The Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots finished up a highly contentious day of joint practice on Thursday. After a relatively calm joint practice on Thursday, there were several incidents of overly physical behavior between the two teams on the second day of practicing together.
While physicality is expected when playing football (teams even fight amongst themselves during training camp), injuring players or putting their safety at risk is crossing the line. Packers linebacker Keshawn Banks was ejected for throwing a punch a Patriots rookie Keion White, and New England linebacker Anfernee Simmons was ejected for his blindside hit on Banks in retaliation.
In a less dramatic moment, 2023 third round pick Tucker Kraft was injured on a hard hit by Patriots rookie linebacker Marte Mapu. He was slow to get up and had to be escorted off the field by trainers.
Green Bay Packers 2023 NFL Draft Pick Tucker Kraft Was Not Injured Too Badly
The Packers have already lost one tight end, Tyler Davis, to a season-ending knee injury (torn ACL). When Kraft was slow to get up, an already thin tight end room looked like it would be even thinner. Fortunately, Kraft was able to return to practice shortly after getting checked out:
Tucker Kraft jogging back out of Don Hutson Center after going in with a trainer following a hit
— Ryan Wing (@RyanWingFOX11) August 17, 2023
Kraft took a shot to the mid-section, so it’s possible he had the wind knocked out of him. In any case, he came back out to practice, indicating that whatever the injury was would not keep him out.
This is definitely a best-case scenario for the Packers, who are going to be looking to Kraft to be their premier blocking tight end while fellow 2023 NFL Draft pick Luke Musgrave becomes a bigger receiving threat. Had Kraft been injured badly enough to miss time, the decision not to re-sign Marcedes Lewis would have looked pretty bad in hindsight.
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