At the start of OTAs, Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich and offensive line coach Luke Butkus said Zach Tom would challenge for a starting position at right tackle, right guard and center.
The returning starting center, Josh Myers, downplayed the competition following Tuesday’s minicamp practice.
“It is what it is,” Myers said. “It’s the NFL. It’s a very competitive business. Yeah, I fight for it every day.”
There are a couple reasons why Myers was taking the competition in stride. First, that’s life as an athlete. Everything is a competition. Second, the competition with Tom really hasn’t taken place.
Between nine OTAs and one minicamp practice, four of the team’s 10 practices have been open to reporters. Other than a snap here and there, Myers has taken the first-team reps.
On Tuesday, for instance, the No. 1 line was David Bakhtiari at left tackle, Elgton Jenkins at left guard, Myers at center, Jon Runyan at right guard and Yosh Nijman at right tackle. When the veteran duo of Bakhtiari and Jenkins left the first unit, Tom replaced Myers for some first-team snaps.
However, when Bakhtiari and Jenkins have been on the field, so has Myers.
A second-round pick in 2021, Myers missed most of his rookie season due to injuries. Last year, he started all 17 games and led the team with 1,091 snaps.
“I thought it was a strong year,” Myers said. “There was a lot of improvement, a lot of things that I’ve been working on. I think at this point, it’s mostly just like tweaks, subtle things in my game that I’ve been working on and trying to fix. It was a solid year. Just want to be better.”
One thing he’s worked to fix is the angle of his feet. What he had been doing led to some false-steps. Against athletic defensive linemen and linebackers, there’s no time for footsteps to nowhere.
“I just feel that hair faster, which a lot of times is the difference in the league, as I’m sure y’all know,” Myers said.
Myers was the first center selected in 2021 – one spot ahead of All-Pro Creed Humphrey by the Kansas City Chiefs. As a rookie, Myers missed a game because of an injured finger. He returned a week later, only to sustain a knee injury on his fourth snap at Chicago. That injury kept Myers out of action for 10 games.
“Last year was almost like he was a rookie,” Butkus said at the start of OTAs. “Josh is doing everything he can. He’s working his butt off. I don’t think anybody works harder than Josh. He just needs to keep working, just like everybody else. We’re going to get better and we’re going to push each other to get better every single day.
“He’s not meeting our expectations – that’s not what we’re talking about. He just needs to keep working to get better, just like everybody else in that room.”
Only time will tell whether that work will pay off with Myers not only retaining his starting job but turning into the above-average starter the team obviously envisioned when it drafted him a couple years ago.
“Obviously, I was more familiar with the people and the offense than most rookies, but it was the first time that I had experienced that many games in a row,” Myers said. “Really more than anything, going through a season of that many games with a minimal break was very new to me.”
With a full season’s worth of ups, downs and experiences, Myers is a much more battle-tested player than at this time a year ago.
“I think football’s one of those things you can study as much as you want but you have to get out there and do it,” he said. “I missed some of that my rookie year.”
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