The Green Bay Packers determined this week that from now on, if anything happens to Chad Clifton, theyre going to play rookie T.J. Lang at left tackle.
This after shuffling their offensive line moving three players to replace one for the 2 games that Clifton missed with a right ankle injury he sustained Week 2 against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Lang played perhaps better than anyone could have imagined in about 20 snaps late in the 30-23 loss at Minnesota on Oct. 5. Or was his performance really that difficult to imagine?
When the Packers drafted Lang in the fourth round (No. 109 overall), they envisioned him as an eventual starting tackle. He played both right and left tackle during a standout career at Eastern Michigan. In his first pro practice, Lang lined up at right tackle. He stayed there throughout organized team activities and the mandatory minicamp. He took his first training camp snaps there, too.
Yet just a few days into camp, the coaches moved Lang to guard.
Considering they were searching for a replacement for long-time starting right tackle Mark Tauscher and had two other players third-year pro Allen Barbre and second-year pro Breno Giacomini working at that spot who had never before started an NFL game, it seemed like a surprising move at the time.
Now, their decision not to give Lang a legitimate shot at the starting job seems more curious than ever.
Re-signing Tauscher this week, less than nine months after reconstructive knee surgery, is acknowledgement enough that theyre not happy with Barbre, who has struggled the first quarter of the season. Their decision to make Lang the primary backup at left tackle speaks clearly to his skill.
It begs the question: Did coach Mike McCarthy and his offensive staff err in not letting Lang compete with Barbre and Giacomini for the starting right tackle job?
Thats hypothetical, offensive line coach James Campen said. Thats not fair to pin that on the kid or quite frankly to a coach to answer that, because thats not fair.
Likewise, offensive coordinator Joe Philbin wouldnt speculate on what might have happened if they had let Lang compete.
Oh, I dont know, I really havent thought about that, Philbin said. Hes a good athlete. Hes doing some good things. He represented (well) when he went into the game the other night, but I dont know, I dont really think about that.
Barbre worked as the No. 1 right tackle throughout the offseason and seemed like a legitimate candidate even though he lost a battle for the left guard spot to Daryn Colledge in 2008.
Giacomini was another story. The former fifth-round draft pick played in only one game as a rookie, and that was only on special teams in Week 2. He was inactive the rest of the way and sustained an ankle injury late in the season that required surgery, which limited him to almost nothing other than rehab work in the offseason.
We wanted to see where (Giacomini) was at and give him a chance to compete with Allen Barbre a little bit, Philbin said. I think that may have prompted us (to move Lang). You can only get so many guys so many looks, and if you dilute it too much and get too many guys, youre probably not being fair to anybody.
For the first two weeks of camp, Barbre got most of the reps with the starters, while Giacomini worked mostly with the twos. Even after the first preseason game, the Packers still were undecided about that spot and could have gotten Lang back into the mix.
Not sold on Barbre, McCarthy on Aug. 17 opened up the right tackle competition but again never considered Lang. Instead, Barbre and Giacomini split reps with the starters. A week later after the second preseason game, the Packers picked Barbre as their starter.
The coaches put me where they felt I could best play, said Lang, who split most of his training camp reps between right guard and left guard. Obviously, I had a couple of experienced guys in front of me in Breno and Allen, and I kind of fell out of the competition. I looked at the other spots and looked at where I could best fit and best help the line. Its really not up to me. They told me where I was going to play, and I took it in stride and tried to give both spots, guard and tackle, my best.
At this point, Barbre appears to be hanging on to his job by a thread and seems poised to be replaced by Tauscher in a week or two. Barbre gave up two sacks in the opener and has yielded 4 in four games.
Asked whether it was a mistake to move Lang so early in training camp, Campen said: Im perfectly comfortable with where we played him.
For now, Lang will concentrate on left tackle. Clifton is expected to return and start Sunday against the Detroit Lions, but Lang will be ready to go in on a moments notice like he did at Minnesota.
Ive played guard and tackle since training camp, but left tackle would be a nice future, Lang said. If they feel I can play left tackle, then I can continue to build on that and hopefully if they call on me to start, then hopefully I can get the job done.