Cheese Curds, 8/7: Young players put in quality work during Family Night

The Green Bay Packers hosted their annual Family Night practice on Saturday, and amid the fun atmosphere, a practice still took place. During that practice, the team got some encouraging performances from several young players, which is a good sign as the Packers plan to rely heavily on their youth moving forward.

Among the highlights were rookies from up and down this year’s draft class. As our Justis Mosqueda noted on Sunday, top picks Lukas Van Ness and Luke Musgrave led their respective position groups in snaps with the starters, a fact that bodes well for their chances to make a big impact as rookies. However, when digging deeper into the draft class, there were a few other players who had impressive nights as well on Saturday.

Start with kicker Anders Carlson, who had been struggling through the first week and a half of camp. Under the lights at Lambeau, Carlson missed just one field goal, and that was due to a bad connection from his snapper and holder. Take day-three defensive linemen Colby Wooden and Karl Brooks, who each applied significant pressure as part of the second-team defense. And add in some nice plays from slot receiver Jayden Reed and third-round tight end Tucker Kraft, and you’ve got a lot of encouraging signs from a whole bunch of this year’s draft picks.

There’s a long way to go before these players are making big plays in regular season games — after all, the opening game against the Bears is still more than a month away. But with the Cincinnati Bengals coming in for joint practices this week and the preseason opener coming up on Friday night, these players’ next chances to impress will be right around the corner.

5 takeaways from Packers Family Night practice | Packers.com
The Packers got some nice performances from rookies on Saturday night, including an excellent practice from kicker Anders Carlson and some solid pressure from defensive linemen Colby Wooden and Karl Brooks.

Five Overreactions From Green Bay Packers Family Night - Sports Illustrated
Want an overreaction? How about "the third-round jinx is over?" Tucker Kraft had a solid day as well, but he'll need to keep up his quality blocking to truly break that streak.

Packers’ Anders Carlson, Tariq Carpenter shine at Family Night practice inside Lambeau Field - The Athletic ($)
Back to Carlson, the rookie made 8 of 9 field goal attempts on Saturday night, and his one miss was because of a botched exchange on the snap.

Packers post-Family Night practice 53-man roster prediction | Packers Wire
Most of these predictions sync up with APC's pre-camp predictions, with a few exceptions -- namely, Rashan Gary and Eric Stokes starting the season on the 53 instead of on the PUP list.

Packers release Danny Etling to cut backup quarterback race to two | Packersnews.com
With Etling now gone, the Packers' backup competition is down to Sean Clifford vs. Alex McGough.

Post Malone bought MTG's 'One Ring' card : NPR
Stars - they're nerds, just like us! Except that they also have a giant budget to make purchases like this.