After Knee Surgery, Nate Hobbs’ Approach Will Get Matt LaFleur’s Approval

Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur knows it takes a specific mindset to play in noon games.

Cornerback Nate Hobbs will take that same approach – the same approach he takes into every practice – to attack his rehab following knee surgery.

“I feel like it’s all about how you approach the day – every day,” Hobbs said on Tuesday. “I can come into the building and be like, ‘I’ve got to do rehab.’ Or I can come to the building like, ‘I’m going to attack this rehab. I’m going to pay attention in these meetings and get ahead on anything mentally I couldn’t get ahead on mentally [before the injury] because I was taking so many reps physically.

“I just feel like the way you wake up – I can wake up with my piss hot the same way to pay attention and attack rehab and do things like that the same way I go to practice. It’s all a test. God’s going to test you before he gives you whatever He wants to give you.”

Hobbs had meniscus surgery on his right knee on Saturday. A source said Hobbs would be out about three weeks. That would give him about two weeks of practice to be ready for Week 1 against the Lions.

“I think it was Thursday’s practice – there was a play, there was a collision and there was a slight, little minor bump that I felt,” Hobbs explained. “Something I always get, somebody ran into me, it was cool, but it turned out to be something deeper than that.”

The surgery, the source said, was more preventative in nature to insure it doesn’t flare up at a critical time during the season.

“I feel like that’s part of my job,” he said of his proactive approach. “I’m a professional. I get paid to do this, so anything that’s a concern on my body, I need to try to get on right away. I felt like it was something we needed to do. They gave me the option of whether I wanted to do it the next day or the day after, I’m like, ‘We can do this today. Let’s get ahead of starting to get back.’”

So, Hobbs had surgery on Saturday. He began his rehab on Sunday. After Tuesday’s practice at Packers training camp, he limped through the locker room to talk to reporters.

Asked how it’s feeling, he said, “You see me walking around. I feel good, though. I feel good. I’m blessed. I’m just happy that it wasn’t nothing more serious.”

While Hobbs’ full-speed approach led to a couple of overzealous plays, his play style was appreciated by the coaches and general manager Brian Gutekunst.

“I love him,” defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said last week. “He’s physical, he brings a toughness, he brings an edge, he brings a level of competitiveness.”

“We’re trying to become a certain kind of football team that can win and win deep into the playoffs,” Gutekunst said. “There’s a certain kind of physicality you have to have and Nate Hobbs brings all that.”

If there’s an upside to the injury it’s that the cornerbacks below him on the depth chart will move up a notch for the rest of training camp and the preseason. That will mean more quality reps for Carrington Valentine, who will work with the No. 1 defense for the rest of camp, Bo Melton, who is transitioning from receiver, and the group of late-round draft picks who are vying for a roster spot.

“Obviously, when he’s out there, it makes us a better room collectively, but things happen,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “Injuries happen, unfortunately, but that just means the next guy’s got to be ready to go and prepared. That’s what we’re kind of in the process of right now, just making sure everybody’s prepared and ready to go. We’ve got a good room. We’ll be fine.”

Hobbs signed a four-year, $48 million contract in free agency. With great money comes great responsibility, which is something he embraced. After signing, he said he was the type of person who would “take the shirt off my back” and be a “real friend” and “real brother” to his teammates.

Part of that was showing what he was all about during training camp.

“I was having a good camp and I was proving to my teammates and gaining their trust,” he said. “That’s something I take real serious. Just trying to be the best version of myself out there. And so, whenever you truly try to do that and something like that happens, it hurts.

“But you either take that and use it or take that as something that’s going to hold you back or look at it like a lesson. I’m a big spiritual guy, so I felt like God’s trying to talk to me, tell me something and send me down, honestly.”