GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Green Bay Packers drafted running back MarShawn Lloyd in the third round out of USC last year, but his rookie season was wiped out by injuries.
First he suffered an injury to his ankle, then a hamstring and then underwent an appendectomy.
During this year’s training camp, he’s just returned from a groin injury.
Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin’s Dennis Krause talked with Lloyd recently in the Packers’ locker room:
Dennis Krause: What did you learn about yourself going through last year?
MarShawn Lloyd: Honestly, patience. Everything happens for a reason. It pretty much gave me an opportunity to learn more, but it was a blessing in disguise.
Krause: What can you bring to this team?
Lloyd: Honestly, whatever they want me to. I have a certain skill set that the coaches like about me. My explosiveness. Any way I can be used will be the best thing for me.
Krause: I know you wanted to play last year, but was the silver lining that you could kind of learn the offense?
Lloyd: Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I definitely learned the offense. Even though I didn’t play last year, I was hurt, I still went to the meetings. I still went to every practice. I was still in it, like emotionally, but physically I wasn’t able to do it.
Krause: When you need to seek counsel or advice from a veteran, who do you go to?
Lloyd: I’ll say Kenny Clark and Josh Jacobs. Guys that have been in the league for a long time. I’ve asked Kenny Clark things about taking care of your body. “What do you do?” So, just listen to him. And he happened to be my my locker-mate now, which is actually pretty good because you don’t have three contracts on one team on accident. So, I just learned from him and I learned from Josh. Been in the same room with Josh, it definitely helped out a lot.
Krause: What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned from Josh [Jacobs]?
Lloyd: Just take what you can get and just go with it. He was in my ear all year last year about not being able to play. And he allowed me and showed me the ropes, because he’s been in his career where he had a time where he wasn’t playing and he got hurt and he just pretty much kept me under his wing. We’ll travel to practice every day. He was there pretty much the whole time.
Krause: Final question, what’s the attitude you sense from this team? What’s the vibe?
Lloyd: It’s a great attitude. We have a lot of good pieces on this team. I’m excited to see how it all plays out. I think we can do something special, but we just have to put everything together.