The preseason is not far away, even though it feels like forever.
There are a lot of questions to be answered, but chief among them may be who will get the snaps at QB.
If the Packers are serious about trading Brett Hundley, they will need to get him a lot of playing time to showcase his skills. He really only has one preseason of work on film and then was injured most of his sophomore preseason. If the Packers are going to get anything for him, they will need to get him on film against number one defenses. However, they need to balance that with keeping him healthy and making sure they don’t risk injury. If he gets hurt this preseason, he could very well get an injury-prone label and scare off any teams looking to acquire him (or at least drive the cost down considerably).
Joe Callahan would be the first option as a backup if Hundley were in fact traded. That means that he will also need a good deal of snaps to develop. Coming from a small school, he needs more work against pro defenses to develop and grow in the (horrifying) event that we would need him to play at any point this year.
Then there’s Taysom Hill, the athletic UDFA from BYU. He impressed Mike McCarthy in rookie orientation. Coach said “he belongs,” which is about as high of praise as an UDFA can get from MM on day 1. If Hill is going to amount to anything, the early preseason reps at live game speeds are going to be a necessity. QBs can get comfortable with the offensive system and build rapport with their receivers in practice, but until they are in front of a crowd with blindside rushers bearing down on them, it’s impossible to tell what they will amount to.
That’s three young, athletic guys to share the ball, but there’s a less young athletic guy on the roster that could use some reps, too.
Aaron Rodgers‘s dislike of preseason games is well documented. I know he feels he’s a veteran and doesn’t need that any more, but if you watch the film from September of 2016 and compare it to December of 2016, you get the distinct impression that the more reps he (and the offensive starters as a whole) takes, the better form he gets into. You certainly don’t want to grind his shoulder out in August or blow out his knee in a meaningless game, but it seems like he could use more reps than he got last year.
There’s four quarters in each game and each quarter usually only has a couple possessions. The Packers have four QBs that all need reps for different reasons.
It will be interesting, and potentially telling, to see how Coach splits up the reps on their first preseason game on August 10th.
Can’t wait.