The 53-man roster has been months in the making

GM Brian Gutekunst will face challenges - obvious and not-so-obvious - in setting his roster by 3 p.m. Saturday.

The Green Bay Packers’ offseason program started in April, followed shortly thereafter by the draft. OTAs were conducted in May and the minicamp took place in June. Training camp started on July 25 and the last of 20 practices occurred on Tuesday. The preseason will end at Lambeau Field on Thursday night against Kansas City.

That entire series of events will be taken into consideration when general manager Brian Gutekunst, coach Matt LaFleur and their staffs sit down on Friday to formulate the 53-man roster by 3 p.m. Saturday.

“They’re ongoing,” Gutekunst said of those conversations before Tuesday’s practice. “Me and Matt talk every day about the roster. Our personnel side and our coaching staff, we’re working through this the whole time. Me and Matt over the past couple weeks have sat down, talked about it pretty significantly every day when things change. So, we’ll get together sometime Friday morning and start that process. But it’s been ongoing the whole time.”

There will be some obvious challenges as Gutekunst plays the numbers game. Will DeShone Kizer or Tim Boyle be the second quarterback, and is there room on the roster for both? Is there space on the roster for seven receivers? Eight or nine offensive linemen? How about 10 defensive backs?

There are some less obvious challenges. First and foremost, it’s the injured players who are in week-to-week mode rather than day-to-day. Can Gutekunst save a spot for, say, inside linebacker Oren Burks, even if Burks isn’t ready to play for a few weeks? Another option for Burks and receiver Equanimeous St. Brown is short-term injured reserve. However, to be eligible to be recalled off IR so he can start practicing after Week 6 and start playing after Week 8, the player must be on the initial 53-man roster. Keeping those injured players, even for a day, means releasing a couple players that would be exposed to waivers.

Another challenge is opening the season on Thursday night. Instead of the usual schedule of practicing on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and playing on Sunday, the Packers will practice on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and play on Thursday. However, Gutekunst can’t begin signing his 10-man practice squad until 11 a.m. Sunday. That could force LaFleur to push back the start time of Sunday’s practice or go a bit short-handed.

Meanwhile, there are some potential holes on the roster that could be fortified through a waiver claim on Sunday. Injuries to Burks and Curtis Bolton, for instance, have left a paper-thin inside linebacker corps. (See video to hear Gutekunst talking about that process.) However, a player claimed on waivers on Sunday might not be in Green Bay until Monday or Tuesday, meaning a potentially impossible challenge of getting a player ready to roll for Chicago.

“Even if we’re playing on Sunday, it’s pretty hard claiming a guy to get him ready to play a lot in Week 1,” Gutekunst said. “So I think when we make those decisions, it’s probably not about Week 1. It’s a little bit more long-term decisions. Again, I don’t think having a Thursday game’s going to change our evaluations (or) our decisions a whole lot. It just kind of will change a little bit of our structure as we go through the week.”