Ten Winners and Six Losers From Practice 15 of Packers Training Camp

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers held their final Packers vs. Packers practice of training camp on Monday. Training camp will conclude on Wednesday with a joint practice against the Cardinals.

“It’s definitely getting time to hit somebody else,” edge Barryn Sorrell said after a chippy day in which the defense dominated. “We’ve been hitting each other for so long. It’s just how it gets when you’re seeing the same person every single day.”

Here are the winners and losers from the 15th practice of training camp.

Loser: QB Jordan Love

This had nothing to do with Jordan Love’s performance. His only turnover was a fourth-and-10 interception when he had to make a play to extend a 2-minute drill.

Instead, it was the complete chaos surrounding Love, with another day of relentless pressure applied by coordinator Jonathan Gannon’s defense leaving him with few good options more often than not. His final pass of the day was a no-look checkdown that wasn’t close to the target (perhaps intentionally).

Winner: RB Josh Jacobs

The Packers are a better team when Josh Jacobs is on the field, to state the obvious. The running game has been stuck in the mud for most of the summer, but Jacobs, participating in his first full-pads team drills of the summer, got into the open field a couple times, including on a perimeter run to the right.

Maybe it was because he’s got fresh legs after missing some time, but his return was a welcome addition to the offense and brings the reality of a Jacobs-MarShawn Lloyd tandem closer to reality.

“I think at the end of the day you’ll have two guys that the defense have to be concerned with,” running backs coach Ben Sirmans said on Saturday. “It’s like I tell the guys all the time, if the defense, if they’re not concerned with you on the field then they don’t respect. So, you have to go earn their respect.

“Obviously you got Josh, who’s capable not only of getting dirty yards but also breaking off the big one, and then now you have that with a guy like MarShawn who’s capable of the big one, but also getting the grimy yards because he knows how to put himself in position. And then you got two guys that are really good out of the backfield as receivers.”

Loser: RB MarShawn Lloyd

Much like what we said about Jordan Love earlier, this isn’t so much a reflection of Lloyd’s performance as it was Lloyd’s results.

Wherever he went, he couldn’t shake the shadow of Edgerrin Cooper. He might have finished the day with negative rushing yards.

Loser: TE Josh Whyle

Josh Whyle is going to be the No. 2 tight end by default. As such, he’s going to have a key role on the offense, especially with Tucker Kraft set to play limited snaps to start the season.

During the second half of practice, Whyle was running free up the seam and Jordan Love hit him right on the money. Perhaps sensing an oncoming defensive back, Whyle dropped the ball. He’s had at least two of those during camp.

Loser: Offensive Lines

The defense chewed up and spit out the offense from the start of practice to the end of practice. Without having access to the film to speak in specifics, we’ll have to speak in generalities and say it was a bad day for the offensive line.

Or, offensive lines. First unit, second unit, third unit – it didn’t matter. Edge player Lukas Van Ness had a couple of noteworthy pass rushes against the starting tackles that we’ll get to next.

The million-dollar question is the football version of the chicken or the egg. Did Green Bay’s defensive line create so much havoc because it’s filled with good players? Or did Green Bay’s defensive line dominate because the offensive line isn’t good enough or deep enough? The third option is it was just one of those days.

The joint practice against the Cardinals should provide an answer.

Winner: Edge Lukas Van Ness

Lukas Van Ness had the type of day the Packers are going to need from him, especially during Micah Parsons’ season-opening absence.

He had at least two big-time rushes against left tackle Jordan Morgan, including one in which he ducked under Morgan’s waiting arms to get to Jordan Love. During a 2-minute drill, he beat Morgan again to force Love to throw it away and, a few plays later, he tossed right tackle Zack Bako-Bewele onto the ground at the feet of Love.

Winner: Edge Barryn Sorrell

Barryn Sorrell will be the unquestioned starter opposite Lukas Van Ness to start the season. He’s going to be a solid player, there’s no doubt about that, but can he be an impact player?

During one period, it was starters vs. starters for nine snaps. On the first play, he chased down Josh Jacobs from the back side. On the third play, he had a good rush against Bako-Bewele. On the fourth play, it was impossible to see what happened but a handoff to MarShawn Lloyd ended up in Sorrell’s hands. On the ninth play, a third-and-5, he rushed up the middle and got into the face of Love to force an incompletion.

Winner: DT Jonathan Ford

How many players have had their breakout season in Year 5? Not many. Jonathan Ford might be on his way.

Ford isn’t going to just make the team. He’s probably going to be the No. 1 choice at nose tackle. He’s taken the first snaps in both preseason games and at practice for the last couple weeks because he’s been so consistently good. He hasn’t been just a two-gapping nose tackle. He’s been an honest-to-goodness playmaker; he’s tied for the team lead in pressures during the preseason, according to Pro Football Focus.

On one play at Monday’s practice, he beat his blocker and got into the backfield in an instant. MarShawn Lloyd tried to dance his way around the 340-pounder but was unsuccessful. Plays like that have been a regular occurrence.

Winner: LB Edgerrin Cooper

Edgerrin Cooper had a great day. If Cooper finished the day with 10 tackles, which is probably a good guess, they were probably a combined 5 yards in the backfield. He wasn’t just a linebacker producing tackles. He was a linebacker producing game-wrecking tackles.

On back-to-back plays, Cooper trashed a misdirection play by not taking the bait that was a fake handoff to Jayden Reed and wrapped up Lloyd in the backfield. On the next play, Cooper was there in an instant on a checkdown to Lloyd.

He also broke up two passes.

Judging by the totality of training camp, Cooper is on his way to a Pro Bowl-worthy season, and All-Pro isn’t off the table.

Winner: CB Keisean Nixon

Keisean Nixon had by far his best day of the summer and might have clinched the starting job at cornerback. (More on that in a second.)

Nixon intercepted Jordan Love on fourth-and-10 in a 2-minute drill and denied one deep shot to Jayden Reed and two more to Matthew Golden.

Loser: CB Benjamin St-Juste

Benjamin St-Juste had been challenging Nixon for the starting job but missed practice with a hamstring injury. Nixon was the front-runner to start, anyway; the battle might be over now.

Winner: CB Brandon Cisse

After winning 2-of-3 reps against Matthew Golden in one-on-ones, when he showed incredible patience to prevent red-zone completions, Brandon Cisse during the first play of team drills stopped a perimeter run by Josh Jacobs. A few plays later, a perimeter pass to Golden didn’t get anywhere because Cisse beat the blocker to make the stop.

And that was it for Cisse’s day. The ball wasn’t coming his way, a sure sign of excellent coverage by the team’s best cornerback.

Winner: CB Carrington Valentine

Carrington Valentine got off to a strong start at training camp but suffered a hamstring injury in the fourth practice. That injury opened the door for Brandon Cisse to get into the starting lineup.

Valentine is back, and he’s on top of his game. Early in practice, he broke up a deep pass from Tyrod Taylor to Isaiah Neyor. Later, on third-and-3 during a 2-minute drill, he broke up another pass from Taylor. He also screamed in excitement after blowing up a checkdown to Pierre Strong.

Winner: S Kitan Oladapo

Kitan Oladapo, who is battling Kamal Hadden to be the backup in the slot, made a leaping interception on a pass from Kyle McCord at Monday’s practice and did the same to Tyrod Taylor on Sunday.

Of the defensive domination, he said: “They’re going to come out next practice and get after Arizona. I know the offense will respond. But it’s fun when the defense is making plays and we’re building off each other’s energy.”

Winner/Loser: K Trey Smack

During the aforementioned 2-minute drill that included Carrington Valentine’s third-down breakup, Trey Smack came out to kick a 60-yard field goal. It split the uprights and probably had another 4 or 5 yards to spare.

“It’s fun,” to attempt long field goals, he said. “It makes it more fun when you hit the long ball, but I just treat it like a PAT, really. It’s like, I’m going to try to hit the ball as best as I can on a PAT and on a 60-yarder.”

Unfortunately for Smack, moments later, he was wide left from 40 yards, which served as a reminder that the Packers might have to accept some inconsistencies from their rookie kicker.

“You kind of treat every day like a game, so I kind of treat today’s practice like a game and then I’ll treat the game on Friday like it’s a regular game for me,” he said. “I haven’t experienced a regular-season game yet so I’m going to do my best to act like it’s a real game, because it is.”

What happened today at Packers training camp?

A lot.

Here is everything you need to know about Practice 1⃣5⃣, including the winning unit (total domination), injuries, big plays, lineups and much more. ⬇️https://t.co/WQ3JD29bO5
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) August 25, 2026

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