We’re two games into the preseason with one to go this upcoming Saturday against the Seattle Seahawks, and the biggest emerging player through those two games was last year’s first-round pick, Jordan Morgan. Through two games, Morgan has played 61 snaps, has allowed zero pressures, and has earned a 91 PFF pass-blocking grade, the highest among all offensive linemen to take a snap in the preseason.
Morgan’s breakout comes just a few weeks after people had declared him a bust as a left tackle. They said he should only play guard after a few poor reps against Lukas Van Ness, one of the Green Bay Packers’ young players with a lot of potential, during Family Night. I don’t want to take too much from preseason games, but it appears that people have thrown out the bust label far too soon.
Along with Morgan, this year’s second-round pick, Anthony Belton, also has played well in the preseason. He had an inconceivably poor showing with five penalties in the first half of Green Bay’s preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts. Still, he resurrected himself at halftime by eating a clementine. He bounced back in the second half and continued to flash his road-grating run-blocking ability.
Belton’s technique and discipline would make anyone hesitant to trust him as a tackle right now. However, his combination of run blocking, along with his strength and base, should make you comfortable with him going out there and providing good guard play.
Between Morgan’s emergence and the floor that Belton has shown early on in his career, Green Bay has seven playable linemen, meaning they’ll have to make a difficult decision about who to start.
If they keep all seven, what are the best five to start? And what if that doesn’t include Aaron Banks, the guy they just gave $77 million to?
The first question is still to be determined. Morgan has only shown this level of play in the preseason. We have no idea if he can sustain it in the regular season, so it’s tough to say he’d be one of their best five right now. However, if he does maintain that play into the regular season, he most definitely will be one of their best five.
That’s where the question about Aaron Banks comes in.
It arose because Banks was a polarizing signing among Packers fans and the media. Everyone agreed that he was better than Josh Myers and improved the line. But when it came to how much better and if he deserved $77 million, there were many different answers. Those evaluations of Banks before camp still haven’t been confirmed because he’s been in and out of practice with various injuries. Again on Tuesday, he missed practice, and the offense opened with a line of Walker, Morgan, Jenkins, Rhyan, and Tom.
Which led to the question in the tweet above. What if that is Green Bay’s best five?
Ken Ingalls gave the easy and correct answer in the replies: Then they won’t start their best five.
Zach Tom and Elgton Jenkins are locked at their spots because of their play and pay. Banks is as well. No matter what you think of him and evaluate him as, Green Bay evaluated him as a player who deserved $77 million, and that’s not going to change in camp, even if he is the sixth-best lineman in some people’s opinion.
They’ll almost certainly have to play six linemen throughout the season and likely even seven. Whoever is the sixth man in the room is going to get snaps. The sixth man just isn’t going to be the guy they just paid.
That leaves us with a couple more questions. The questions, in my opinion, have easy answers, but they are still worth discussing.
The first of those is: Should they trade one of the seven guys?
Easy answer: No.
The Packers are in a great spot with their offensive line, one that many teams dream of emulating. However, while they should be comfortable starting Belton in a pinch, it would serve him better to develop as a backup. However, Green Bay’s depth drops off significantly after Belton and Morgan.
Jacob Monk and Donovan Jennings have struggled in camp and preseason. John Williams hasn’t set foot on the field since he was drafted in April. Travis Glover just got put on season-ending IR, and our last memory of Kadeem Telfort was the playoffs against the Philadelphia Eagles. Anyone beyond those guys would be lucky to make the roster, or would make it because John Williams is still not healthy in two weeks.
We saw what it looked like last season against the Philadelphia Eagles. When you only have six trustworthy linemen and two of them are injured, it looks like a bulldozer disguised as Jalen Carter flattened Telfort and Glover.
The depth is a luxury, but it’s a luxury I want. All seven guys will likely have to play at some point, and if they don’t, good! Then the offense should be awesome, and we never had to deal with the stress of being one injury away from seeing Kadeem Telfort again.
That leads me to the last question. Could the Packers run a platoon at one of the positions, and what would that look like?
The chalk and likely starting line is Walker, Banks, Jenkins, Rhyan, and Tom. With this line, there’s a good chance we’ll see a platoon featuring Morgan in some capacity. He’s just been too good not to be part of the offense. Plus, Green Bay has done it in the past with Yosh Nijman and Walker at LT and Rhyan and Jon Runyan Jr. at RG, so this would be nothing new to them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets snaps at both LT and RG. However, platooning two positions at a time would be somewhat unusual. So I’d expect it to primarily be at LT if there is one, because that’s where Green Bay wants him to play in the future.
With many teams questioning whether they’ll be able to protect the QB, Green Bay is asking how to get a sixth player playing time. It’s a great spot to be in, a spot I don’t want to mess with, but one I’d be excited to experiment with.
