PACKERS CAMP INSIDER

Friday's takeaways

It was a tough day for rookie running back AJ Dillon, who continues to get a lot of snaps to get him ready for the regular season. He's on the field with all three quarterbacks in a given practice and is put in all kinds of different situations. Early in the team drills, he drew the wrath of coach Matt LaFleur when it appeared he blocked to the wrong side and let Tim Boyle get chased out of the pocket for what might have been a sack. LaFleur let him know loud and clear what he did wrong. Later, in a competitive drill where the offense was facing second and long and got two plays to get a first down, Aaron Rodgers rolled left and wanted Dillon to leave his block and release down field. He threw the ball down instead of taking a sack and let Dillon know he was not happy. LaFleur and Rodgers are probably being tough on Dillon because they know he's going to be put in some big situations early in the season. He wasn't drafted in the second round to watch from the sideline.

There still isn't a defined No. 2 receiver. Allen Lazard flashed with a deep ball on Tuesday, but in general he has not been able to hook up with Rodgers nearly as much as he did last year when he worked his way up the depth chart with one consistent performance after another. There were two great opportunities for them to connect inside the Don Hutson Center (rain forced the team indoors). On a third-and-12 play at the offense's own 30, Rodgers had room to throw deep because guard Elgton Jenkins kept the pocket clean by clearing out blitzing linebacker Za'Darius Smith. He unloaded it deep down the middle to Lazard, who was beating man coverage. But the pass was a little long and Lazard couldn't accelerate enough to get it. Then on a second-and-9 play, Lazard slipped on an out cut and cornerback Kevin King nearly intercepted the pass. Lazard did make a 17-yard catch down the middle to set up Mason Crosby's game-winner in the 2-minute drill. But the offense had no timeouts and it's questionable whether everyone was set when Rodgers spiked the ball with 1 second left.

QB watch

There was good, bad and ugly in what LaFleur said was not a sharp practice overall. Boyle connected with Equanimeous St. Brown on a perfectly timed out route and then hit Jake Kumerow over the middle for a first down in the second-and-long drill. He also hit Darius Sheppard in stride on a slant route on a third-and-2 play later in the practice. But then the ball slipped out of Boyle's hands as he was turning to throw on the next play and probably would have been considered a fumble. Rookie Jordan Love threw one of his best balls of camp early on, hitting receiver Malik Turner on a 20-yard out cut. But then he threw behind Reggie Begelton a play later and threw the ball to no one on his only second-and-long series. Rodgers failed on all three of second-and-long drives, but had a third-down scramble that would have gained at least 20 yards in the next team drill.

Injury report

Missed practice: S Raven Greene (undisclosed), DL Montravius Adams (foot), CB Kabion Ento (foot) and OLB Randy Ramsey (undisclosed).

Returned to practice: OT Rick Wagner (elbow), DT Willington Previlion (undisclosed), Yosh Nijman (from PUP, elbow).

Non-football injury list: RB Patrick Taylor, OL Simon Stepaniak

Physically unable to perform list: LB

Curtis Bolton, OLB Greg Roberts.

Bits and pieces

• OLB Za'Darius Smith doesn't take a lot of reps in one-on-one pass rush, which is probably a good thing for the linemen's confidence. He blew past tackle Billy Turner with a spin move on his first attempt, stalemated with Turner on the second, blew past Lucas Patrick on his third and stalemated with Patrick on his fourth.

• The most eye-popping rep in that drill was when OLB Rashan Gary lifted tackle John Leglue off the ground and threw him down on his way to the QB.

• Two young linemen fared well in the one-on-ones. Guard Zack Johnson went 4-0 (vs. Tim Williams and Treyvon Hester) and Cody Conway went 2-0 (vs. Tipa Galeia).

• The cornerbacks were all over the ball. Jaire Alexander nearly picked off a pass in the flat, King dropped an interception, Josh Jackson broke up a pass across the middle and DaShaun Amos batted away a third-down pass along the sideline.

• Crosby had a bad day. He came in having missed just two kicks all camp. He made 6 of 9. He missed wide right from 42, short from 53 and wide right from 40.

Practice schedule

The Packers are scheduled to practice at 10:30 a.m. Saturday.