Jake Ryan
Green Bay Packers linebacker Jake Ryan suffered a torn ACL in his right knee in practice on Monday and will miss the rest of the season.
Ryan, who is in the final year of his contract in Green Bay, also tore his right ACL when he was in college at the University of Michigan. He will earn his base salary of $1.907 million for this season.
Ryan was set to start in the Packers base defense, now Packers defensive coordinator Mike Pettine will have to find an alternative. Pettine has used a number of players during practice this week, including Quentin Rollins, Josh Jones and Jermaine Whitehead and rookie Oren Burks in the dime package.
On Tuesday, general manager Brian Gutekunst said he had no plans to replace Ryan with a veteran. He wanted to see how Burks and the other young players do in Camp. Ahmad Thomas, Greer Martini and Naashon Hughes have all shown flashes in the first week.
Defensive coordinator Mike Pettine was asked on Wednesday how me might replace Ryan. Pettine said, “Well, certainly we have experience in a guy that was very productive last year in Blake. We have the rookie, O.B. (Burks), who has looked good at times. Still, the transition from the college game to the NFL, it takes some time.
“It’s tough for those guys to come in, and it overwhelms them a little bit at first. And especially now, we’re working off the entire inventory. And once we get to game plan situations, we really cut it down. That’s going to help a lot of our guys that have a lot of stuff running through their head.
“Ahmad Thomas has flashed, certainly, some coverage ability in the days so far. And then we have some other, younger guys. We’ll see how it plays out. It’s a big loss.”