Green Bay Packers running back MarShawn Lloyd (32) has played just one game in his first two seasons.
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Cautiously optimistic.
After two nightmarish seasons wrecked by injury, Green Bay Packers running back Marshawn Lloyd is crossing his fingers that the worst is behind him. And Lloyd hopes the soft tissue injuries that limited him to one game and 10 total snaps his first two seasons are a thing of the past.
“I feel really good,” Lloyd said after the Packers’ first training camp practice Wednesday. “I definitely do.”
Lloyd, a third round draft pick in 2024, played just one game his rookie season. Lloyd missed the season opener with a hamstring injury, then after playing in Week 2, Lloyd spent seven weeks on the injured reserve list with an ankle injury.
When Lloyd finally appeared ready to return, he suffered an emergency appendectomy and missed the rest of the season.
Last season, Lloyd never got started, spending the entire season on the injured reserve list with a hamstring injury.
Lloyd spent much of his offseason with Dr. John Meyer of the Meyer Institute of Sport in El Segundo, Calif. Meyer and his staff determined Lloyd was overcompensating while training his lower body.
“He’s the real deal,” Lloyd said of Meyer. “I had to do so (many) tests, and he’s seen how I moved and where I was overcompensating, and he kind of got those places better where I need it. So focus on a lot of single leg stuff and get my quads right and getting my hamstrings right.”
Lloyd said when training camp began last season he was “uncertain” about his health.
Today, he feels entirely different.
“I mean, as far as like the strength of everything, yeah, my strength is a lot different,” Lloyd said. “A lot of single leg strength and just strong in all aspects from the hips, everything. So I do definitely feel a difference in the way my body feels.”
The Packers don’t have a proven No. 2 running back behind starter Josh Jacobs. And uncertainty still surrounds Jacobs after his arrest on May 26 for domestic disturbance.
Green Bay general manager Brian Gutekunst was asked if Jacobs could face disciplinary action from the NFL.
“It’s really out of our hands right now,” Gutekunst said. “It’s a legal thing.”
No matter what happens with Jacobs, the Packers need something — anything — from Lloyd. Green Bay lost quality No. 2 back Emanuel Wilson this offseason, and holdover Chris Brooks is a better blocker than a runner.
So it seems like it’s now or never for Lloyd.
Lloyd spent three years at South Carolina, then played the 2023 season at USC. That year, Lloyd had his best college campaign, finishing with 820 rushing yards, nine touchdowns and a 7.1 yards per yards per carry average.
Lloyd, who stands just 5-foot-8 ½, was the fourth running back taken in the 2024 draft behind Jonathon Brooks of Texas (pick No. 46 to Carolina), Florida State’s Trey Benson (No. 66, Arizona) and Michigan’s Blake Corum (No. 83, Los Angeles Rams).
On draft weekend, Lloyd made a lofty prediction.
“I’m the best running back in the draft, for sure,” Lloyd said.
Lloyd has never been healthy enough to prove that.
Maybe, just maybe, things will be finally be different.
“The proof’s in the pudding,” he said.