Green Bay Packers 2023 Family Night snap counts, analysis

A look at which players got to play with the first-team units.

On Saturday, Green Bay Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy got his wish. According to his most recent Murphy Take 5 column, Murphy didn’t want the team’s annual Family Night practice to stream beyond the Packers TV Network stations due to a “competitive advantage.” After multiple DMCAs and NBC 26 in Northeast Wisconsin pulling down their online stream midway through the event, Murphy can claim that his mission was accomplished.

For those who were unable to catch Family Night, though, don’t fret. Acme Packing Company charted every single team snap that the first-team offense and first-team defense took during the game, in an effort to pin down what the team’s depth chart currently looks like. Suspiciously, the Family Night broadcast seemed to take a lot of long commercial breaks as soon as the first-team units hit the field, meaning that we weren’t able to capture every snap taken, but 19 plays ended up sneaking through Murphy’s grasp.

We’ll go position-by-position, noting which players were “starters” on Family Night and giving snap totals by position group. On the front end, we want to say that quarterback Jordan Love was under center for every snap with the first-team and that the offensive line was comprised of Yosh Nijman, Royce Newman, Josh Myers, Jon Runyan Jr. and Zach Tom (left to right), with left tackle David Bakhtiari (knee) and left guard Elgton Jenkins (illness) being held out of the event.

All starters will be bolded in the snap counts below. Beyond the base offense (12 personnel) and base defense (3-4), we also considered slot receivers and slot corners as starters.

Running Back

• 10 snaps: Aaron Jones
• 5: AJ Dillon
• 2: Tyler Goodson

The biggest story from the running back unit is that Tyler Goodson was the third back in the rotation with the first-team offense. Goodson is expected to battle with Patrick Taylor — who was featured as a special teams starter on multiple units on Saturday — and Lew Nichols — who was held out of practice with an injury — for that last roster spot.

Aaron Jones out-snapped AJ Dillon two-to-one, but much of this work came in third-down looks and in the two-minute drill. In reality, Jones and Dillon should have their snaps pretty evenly split during the regular season, again.

The Packers also never ran their two-back “Pony” package on Family Night, something they have done in the past with Jones and Dillon — including last Family Night. As far as the run scheme is concerned, the biggest change I noticed was that Green Bay was willing to call counter plays when they were in I formation sets. That’s a new one for a team that heavily relied on zone and pin-and-pull schemes last season.

Receiver

• 12: Jayden Reed
• 11: Romeo Doubs
• 10: Christian Watson
• 10: Luke Musgrave (TE)
• 9: Samori Toure
• 7: Dontayvion Wicks
• 2: Tyler Davis (TE)
• 1: Aaron Jones (RB)

Later this week, Acme Packing Company will break down how the receivers were used on Family Night, but one thing off the bat that I want to mention is that out of rookie second-round pick Jayden Reed’s 12 offensive snaps, he lined up 10 times in the slot. You can go ahead and pencil in Romeo Doubs and Christian Watson as the 12/21 personnel starters at receiver with Reed coming off the bench to play the slot in 11 personnel.

There is no better example to show how third-down and two-minute-drill focused the broadcasted team snaps were than the fact that Luke Musgrave, a rookie tight end, was detached from the formation on half of those reps. Musgrave looks to be filling in at Robert Tonyan’s spot in obvious passing downs. Backup tight end Tyler Davis also got a few reps at receiver in the same type of situation. Jones’ one rep at receiver came on an empty look.

Despite the fact that Dontayvion Wicks missed recent practices with a concussion, Wicks and Samori Toure made up the second line of the depth chart for the Packers on Saturday, with the likes of Bo Melton and Malik Heath waiting in the wings, As a reminder, rookie seventh-round pick Grant DuBose (NFI) remains out with a back injury. The final spot (or two) at receiver should be highly-competitive this summer.

Tight End/Fullback

• 9: Luke Musgrave
• 5: Tyler Davis
• 1: Tucker Kraft
• 1: AJ Dillon (RB)

Including Musgrave’s 10 snaps split out as a receiver, he also played 9 snaps as an in-line tight end, meaning that he took every first-team rep that was broadcast from team drills. Davis only worked at tight end in 12 personnel sets. Third-round rookie Tucker Kraft only saw the field on one of the first-team reps, meaning that he’s fourth in the pecking order behind Musgrave, Davis and Josiah Deguara — who missed Family Night with an injury. Dillon saw one snap as a “tight end,” but it was really from the wing position when the team was in empty.

Defensive Line

• 18: Devonte Wyatt
• 12: Kenny Clark
• 8: T.J. Slaton
• 6: Colby Wooden
• 2: Karl Brooks

We’re going to take a deeper look at the defensive line rotation later this week, but it’s worth mentioning here that the second-team defensive line of Colby Wooden and Karl Brooks did dominate the second-team offensive line, which was down two players due to the fact that Yosh Nijman and Royce Newman were working with the first-team offense. T.J. Slaton was playing the nose, which allowed Kenny Clark to see all his base 3-4 snaps at defensive end.

Outside Linebacker

• 14: Lukas Van Ness
• 14 Justin Hollins
• 10: Preston Smith

While Preston Smith and Justin Hollins “started” at outside linebacker, rookie first-round pick Lukas Van Ness tied Hollins for the most snaps played with the first-team defense at the position. This is interesting, as Hollins and Kinsgley Enagbare — who worked with the second-team on Saturday — have typically rotated starts opposite of Smith during training camp. Take this as a sign that the arrow is pointing up on the rookie pass-rusher.

Inside Linebacker

• 19: Quay Walker
• 13: De’Vondre Campbell
• 5: Eric Wison

The strong assumption is that De’Vondre Campbell and Quay Walker are going to start at inside linebacker, so the first line of the depth chart here wasn’t much of a surprise. What was interesting, though, was that in the defense’s single penny rep of the night — with just one inside linebacker on the field — Walker was the lone linebacker on the field. Last season, that role went to Campbell. This could mean that Walker is going to be the “green dot” linebacker who has the speaker connection to defensive coordinator Joe Barry this year.

Eric Wilson got a shot to play backup linebacker behind Walker and Campbell, which is not what was expected going into Family Night. Last year, 2021 sixth-round pick Isaiah McDuffie out-snapped Wilson 174 snaps to 35 snaps, defensively. In total, Wilson only played two games on the defensive side of the ball for the Packers in 2022. Maybe there’s going to be some movement there.

Cornerback

• 16: Rasul Douglas
• 12: Keisean Nixon
• 9: Jaire Alexander
• 8: Corey Ballentine
• 5: Carrington Valentine

The starting outside cornerbacks were Rasul Douglas and Jaire Alexander, with Keisean Nixon taking every single slot rep available on the first-team defense. It’s still unsettled about what the cornerback unit is going to look like whenever Eric Stokes (PUP, ankle) returns to the field, but the trio of Alexander, Douglas and Nixon appears to be what the team has committed to until Stokes’ status changes.

Douglas saw a few reps at outside corner opposite of Corey Ballentine, a 2022 special-teamer, and Carrington Valentine, a seventh-round rookie who has had a noteworthy camp. The biggest name left out of the rotation here is Shemar Jean-Charles, the 2021 fifth-round pick who didn’t suit up for a gameday after Week 7 in 2022.

Safety

• 19: Jonathan Owens
• 14: Darnell Savage
• 5: Rudy Ford

For the vast majority of camp, Darnell Savage and Rudy Ford have held down the safety position as starters. This changed last week, when free-agent signing Jonathan Owens was added to the mix.

On Family Night, Owens played every single broadcast snap with the first-team defense in team drills. Ford only saw about a quarter of those snaps, in place of Savage. The fourth safety who was expected to be in the rotation, special-teams ace Tarvarius Moore, did not see a single rep with the first team.

Stay tuned for some Family Night content later in the week, when we’ll break down the receiver and defensive line positions in more depth.