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The final practice of the spring saw more shuffling on the offensive line and a nice day for one of the team’s budding stars.
In recent years, the Green Bay Packers have skipped one of their regularly-scheduled days of minicamp practice, instead preferring to send the team out for a team-building exercise. This year, however, they were on the practice field all three days of camp, a bit of a balancing act after cutting a week out of the OTA schedule.
The third and final practice of minicamp came and went on Thursday, though it was a shorter session than usual. The Packers got an early dismissal thanks to one of their own delivering a strike from long distance, but there were still some newsworthy items to note before the adjourned for the day.
Packers players are now headed out to get their summer break, which will see them off for roughly five weeks. Here’s what happened before they got their marching orders.
The Packers got cornerback Nate Hobbs back for Thursday’s practice after he sat out earlier in the week. That gave them a full complement of cornerbacks for the first unit, as he worked as the starting slot corner between Keisean Nixon and Carrington Valentine.
Among the players who worked in the rehab group on Wednesday, Hobbs was the only one who returned to practice on Thursday. Meanwhile, three new names joined that group on the sidelines: reserve defensive backs Omar Brown and Kamal Hadden, plus third-year wide receiver Jayden Reed, while rookie 7th-round pick John Williams was back with the rehab group once again after just one day on the field.
That left the following big names as non-participants on the final day: Reed, Rasheed Walker, Aaron Banks, Elgton Jenkins, Quay Walker, and Christian Watson, among others down the depth chart. Matt LaFleur is holding out hope that most of these players will be able to be 100 percent for the start of training camp, however:
With no Walker, Banks, or Jenkins, the Packers went with backups at left tackle, left guard, and center for the second straight day. The starting unit consisted of Jordan Morgan, Kadeem Telfort, and Jacob Monk at those three positions; this was a change from the past two days, which had found Donovan Jennings in with the ones at left guard. Jennings instead got some work at center on Thursday as the team continues to explore versatility among their interior linemen.
Another wrinkle for the offense came about thanks to Bo Melton, as the coaching staff continues to get creative in finding ways to utilize him. Melton was in the lineup with the starters on offense for the first team snap of the practice, but he was aligned in the backfield with Josh Jacobs in a pseudo-two-back set. Per Andy Herman, the “starting” group consisted of those two, Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks at wideout, Tucker Kraft at tight end, and a line of Morgan, Telfort, Monk, Sean...
