Packers OTA Review: Practice Notes for May 21, 2013

The Green Bay Packers finally took the field as a full team on Monday, and on Tuesday they opened up practice to the public, the media, and indeed the entire world to dissect and discuss. And dissect we shall! Here are your inaugural practice notes for the 2013 NFL Offseason.

• Not participating in practice today were several players who are still recovering from injuries: ILB Desmond Bishop, S Sean Richardson, DE Jerel Worthy, and T Derek Sherrod all sat out. Also present but not practicing were NT Ryan Pickett, OLB Dezman Moses, RB DuJuan Harris, CB Davon House, rookie WRs Charles Johnson and Kevin Dorsey (ZH, JW).
• DE Johnny Jolly was not present at all, and is expected to be back in town for next week's round of OTAs (per Cheesehead TV's John Rehor and Jolly himself, on Twitter). Sam Shields was also not in attendance, and he has still not signed his restricted free agent tender (JW). The only other player apparently not in attendance was rookie J.C. Tretter, who reportedly was injured in Monday's practice according to Mike McCarthy. We have a post up on that now, and it appears that Tretter has broken his ankle and will be out a while.
• With Bishop out, A.J. Hawk and Brad Jones took the first-team snaps at the inside linebacker positions, in the same spots that they played during the 2012 season (Hawk on the left, Jones on the right). Sadly, we don't get any indication about how the team plans to rotate the three players until the next open practice.
• The starting offensive line was what one might expect: last year's line mirrored over the center. That was Bryan Bulaga, Josh Sitton, Evan Dietrich-Smith, T.J. Lang, and Marshall Newhouse from left to right (ZH). However, Don Barclay was rotating with Newhouse regularly (PD).
• Also of little surprise was Alex Green taking the initial first-team reps at running back (ZH). However, both rookies, Eddie Lacy and Johnathan Franklin, each saw some snaps with the starters (MV).
• Several players took turns fielding punts in practice including Randall Cobb, Jordy Nelson, James Nixon, and Tramon Williams (WH). Jeremy Ross was seeing time on the punt coverage unit, but not returning punts (MV).
• With Shields not attending and House not practicing, Casey Hayward got the reps at starting outside cornerback opposite Tramon Williams. M.D. Jennings got the first reps at strong safety as well, though Jerron McMillian took snaps with the ones later on in the day (MV).
• One of the strangest events in practice was defensive end Mike Neal taking some snaps at outside linebacker and dropping into coverage (PD). We don't have much of a clue why that was going on, however, but you can probably bet that Neal won't be playing OLB in the base defense.
• Greg Van Roten took a lot of snaps at center with the backups today, and Don Barclay worked at guard as well after taking some snaps at right tackle (WH).

Head coach Mike McCarthy held a press conference after practice, and we'll have an article up on the news from the coach later this afternoon.