When Josh Sitton was forced to play left tackle for a winner-take-all division showdown with the Minnesota Vikings in 2015, the guy who replaced him at left guard was Lane Taylor.
So, when Taylor walked into a Green Bay Packers' meeting room Tuesday morning and offensive line coach James Campen told him he was going to start at left tackle on Thursday night, Taylor shouldn’t have been surprised.
The Packers don’t pigeon-hole their offensive linemen even though it would be easier to teach them one position when they walk through the door for the first time. They force their linemen to train at multiple positions and sometimes make them play at positions they’ve never played before.
Taylor had trained at both guard positions, but had not worked at tackle.
“I think I had one rep during the spring game of my sophomore year, at right tackle,” Taylor said, recalling the last time he had played tackle. “I didn’t even do a pass set or anything.”
It didn’t matter to Campen, who going into a division showdown with the Chicago Bears was missing all five of his tackles due to a rash of injuries. He was already playing with guard/center Justin McCray at right tackle in place of Bryan Bulaga (ankle), so why not give Taylor a shot at left tackle?
“I said, ‘All right,'" Taylor replied when asked how he reacted. "So I just drowned myself in tackle knowledge and watching film and everything. I was still even watching the guard on film by accident when I was studying.
“I got a couple non-padded reps on Saturday (actually Wednesday). I had Clay (Matthews) go kind of hard at me and (Chris) Odom. That’s all I really did.”
All Taylor did Thursday night was help quarterback Aaron Rodgers (18 of 26 for 169 yards and four touchdowns) stay upright most of the game and the backs rush for a season-high 92 yards on 23 carries (3.8 average). Rodgers was only knocked to the ground twice — both on sacks — and only had to do a fair amount of running outside the pocket.
To be clear, it wasn’t as though the Packers moved the ball up and down the field against the Bears. Rather than put his tackles on islands and force them to take on pass rushers Leonard Floyd, Akiem Hicks, Willie Young and Pernell McPhee, McCarthy surrounded his “tackles” with tight ends, limited deep quarterback drops and ran the ball whenever he could.
He did nothing that would expose Rodgers for extended periods of time and counted on his defense to keep the Bears in check.
http://www.packersnews.com/story/sp...discover-more-depth-offensive-line/714585001/