, Wayne spent five months on the roster of the Montreal Alouettes before being released on June 2, four days before the team’s Canadian Football League opener for the 2024 season.
Green Bay will hold its first full-team practice of training camp on Monday.
Another former South Alabama standout also was on Friday’s NFL transactions report: The Chicago Bears placed tight end Gerald Everett on the non-football injury list. The designation means Everett sustained an injury or ailment outside of NFL activities. He can begin practice as soon as he is medically cleared.
This training camp will be the eighth of Everett’s NFL career but his first with the Bears. Everett signed a two-year, $12 million contract with Chicago as an NFL free agent in March after catching 51 passes for 411 yards and three touchdowns for the Los Angeles Chargers in 2023.
The Bears held their first full-team practice of training camp on Friday.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
