superiortelegram
The Green Bay Packers have faced a wave of injuries at linebacker over the past month, with Edgerrin Cooper out for the season due to an Achilles injury and Zaire Franklin sidelined for three games with a shin injury. However, the depth of the position group has risen to the occasion.
Isaiah McDuffie has anchored the unit in recent weeks, wearing the green dot in Franklin's absence. As the MIKE linebacker, McDuffie essentially serves as the quarterback of defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon's scheme, responsible for receiving the play call, relaying it to teammates, ensuring proper alignment, and making adjustments as needed.
Gannon praised McDuffie's handling of those responsibilities. "As far as everything that we put on the Mike linebacker, the green dot – he's handled it very well," Gannon said. "He's a pro's pro. He's awesome throughout the week. He's awesome on game day. He gives really good insight when we come off [the field] what's going on, what he's seeing, the communication piece of all that."
McDuffie has also made impact plays. He delivered his best performance of the season in Sunday's 45-27 win over the New England Patriots, recording three quarterback pressures, a sack, and nine total tackles while forcing and recovering a fumble. "I thought he had a heck of a game," Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. "Obviously that key takeaway where he stripped the receiver and then was able to recover the ball, that was a big time play. Just I love his style of play. How he runs to the football. How he arrive violently and he just does his job."
Ty'Ron Hopper has also made splash plays when given opportunities. In a 27-19 win over the Carolina Panthers on Oct. 29, Hopper generated four quarterback pressures and a sack as a blitzer, recorded eight total tackles, and in coverage held pass-catchers to 7.8 yards per reception while forcing a pass breakup and securing an interception. While McDuffie often excels closer to the line of scrimmage, Hopper has provided an added coverage presence in Cooper's absence, ranking tied for 14th among all linebackers in forced incompletion rate since Week 5, when he began seeing regular defensive snaps.
Gannon noted Hopper's progress. "Every NFL player I think, in my mind, does some good things and some things that they have to improve to help their overall game," Gannon said. "I think that what we've got here, what we identified for 'Hop,' he took it to heart. They've developed a plan to get it done and he's done a good job of that and he's really impacting the game for us right now."
However, Hopper played only two snaps on Sunday due to an injury of his own, further stressing the Packers' already thin linebacker room. Green Bay turned to Nick Niemann, primarily a special teams contributor, to line up next to McDuffie. Niemann had played only 363 career defensive snaps over his first five NFL seasons. His performance against the Patriots wasn't perfect—he surrendered a touchdown in coverage defending a wheel route—but he helped stabilize the position on the fly while still shouldering a full special teams workload. After the game, LaFleur awarded Niemann a game ball for playing all but four defensive snaps and 25 special teams snaps.
"I thought he did really well," Gannon said of Niemann. "I mean, it's a good learning experience for all our guys, because we prep them and we say it to them, but your role can change on game day very quickly. It really can. And that's a testament to Nick being ready to go. Like, not a lot of reps throughout the week, he knows he's the next guy in, but to be able to go in and play the whole game and then play all of fourth down, it was impressive. It really was. I was proud of him, happy for him. He did a good job."
Cooper won't return this season, but Franklin is expected back eventually, at which point McDuffie and Hopper could resume splitting playing time at the second starting linebacker spot. Despite missing two starters at one position group, the Green Bay defense hasn't missed much of a beat in recent weeks. That speaks in part to the malleability of the defensive scheme and, as Gannon will quickly point out, is the sign of a good defense—when all 11 defenders, regardless of who is on the field, work in unison to execute the play call. The continued high-level play also reflects the depth the Packers have built and developed at linebacker.
Originally reported by superiortelegram.