If you’ve forgotten the name Cole Madison, here’s a brief refresher. He was the offensive lineman the Green Bay Packers took in the fifth round of this year’s draft. He played at Washington State. When camp started, Madison didn’t report.
The Packers put him on the did-not-report list along with receiver Michael Clark, who shortly thereafter retired.
Madison has been dealing with an undefined personal issue and still hasn’t reported. It doesn’t sound like he’ll be dropping in anytime soon, either.
“He’s still dealing with a personal matter,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said. “We don’t expect Cole back any time soon. This will take a little time for him to deal with. We’re fully supportive of what’s going on, and that’s about really all there is to update on that.”
Look, it’s not as if Madison was likely to play a big role for the Packers this year anyway. He’s a rookie fifth-round draft pick. It’s possible he could have pushed Justin McCray at right guard, but that would have been an uphill battle.
Now we can surmise that Madison will play no role at all in 2018.
First, it sounds as if he won’t be in Green Bay until at least sometime during the regular season. But even if he were to show up today, Madison is so far behind everyone else, there’s no way he’d catch up.
While we don’t know what the personal issue is, Demovsky reports that Madison still wants to play ball.
“The plan is still to play,” Colin Roberts, one of Madison’s agents said. “At this point, he’s still dealing with a personal thing like Brian said.”
That’s the good news. The bad news is 2018 will likely be a lost season for Madison.