MarShawn Lloyd Camp Update — August 31: Expected to Get the First Shot

MarShawn Lloyd is the back the beat expects to get the first shot. Steve Henson at the Los Angeles Times reports Lloyd "is expected to get the first shot at filling Jacobs' shoes" when the Packers open at Minnesota, and that he has been healthy throughout training camp and worked with the first-team offense while Jacobs was slowed by a groin injury. That is a reporter's expectation, not a coach's depth chart, and the first-team work Henson describes came during a Jacobs injury absence rather than as a promotion; no coach or general manager named a Week One starter in the week's reporting.

The week that produced that sentence moved fast. The NFL placed Jacobs on the exempt list Sunday — he cannot practice or play, and his time on it is indefinite, per Kevin Patra at NFL.com. Within hours, Green Bay traded a sixth-round pick in the 20 28 draft to Pittsburgh for running back Kaleb Johnson, per Evan Siegle at packers.com. Damien Martinez, Pierre Strong Jr. and Jaden Nixon were released, per Siegle, leaving three backs on the announced roster: Chris Brooks, Lloyd and Johnson, with Johnson pending a physical, per Wes Hodkiewicz at packers.com. Bill Huber at Packers On SI put the room in one sentence: "They'll be banking on Lloyd to stay healthy and live up to his potential, Brooks to be something he hasn't been and Johnson to be a quick study capable of restarting his career." Gutekunst, speaking Wednesday before the placement, said the team had prepared for the possibility: "I feel really good about the guys we've got in that room, and I think we can survive that," per Henson.

Hold both halves of the week at once. The job Lloyd is now first in line for belonged to a back who carried 234 times for 929 yards and 13 rushing touchdowns last season — our numbers. And the same front office whose vacancy created that expectation spent a draft pick on another back within hours of it; Gray Deyo at SI Fantasy treats Johnson, not Lloyd, as the move's primary beneficiary, with both as late-round dart throws. Lloyd does not appear in Friday's finale coverage — Kyle McCord played the whole game and no starters appear in the beat's account of it, per Mike Spofford at packers.com — and no setback appears anywhere in the window; Henson's healthy-through-camp report answers the third healthy week our last episode asked for, without a game in it to test him.

Availability has been the entire Lloyd question since our June preview — a soft-tissue cascade cost him about 30 straight regular-season games — and our last episode asked where he'd sit behind Jacobs after cutdown. That frame broke: there is no behind-Jacobs anymore. The question is no longer whether Lloyd can earn a role; per the beat's expectation he is first in line for one, and holding it is the thing his file has never yet shown. We'll pick it up as the opener approaches.

_Data via nflverse._