4. WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling puts on a strong, and almost flawless, show.
After dragging a deep ball in the first practice of camp last Saturday, Valdes-Scantling would rather have been quiet. Then on Thursday, Rodgers passed several passes in 11 on 11 on various routes – in and out, plus a shallow cross – and stood out in the receiver competition.
It was almost an impressive practice as anyone could ask until the late drill of two minutes, when he started foul, after Rodgers nailed the ball to stop the clock, making him second and 15th in the series that it station stopped.
However, more practices like that and Valdes-Scantling will put himself in a good position. Despite a decline in production and playing time in the second half of 2019, Valdes-Scantling said he never lost confidence and he expects to perform as he had been his first 1 yn seasons in the league.
5. Lane Taylor, and his arm, feel normal again.
Taylor, Wagner and Billy Turner are vying for two starting spots on the right side of the offensive line, and Taylor has so far made a seamless transition to the right after starting three full seasons on the left guard. He played right guard throughout his entire college career at Oklahoma State, so he said this was made for an easy switch.
Coming back from the torn biceps that ended his season last September, however, was much harder. He had to “build it out of nothing”, but now he feels back to full strength.
“I was just weak … my bicep was completely flat,” he said. “I could literally feel a small ball on my bicep getting a little bigger and a little bigger and a little bigger until I finally had a full bicep, like a normal-looking one.”
A homegrown player who entered the league draft in 2013 and has 52 career starts, including playoffs, under his belt, Taylor said the time he missed last season was a mixed bag. On the one hand, he enjoyed going on field trips to school with his young daughter, which he would normally miss. On the other hand, he missed out on being with his teammates because they won a division title and made a playoff run.
“My motivation was just really to get back on track, to prove I was not dying or anything,” he said. “I have many more miles, many more years to play. I just wanted to get back to kind of my old self and work my tail off, be strong and get back to the level of play I want to be.”
