GREEN BAY \u2014 If it felt like there was a lot of hullabaloo during the first week and a half of training camp about the Green Bay Packers being particularly physical in practice, that\u2019s because there was.<\/p>\n
New cornerback Nate Hobbs, after a warning from head coach Matt LaFleur following a few overly-aggressive hits in the helmet-and-shorts portion of camp, came in low and hit running back MarShawn Lloyd in the legs during the first in-pads practice. While there was some debate as to whether the hit caused the groin injury that has sidelined Lloyd ever since, it was still a violation of LaFleur\u2019s \u201crules of engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n
A day later, left tackle Rasheed Walker was told by LaFleur to \u201ctake a lap\u201d after getting into a scuffle with defensive end Kinglsey Enagbare. While it delivered a moment of team bonding when a group of offensive players ran with him during his punishment, it still crossed the line.<\/p>\n
Those incidents got a lot of attention, and while LaFleur admonished his players to make sure they were tiptoeing the line between being physical and looking out for one another, the powers that be weren\u2019t especially upset about players\u2019 actions.<\/p>\n
And general manager Brian Gutekunst was \u2026 well, if not happy about it, unapologetic.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, you\u2019re trying to balance a lot of things as you\u2019re going through camp,\u201d Gutekunst explained last week. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to become a certain kind of football team that can win and win deep into the playoffs. There\u2019s a certain kind of physicality you have to have.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Nate Hobbs brings all that. That\u2019s why we brought him here. It\u2019s very important that all our guys have that kind of edge to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want them all to be good teammates and keep each other healthy, but the same time, I\u2019d rather be pulling the reins and making sure we got enough guys in that room that have that kind of edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he felt his previous teams had been insufficiently physical, Gutekunst replied, \u201cQuite frankly, the last couple years I\u2019ve felt really good about our physicality and our toughness and our ability to play that kind of game. But I think there probably were times in the past where I was kind of thinking [that] we maybe needed to be more of a physical of a football team. But not over the last couple years.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Gutekunst downplayed any role the team\u2019s first-round playoff exit against the eventual Super Bowl LIX-champion Philadelphia Eagles, it\u2019s hard to deny that the Packers were outphysicaled \u2014 if that\u2019s even a word \u2014 by the Eagles in both their matchups and by the NFC North-champion Detroit Lions in their two losses to their division rivals.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you get to those playoffs, you get to that position, however you are, where you’re at is going to get exposed,\u201d said offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich, whose offensive line was manhandled by the Eagles\u2019 front four after Pro Bowl left guard Elgton Jenkins left the game after sustaining a stinger on the Packers\u2019 fourth offensive snap.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s one thing we talked about, and one thing we’re going to focus on is making sure we’re the most physical football team on the field when we go out there and play. That’s going to be a big thing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s certainly been a big emphasis through nine practices, and LaFleur said Tuesday and Wednesday\u2019s practices this week leading into Saturday\u2019s preseason opener against the New York Jets would be more of the same, saying they\u2019d be \u201ctwo pretty heavy practices\u201d before a lighter workload on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to talk out of both sides of my mouth \u2014 because I want these guys playing with an edge,\u201d LaFleur said. \u201cBut you want the edge between the whistles, and then all the extracurricular stuff, you can save that for another time. I don\u2019t have any time for it. We don\u2019t have any time for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, Hobbs admitted it\u2019s hard for him to turn that instinct off, since it\u2019s been inside him since he was a kid.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe play a tough game. You can go back to all my highlights, even high school. My senior year of high school, when you saw me tackling \u2026 I was trying to stick people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember I was in seventh grade and I was super small, and I was throwing my body around. And people were like, \u2018If he gets some weight and height, he\u2019s going to be a problem.\u2019 And that\u2019s what happened. That\u2019s how I play. I put my heart out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special-teams coordinator and assistant head coach Rich Bisaccia, who spent 12 games as the Las Vegas Raiders\u2019 interim head coach during Hobbs\u2019 rookie season, said LaFleur set the tone for being more physical during offseason film study from last year.<\/p>\n
He, Bisaccia and the rest of the coaches re-watched every game of last season following the loss to the Eagles, and the opinion was unanimous: The team needed to be more physical.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe [went] through, \u2018What are our plusses?\u2019 \u2018What are our minuses?\u2019 And, \u2018How we can improve?\u201d Bisaccia said of those meetings. \u201cAnd what Coach has done, what he’s instituted, is how we’re going to practice and the physicality in which we’re going to practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, we’re going to do that within the realm of the rules and in the realm of taking care of each other. But we are in training camp, so I think we would rather have to pull back [rather] than have to push.\u201d<\/p>\n
And with the Sept. 7 regular-season opener against the Lions at Lambeau Field only 33 days away, the players have gotten the message \u2014 and have seen the difference so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe physicality, I mean, you love that,\u201d said quarterback Jordan Love, who \u2014 to be fair \u2014 wears a red non-contact jersey and is not to be touched in practice. \u201cYou love guys coming out here, wanting to compete, a defense that\u2019s physical. That\u2019s the stuff that wins you championships. So you love the mindset from the guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think those are the things that are going to really make us better and give us that edge this season going against other teams to have that mindset of, \u2018We\u2019re not going to let anybody come in here and do what they want with us.\u2019 We\u2019ve got to have that mindset where we\u2019re going to be the tone-setters and it starts with the defense for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added safety Xavier McKinney: \u201cWe are trying to, as a defense, just elevate everything at every level, whether that\u2019s turnovers, whether that\u2019s physicality, everything. It\u2019s definitely been showing in practice. We\u2019ve been a lot more physical in these practices that we\u2019ve had, and when the games come, hopefully those things can come alive at game time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200bCOPYRIGHT 2025 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GREEN BAY \u2014 If it felt like there was a lot of hullabaloo during the first week and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[15905,2945,113,15906,7,41,345,2514,2513,1724,51588,5393,3031,5392,6,428,109,3993,15667,505,5582],"class_list":{"0":"post-262459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-adam-stenavich","9":"tag-brian-gutekunst","10":"tag-detroit-lions","11":"tag-elgton-jenkins","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-green-bay","14":"tag-green-bay-packers","15":"tag-greenbay","16":"tag-greenbaypackers","17":"tag-jordan-love","18":"tag-kinglsey-enagbare","19":"tag-marshawn-lloyd","20":"tag-matt-lafleur","21":"tag-nate-hobbs","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-packers","24":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","25":"tag-rasheed-walker","26":"tag-rich-bisaccia","27":"tag-super-bowl","28":"tag-xavier-mckinney"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114973523695041169","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}