GREEN BAY \u2014 Adam Stenavich may not have a dishonest bone in his body. The Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator definitely doesn\u2019t have much of a filter, so when he speaks \u2014 including Tuesday about the current state of the offensive line \u2014 he\u2019s more than likely telling the truth.<\/p>\n
So unless the man they call \u201cSteno\u201d was engaging in some next-level subterfuge, the Packers really don\u2019t know whether their two most-experienced offensive linemen \u2014 right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele and left guard Aaron Banks \u2014 will play the entirety of Sunday\u2019s regular-season opener at Minnesota, need to rotate with their backups or not play at all.<\/p>\n
One day after head coach Matt LaFleur delivered a \u201cwe\u2019ll see\u201d when asked about Bako-Bewele\u2019s and Banks\u2019 status for Sunday, Stenavich was similarly unsure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, no,\u201d Stenavich replied when asked if he knew what he\u2019d have on the offensive line against the Vikings and ultra-aggressive defensive coordinator Brian Flores\u2019 scheme. \u201cAs far as who’s going to be starting and things like that, it’s still a work in progress unfortunately with the injury situations to Banks and Zach.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, we have plans for everything and we’re going to make the best of it, whoever’s out there. We’re just going to focus on our playstyle, doing a great job communicating and going and playing our brand of football.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we have our plans and we’ll just kind of roll with the punches like we always do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bako-Bewele suffered a season-ending partially torn patellar tendon in his right knee during a Dec. 14 loss at Denver \u2014 the same game in which first-team All-Pro edge rusher tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and was lost for the year.<\/p>\n
Banks, meanwhile, battled knee tendinitis throughout camp after battling a myriad of injuries in his first season with the team in 2025.<\/p>\n
Neither player took a full single-day complement of first-team 11-on-11 snaps all summer long in training camp, so it\u2019s hard to know whether either of them is capable of handling a full regular-season game\u2019s worth of work.<\/p>\n
Asked if he might have to rotate Bako-Bewele with backup Anthony Belton) and\/or Banks with rookie fifth-round pick Jager Burton, LaFleur replied, \u201cI think all things are on the table. Until we consistently seem them out there, you\u2019d be dumb as a coach not to have a contingency plan for that. So that certainly is a potential [option].\u201d<\/p>\n
Bako-Bewele\u2019s status is concerning since he set opening day as his goal from the very beginning of his rehabilitation. The tear in his patellar tendon was not a complete tear but instead only a partial one, which meant the surgery removed the damaged tissue to allow the tendon to heal itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve just got to rebuild the tissue, that’s really the main thing,\u201d he said in June. \u201cAs you recover, it kind of heals back on his own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, his status is up in the air, not to mention whether he\u2019ll look like his pre-injury self.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect to see it on Sunday, but we\u2019re still kind of going through that whole process,\u201d Stenavich said. \u201cI think if he\u2019s out there, he\u2019s going to be playing at a high level. So hopefully we get that.<\/p>\n
Asked if he thinks Bako-Bewele can play a full game, Stenavich replied, \u201cI\u2019m hopeful when he tells us he\u2019s good to that he\u2019s good to go for the entire game, yeah. That\u2019s the plan, anyways.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GREEN BAY \u2014 Adam Stenavich may not have a dishonest bone in his body. The Green Bay Packers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":996328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[7,41,345,2514,2513,6,428],"class_list":["post-996327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-green-bay-packers","tag-football","tag-green-bay","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-greenbay","tag-greenbaypackers","tag-nfl","tag-packers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117242698393069213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996327","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=996327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/996328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}