GREEN BAY, Wis. — Tucker Kraft exploded from a half-crouch and threw his body into a hit sled with such a thunderous CRACK that a few people standing along the nearby sideline took a half-step back in shock.“… Psychopath …” a man in the crowd said softly, awed. Kraft repositioned the sled and lined up again. CRACK.The Green Bay Packers tight end, a blossoming superstar and now among the NFL’s elite at the position, can’t do everything he wants in practice just yet. He continues to work his way back to full participation after tearing his ACL in a Week 9 game in November.Head coach Matt LaFleur said Sunday that Kraft could realistically get the green light for joint practices in late August with the Arizona Cardinals. Until then, his on-field work will incrementally increase from what it was during my three-day visit to Packers camp this week: a number of short catch-and-run plays in individual drills, straight-line ball-carrier drills with the running backs, some blocking drills with the hit pads and not against live competition and other similar exercises. By the time those practices roll around, Kraft may even have a new contract — he is due for a massive extension, although he has said he’ll play his fourth NFL season without it if it comes to that — and this ongoing negotiation is quietly in the background of Kraft’s eventual return to the field as a player through whom much of the Packers offense will flow.Tucker Kraft back in action at Packers training campJourdan Rodrigue and Rachael TindeThere was a sense before his injury that Kraft was only picking up steam; with that came a certain edge for a Packers team that, though always very good and always with a high ceiling, simply has not been able to get past the divisional round over the last five seasons. Kraft was giving sharper teeth to a very good team in a town that so beautifully immortalizes great.In 2026, that very good team needs its stars to be great — healthy, and great.Monday, what mattered was that Kraft and his teammates put pads on for the first time. And even though he would be limited in the day’s practice, he wanted to freaking hit something.CRACK. The force of Kraft’s attack on the sled reminded me of a specific play he and LaFleur love to run — and did often in 2025, when the Packers were the No. 2 offense in EPA per play between Weeks 1 and 8. It is a play that can be either a run or pass concept depending on how the defense aligns to its pre-snap look, but is supposed to present as a duo run — especially if that defense is playing in shell coverage (two safeties up high). At the snap, Kraft and his blocking assignment — usually a defensive end — crash into each other at full force to help sell the play as a run right as quarterback Jordan Love executes a play-action fake, then Kraft shakes off the defender and bolts up and across the field where Love zips him the ball.“I’m gonna come off the line of scrimmage and I’m gonna strike this guy as hard as I can. Then I’m gonna get lost. (It’s) a dead sprint to the sideline,” Kraft said. “(And) … the job after that is to catch the ball and make them pay.”Kraft said that most defenses know the Packers will run this play. But, he noted with a grin, it still works; an embodiment of the “f— you energy” that seems to run through the otherwise low-key Kraft’s blood every time he takes the field.“The moment the ball hits my hands, it’s on. I’m trying to squeeze every inch out of every play,” he said. “… I want the entire defense to come and try to tackle me. You just put that stress on ’em. They’re gonna have to run down 85.”With the ball in his hands, Kraft is more boulder-from-“Raiders of the Lost Ark” than he is human. “I guess people don’t really want to tackle him,” LaFleur joked. Before Kraft got hurt, he had the highest yards-after-catch per reception of any non-running back in the NFL (11.2), which also was fifth-highest overall.“That mindset that not one person is gonna bring him down; not one person can guard him … he makes it come to life in the games,” Love told me. “It’s definitely that ‘f— you’ mindset, ‘I’m better than you.’ That dog mentality. You love guys that have that. It’s an edge, for sure.”Spending time in Green Bay is a powerful type of magic for any football fan. Driving from the airport into Titletown at night means following the glow of the Lambeau Field signage lofted high overhead — the classic, specifically green stadium itself dwarfing the homes around it and shedding soft light across those with front yards that eagerly face it from across the street. Many of those yards feature fences that are painted with tributes to players past and present; street names are “Holmgren Way” and “Lombardi Ave.” and “Brett Favre Pass.” Packers fans, please excuse this breathless tourism about a holy land you all know so well. Even the wildflowers growing in the street medians around the stadium are yellow and green. Come on.There’s no mistaking what town the Packers play in. (Jourdan Rodrigue / The Athletic)Yet magic and a high floor have lately only gotten this version of the Packers so far into the postseason. Perhaps understanding this, the organization was uncharacteristically aggressive in acquiring top pass rusher Micah Parsons via trade last summer. It was a sign, to me, that the front office knew it had to swing harder for the kind of math-changing talent that truly gives teams an advantage when the playoffs begin and game plans become more matchup-focused by the week. Other teams — the Los Angeles Rams, to name one Super Bowl-winning example — previously showed what is possible for a very good team when it pushes its chips in for elite players. More — the Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos and San Francisco 49ers — have followed a similar model in recent seasons; the Rams also just did, again. Yet that gamble is perilous, sometimes expensive and sometimes doesn’t even pay off. How fortuitous for the Packers, then, that they didn’t just bring in Parsons but had a couple of elite home-grown players, too, in the explosive, punishing Kraft and the serene, exceptional Love.It doesn’t always work out. Optimism at the start of last season was so high, and then Parsons and Kraft got hurt, Love played through a couple of dings and dents of his own and Green Bay suffered a second consecutive exit in the wild-card round. Most NFL teams would love to have this problem. The Packers — and their loyal fans — want more.Kraft seems to understand the line the franchise is trying to walk between its storied foundation and thirst to go bolder with its future. Intermixed between bone-rattling hits, unpoetic fundamentals and ground-out yards-after-the-catch, Kraft is a self-described “nuisance” to opponents and a total showman for his teammates and fans.“One thing we say around here is ‘if you’re juiceless, you’re useless,’” he said. “If you don’t have the confidence, exuberance to go out there and put your show on, then what are you really doing?”Last week, local reporters captured video of Kraft running a lap around the field before practice began, pumping his fist toward the applauding crowd. A couple teammates pumped their own fists. Maybe they couldn’t help it. Kraft says he wants to be a “thermostat” for the team this year. As he gets healthier and recaptures his rising star, I believe he will be.Small but meaningfulPackers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon could be crafting two defensive approaches for his new team. (Tork Mason / USA Today Network-Wisconsin)• In my mind, there is a pre-Parsons-return defense, and a post-Parsons-return defense.The former may have to depend more heavily on scheme, manufactured pressure and other designed twists to give depth and question-mark areas a lift, while the latter could still feature all of that — plus many initial questions and concerns will ultimately be solved with Parsons on the field.New defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon has wasted no time identifying and building around the strongest and deepest position group on defense: the safeties. Those players — featuring Xavier McKinney, Javon Bullard and Evan Williams among others — could play a significant role in bridging the two defensive timelines the Packers face.From 2021 through 2022, with Gannon as defensive coordinator, the Philadelphia Eagles ranked No. 22 in blitz rate, per TruMedia; when Gannon was the head coach of the Cardinals, their defense (though far less talented than those Eagles rosters) still didn’t blitz a ton. That will likely change in the early days of this Packers season.Gannon and Arizona defensive coordinator Nick Rallis also did some funky schematic things with versatile defensive back Budda Baker, especially in 2024 when Baker played safety, nickel, linebacker, outside linebacker, and even eight snaps of outside cornerback, according to Next Gen Stats positional tracking data.Gannon is not averse to putting a larger slot defender in that hybrid big nickel/Buffalo nickel/star role re-popularized over the last few years by Vic Fangio, Mike Macdonald and others to counter today’s big slot, tight end-dominant offenses. Nor is he averse to moving players around — the cloudier for the quarterback, the better. If sacks aren’t easy to come by, making the quarterback hesitate because of the pressure or simulated pressure and then throw into a murky, aggressive coverage may force errors.Because the Packers’ safety group is such a strength, Gannon won’t be shy about putting a safety in that inside role — Bullard, the 2024 second-round pick, is a strong candidate — and therefore utilizing more three-safety looks. Bullard’s feel for space and ability to “flip his brain” (a term LaFleur likes to use) from role to role across the box and defensive backfield, in coordination with the movement of fellow safeties McKinney and Williams, was exciting to watch. Their flow around each other almost felt orbital, and it was confident.“It’s been amazing,” said Bullard, “just the new positions, the different schemes. Guys in the back end just moving around in different places — I think it’s going to be fun this year.“The different disguises that we’ve got going on — we definitely have the pieces to do it.”Parsons has, of course, been around as he continues to recover from his knee injuries — he also brought his family to hang out after Sunday’s practice, leading to a nice moment when two of his kids ran up to LaFleur.In Monday’s padded practice, though, this defense was about Gannon, the defensive backs and the heat they threw at quarterbacks from a variety of personnel groupings and pressure packages — all while the coordinator stood off to the side and calmly walkie-talkied the calls out from under his bucket hat.From left, Bo Melton, Christian Watson and Matthew Golden are part of a Packers wide receivers room in which responsibilities might be clearer. (Kayla Wolf / Associated Press)• The Packers this spring parted ways with receivers Romeo Doubs in free agency and Dontayvion Wicks via a trade with Philadelphia. The position room was cluttered with talented players who naturally wanted the ball, and who often dealt with injuries and the pivots they forced. It was perhaps a little chaotic at times.As I understand it, there has been an intentional effort to give the remaining receivers more clarity in their roles. Second-year player Matthew Golden and comparative veterans Christian Watson and Jayden Reed seem so far to be complemented (particularly on motion and misdirection plays) by free-agent signing Skyy Moore, while second-year receiver Savion Williams shows impressive size and speed (although he has dealt with injury issues and this week had a wrap/brace around his upper left leg).Although the Packers spread the ball around in last season’s offense (especially with Kraft out of the lineup), Golden did not make the impact many expected from the first-round pick, and no player even exceeded 750 receiving yards. (Some, like Watson, were impacted by injuries.) Perhaps we weren’t aware of the level of confusion this crowded approach sometimes created; Monday, LaFleur casually dropped a line in his news conference that got my attention.“There (were) certain times where certainly we were calling plays and you just never knew who was going to be in the game,” he said. Speaking of Golden specifically, LaFleur said the Packers “did a lot of longer-developing routes and sometimes those guys need a breather, and the next thing you know he’s not in the game and you’re calling a play for him.”LaFleur’s offense already features motions, shifts and formation changes, and asks receivers to play multiple positions. (Golden, for example, will align at times in the “X” role, but a motion or formation change could convert him to a “Z” before or at the snap and vice versa.) Fewer players jockeying for defining roles might be more productive for everyone amid all of those built-in responsibilities from snap to snap — and communication among coaches with fewer players to rotate in and out of the game should improve, too. Further, if they don’t have to sub players in and out, the Packers can play faster and use more tempo, a strength of LaFleur’s in some of his previous offensive systems.Love said he has already noticed more clarity within the group.“I think last year, you look at our receivers room and it was a deep (room),” he told me. “You’re trying to put guys in the best position, guys are coming in and out of the game, and the injuries happen. What we have right now is a lot more comfortable (and) everybody gets the most amount of reps and just feels as comfortable as they can be in those positions. … I think the expectations, guys understanding their role, what they’re being asked — (it) is going to be a lot more clear.”The pristine grass at Lambeau Field is roped off to tourists. (Jourdan Rodrigue / The Athletic)OK, one last breathless-tourist note: The natural grass field at Lambeau is spectacular, and the Packers know it. It is roped off to tourists (and wandering sportswriters) and features polite, yet firm signage with warnings to stay off it. Green Bay’s is the only training camp I’ve ever attended that includes a note in the travel directions about the field’s maintenance schedule so that TV reporters (and wandering sportswriters) don’t get sprayed with whatever they’re using to treat the grass. Whatever it is, it’s working. Major kudos to the grounds crew.