Kendricks is fitting in just fine.
GREEN BAY - Quarterback Aaron Rodgers glanced at his new tight end before the snap and knew where he was going to throw the ball.
He just had to find out whether his target would be there. Martellus Bennett, right? Nope. Rodgers took the shotgun snap and fired the ball over the middle to the other free-agent tight end the Green Bay Packers signed in the off-season. In stride, Lance Kendricks snatched the ball out of the air and took off down the field. When the play was over, Rodgers pointed his finger at Kendricks, acknowledging the unspoken communication that resulted in the big play.
“I knew I had to get inside,” Kendricks said of maneuvering past the linebacker covering him. “He (Rodgers) probably couldn’t see me. It looked like he just dumped it over the top.
“I kind of looked at him like, ‘If I can get in there, I’m going to try to catch it.’ So I stuck it. It’s been a long time since I’ve had something like that. For me, it’s been good.”
Kendricks may have not come to the Packers with the same fanfare as Bennett, but he quickly has become someone the quarterbacks have learned to trust.
In the first padded practice Saturday, Kendricks was a frequent target of both Rodgers and backup
Brett Hundley. He caught some, dropped one and was covered on a couple of others, but the point was he kept catching the quarterback’s eye.
“Kendricks is going to be a good target,” Hundley said. “He’s a good route runner. He’s good with the ball. He’s going to be a big target for us.”
Kendricks spent six years with the St. Louis Rams playing with substandard quarterbacks, so playing with Rodgers has opened up possibilities he couldn’t even think about before.
When he could, Kendricks followed his former Rams teammate, Jared
Cook, during his only season with the Packers last season. After recovering from an ankle injury, Cook began to blossom in the offense and Kendricks noticed it.
“I could tell he had a better, I don’t know if it was confidence, (but) he was more uplifted,” Kendricks said. “I could tell he was out there with more of a passion this (past) year than last year (’15) or the year before. I could tell it definitely affected him being (here).”
And so did it affect Kendricks’ decision to sign with the Packers?
“Yeah, 100 percent. Definitely,” he said.
Kendricks, a Milwaukee native and former Wisconsin Badger, knows Bennett will be the featured tight end this season. But coach Mike McCarthy has talked a lot about incorporating tight ends this season and between him, Bennett and Richard Rodgers, Kendricks is the most versatile.
He’s just trying to prove it.
“Lance is, boy, he’s all business,” McCarthy said. “He’s a real pro. He’s got excellent work ethic. You know, anytime you have a player come from another program, you’re always interested (in that).”
So far, the Packers like what they see.
Stressing the run: McCarthy spent the bulk of this spring focused on aerial football, but the Packers coach said it didn’t make the run game any less important to his offense.
“I’m not joking,” McCarthy said Saturday, emphasizing his point, “running the football is A-No. 1 important in offensive football.”
With an offense run through Rodgers, it’s easy to forget how prominent the Packers' run game has been in recent years. No, they’ll never be a run-first team with a future Hall of Fame quarterback behind center, but the Packers had ranked among the league’s top half in attempts for four straight seasons entering 2016. Rodgers’ scrambling, which counts as a rush, helps the overall total.
Their run game went through a severe drought midway through last fall, a byproduct of simultaneously losing Eddie Lacy and James Starks to injuries. The Packers ranked 29th in the NFL with 395 rushes last season, their lowest rank in McCarthy’s 11 seasons as coach.
To hear McCarthy on Saturday, it was clear the coach prefers that his offense’s extreme lack of run plays doesn't continue.
“To go back and evaluate last year,” McCarthy said, “we had a segment of our season where we didn’t have a running back on our squad that played running back in training camp. So you have things that you go through it, because every game I’ve prepared to call in the National Football League, there’s a point in the game where I am determined, I want to run that damn ball. I mean, you have to run the football.
“And, by the way, we play in Green Bay, Wisconsin. So you don’t just starting running it in November. But, yeah, you have to run the football.”
Holding call: For the third straight year, kicker
Mason Crosby is going to have a different holder.
Luckily for him, rookie punter Justin Vogel performed those duties for three seasons at the University of Miami and so he’s not coming in completely green at the position.
Vogel held for all seven of Crosby’s field-goal attempts Saturday. Crosby made six of them, but they weren’t all kicked in midseason form, which may have something to do with the holds or the snaps or both.
“We’ve done a good amount of work together, I’d say,” Vogel said after practice of his work with Crosby and new long snapper Derek Hart. “We had a five-week break and that’s just time we didn’t see each other or work as a unit.
“Today was just our first time running field goal with all three of us as a full unit, plus it was a little rusty. I think overall the operation was fine. Mason was fine with it. He knows we’ve been executing well inside or before practice indoors.”