Cheese Curds, 6/16: Summer break starts now for Packers and the entire NFL

Now is the summer of our discontent.

With the Green Bay Packers wrapping up minicamp on Thursday — and doing so, as usual, with a team-building outing instead of a practice — the team has now excused its players from the team facilities for the summer. Five weeks and a few days from now, they will reconvene for the start of training camp, with players’ report date set for July 25. Until then, it’s going to be (or, at least, hopefully will be) all quiet on that front.

The team’s spring practices made for the second straight season that Jordan Love got all of the reps with the starters in OTAs, and the first time that it carried through to minicamp. Now that he’s set to be the team’s starting quarterback, monitoring his workload in training camp will be intriguing; he’ll surely play more than Aaron Rodgers did in the preseason, but the coaching staff may still elect to keep his exposure limited to avoid injury.

When he does suit up for week one, he should have one of the best left tackles in Packers history and in the modern NFL protecting his blind side. David Bakhtiari appears to be ready to roll for a full season in 2023 after losing almost all of 2021 and portions of 2022 to injury. But with a new practice plan to help keep his knee healthy and fresh, he and the team are looking forward to another tremendous season from the veteran.

As we head into the summer, we at APC encourage you to do what the Packers are doing: enjoying some downtime before the grind begins.

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