The Packers’ depth on offensive line took a hit today when the team announced that offensive lineman Jordan Morgan would be placed on injured reserve. Taking Morgan’s spot on the 53-man active roster will be practice squad cornerback Robert Rochell. 
Morgan, a first-round rookie out of Arizona, hasn’t been a full-time starter in his first NFL season, but he’s seen the field plenty. With Green Bay returning four of its five starters on the offensive line from last year, only the right guard spot was really open for competition, though there were thoughts that, with his first-round pedigree, Morgan could provide an improvement at left tackle, as well.
Throughout his first summer with the team, though, Morgan dealt with a shoulder injury, causing him to miss valuable camp time. It became clear that Rasheed Walker and Zach Tom were locked in at the left and right tackle positions, respectively, and Elgton Jenkins and Josh Myers were sure starters at their own respective positions of left guard and center. Sean Rhyan, a third-round pick out of UCLA who had thus far failed to live up to his Day 2 draft stock, took over the starting right guard job as Morgan dealt with his ailment, but it became clear that if Morgan was going to find the field as a rookie, it would be at guard.
Rhyan has started all nine games of the season for the Packers at right guard, but Green Bay has been splitting time at the position between him and Morgan, whenever Morgan is healthy. Morgan’s shoulder has continued to nag him throughout his rookie campaign, causing him to miss three weeks in a row earlier this year.
When Myers missed last week with a wrist injury, Jenkins shifted in to the center spot, giving Morgan the first start of his career at left guard. Though he played the full game, something must have become clear with his shoulder injury, because after very limited practice this week, the Packers determined that Morgan would require a stint on IR for his shoulder injury.
With Morgan out for at least four games, if Myers is forced to miss any more time due to his wrist, the Packers would need to either turn to third-string center and fifth-round rookie out of Duke Jacob Monk, who has only played on special teams this year, or they would need to shift Jenkins back in to center and ask one of their backup tackles — Andre Dillard, Kadeem Telfort, or Travis Glover — to fill in at left guard.
Rochell has seen plenty of game time this season, playing in four games so far. Most of his games have been as a standard gameday practice squad elevation, but after he reached the limit of three games off a single practice squad contract, he was signed to the active roster for a game, released, then re-signed to the practice squad.
Just guessing that if Rochelle took Morgan’s roster spot, ol’ Jerry Alexinjury won’t be suiting up again this week.
Nailed it
Yet another 1st round mistake in the Packer tradition. Seems every year there’s an obvious choice sitting there to fill an obvious need and instead the Packers go in a different direction. This dates back to the Thompson era and even beforehand. Cooper DeJean would have filled so many needs as an upgrade over Stokes and Valentine at CB as well as a potential weapon in return game. Instead the Packers choose a 2nd round caliber talent like Morgan. In the team’s words they took Morgan because they viewed him as a LT contrary to what most scouts and draft evaluators believed. Morgan didn’t last a week in camp before he was moved exclusively to guard. Meanwhile DeJean is one of the highest graded CBs in the NFL year one. TJ Watt, Alvin Kamara, George Pickens and now DeJean, yes the Packers do have some hits, especially at QB but the misses are monumental mainly because they seemed like such layups in the moment as well as in hindsight.
Yeah. You have no idea at this point. The secondary looks good. And Morgan would have been gone in the second round. They needed OL depth. The injuries to Morgan are just unfortunate.
It would be nice to actually have a first round pick who plays and contributes right away in GB. It seems every year the first draft pick response is “huh?”