Organized Team Activities (OTAs) are in full swing for the Green Bay Packers. This portion of the offseason is voluntary–so players do not have to attend. However, for the Packers, their attendance has been near perfect.
Tuesday was the first OTA practice that was open to the media, and the only player who wasn’t in attendance was cornerback Robert Rochell, who was tending to a personal matter, as Matt LaFleur called it. Otherwise, 90 of the Packers’ 91-man roster was either on the practice field or rehabbing an injury.
“Our attendance here,” said LaFleur after Tuesday’s practice, “I know we had one guy missing today for a personal matter, but we‘ve had almost 100% the entire offseason, which has been the best that we’ve had since I’ve been here.
“We’re still a very young football team as well, so these guys, they want to put in the work. We’ve got a lot of guys that love the game and love the process of grinding together and going through some tough things together. But to have him here, you can’t put a value on that.”
Following the Packers playoff loss to San Francisco, Preston Smith coined the phrase ‘championship offseason,’ meaning that each player is very intentional about how they attack these months leading up to the NFL season, with the ultimate goal of getting to and winning a Super Bowl.
As offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said recently, there is a night and day difference this offseason compared to last, with the experience Jordan Love now has as the starting quarterback and the coaching staff now knowing how to best utilize the receivers and tight ends they have on the roster. Rather than implementing during the offseason, the offense is building upon what they established last season.
On defense, having almost the entire group together for these six weeks before mandatory minicamp begins hopefully helps shorten the learning curve that comes with learning a new system, allowing this unit to hit the ground running more quickly.
“It’s great,” said LaFleur. “It’s a great situation for us to be in, especially when you’re implementing a new system. Certainly there’s a lot of room for improvement on teams, as well, as well as on our offense. You always have new players. It’s important for them to be here and witness how the vets go about their business, how they prepare for practice, how they go out there and practice.
“One thing that we always talk about is what are our standards? So, to push those each and every day to try to get better, and, again, the vibe around here has been unbelievable. These guys enjoy being around each other and they enjoy the game of football. They’re just out there competing and getting better and better and better.”
Helping to set that standard that LaFleur mentioned is Love being in attendance despite ongoing contract negotiations between the Packers and his agent. As already mentioned, this portion of the offseason is voluntary, and we’ve seen across the NFL over the years players in a contract year missing out on OTAs.
For Love, that wasn’t an option, and when the leader of the team is constantly in the building, others take notice and will often follow.
“Yeah I mean I think that’s always a part of it,” said Love about attending OTAs, “just showing up and the other guys will follow, too, but I mean it’s a testament to everybody wanting to be here, wanting to get that work in obviously, new defense going in so those guys are eager to get out here, get those reps in and learn what they’re doing, but yeah, it’s a testament to everybody to show up here.”
Being a potential Super Bowl contender isn’t a journey that begins during Week 1 of the regular season. It starts the moment that the previous season ends, and the Packers are taking full advantage of every opportunity they have to be in the building and on the practice field together as they build towards what hopefully turns into a successful 2024 season.
