Rookies, Birthday Boy Win Play, Player of Day Honors at Packers Training Camp

GREEN BAY, Wis. – There’s only one way for an unheralded young player to rise up the depth chart and earn a spot on the 53-man roster.

On Monday at Green Bay Packers training camp, first-year receiver Will Sheppard and rookie linebacker TJ Quinn did just that to earn our daily Player of the Day and Play of the Day honors.

Play of the Day I: Tyrod Taylor to Will Sheppard

Happy 37th birthday to quarterback Tyrod Taylor, who certainly knows how to celebrate.

And Will Sheppard knows how to rise to the challenging occasion.

During an end-of-practice 2-minute drill, the No. 2 offense got the ball at the 30 with 50 seconds on the clock and no timeouts. On first down, Taylor went over the middle to Sheppard, who was hammered by safety Mark Perry and checked out of the game after getting the wind knocked out of him.

After a second-down incompletion and a false start, it was third-and-15. Sheppard re-entered the lineup.

“We had a field post,” Sheppard said. “Tyrod basically out the huddle just said, ‘Ay, make sure you run.’ And that’s exactly what I did.”

Relayed what Sheppard had said, Taylor explained.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Tyrod Taylor (6) passes the ball during practice on Sunday at training camp. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

“That’s always a good reminder. Sometimes in a 2-minute drill, last period, sometimes the fatigue can get a hold of your mindset, so it’s a reminder that, ‘Hey, this post is live if we get the right look.’ Sure enough, the corner tried to, not necessarily cheat it but tried to mirror to that side, but the angle that he took, from my perspective, I thought he had a chance to outrun the safety.

“So, I gave him a chance and he went and made a play. He did a great job of tracking it.”

Sheppard beat Perry for a gain of 60 to set up the winning field goal.

Sheppard left practice briefly earlier, too. “It’s a day full of hits,” he said, but showed his physical and mental toughness to make the type of big-time play that could leave a lasting impression.

Packers WR Will Sheppard. pic.twitter.com/cwXddtlB1u
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) August 3, 2026

“It’s what we paid to do,” Sheppard said. “Come out here, get hit, get knocked down, just get back up, next-play mentality. So, that’s kind of how I go about my day every day.”

Taylor, meanwhile, has been there and done that as he enters his 16th NFL season. He’s started 62 games and thrown almost 1,900 passes in regular-season play.

At this stage of his career, does he still get jacked by throwing a dime in early August?

“For sure,” he said as birthday balloons flashed on the digital nameplate above his locker. “That’s just the competition, the competitive fire. Yeah, definitely still get excited about those plays, whether it’s in a game, training camp. It’s all about sharpening your tools and getting better each day.”

What happened at Packers training camp?

A lot, obviously, with the pads on.

Here is everything you need to know about Practice 5⃣, including Trey Smack's day, a position getting hit by injuries, Play and Player of the Day, big plays and a lot more. ⬇️ https://t.co/MmBqzi3JVv
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) August 3, 2026

Play of the Day II: TJ Quinn’s Interception

After the Taylor-led drive produced the required field goal, rookie quarterback Kyron Drones led the young-players 2-minute drive. It was the same scenario but a different result. On third-and-3, Drones threw over the middle but linebacker TJ Quinn made a tumbling interception.

“I had a little double-catch but I ended up coming down with it,” Quinn said.

Quinn is an undrafted rookie from Louisville. He led the team in tackles each of his final three seasons and had two interceptions in a game against Pittsburgh last season.

As for this one, “It boosts your confidence even more. It tells me that I can compete out here, I can make plays, and I feel like that’s what it showed. … It makes you want to go out there and make more plays. That’s all that does for me.”

Quinn, whose father, Terry, was a running back and defensive back at Louisville in the early 1990s, played safety in high school but made the move to linebacker in college.

“My coach came up to me and felt like, for my career, it would be better if I moved down close to the box, and he just felt like with my skill-set that I could make more plays there,” he said.

Green Bay Packers linebacker TJ Quinn (40) runs through a drill during practice on Sunday at training camp. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

“I just wanted to do anything I could to get on the field. When you’re young like that, you’re trusting your coaches and going out and doing what they tell you to do.”

He had a predraft visit to Green Bay, which helped lure him to the team. The Packers have a strong and veteran linebacker corps with Zaire Franklin and Edgerrin Cooper starting and Isaiah McDuffie, Ty’Ron Hopper, Nick Niemann and Kristian Welch also on the depth chart.

“I feel like it was a good situation along with good coaches, and I felt like I wanted to go to a place where I knew I would have a chance to compete and have an opportunity to be able to make the team,” he said. “The history that Green Bay has had, I felt like a lot of other teams don’t have that.”

Part of that history is Green Bay’s streak of 21 consecutive years in which at least one undrafted rookie made the Week 1 roster.

“That just shows you that they’re going to give you a chance,” he said. “You’ve just got to go out there and make the plays and do everything right.”

Player of the Day: Dani Dennis-Sutton

The race to replace Micah Parsons in the starting lineup for the start of the regular season hasn’t been a race at all. Barryn Sorrell took the first-team reps at the start of OTAs and he’s taken the first-team reps throughout training camp.

Watch out for fourth-round pick Dani Dennis-Sutton, who was the most productive defensive lineman on the field on Monday.

Early in practice, he had a tackle for loss against MarShawn Lloyd. Later, he met running back Jaden Nixon in the backfield and tossed him aside like yesterday’s news. A moment later, he struck again with another TFL, this time against Damien Martinez.

Finally, in the aforementioned 2-minute drill directed by Taylor, he forced a second-down incompletion because of a strong pass rush.

He called his day “all right.”

“In our room, that’s pretty much what’s expected, honestly,” he said. “For me, it was an exciting day to finally put the pads back on and be out there running around and really hitting.”

Franklin didn’t take a break between the end of OTAs in June and the start of training camp last week. He worked out five days a week to get ready for the competition.

“That’s just how I’m wired,” he said. “I’ve always been that way since I was a young’un. For me, I’ve always known work, work, work. I might not be the strongest or the fastest or the best player, but for me, it’s always about being the hardest worker in the room and that’s what I take pride in.”

After working relentlessly to get ready for “such an exciting day” with the first padded practice of training camp, Dennis-Sutton had to find a balancing act between playing hard and playing too hard.

“I’m still trying to get used to it,” Dennis-Sutton said. “I’m used to going all the way but I’ve got to get used to NFL rules as far as keeping guys up and not going all the way. But, yeah, it was fun to finally get back in some pads. Me and Z – Zaire (Franklin) – talked about it at pre-practice, it just felt good to be back in football.”

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