Packers Camp — Aug 23: Smack Is Seven for Seven

Trey Smack keeps making everything. The rookie kicker went four for four in Denver on Friday night — from 59, 51, 43 and 38 yards — plus all three extra points, per Mike Spofford at the team's website, and through two preseason games he is seven for seven with three makes beyond 50 yards, per Rob Reischel at Forbes. A week after he hit two 58-yarders in Pittsburgh, Matt LaFleur was asked about him again: "He's put two pretty darn good performances back to back, and so the talent's there." Smack was 20 of 28 across camp practices; the games keep coming out cleaner than the practices, and a kicking job that looked open in July is running out of counter-arguments.

The night around him was a 33-to-13 Packers win at Denver, and the usual preseason deflation applies in both directions. Jordan Love played one series and made it count: 5 of 7 for 56 yards, finished by an 11-yard touchdown to MarShawn Lloyd on a choice route — the first touchdown of Lloyd's NFL career after two injury-shortened seasons, per Spofford. Love afterward: "The drive we had tonight, ended on a great note. Guys executing on a lot of levels right there." Matthew Golden worked with that first group and converted a fourth-and-one with a 20-yard catch, per Reischel, capping a week in which he took player-of-the-day honors at Tuesday's practice from Bill Huber at Packers On SI — Love on the rookie receiver: "He did a lot of good things... he figured out and went back and watched the film... now he's putting it all together right now." The honest ledger: Josh Jacobs, Tucker Kraft, Luke Musgrave, Jayden Reed, Javon Hargrave, Aaron Banks and Devonte Wyatt all sat, per Reischel, so most of the 33 points came from Tyrod Taylor and Kyle McCord working against Denver's depth — Will Sheppard's fade-route touchdown among six catches for 47 yards, a 27-yard McCord throw to Isaiah Neyor, Mark Perry's interception of Jarrett Stidham, five tackles with two for loss from Kamal Hadden. Anthony Campbell, back after leaving the Pittsburgh game injured, recorded a sack, per Spofford. Roster-battle evidence, labeled as such.

The starting defense's night was worse than the score. Denver's opening drive went 65 yards in six plays, Bo Nix hitting RJ Harvey on a 21-yard touchdown over linebacker Edgerrin Cooper, per Reischel, and LaFleur's own review was blunt: "Pressure was non-existent." That was the first time this rebuilt defense — new coordinator, new scheme, no Micah Parsons — faced another team's starting offense, and per Spofford the first unit did improve on its later possessions. Wendell Ferreira at A to Z Sports read the game as a pattern rather than one drive: Lukas Van Ness and Barryn Sorrell inconsistent off the edge, Collin Oliver ineffective, Brenton Cox the one rusher consistently collapsing pockets — Ferreira's assessment, not the team's. The quiet positive inside the bad drive was Cooper himself, in his first game action since the foot injury that had sidelined him in camp.

The practice week carried its own news. Hargrave — the veteran interior lineman signed to supply pass rush while Parsons is out — took his first 11-on-11 reps of camp on Tuesday, per Huber, and by Wednesday had a sack working against Tyrod Taylor's group. Second-unit evidence, but a real step for a player who had not touched a team drill all summer; he sat Friday's game, so his live-game count is still zero. Jacobs also returned to practice Tuesday from the Family Night groin injury, per Huber. Love called Tuesday "up there with one of the better days" of his camp, though the starters' two-minute drill ended with Zaire Franklin intercepting a deflected pass intended for Christian Watson; Wednesday's third-down period against the starting defense brought a touchdown to Kraft and a catch-and-run to Reed, against one Watson drop, per Huber. Jacob Monk held the number one right guard job through the week and started there Friday, a holding penalty included, per Reischel. And the cornerback picture loosened rather than settled: per Huber, rookie Brandon Cisse looks locked in as one starter while Keisean Nixon, Carrington Valentine and Benjamin St-Juste rotated opposite him, with Wednesday ending on Cisse and St-Juste as the top pair. Valentine then sat Friday with a hamstring.

The rest of the absence ledger, briefly. Parsons remains on the physically-unable-to-perform list with the knee and is still expected to miss roughly the season's first month — no change all week in Huber's daily accounting. New entries: safety Javon Bullard is out with a foot injury, and edge Dani Dennis-Sutton returned in individual drills only after an August 10 overheating episode — his version, per Huber: "I was just super-hot, so just took a couple days off."

Back in July we previewed the Packers as the division's highest-floor offense carrying a defensive experiment — new coordinator, new scheme, no Parsons for the first month, Hargrave as the named insurance — and we've been checking that preview against camp every week since. This week touched every piece of it: the offense looked like itself for the one series it played, the insurance finally reached team drills, and the pass rush without Parsons went missing against the first starting offense it met. The September question that preview posed is still the right question. Before the next episode: watch whether Hargrave and Jacobs play in the preseason finale, and which of the rotating corners are still taking first-unit reps after cutdown to 53 on Sunday, August 30. We'll check after cut day.

_Data via nflverse._