Pick-six rundown of the Green Bay Packers’ 10th training camp practice

The Green Bay Packers’ joint practices against the Houston Texans might not be as important as Thursday’s game, but they’re pretty close.

“It’s hard to say more important,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said after Monday’s practice. “I think they’re equally important. Every time you go on the field, you have an opportunity to get better. We tell the guys each and every day you’re either going to get better or you’re going to get worse. We need that arrow constantly moving forward and going up for us to be the team that we want to become.”

From an offensive perspective, the big benefit is the quarterbacks get to wear the red jersey on the practice field. When the teams meet in Thursday’s preseason opener, the quarterbacks will be fair game for defenders. That’s not the only benefit, though. On Monday, for instance, the Packers’ defense faced 16 snaps in a third-down period, plus some other third-down situations in a move-the-ball drill. Chances are, there won’t be 20 third-down plays on Thursday. On Tuesday, red zone will be the focus.

“I think anytime you’re in a preseason game, those are very, very important,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said before Monday’s practice. “Really, the valuable thing from our team’s perspective is I think we get more valuable reps against another team in a controlled environment. Obviously, there’s scripts, so you’re working on certain specific things. In a preseason game, you don’t know what’s being called, you don’t know the situations you might be in.”

Offense: With two days of work against the Texans, quarterback Aaron Rodgers probably won’t play on Thursday night against the Texans. “We haven’t made 100 percent commitment to that but, yeah, if we get enough good look I’d just as soon sit him and get him ready for Week 2,” LaFleur said.

As for practice, LaFleur said: “I thought our 1’s operated at a pretty good level. There’s certainly a lot of room for improvement, not only for them but everybody. I thought our second and third units definitely need to pick it up.”

Defense: Green Bay’s defense, which has been impressive against Rodgers and Co., did more of the same against the Texans. During a third-down period, sacks were recorded by Za’Darius Smith, Kyler Fackrell and Raven Greene. Rookie defensive tackle Kingsley Keke might have had another, though the play was allowed to continue as Keke ran past the quarterback.

Special teams: In the first head-to-head kicking competition of training camp, Sam Ficken beat incumbent Mason Crosby. Ficken hit from 33, 39, 45, 48 and 51 yards. Crosby, however, missed wide right from 48 in his first live kicking session after missing the start of camp with a calf injury.

Other periods were devoted to kickoff and kickoff returns. Things did not go well in either of those phases.

“That was the first time” going live,” LaFleur said. “There was some good collisions out there. We’ll take a look at the tape. There’s definitely some areas with our coverage units that it looked like there was some big holes that we have to make sure we get corrected.”

Injury report: Center Corey Linsley, who hasn’t missed a snap the past two seasons, was added to the injury report (bicep). A total of 10 players missed practice: CB Kevin King (hamstring), RB Jamaal Williams (hamstring), RB Aaron Jones (hamstring), CB Josh Jackson (foot), ILB Curtis Bolton (groin), OLB Kendall Donnerson (hamstring), OLB Greg Roberts (core muscle), C Corey Linsley (bicep), OT Jason Spriggs (trapezius) and DL Fadol Brown (calf).

“I don’t recall anything actually happening,” Linsley said. “It was just like, after Family Night, a little sore, took the next day off, and then came in and practiced, was all right, still feeling the same thing but not a big deal, and then was lifting and stuff and it just wasn’t going away. So, I had it checked out, an MRI, so now we just confirmed what it was and we’re just being smart with it.”

Right tackle Bryan Bulaga (rest) was back with the starters.

Schedule: The Packers will battle the Texans again at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday. The team will not practice on Wednesday before facing Houston in the preseason opener at 7 p.m. Thursday. After a day off on Friday, Green Bay will go back to its usual Packers-vs.-Packers practices at 10:15 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.