Green Bay Packers rookies complete their first practice

Damarious Randall speaks with reporters.

With 59 players hitting the field for the first of this weekend’s rookie practices today in Packers News, the Green Bay Packers coaches got their first look at the new guys who were selected in last week’s draft, as well as the dozens of free agents who have filled out the team’s 90-man roster.

Those in town today included eight draft picks, nine returning first-year players, 17 undrafted free agents and 25 who were trying out.

Though lombardiave.com, along with you, weren’t at that first practice, the beauty of social media is the chance to almost follow along real time by looking at the tweets from beat writers who were lucky enough to follow the action.

On the next page you will find many of those tweets that describe how first round pick Damarious Randall did (he sat out with what head coach Mike McCarthy calls a “minor” injury), how second-rounder Quinten Rollins did (he had a pick-six), as well as descriptions on how many of the other players looked throughout the morning practice.

Isn’t this fun? Football in May? Gotta love it.

While this first weekend of practices for the rookies gets the 2015 season rolling, you might also want to check the schedule below for the upcoming OTAs and mini-camp dates and times. Many of these practices will be open to the public as the team goes through its early season paces before the start of Training Camp in late July …

the Packers will hold Organized Team Activities on May 27 through 29, with the May 28 practice open to the public. Those sessions will be followed once again by OTAs on June 2-4 (June 2 practice being open to the public) and June 9-12 (with June 10 practice open to the public).

A mandatory minicamp will follow on the heels of that final OTA June 16-18, when all practices will be open.

Then the fireworks begin Wednesday, July 29, when all players report for the first day of the 2015 training camp practices, which begin Thursday, July 30.

So, to sum up the information above, the three open practices will be held May 28, June 2 and June 10. This, of course, depends on the weather. The practices are scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m.

In the meantime, turn the page for front row information about today’s rookie practice …

Next: Rookies hit the field for the first time as Green Bay Packers