GREEN BAY, Wis. -- No one ever said training camp was supposed to be fun.
But at least there are usually moments of levity and comradeship -- until last year, when COVID-19 restrictions eliminated whatever fun was normally had.
Some of that, though, has returned this year to the Green Bay Packers’ training camp.
Back were meeting room snacks (purchased by the rookies, of course), fans at practice (and in the Lambeau Field parking lot to watch players ride bikes and even a souped-up golf cart for Aaron Rodgers), family gatherings and even a humorous explanation of a treehouse adventure by one of the assistant coaches.
If training camp 2020 was a bore, then the summer of 2021 has brought back some of the fun moments that can normally be found when 90 players and more than two dozen coaches and scouts spend almost every day together for more than a month.
Here are some of those moments that have made camp more palatable again:
Bakhtiari finally delivers an ‘Aston Martin’ to Rodgers
Call it a (very) late Christmas present or a welcome-back gift, but All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari finally gave his MVP quarterback what he wanted: an Aston Martin.
Sort of.
Remember last year on "The Pat McAfee Show" when Rodgers, known for extravagant gifts for his offensive linemen, started giving Bakhtiari a hard time for not gifting Rodgers something nice after Bakhtiari signed his $103.5 million contract?
Rodgers kept asking Bakhtiari for one of his favorite cars.
Bakhtiari bought a model -- one Rodgers said looked used, something Bakhtiari “spent time putting together from Hobby Lobby or Michaels or something like that.”
Fast forward eight months, and when Rodgers decided to return to the Packers for a 17th season, an Aston Martin-inspired golf cart -- courtesy of Bakhtiari -- was waiting for him at Lambeau Field.
While restrictions prevent players from taking part in the team tradition of picking out a kid with a bike and riding to and from practice with them, some players still ride bikes provided by the Packers. Rodgers and Bakhtiari, however, ride in the golf cart from the stadium to practice every day, waving and smiling at fans along the way.
Hey rookie, where are the snacks?
All-Pro cornerback Jaire Alexander has been open to any questions that first-round draft pick Eric Stokes might have -- on one condition.
“He needs to bring in some more snacks,” Alexander said early in camp. “He always says it’s in his truck. Then, I say, ‘Go to your truck and get it,’ and he says he don’t know where his truck is. All right, dude.”
Not true, said Stokes.
“See, I actually brought snacks in,” he said. “I took them out of the truck, I put them in the room and he just kept saying, ‘Hey, man, I’m going to keep saying that you need to bring more snacks.’ Sunday, I went to Target and I brought a lot of snacks. Like a lot of snacks.
“That’s when he came in here and he literally said, ‘Rookie, you are totally cool with me now.’ The snack issue is a done deal now. It’s full right now. I know for a fact they’ll be gone by Friday.”
Among the items Stokes said he picked up were: jumbo bags of candy -- Snickers, Twix, Reese’s, Skittles and Dum Dums among them. He also discovered that safety Adrian Amos had another request.
“I bought some pistachios for Smash because Smash loves pistachios,” Stokes said of Amos. “I had got some more different stuff, so the room is filled with pretty much junk food, let’s just say that.”
Stokes said the checkout clerk at Target asked if he was having a party.
“I said, ‘No, man, I’m on rookie duty,’” Stokes said. “He was like, ‘Oh, man, this is a lot of junk food for just one person.’ I was like, ‘Trust me, it’s about 16, 17 of us. It’s going to be gone in about a week.”
Stokes said the problem is every time the snacks start to run low, all of the defensive backs look at him but not fellow rookie Shemar Jean-Charles. Perhaps that’s because Stokes was the first-round pick and Jean-Charles was a fifth-rounder.
“Don't believe that,” Jean-Charles said. “I took a late night trip to Walmart and got snacks for the older guys, everything they like -- from the chips to candy. They got a weird infatuation with pistachios, you know? Yeah, Smash loves pistachios, so I made sure I got the two big family-sized bags just for him."
LaFleur family reunion
Now that the NFL is allowing joint practices again, it opened the door for a LaFleur family reunion. Packers coach Matt LaFleur invited the New York Jets (coached by his good friend Robert Saleh) to town this week for two practices in advance of Saturday’s preseason game.
It means LaFleur’s brother, Mike, who is the Jets offensive coordinator, will be in town, and the family will be bunking at the LaFleur residence in De Pere, Wisconsin.
“We’ve got our whole families coming to town,” Matt said. “My parents, my sister-in-law and her kids, they’ll all be staying at the house. We’ll get some opportunities to hang out in the evening. I think we’re going to try to do something with the Jets staff one of the nights and just enjoy some good camaraderie.”
If a coach falls from a treehouse in the woods …
Outside linebackers coach Mike Smith offered one of the more entertaining news conferences of camp when he explained why he walked into the media auditorium with a cast on his right arm.
I asked OLB coach Mike Smith what the tree house he fell out of looked like. He brought me a picture #Packers pic.twitter.com/Qs4PcG6ylN
— MK Burgess (@MK_Burgess) August 12, 2021
Smith shattered his wrist and got concussed after a 20-foot fall while building a treehouse -- or as fellow Packers assistant coach Kirk Olivadotti called it, “A house in a tree” -- for his kids.
It happened when he was installing the very last board, but Smith said he doesn’t remember any of it because he was knocked out cold. Remember, Smith was the same coach who earlier this offseason revealed he chipped a tooth while trying to fix some lawn equipment.
“Matt’s telling me I need to hire people,” Smith said. “I’m like, ‘Hell, no. I’ll do it myself. ... It’s good for the soul.’”
It was the kind of entertaining moment that never would have seen the light of day last year, because all media conferences were via Zoom.