Bakhtiari Spent Pandemic Training with Matthews

GREEN BAY, Wis. – How does an offensive lineman train during a pandemic when there are no practices and the gym is closed?

Call on a former teammate.

That’s what left tackle David Bakhtiari did with Clay Matthews. For years, they had trained together at Proactive Sports Performance in Westlake Village, Calif. The gym closed because of COVID-19 and the accompanying quarantine rules, but Matthews had built a gym at his new home. Matthews, who remains unsigned after recording eight sacks in 13 games last season for the Rams, opened the doors to his former teammate – with a social-distancing agreement.

“Early on, it was tough to lose a lot of moving parts. I’m a creature of habit. I wasn’t the biggest fan of having to constantly move and change,” Bakhtiari said in a Zoom call with Packers beat reporters on Tuesday. “Thankfully, he had built his new home and it was almost like a little Proactive that we had, so we were able to have our trainers print out a format and we made an agreement, ‘Hey, you’re not going to go out anywhere and do anything; I’m not going to do the same. That way, we’re not exposing ourselves to anything outside.’ We were able to push each other and train during a time when it was true social distancing and isolation. Now as things out here have kind of opened up in certain counties, we’ve kind of been able to go back to a little bit of normalcy.”

Bakhtiari has earned All-Pro accolades each of the past four seasons – a first by an offensive lineman in team history. He says he’s “right on par” with where he’d be typically from a fitness perspective. The virtual offseason, meanwhile, has allowed him to learn some of the finer points of the offense. Now in his eighth NFL season, he called it “refreshing” to not have to toil away at the stadium for offseason workouts.

“I think we have the best structure,” he said. “I’ve been around a couple other guys on a couple other teams and how they’ve operated, and I like ours the best. For me personally, it’s just been nice to stay on my own regimen. A lot of things that aches, that I’ve dealt with – to have that time away from football for so long, I’ve been able to spend that much more time taking care of my physical ailments. A lot of little aches and pains, miniscule stuff, I’ve gotten rid of that stuff, so I’ve been personally very pleased with that.”

Bakhtiari, who will turn 29 on Sept. 30, is entering his final season under contract and will earn a base salary of $10.5 million in 2019. Another strong season should result in one more massive payday.

“There is an expectation and standard of when football does come back – because it will – no one’s going to be hanging onto the excuse, ‘Oh, well there was a pandemic,’” he said. “They’re going to have an expectation. They’re going to expect you to produce, and produce at a high level. So, you need to be prepared by any means necessary.”