Darnell Savage leaves Packers Family Night practice early with injury

Early on in the Green Bay Packers’ annual Family Night practice, which was held at Lambeau Field in front of over 50,000 fans, safety Darnell Savage left with what was later called a hamstring injury.

The good news is that Savage doesn’t believe the injury is a concern. As ESPN’s Rob Demovsky would report, Savage felt a little bit of tightness, but he didn’t feel any sort of pop.

"“It’s a fast-people injury,” Savage said via Bill Huber of SI. “Some of those things you can’t avoid. I’ll just handle it the right way and listen to those guys back there and I’ll be all right.”"

Head coach Matt LaFleur would echo similar sentiments and didn’t seem overly concerned either–although we will find out more on Sunday when the Packers take the practice field again.

Savage is entering his fourth NFL season, and earlier this offseason, the team picked up his fifth-year option for the 2023 campaign. Now in his second season under Joe Barry, Savage is once again a breakout candidate.

The safety position in Barry’s defense is a challenging role as the players are tasked with many responsibilities, some of which include playing down in the box as an active run defender, which puts an emphasis on tackling, while also making sure they don’t get beat over the top.

This is one reason why for a young player like Savage, experience in this system — which he now has — is so important.

Savage was on the field for over 1,000 snaps last season, according to PFF ($$), and recorded four pressures while allowing 30 receptions on 45 targets at 13.6 yards per catch. He also had seven pass breakups, two interceptions, and a career-low 11 missed tackles.

The safety depth is a major concern on this Green Bay Packers team. As I wrote recently, this is a crowded room with a number of players making a case as to why they should be on the final roster, but there is still little defensive experience–which comes with obvious risks if the Packers were to have to lean on any one of those players for an extended period of time.

With it being a crowded position, it can be difficult from the outside looking in to know where each of those players stands on the depth chart behind Savage and Adrian Amos, but for what it’s worth, Vernon Scott was the one who then lined up with the starters on Family Night.

Scott has only 90 career defensive snaps, but he has been on the roster the past two seasons, and he has made several splash plays at practice this past week. Shawn Davis is another who has seen some reps with the ones as well this summer.

Rookie Tariq Carpenter and the recently signed Dallin Leavitt are more likely to be special teams contributors, while Innis Gaines has been utilized all over the field. As LaFleur told reporters, these positional battles have a way of working themselves out once the preseason games begin.

For the time being, it looks like Savage has avoided a major injury–although he still may miss some time making sure that he is fully healthy.