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For Green Bay Packers, healthy Clay Matthews is necessary

By Keegan Matheson

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Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews returned to training camp on Monday after missing five practices with a sore knee. His preseason usage has yet to be determined, but Matthews health entering the 2015 season will be the most important storyline to follow on the Green Bay Packers defense.

According to Rob Demovsky of ESPN, Mike McCarthy is taking a cautious approach to Matthews’ return. “Clay Matthews is on a trial-and-error, trial return,” McCarthy said following practise on Monday. This doesn’t offer up much optimism for Matthews’ short-term timeline in returning to full contact, but entering his seventh season as a leader on this defense, Week 1 is the only date that Packers’ fans should worry about.

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For his own part, Matthews left the door open to missing some preseason time. “You know what, any opportunity to be out there, especially in regards to preseason games, I think is very important,” Matthews told Demovsky. “But there’s always other factors that go along with that.”

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The impact of Matthews on this defensive unit goes well beyond the obvious fact of him being an elite defender. After taking snaps at both inside and outside linebacker through the early stages of camp, the Packers seem comfortable using Matthews as the moveable chess piece we saw towards the end of 2014, where he helped to replace the struggling A.J. Hawk and Brad Jones.

While his shift to the interior was made primarily to impact the run defense, something Green Bay struggled greatly with through the first half, his playmaking ability did not skip a beat. From Week 8 and on, Matthews recorded 1.0 sack or more in seven of nine games. He did not remain inside exclusively, but his versatility gave defensive coordinator Dom Capers the flexibility to get his best packages on the field as often as possible.

A healthy Matthews is also critical to Julius Peppers on the other side of the Green Bay Packers defense. While Peppers’ 2014 season showed us that he’s fully capable of producing impact plays and forcing turnovers, there were also stretches of games where he looked pedestrian. If this knee injury flares up throughout the season and leaves the Packers with anything less than a 100% Clay Matthews, I do worry that Peppers will struggle to produce when met with consistent double-team blocks.

Long-term, I expect rookie inside linebacker Jake Ryan to take over alongside Sam Barrington, but given Matthews’ complex skill set, flip-flopping him between multiple positions does not worry me greatly. This health is a real issue, however, and the Packers would be wise to exercise the utmost caution with their defensive franchise player.

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