Indianapolis, IN–For the third straight year, the Packers will have two joint practices during training camp. Their first comes on Thursday, August 14th in Indianapolis with the Colts.
“It’s not going to be like the preseason where you’re getting just vanilla, vanilla looks and vanilla play calls,” Packers quarterback Sean Clifford said.
“The joint practices are where people open it up. You’re going to still use a bunch of your different calls. You’re going to see a lot from their defense. I think it’s much more game like. So taking those joint practices as seriously as possible is always good.”
“Just getting dialed in. Going against your offense, it’s good and all, but going against other teams that do different things, it just prepares you for the season,” Packers linebacker Edgerrin Cooper said.
“It’s probably going to be a little chippy like they all do but we’ll see man. We’ll see how our team is,” Packers running back Josh Jacobs said.
“We’ll see Malik (Willis) , a year into the system, how he reacts and responds to seeing somebody else. So we’ll see how it is. I think it’s a good test for our O-Line, a lot of our new guys to see what they got it going against somebody else.”
“I enjoy joint practices,” Packers tight end Tucker Kraft said.
“Always try to keep it clean, you know there’s always some kind of tussle. But that’s not really what we’re there for. We’re there to get some looks, practice against some looks that are un-scouted, guys that we haven’t played against. It’ll be exciting, I’m looking forward to it.”
All eyes will be on the backup quarterback, currently filling the starter role, in Malik Willis. In Jordan Love’s current absence Willis will have the responsibility of keeping the execution to the highest level. When asked if that added any pressure he simply said, ‘If this team can’t deal with one player being out, they’ve got bigger problems.’ Practice begins around 2 Central on Thursday afternoon.