Acme Packing Company
We charted every single first-team snap that the Packers had last night so you can learn who is getting real burn with Green Bay’s top units.
For the fourth straight year, we’re going to be charting the Green Bay Packers’ first-team snaps this summer. While we don’t have video of practice, we do have the broadcast of Family Night and will get the team’s preseason games, which the starters sometimes play in.
As much as I’d like to put this series to rest, it unfortunately is worth tracking because of how high the correlation is to players making the roster. Let’s go through who got first-team looks on both offense and defense on Family Night before diving into some core special teams thoughts.
Quarterback is obvious, so we’re just going to skip that position entirely. At running back, it’s worth noting that both Emanuel Wilson (knee) and MarShawn Lloyd (groin) were non-participants in practice on Saturday due to injury. It’s not surprising in any way that Josh Jacobs and Chris Brooks, two players who made the 53-man roster last year, were the most played backs when Jordan Love was under center, but it is worth mentioning that the three other healthy running backs on the team — Amar Johnson Jalen White and Israel Abanikanda — didn’t get a single look with “the ones.” If they’re going to make any sort of dent on this roster, it’s going to need to come in the preseason.
I wanted to point out the wide receiver and slot split here off of the rip. While there’s been some optimism that Jayden Reed can develop into a larger role, the Packers have used him in very specific situations so far in his career. Usually, he’s only on the field in three-receiver sets as the slot receiver. For example, over the last two years, Malik Heath has played nearly five times as many two-receiver sets as Reed. On Saturday, all of Reed’s snaps came with him in the slot (pre- or post-motion) out of three-receiver sets, more of the same.
A really positive sign here is that rookie first-round pick Matthew Golden is very much in the mix as a top receiver on the team, despite the Packers historically slow-playing rookies’ first-team reps. The second play of team drills was an end-around to Golden. They probably like him A LOT on the relative scale of rookies they’ve had roll through the building.
I wouldn’t make too much of Malik Heath getting a bunch of outside receiver reps...
