Packer Central

Packers Injury Report: Here’s Why Practice Is Critical for Jordan Love

The Green Bay Packers held a scrimmage on Thursday before a three-day weekend. Here are the latest injury updates.
Bill Huber|
Jordan Love catches a toss from a coach before throwing the ball at practice on Thursday.
Jordan Love catches a toss from a coach before throwing the ball at practice on Thursday. | Bill Huber/Packers On SI

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY – As he recovers from surgery on his left thumb, the Green Bay Packers have incorporated Jordan Love into practice as much as possible. While he’s still not 100 percent healthy, the reps he’s taking during the three practices this week will be critical as the team moves into game mode next week.

“It’s definitely been beneficial just to get back in the flow of practicing, competing, making sure that his fundamentals are crisp,” coach Matt LaFleur said before Thursday’s practice, “because, when they are, I think he’s as good as anybody.”

That’s a critical statement. “As good as anybody.” That will be the requirement from the third-year starter if the Packers are going to climb back to the top of the powerful NFC North and challenge for NFC supremacy.

Last year, it wasn’t just that Love’s knee and groin injuries limited his mobility on gameday. It’s that they limited his reps during the week. Love is experienced, but not so experienced that he doesn’t need practice reps to stay dialed in for games.

So, LaFleur resorted to seven-on-seven drills last week to keep Love as sharp and as safe as possible as the thumb healed. This week, he’s back to taking under-center snaps. Love’s right hand is the upper hand and takes the force of the snap from center Elgton Jenkins.

That’s gone well. “He had no complaints,” LaFleur said. Where he’s still had to adapt is handoffs. To keep the left hand safe, he’s taken it completely out of the process.

“I think everything matters, but sometimes you’ve got to make do with what you can do, and right now we’re just in that situation,” LaFleur said. “Certainly, as we get closer to the game, we’ll …”

LaFleur switched gears, finishing the sentence with, “If it’s still an issue, we’ll have to adjust.”

On beautiful late-summer days in Green Bay, Love had no issue handing off the ball incorrectly on Wednesday and Thursday. Is there any drawback to doing it incorrectly?

“I think there is in terms of marrying some of your (play-)actions,” he said, “and then just running the risk, more than anything else, we want to make sure we secure the football and you don’t want to run the risk of putting it on the ground.”

Same as on Wednesday, four players didn’t practice: cornerback Nate Hobbs (knee), safety Zayne Anderson (knee), receiver Savion Williams (hamstring) and defensive end Barryn Sorrell (knee).

Four players who came back from injuries this week – receivers Jayden Reed (foot) and Dontayvion Wicks (calf), guard Aaron Banks (back) and Jenkins (back) – practiced again.

Reed said he “didn’t do the whole practice” on Wednesday after sitting out the entire preseason while wearing a walking boot at practice.

“Obviously, it sucked, but this is what comes with football, man, injuries,” he said. “You’ve just got to find ways sometimes to manage it, get through it or do what you’ve got to do depending on what it is. So, yeah, I’m just working my way through it.”

The Packers were set to have a scrimmage on Thursday. From there, it’s the league-mandated three-day break before they return to dive full-scale into Week 1 against the Detroit Lions.

“Ten-minute quarters and we’re just going to play ball,” LaFleur described of the format. “Obviously, if we’re not getting a certain situation, if it doesn’t organically come up within the course of practice, we’ll definitely create some situations.”

Packers Thursday Injury Report

New injuries: None.

Old injuries: CB Nate Hobbs (knee), S Zayne Anderson (knee), WR Savion Williams (hamstring), DE Barryn Sorrell (knee).

Returning from injuries: None.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.