Nobody was thinking about Minnesota when the Green Bay Packers took Clay Matthews in the first round of the draft in April.

And Matthews certainly had no inkling he'd be chasing quarterback Brett Favre when he was sidelined with a hamstring injury just days into his first summer practices.

But on the threshold of the biggest game of the year for Green Bay, the Packers will need something out of all their outside linebackers to apply pressure on Favre. And fortunately for them, Matthews' injury is a long and forgotten issue.

Make no mistake about it: Packers general manager Ted Thompson traded up to the first round for the first time in 10 drafts to get Matthews for big plays in big games just like the Packers at Minnesota showdown Monday night.

Versatile, smart and athletic as much as he is young and new to these sort of monster NFL games, Matthews' role this week is relatively simple: Rush Favre.

In April, scouts told the Journal Sentinel's Bob McGinn that Matthews ranked as a top-five pure pass rusher in a draft that had a lot of them.

In three games this season, Matthews has done OK. With Brady Poppinga starting at right outside linebacker, Matthews comes in on sub packages and has been playing about 50% of the downs. He showed his potential against Cincinnati when he put a quick spin move on left tackle Andrew Whitworth to chase down Carson Palmer for a sack.

Matthews has shown his speed in games, though he had zero pressures in St. Louis against Rams left tackle Alex Barron.

The Packers may prefer to have Poppinga on the field for obvious running downs to defend running back Adrian Peterson, which means Matthews likely would be on the field mostly when backup running back Chester Taylor is in the lineup. No matter - Favre, Peterson or Taylor - the Packers will require Matthews to have that explosiveness to complement the outside rush they'll need on Favre's left and from Aaron Kampman on Favre's right.

That Matthews is available at all may be a combination of good fortune and wise caution.

When the Packers gave up a second-round and two third-round draft choices to draft Matthews, the expectation was that the rookie would start. But he hurt his hamstring in off-season practices and then reinjured it in August, and he's probably lucky he's not dealing with it now.

Running back Ryan Grant hurt his hamstring in training camp last year and, although he rushed for 1,203 yards, he admitted it nagged him for almost the entire 2008 season.

"A football player with a hamstring - can't do it," said Grant. "It's like a pitcher who can't throw.

"You've got to fight through some injuries, or you try to, but a hamstring is more frustrating because you can't do as much as you want to. You may want to try and fight through, but you just can't run."

Defensive tackle Ryan Picket can testify to that. He suffered a hamstring injury early in his career.

"Once you do it you know right away, the pain is instant. It's horrible," he said. "And the bad thing about a hamstring is, it don't just go away. It might take two, four weeks and after that you might be able to play, but it's still there and you're always scared to open up because it's so easy to pull it again.

"It's the hardest thing. If you pull a hamstring during the year - it's pretty much going to be there the whole season."

Pickett said it took two to three months before he could run at top speed again.

Matthews could afford to take the time to heal in the summer, though it cost him valuable practice time with everyone anxious to see him in action.

"It is a frustrating injury; these guys are locked up in contact," said strength and conditioning coordinator Dave Redding. "There's a lot of pressure on these guys to get their (butts) back on the field. It is tough."

Redding said the Packers use caution with hamstring injuries. They look at the player's history with them and then determine a plan for rehabilitation, whether it is expected to be a short three weeks or something that drags on for months.

"It's a very sensitive thing to try to train and rehab and how far you want to take it, meaning how far you want to fatigue it," said Redding. "It's hard to simulate a release and then a dead sprint at game speed in a rehab program. What you don't want to do is keep reinjuring it, reinjuring it, reinjuring it."

That was the plan for Matthews, but the hamstring acted up on him again in late summer.

"I really to this day have no idea why because I was getting my sleep, eating properly, hydrating, I was more flexible than I've ever been," said Matthews. "I was actually thinking I was being proactive. I might have pushed it, coming back too early, and just kind of delayed the process, and then the training staff wanted to make sure this was not a recurring issue."

Matthews said the off-season rehabilitation is paying off. His timing couldn't be better.

"You could play through it, but you won't be at full speed, and that's where you hurt not only yourself but your team," said Matthews. "You have to make sure when you come back with a leg injury . . . it's 100%. And I feel good right now."