We knew the Green Bay Packers were intent upon replacing Marshall Newhouse at left tackle and they’ve done just that — with right tackle Bryan Bulaga. Surprisingly, the Packers are also switching guard positions, moving Josh Sitton — the team’s best offensive lineman — to left guard and T.J. Lang to right guard.
Coach Mike McCarthy made the move on Monday.
“I sat down with Bryan and Josh on Monday and I told them I wanted to make the move to where they’re on the left side,” McCarthy said. “Those two are our most accomplished and experienced players. I told them about the responsibilities and my expectations about playing the left side.
“Some of the things we’ll want to get into schematically as we move forward. They were excited about it.”
So what about right tackle? There will be an open competition between Newhouse, former first-round pick Derek Sherrod and Don Barclay, who started several games in place of Bulaga at that position last season.
The Packers feel Newhouse is too soft to play left tackle and he gave up some of the highest sack and pressure numbers on the team. Obviously, this is a move to try to keep the $110 million man off his ass.
We’d love to hand the right tackle job to Sherrod because, well, that guy has to get on the field and show why he was a first-round pick at some point. However, he’s still not cleared medically.
Until he is, the edge has to go to Barclay, who proved to be a road grader in the running game last season. He did have some issues in pass protection, but you’d expect those to improve dramatically in his second year in the system.