#893 Packers Unscripted: Minicamp musings (but we digress)

But with regard to minicamp, a lot to cover here, and it starts with the media session from Packers tight end Tucker Kraft after Wednesday's practice.

And, uh, there's a story on packers.com if you want to check it out.

I wrote that, posted it this morning.

Um, the biggest thing I took away from listening to Tucker Kraft is, um, A, not only how confident he is that he can be full go, no limitations come week one, but he is just as confident, if not more so, that he will not only be the same player when he comes back-

Yeah

...

but an even better one.

Yeah, it was great listening to Tuck.

Uh, and it's been a minute since, uh, our last update with him.

Obviously, he held court at the end of the season too, but-

Right

... now being, you know, four months further along in this process with the ACL, um, it-- There's so many parallels, I thought, as I was listening to him between his discussion and the discussion we had a week earlier with Micah Parsons and just that the maturity and the understanding of he's, he-- By all accounts, by every measure, Tucker Kraft is ahead of schedule, way ahead of schedule.

Um, but as he said when he was asked about it, it's still very realistic for him to start training camp on the PUP list.

Uh, the, the main reason for that being that once you're back, you know, y- either you're on PUP or you're not, right?

Yeah.

So it's like, once you're back, you can't go backwards.

Now, now you gotta go forward.

So I think the Packers are gonna be smart with him, have a plan for him throughout training camp, with the end goal being week one, regular season opener, being on no pitch count, number 85 being number 85.

Uh, this is a critical year for Tucker Kraft, not just because of the contract extension, which he also touched on-

Yeah

... during the discussion, but to show that he is still that guy he was before the injury.

And that guy, in his estimation, was one of the best all-around tight ends in the National Football League.

And seeing him, after this little pit stop, I think you would call it, get back to form.

He said he, last week, was running 21 and a half miles an hour on the treadmill.

I mean, this guy has put every ounce of sweat in his off season and in his rehab to getting back on the field and being better than ever.