GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The first time MarShawn Lloyd touched the ball in the preseason this year, he stumbled -- his description -- just before he cut his run back to the right and regained his balance. Lloyd still managed a 5-yard gain, but on the way back to the huddle, quarterback Jordan Love asked him if he was OK.
“Jordan kind of noticed that and he was like, you good?” Lloyd recalled. “I’m like, yeah, I’m good.”
After all the injuries, all the practices missed and all the games Lloyd watched in street clothes, who could blame the Green Bay Packers quarterback for wondering?
“Once I got hit the first time,” Lloyd said, “it was fine”
In the month since that preseason opener in Pittsburgh, Lloyd answered some more questions. Yes, he could make it through an NFL training camp. Yes, he showed some of the same moves that the Packers fell in love with when they picked him in third round of the 2024 NFL draft. No, his confidence has not wavered.
Yet with Sunday’s season opener at the Minnesota Vikings (4:25 p.m. ET, CBS) just days away, one question lingers: How much can he handle?
With Josh Jacobs on the commissioner exempt list while the NFL investigates him for violations of the personal conduct policy, Lloyd has become the Packers’ de facto RB1. That’s a heavy stone to carry for someone who has been healthy enough to play in only one NFL game over the past two seasons combined.
“As ready as he’s ever been since he’s been here,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said of Lloyd. “He looks good. He’s handling all the physicality, the things that he needs to as a running back. It was good to get him out there and feel that. I think one of the things, particularly the running backs, the ball carriers, receivers, tight ends, when they haven’t played a lot, protecting the ball, taking hits -- all those types of things -- you need some of that to get ready. I think he’s ready.”
But ready for what, exactly? Five carries? 10? Even more?
“That’s to be determined,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “Who knows? I couldn’t tell you right now, so we’ll see how he’s feeling. He’s had a really steady camp. I think he did an outstanding job. Obviously his availability has been critical and we’ll just see how it goes.”
When the offseason program began in April, all the Packers wanted was to see Lloyd get through OTAs.
When Lloyd made it through OTAs, they wanted to see Lloyd get through the early portions of training camp.
When Lloyd handled the first two weeks of practice, they wanted to see Lloyd play in the preseason games.
The highlight of Lloyd’s 28 snaps in the preseason game was an 11-yard touchdown catch on an option route against the Broncos on Aug. 21. In the first two preseason games, Lloyd had 12 touches (10 carries and two catches). While most of the starters sat out of the preseason finale against the Cardinals, the original plan was for Lloyd to play before LaFleur changed his mind.
“The more I thought about it, I was like, ‘Do we?’” LaFleur said. “You know, he’s had such a great training camp, and ultimately, I felt like it was best for the team.”
The Packers have three running backs on the active roster: Lloyd, Chris Brooks and Kaleb Johnson. Brooks has been mostly a third-down, pass-protecting back. Johnson just arrived in Green Bay last week after a cut-down day trade with the Steelers. They will probably have to elevate Pierre Strong Jr. from the practice squad for Sunday against the Vikings.
Lloyd’s issues began with hamstring and hip injuries early in his first training camp with the Packers in 2024. He came back in time for Week 2 and had six carries for 15 yards and one catch for 3 yards. To date, that remains his only NFL regular-season or playoff game experience. And even that was done after only 10 snaps because of an ankle injury that landed him on injured reserve two days later. During his rehab from the ankle, he reinjured his hamstring and then underwent emergency surgery to have his appendix removed.
It only got worse in Year 2. He didn’t play a game last season. He started 2025 on injured reserve because of another hamstring injury and just when he came back to practice late in the year, he had another setback and returned to IR.
In an effort to figure out why this kept happening, Lloyd spent part of this offseason at the Meyer Institute of Sport in California, where it was discovered that a torn ACL in college likely had been causing stress on the rest of his body.
“Body feels good,” Lloyd said at the end of the preseason. “Now it’s just like, you just came from camp, so you just gotta rest and recover and just do that on repeat.”
That rest came last weekend in the form of a getaway in Chicago. He went to see Ye (Kanye West). The concert was at Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears. It was actually Lloyd’s first time in the stadium. Because of his injuries, Lloyd rarely traveled to road games the past two seasons. Same goes for the Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium.
“For that to be my first game,” he said. “That’ll be fun.”
