GREEN BAY, Wis. — Training camp is about Jordan Love and Tucker Kraft and Xavier McKinney, sure, but it’s also about guys you barely know trying to make a name for themselves.

Guys who have a slim chance at the 53-man roster, maybe making decisions difficult for general manager Brian Gutekunst come roster cutdown day. Guys who have no chance at the 53 fighting tooth and nail for one of 16 practice-squad spots in what might be their last time ever playing competitive football after devoting their lives to the sport and getting a shot in the NFL.

Take wide receiver Will Sheppard, for example. A 2025 undrafted free agent who played for Deion Sanders at Colorado, Sheppard didn’t play a single snap last season. He spent most of last season on Green Bay’s practice squad and this year is probably ninth on the depth chart out of 10 wide receivers. Who knows if Sheppard will get another shot after the Packers likely waive him later this summer?

But the beauty of football lies in a two-play sequence late in Monday’s practice at Ray Nitschke Field. It was the first day of pads and third-year safety Mark Perry, himself fighting for a practice-squad spot, lit Sheppard up on a play over the middle. Sheppard stayed down for a couple of seconds and later said he got the wind knocked out of him. There were shouts from multiple people on the field for Sheppard to get up.

He missed one play and reentered. The second-team offense faced a third-and-15 from its own 24-yard line during a two-minute drill. They trailed 28-26 with no timeouts remaining and time dwindling. You know what happened on Sheppard’s first play back in a got-to-have-it moment? He beat Perry, the same safety who knocked the wind out of him, for a 61-yard gain deep down the middle. Backup quarterback Tyrod Taylor put a perfect spiral on Sheppard, who tracked the ball well after running a field post route and made a falling catch.

He was quick to get up this time before Taylor spiked the ball with three seconds remaining and rookie kicker Trey Smack hit a 33-yard field goal for the win. It’s plays like that coaches will notice.

“Tyrod basically, out the huddle, just said, ‘Ay, make sure you run,’” Sheppard said after practice. “And that’s exactly what I did. I just ran and got it … It’s what we paid to do. Come out here, get hit, get knocked down, just get back up, next-play mentality. So that’s kinda how I go about my day every day.”

“Sometimes in a two-minute drill, last period, sometimes the fatigue can get a hold of your mindset, so it’s a reminder that, ‘Hey, this post is live if we get the right look,’” Taylor said. “Sure enough, the corner tried to not necessarily cheat it, but tried to mirror to that side, but the angle that he took, from my perspective, I thought he had a chance to outrun the safety. So I gave him a chance and he went and made a play. He did a great job of tracking it.”

Here’s everything else notable that happened on Day 5 of Packers training camp.

1. Head coach Matt LaFleur said recently this is the most excited he’s been for a team in his eight seasons at the helm. There’s one thing he’s not excited about, however. In fact, he feels quite the opposite, and he made it clear at his daily pre-practice press conference on Monday. Edge rushers were finally allowed to bull rush offensive linemen with the pads going on, but LaFleur added a caveat.

“They got to be smart, too,” he said. “If they get a guy on their heels and you’re going into the lap of the quarterback, that’s the one thing that I’ve been probably most disappointed with is how many guys we’ve had in the quarterback’s lap. It doesn’t take a lot. I mean, you see it all the time — guys hitting their hand, throwing their hand on a guy’s helmet and that’s not good for anybody. So that was definitely stressed this morning. We had a couple instances yesterday in practice … like, just veer off. You can’t get close to them. There’s going to be a time and a place for that, and that’ll be in our first preseason game.”

2. There were three new injuries to report on Monday. Starting outside cornerback Carrington Valentine missed practice with a hamstring injury after dropping out of Sunday’s session. That cleared the way for rookie second-round pick Brandon Cisse to run with the first-team defense again alongside fellow South Carolina Gamecock alum Keisean Nixon. During the first 11-on-11 period of practice, Cisse might’ve had two sacks if he was allowed to hit the quarterback.

The Packers’ tight end room also keeps taking hits. Luke Musgrave remains sidelined with a neck injury that carries an unknown severity, and undrafted rookie R.J. Maryland missed the entirety of Monday’s practice with a hamstring injury. Tight end Luke Lachey was seen using a scooter to get around the facility after practice with his left leg propped up.

3. Smack had his busiest day of camp so far. Through five practices, Smack has only done live kicking with the snap, hold and modified field-goal rush twice. On Sunday, he went 3-for-5. On Monday, he went 5-for-8 with makes from 33, 40, 43, 48 and 51 yards and misses wide right from 33 (barely) and 55 (by a mile) and from 52 off the left upright. That brings his camp total to 8-for-13. LaFleur said recently that he’s learned from two separate experiences with rookie kicker Anders Carlson and Brayden Narveson to have patience through the inevitable rocky roads. Smack might be testing LaFleur’s patience yet again if his early miscues continue.

“I thought I hit the ball well. Those mis-hits, those are just mis-hits that happen,” Smack said. “Kind of just act the same every day, really. You hit the ball well, it should be just as even-keel as you hit the ball like s–t. Sorry, excuse my language.”

4. Quarterback controversy in Green Bay? Joking, but Taylor’s deep balls had markedly more success than Love’s on Monday and not entirely because of Love’s own shortcomings. Love led wide receiver Jayden Reed too far over the middle and McKinney made a diving interception. In the same period, Taylor dropped one in a bucket to wideout Bo Melton for about a 30-yard gain down the right sideline, as Melton made a great over-the-shoulder grab with defensive back Jaylin Simpson in coverage.

Love also uncorked a bomb down the middle intended for wide receiver Christian Watson that was wobbly but fell right into Watson’s hands, but he couldn’t corral the ball with Cisse and safety Evan Williams helping force the incompletion. Love and Watson also couldn’t connect on a deep ball down the right sideline during the two-minute drill. In that same period, Taylor hit Sheppard on the aforementioned moon ball.

Tyrod Taylor is entering his 16th NFL season, his first with the Packers. (Tork Mason / Imagn Images)

5. The Packers’ defense is causing havoc in the backfield, and it’s not all from edge rushers. That’s fitting since new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon might have to drum up unconventional ways to generate pressure until Micah Parsons returns and allows the Packers to rush a traditional four more often. Cornerbacks like Cisse, Nixon and Benjamin St-Juste have been in the quarterback’s face. Nickel Jonathan Baldwin has been in the backfield a couple times. Lukas Van Ness continued his strong start to camp on Monday by breezing past right tackle Darian Kinnard for a sack. Rookie edge Dani Dennis-Sutton, linebacker Nick Neimann, edge Barryn Sorrell and Perry each blew up plays in the backfield on Monday, too.

During the starters’ two-minute drill alone, Williams, defensive tackle Karl Brooks and linebacker Edgerrin Cooper all pressured Love.

“With Matt (LaFleur), during the heat of the battle, he likes to keep things moving,” Williams said. “He likes to keep it competitive, put us in situations that he knows we’re going to see, so sometimes he won’t call those sacks. In film review, sometimes he doesn’t acknowledge and we, as defenders, we’re all seeking a little validation, like maybe it should’ve been second and 20 there. But yes, I think there were more than a couple sacks during that last period.”

6. If you read Sunday’s camp report, you’d remember that defensive tackle Anthony Campbell had three batted passes in his last two practices. Well, guess what? He added another PBU on Monday to make it four in his last three. The 2025 undrafted free agent out of Miami who had one pass breakup in his final college season and only joined the Packers as a reserve/future signing in January continues to make plays. Special teams coordinator Cam Achord is salivating to get him on the field-goal block team (probably). Undrafted rookie linebacker TJ Quinn also helped himself Monday with a third-down interception of undrafted rookie quarterback Kyron Drones to end the threes’ two-minute drill.

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline.

The final day leading up to the MLB Trade Deadline is producing deals at a furious rate. Here’s a look a three trades involving big-league pieces and intriguing prospects:

Trade 1: Milwaukee Brewers acquire RHP Dustin May and LHP JoJo Romero from the St. Louis Cardinals for OFs Alexander Frías and Josiah Ragsdale

In this deal, the Brewers traded one of their top prospects (Frías) to get short-term pitching help for both the rotation and the bullpen. It’s an understandable move as they try once again to get to the World Series. Meanwhile, the Cardinals do very well in trading May, a starter they signed to a one-year, $12.5 million deal with a mutual option and helped to the best season of his career.

May has always had an outstanding arm, but his 2025 season was the first time he even threw 100 innings in a big-league season. He’s built on that, with 109 innings already this year and a lower ERA, as the Cardinals have had him move from the sinker to the four-seamer as his primary fastball, which in turn has kept the ball in the park far more often. He’s also throwing harder this year, averaging 96.9 mph on the four-seamer, up 1.5 mph from 2025, with his sweeper up 0.8 mph as well.

He does give up a lot of hard contact when hitters do put the ball in play, and hasn’t been as good the last month-plus as he was to start the year, which could be randomness but is more concerning with a guy who’s had durability issues.

Romero has been an above-average left-handed reliever for the last three and a half years for the Cardinals, dominating lefties for most of that time while getting righties out enough to be a full-inning guy. Milwaukee’s bullpen is pretty right-handed, with Aaron Ashby their only good lefty, so Romero fills an immediate need once he returns — he’s on the IL now after undergoing an emergency appendectomy a few weeks ago.

Frías signed 18 months ago for $350,000, but has already blasted through the Arizona Complex League and moved to Low A even though he only turned 18 in March. He’s a center fielder now but will move to right field eventually. He has the potential for a plus hit tool and plus power, with eight homers in 60 games this season between the two stops. He hit one ball in the ACL at 117 mph, which isn’t a pure indicator of power but is really unusual for an 18-year-old.

Ragsdale is also a center fielder now who’ll end up in right. He’s hit 19 homers in his first full pro season after the Brewers took him in the seventh round in 2025 out of Boston College. He’s selling out a little to get to that power, with a 29 percent whiff rate in Double A that comes from a swing designed to lift and pull the ball as much as possible. I’m not sure this production will hold up at higher levels, but he has raked at two stops this year, including Double A, and could still end up a regular in a corner even if his OBP starts dropping against better pitching.

Trade No. 2: The Pittsburgh Pirates acquire RHP Luke Weaver and cash considerations for SS Sammy Stafura

Weaver has been outstanding for the Mets this year, looking more like he did in his big 2024 season in the Yankees’ bullpen but improving on it with a lower home-run rate. He changed his cutter grip this offseason, resulting in a pitch with more slider-like tilt. He gave up eight of the 10 homers he allowed last year on his four-seamer, so using that less and the cutter more is part of how he’s kept the ball in the park this season. The Pirates’ bullpen might be their biggest weakness, so adding Weaver is an immediate boost, and he can step into a high-leverage role right away.

Luke Weaver jumps into a Pittsburgh bullpen that has struggled all season. (Dylan Buell / Getty Images)

The Mets land Stafura, a breakout prospect who has hit .301/.365/.656 in hitter-friendly High-A Greensboro this year for the Pirates. Pittsburgh picked up Stafura at the 2025 deadline from Cincinnati for Ke’Bryan Hayes, at which point Stafura was a high-OBP but low-power bat who swung and missed too often for that profile. He has done more damage at home, with 13 of his 20 homers at Greensboro’s launching pad, but he’s still hitting a very respectable .270/.385/.514 on the road.

Unfortunately, he is still selling out to get to that power, with a 37 percent whiff rate on the season that’s an alarming 34 percent on fastballs. That’s not a sustainable formula and he’s going to have to give back some of that power to be able to put the ball in play at an adequate rate to even be an everyday player. He’s a plus runner and potentially a plus defender at short, although he’s mixed in some time at second base this year, as well.

Trade No. 3: San Diego Padres acquire LHP Robbie Ray from the San Francisco Giants for RHP Miguel Mendez and SS Joniel Hernandez

Since his return from Tommy John surgery at the start of the 2025 season, Ray has thrown 305 innings with a 3.42 ERA/4.10 FIP, limiting hard contact enough to be a fourth starter for just about any team. The Padres have only one healthy starter who’s better than Ray right now, and Ray is an upgrade over Walker Buehler or the bullpen-game approach they employed on Sunday in what might previously have been Griffin Canning’s turn.

Hernandez just signed with the Padres out of Cuba for $1.4 million back in January and has hit well in his pro debut, with a .303/.424/.503 line in the Dominican Summer League. The OBP is a little above the league median, while the slugging percentage puts him in the top 20 percent of qualifying hitters, to give some context.

He’s lean and very projectable, with excellent bat speed already and the potential for future plus power. He’s also 17 and hasn’t played in the U.S. yet, so he’s probably quite a ways off, and will probably be a level or two behind the Giants’ pair of elite shortstop prospects currently in Low A, Josuar Gonzalez and Luis Hernández.

Mendez is a three-pitch starter who hasn’t had much success this year, missing time with a shoulder injury and returning just last week to make a pair of rehab appearances in High A. He’s projectable as well and has the arsenal to end up in a rotation, but walked 11.1 percent of batters he faced in Double A before the injury and averaged only three innings per start.