Packers have to find coherent plan for rotating players competing for crucial jobs

Matt LaFleur prizes competition, but Green Bay is trying to do too much right now and the Packers have to be more judicious with the way they rotate players.

In the eyes of the Packers, Tucker Kraft is just better. After saying they wanted to get Luke Musgrave more involved, the Green Bay Packers did (31 snaps to Kraft’s 56), but it came in two tight-end sets rather than stand-alone Musgrave plays. Matt LaFleur and Adam Stenavich are telling us what they think of these players right now.

Some coaches pay lip service to competition while giving veteran players undeserved legs up in positional battles, but Matt LaFleur isn’t afraid to rotate guys to get the best players on the field. He had a platoon in the playoffs last year at right guard! But that doesn’t mean the rotations always make sense and right now, especially on defense, the Green Bay Packers have to find a better balance of finding out what they have with making sure the best players are getting a fair shot to play as much as possible.

In fact, in the past, LaFleur has been deferential to veterans even when it was obvious their time had come to be put out to football pasture. They were late to give Elgton Jenkins the job over Lane Taylor when it was obvious Jenkins was better. The same happened with Eric Stokes and Kevin King when they insisted on trotting King out early in Stokes’ rookie season. And it has grown even more insane that Jake Hanson and Royce Newman started over Zach Tom who had been superb in training camp and the preseason.

TLDR: the Packers are among the best teams in the NFL at drafting and developing players, but they don’t always walk this balance perfectly. No team does.

Jordan Morgan’s injury in training camp robbed him of the chance to truly compete with Sean Rhyan for the starting right guard spot and now he’s hurt again. Perhaps when the rookie first-round pick returns to full strength, he’ll resume some rotation, but Rhyan has played more than well enough through the first two weeks to keep his job, at least for now.

It’s difficult to point to a specific moment when Eric Stokes started losing ground to Carrington Valentine. The Pro Football Focus grades would tell you Stokes out-played Valentine against the Indianapolis Colts, but the second-year cornerback out-snapped Stokes 32 to 24 on Sunday. His biggest tensile test came on a deep shot to Michael Pittman Jr., where Valentine, in off-coverage, ran step-for-step and was in better position to make a play on the ball near the end zone than his man.

In this case, the Packers have a young player in Valentine playing to the level of a former first-round pick in Stokes who may not have a job in Green Bay after this season. It’s the type of situation fans wish teams would embrace more often and the front office must be pleased watching a decision being made for them about the long-term future of the position.