#834 Packers Unscripted: Minicamp musings

two time second team All Pro JayR Alexander. It had been sort of an uncertain situation all off season long as to whether Alexander would be back or not, or traded or what would happen. Ultimately, it sounds like they weren't. Packers and Alexander's camp were not able to agree on a restructured contract. Finding a trade partner didn't exactly work out, and with this being a mandatory mini camp week. It was time for a decision to be made, and that decision was made and the Packers have moved on.

love Jaw. I've really enjoyed covering him the last six seven years and I will continue to say this and you had to edit my insider inbox, but I just feel like there's in all our time, in my time covering the team, there's ever been a player that's probably been more misunderstood than jay R Alexander. He's a good, kind hearted individual. I mean, there's a reason why you saw so many players on this team reposting the Packers thank you graphic to Jaw on their stories on Instagram.

Seeing people reach out. You heard Xavier McKinney and Jordan Love and Josh Jacobs, all these guys talk about him this offseason and what he means to this locker room. But here's the thing, and this is the fact of the matter. I mean, jo'sman banged up the last few years, and he's played I believe it's thirty four games since the twenty twenty season. The Packers had to make changes last year, losing him the second half of the year, and a lot of those changes, you know, really worked

out well for this defense. When you saw what Keyshawn Nixon can do on the perimeter, when you saw Carrington Valentine getting opportunities again outside, and obviously the depth that they have at the safety position, and now bringing in Nate Hobbs. I mean, the Packers have made the necessary adjustments. You hope, for Jayr's sake, you can catch on somewhere get back to the type of player I think everybody knows he can be. But this is obviously the direction

of the Packers have chosen to go. And I think as you move forward down to training camp here in the next six seven weeks, probably the best thing just to be able to have this kind of new chapter.

and uh. And it's two sides, a team and an individual player looking out for you know, their own best interests, and sometimes, uh, sometimes those things just don't connect and the and that can be the business of the game. I personally, I'm I really enjoyed covering JayR Alexander as well. I had a really nice, I'll never forget this, a really nice sit down interview with him. It was actually

after his rookie season. I was doing a feature story in the Packers' yearbook heading into twenty nineteen, after he was the first dround pick in twenty eighteen, and obviously impressed as a rookie and just sitting down and talking football with the guy. But then once you start talking football with him, the conversation always ends up kind of going somewhere else right, and you it's like you get

to know somebody a little bit. And I'll always remember that conversation because I learned very early on that Jay R. Alexander he's wired a little bit differently than just your average NFL player, for lack of a better phrase. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. We've seen guys wired differently come in and out of locker rooms like all the time. It's part of how things go here. And when the guy was healthy, he was a heck of a player for this team. And I I hope he

can get back to that level again. I hope he can find good health in his career and UH and get back to UH to the all pro level player that he's been in the past. Will UH. We'll see what happens in that regard. The Packers of UH Packers have been planning for this. This is not this is not something that was a last minute, whimsical decision bringing

in Nate Hobbs and in UH in the offseason. Obviously they learned, as we've talked a lot on the show about Keishawn Nixon and what he proved that he could

do last year. There's a there will be a lot of eyes on Carrington Valentine now moving forward, and I think even though Valentine, you know, wasn't a big part of this defense for the first half of last season as he was dealing with a lot of injuries and stuff, we started to see some of Carrington Valentine's best football towards the end of last season, and I think that's where he's hoping to be able to to pick up where he left off as Jeff Haflee and the secondary

coaches pieced together exactly what the secondary is going to look like in twenty twenty five.

on this defense. He's been a tremendous, tremendous soldier for Green Bay the last two seasons. Starts twelve games his rookie years in a pinch. Last year he ends up, as you mentioned, has the hamstring injuries, the soft tissue injuries. At the beginning of the season, kind of falls out of the rotation a little bit, was mostly just doing special teams, and then when the gay air stuff happens

again after Jacksonville, he's thrown back in the lineup. And for as much as people have talked about jazz situation in Nate Hobbs and obviously Keishawn Nixon in his comments about kickoff returns and him wanting to play outside cornerback's, it's mind boggling to me that a bigger topic hasn't been this offseason. How Karens and Valentine really peaked at

the end of last season. The interceptions that had eluded him at times during his college career at Kentucky and also early on with this time with Green Bay, he started pulling those passes down. Now he is a legit playmaker. And I keep mentioning this to you, Michael, the guy's twenty three years old. The Packers have players I think in this rookie draft class that are older than Carrington Valentine because he went out so early for the draft

as a true junior. Well, now you're seeing him come into his own And the other thing I will also mention what I love about the way the Packers have situated this secondary. You have a guy Nate Hobbs who right now, at this point in time, looks like potentially that Star Nickel position. Well, if an injury happens on the outside, people ask, what happens, who do you go to? Well, Hobbs can go outside, and you got Bullard that can play inside. You have the other these safeties that can

get involved in that. It's not just about perimeter, cornerback, inside, cornerback, slot, dime, whatever you want to call it. It's about having a multitude of players that can play those positions. And I think that's ultimately going to be a huge strength of this defense this season.

any particular order, are Nixon, Hobbs, Valentine, and Bullard. Bullard being a guy who plays the slot, Valentine being a guy who plays outside, Nixon and Hobbs being guys that will play beat either one. So in a sense, those are your top four cornerbacks, even though I know officially Bullard is a safety, but those are your top four cornerbacks for your nickel package. And I think where this goes from here is, Okay, how does the depth line

up behind that? Are the Packers going to make another acquisition? Potentially? Where do things go with young guys like Kyln King and Kamal Haddn't and a new recent signee who's got some NFL game experience in Gregory Junior who has just brought in recently, all of that stuff, the depth behind those four guys is what needs to be sorted out. Because you know as well as I do that we

can talk all we want about those four guys. The chances of those four guys at cornerback being available for all seventeen games, plus hopefully the playoffs for the Packers

are pretty slim. So you're gonna need You're gonna need the next guys to be stepping up behind them, and I think that's going to be It's not only going to be an ongoing conversation this week through mini camp and also in training camp, but as the twenty twenty five season develops, because some of those guys, like a Gregory Junior for example, just got here and what impression is he going to make, say during training camp to make a bid for the fifth three as this cornerback

depth sorts itself out, for.

offseason program. But Hadden is such an interesting one too in that conversation because he was actually a higher draft pick than King in the two thousand He was a six twenty four draft, but the Packers brought him in late at the beginning of the regular season on the practice squad, so you kind of forget these things that you know, Gregory Junior was a former draft pick. These guys have credentials. These aren't just random dudes that the

Packers signed. But at the same time, you know, we know player acquisition is a three hundred and sixty five day yep thing. And there's been times where we've seen Dennis Kelly come in the week before training camp, right, I mean that they do make those signings too. So seeing what the next move is for green Bay and how you go about handling is gonna be really fascinating. And also the fact of, you know, the salary cap

room that you've now cleared with JayR Alexander. The Packers have a multitude of players from that twenty twenty two draft class that'll be coming up for contracts here after this season, you'll be able to extend work on extensions. With a very promising twenty twenty three draft class, the circle of NFL life just continues to go over and you know restart. So a very bright future for green Bay. But it was wild to me too. I'll close on this.

When we talked about green Bay, you know, going all in or whatever in twenty one and all this thing, and now Green Bay's at a position where they have so much cap room to play with as well. Again, a lot of different things that Brian Goodikuntz in this personnel department can do.

with the first practice schedule for July twenty three. I know, you know, we've seen the cross training going on with the offensive line. We've seen, you know, all sorts of different guys getting reps at wide receiver with Jordan Love with the number one offense. What are the kinds of things you'll be looking for on the practice field?

You know, he had a speech for the guys at the end of practice where he was talking about asking the veterans directing this at the young guys, what's it going to be like out here? Once training comp comes around, It's going to be hotter. The competition is going to be fiercer. Everything ramps up. This is the final notch here before I mean the final warm up if you will. Yeah, before you know, jobs in positions and things are going to start to get decided. You're no longer just going

to be locked into one role. They're going to start figuring out, Okay, who fits best where and what is that depth shart going to potentially look like. So from that perspective, this Receiving Corps is going to continue to be probably the biggest I think highlight of watching these practices. We saw it again last week and mattel Flour again

talked about it every offseason. It seems like I mentioned how Romeo Dobbs is the most consistent practice performer I think I've seen outside of Jordan Nelson during my time covering the Packers, he is just I mean, he doesn't drop passes. He's wherever he needs to be. If you're doing a two minute drive at the number one offense, I guarantee you he's getting that ball three times. It's just the way it always seems to work out. And

Dobbs's back to that again. He's put the concussion injury and those type of things behind him and now trying to play and get ready for again. As we've talked about a huge year four for him. You know, Matthew Golden, we saw the fast twitch muscle fiber in practice, and yeah, he's not going to be the biggest receiver on the field, but by golly, this guy finds ways to get open and you can just see when he puts his foot in the dirt how quickly he can get up field.

This is going to be a tremendous competition and you've written about it, we all talked about it. I mean, this is probably gonna be one of the hardest years Green Bay's had figuring out what their fifty three man roster is going to be like. Based on what this off season ninety man roster has been, and I think

from that aspect of it, it's really exciting. So, yeah, this is your last chance to make a final impression here before we get to training camp, and you know, everything really truly does shift into that final gear.

You've got to narrow this down to fifty three at the end of August, beginning of September, and between now and then, there is going to be stuff that happens. And what I mean by stuff is guys are gonna get hurt.

thirty seven guys. You know, now a whole bunch of those guys will be brought back on the practice squad. And the practice squad is sixteen players now, which is double the size of what it was a handful of years ago. But still, you know how how that fifty

three shakes out? And I think I said it on one of our shows earlier, I think the Packers are going to be potentially releasing a lot more experienced NFL players potentially than they have in years past because the competition for that fifty three is going to be is going to be so tough, and the personnel department has done such a good job in recent drafts that even if they see a draft pick that maybe isn't going to play right away, they don't want to just they

don't want to just let that guy go. They want that guy to be on the fifty three to continue to develop and see where he is toward the end of his rookie year, see where he is in his second year. And if you believe in a player like that, you don't want to just release him and cross your fingers that you get him back on the practice squad, because as soon as you release him, he's available to anybody, and you don't know who might who might snatch him up.

And anybody who is on the practice squad is essentially a free agent. They can go sign wherever they want to if somebody comes along and offers them. So all of those roster machinations have to get sorted out at the end of training camp before we really get a feel for, Okay, exactly how deep, how deep is this Packers team? How did the depth sort itself out when you had to when you have to make the tough decisions and those are a ways away, and.

ninety three, ninety four, ninety five. Yep, this is what it feels like right now with what Green Bay's done with these these recent draft classes. You had twenty two, which I think, pound for pound, is going to end up being one of the best ones of the twenty first century. When you think about the zach Thoms finding them on Day three, right, a guy that could potentially

end up being an All Pro right tackle. When you think about the playmakers like you know, Tucker Craft in the third round in twenty twenty three, and then twenty twenty four, the Packers might have gotten the best one of all of them with Eddrian Cooper potentially with the potential he showed early on and where he could potentially go. That's how you build a championship team. I challenge people like with this all the time. I Mean, you see the the you know Kansas City, you see Philadelphia get

to the Super Bowl. How did they do that? It's Patrick Mahomes as Jalen Hurst. Look at those recent draft classes for the Philadelphia Eagles. I mean they hit it out of the park with their drafts recently. If a team makes it that far, if you look at their last two or three drafts, chances are there was some pretty talented football players that came out of it. And I feel like that's where Green Bay's at right now.

sub or sub and a bowl Cousin subs. Fifty plus years of better all right. A lot of content up on packers dot com. You posted a story yesterday on Zach Tom, the right tackle heading into a big year four. We talked about Tom a lot on a previous show. A story that you posted last week that we didn't actually get a chance to address too much. Another offensive Lineman, and it's the newcomer at left guard, Aaron Banks, the free agent signing from the San Francisco forty nine ers.

Certainly an understated fella is his first meeting with the media was nothing gregarious. There were no headlines necessarily coming from the comments. But the one thing that you gleaned, and certainly I did as well, is this is a guy that, yeah, he was had a lot of success with the forty nine ers, but that forty nine ers team was always just so close and just couldn't quite

finish the deal. And he feels pretty good about coming to this team, which maybe hasn't gotten as close as the forty nine ers, but is still a team on the rise and is possibly gonna get the same kind of shot or shots that the forty nine ers have had. His drive, his desire to win a Super Bowl is one of the biggest reasons he's here.

I forget about that. Maybe you didn't, but I forget about you know, because we focus so much on what happened, and you know, in the Super Bowl and kind of losing that late and then the overtime and everything. You forget that the two years before that they had lost in the NFC Championship Game, and then last year they're hoping to Okay, well we're going to close the door now. Yes,

we didn't get it done. We got another shot at this thing, and you saw how the Christian McCaffrey injury, the injuries that followed that sort of knock that train off the tracks, and the forty nine ers. That was a tough way to do this thing. So yeah, Aaron Banks, obviously you're an unrestricted free agent. You want to take care of your family, you want to get paid. But he also didn't want to get too far away from

where he had already been. Yeah, in terms of being a competitive, winning organization and culture, I think sometimes fans get so wrapped up on well, these guys are making all this money, these guys do this every single day, Mike, You and I see them walk in this building every single day. The hours they have to invest here in both at home, taking care of themselves, training all that. It is a NonStop job. Now, you don't want to do that job and then come out with three wins

a season. You want to compete for that championship. And that's where Banks feels like he is. That's where he feels like this place has brought him to the fact. In addition to the fact six five, three hundred and twenty five pounds, the Green Bay Packers is they've started to meld their offensive line. This is the direction this thing is going. This is a power football team with Josh Jacobs behind the controls, right. I mean, they want to be able to run the ball directly at your

face and go through you to the end zone. Banks is one of those guys that can help them do that. In addition to the fact, he's pretty darn athletic for a guy his size. This is a former second round pick in twenty twenty one. I mean, this is a guy that came in with major credentials from Notre Dame. So now coming into his own twenty seven years old, and kind of building himself up into this player that

he's become. The Packers feel like this guy could be the missing piece, and certainly he's motivated to maximize on that opportunity. Yeah.

left guard, he was flagged for holding five times. The last two seasons combined, he was flagged for holding three times.

This is a guy who he got his opportunity, took a few lumps, had to learn some things along the way, and has developed into a polished pro whom the Packers believe, as they always do when they make this type of investment in a guy coming off of a rookie contract, the Packers believe that he hasn't played his best well yet, that there's still another another step forward for this guy, And yeah, that could potentially be be a really big step because this guy is an awfully big man and

he's going to he's going to have a presence in the run game, man the pass game as the left guard for this team.

it tells you two things. One, he's not getting beaten in two, his technique and his fundamentals are where they need to be. Because there is that old adage about, hey, offensive linemen are holding on every single play, but are you staying within the framework of the body. Are you making sure that if a player gets a move on you, you're not getting to that outside shoulder. Right. That's where Banks has excelled. And when you see him physically, it makes sense. I mean, this guy is a road grading

type interior offensive lineman. Now we have to see everything that plays out here with Elton Jenkins and potentially him at the center position. Obviously we've seen Sean Ryan take and snaps there while also being in that competition for right guard. Jacob Munk has gotten some important reps inside and at the center position during this camp and then certainly figuring out how everything's going to shuffle out the left tackle position with Jordan Morgan potentially being incorporated into that.

What is the point I'm trying to make with all that green Bay as options and in addition to the fact that now you have a lynchpin, a guy that you can build around at left guard, there's a lot more flexibility that Green Bay can do there. That was one of the drawbacks of where they were at with Elton Jenkins is that if they had to move them, if there was an injury there, who's stepping in for

him at left guard? Ye. Now you have a guy like Banks that has that position, has that experience, has done it at a high levels, played in those big games, and also still having that versatility with a Jenkins, with a Tom with a Sean Ryan, guys that can move around a little bit. Yeah.