After a shaky first day during which he dropped a pair of passes, rookie tight end Colt Lyerla hadn’t done much of note during camp – good or bad. That changed Friday, when he caught a pair of touchdown passes during red-zone drills. While the undrafted free agent from Oregon, who was signed after participating in the team’s rookie camp on a tryout basis, still has a long way to go, it was a much-needed boost for a player whose confidence can fluctuate.
“He’s a kid that wears his emotions on his sleeve. He gets very excited about football, [but] whenever he gets frustrated, he gets a little bit down on himself. He’s his own worst critic,” tight ends coach Jerry Fontenot said. “So a lot of my role with him is to try to stay positive and help him through those growing pains.”
The challenge for Lyerla in his quest to make the roster is that he basically missed a year of football last year, quitting the Ducks early in the season before legal troubles followed. “The ball skills and the timing, the hand-eye coordination, all those things, who's throwing you the ball, the timing of the route and so forth, he's been away from it for a while," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "But he's done a great job physically getting himself ready for this. I think he's in excellent shape. He's a young guy that needs reps, like a lot of rookies. I'm sure the time off didn't help him.”