Green Bay Packers: David Bakhtiari will Begin Season on PUP List
By Paul Bretl
As the summer unfolded, if you were holding out hope that David Bakhtiari was going to be ready for the Green Bay Packers Week 1 matchup with New Orleans, it became more and more clear that that wasn’t going to be the case.
Initially, it seemed like the real question was, is Bakhtiari going to begin the year on the PUP list or be placed on IR? But as ESPN’s Rob Demovsky points out, IR was never a realistic option because it would have required Bakhtiari to pass a physical–which just wasn’t going to happen at this time.
So instead, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Bakhtiari will be placed on the PUP list, making him ineligible to play for the first six weeks of the season.
Knowing that Bakhtiari was going to miss some time, we already have a pretty good idea of what the starting offensive line configuration for the Green Bay Packers will be in his absence.
Elgton Jenkins will be at left tackle, and my guess is Lucas Patrick will be the left guard. Josh Myers and Billy Turner will, of course, be the center and right tackle, while rookie Royce Newman is the right guard.
By all accounts, Jenkins has transitioned very well to the position, considering that he has only 29 career left tackle snaps, according to PFF ($$), and offensive line coach Adam Stenavich is confident in his abilities.
"“He’s a rare guy in this league, a guy that has the athleticism to play on the edge,” Stenavich said via Packers Wire. “Usually, you get your centers and guards, they don’t have that combination of length and athleticism to go out at tackle and compete with the good edge rushers out there, but Elgton has those tools. He has the size; he’s got the length. So he’s a very versatile guy, a very intelligent player. You can move him around and the game’s not too big for him. He understands everything. Extremely football smart. Moving him out to tackle, it might not be his absolute best position, but he’s still a very, very good tackle.”"
The Green Bay Packers open their 2021 season against the aforementioned New Orleans Saints on the road, then they are home for Detroit, and then back on the road in San Francisco. They are then home for Pittsburgh, at Cincinnati, and at Chicago.
At that point, we will see if Bakhtiari is ready to go for Week 7, but he could certainly miss more than just the first six weeks.