GREEN BAY, Wis. — Jordan Love was still wearing a brace on his surgically repaired left thumb and continued to hand off using only his right hand, but otherwise the Green Bay Packers quarterback doesn’t believe any of that will limit what he can do when the regular season starts.
Love said he has “no concerns” ahead of the Sept. 7 opener against the Detroit Lions, but the thumb will have to be protected using a brace similar to what he has worn in practice.
“It’ll be some weeks having to brace it up and just keep it protected,” Love said Thursday. “It’s one of those things, we’ll play it by ear, as I start getting into games and seeing how it feels, as you get back to live contact. But there’ll be some time having that brace still.
Coach Matt LaFleur put the Packers through a simulated game on Thursday, which is the closest thing Love will get to real game action. Love only began taking part in full team (11 on 11) periods a day earlier. Before that, he was not taking snaps from under center or in the shotgun, but rather just holding the ball or pick it up to simulate the snap and only doing individual and 7-on-7.
After Thursday’s practice, Love offered additional details as to why he opted to have surgery instead of trying to play through it.
“If you have no stability there, you have no strength as well,” Love said. “So it was pretty much just a limp thumb. I couldn’t really do much with it and it’s just something that I wasn’t, before the season, I’m not trying to be dealing with that throughout the course of the season. Who knows if that would have kept getting reinjured, kept getting messed up and who knows how that would have been going through a whole season? So I think, and the doctors’ opinion was, just go ahead and get the surgery knocked out and try to get back to as 100 percent as possible for the season.”
This week also marked the return of receivers Jayden Reed (foot) and Dontayvion Wicks (calf) from injuries they sustained early in training camp. However, because teams don’t have to issue injury and participation reports until next week, it’s unclear how much they did at practice.
“Between our receivers and him being kind of nicked up, we certainly haven’t had the amount of work that you would have liked,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said. “But there’s a lot of trust there with him as far as getting himself ready to play Week 1.”
The only starter who did not practice on Thursday was cornerback Nate Hobbs, who underwent knee surgery on Aug. 2. Initially, Hobbs was expected to be back for the season opener.
“I feel good about where I’m at in my recovery, and we’re going to see next week how I feel,” Hobbs said.
