Green Bay Packers: Rookie report entering final stretch of season
By Kenn Korb
Kenny Clark
Clark was brought in to immediately become a solid rotation contributor on a defensive line full of those sort of guys. Outside of Mike Daniels, there isn’t anyone who resembles a star by any means, and the expectation from the get-go seemed to be Clark could be used in the same mold as guys like Letroy Guion and Mike Pennel — solid players who make a decent impact throughout a game.
Despite starting the season pretty well though, Clark has fallen off heavily.
In the first four weeks, he picked up eight tackles with one pass defended, acting as a key component of how Green Bay began 2016 as such a force against the run. Since then, he barely made an impact at all, with just seven tackles in the following eight games despite averaging over 19 snaps per game in that time. According to Pro Football Focus’ player grades, he’s gone from being about average to by far Green Bay’s worst defensive lineman.
The Packers have noticed this dropoff too; in turn, they’ve started using him less. After hitting 22-plus snaps in seven of the first 10 games, he reached just 13 and seven in the games against Philadelphia and Houston, respectively.
I would say we shouldn’t expect to see much more of him, but a new factor recently emerged which (for better or worse) seems to be forcing more onto Clark’s plate: Mike Pennel’s four-game suspension. This is his second time being unavailable for a stretch like that in 2016 — both due to substance abuse. My feelings on that subject itself notwithstanding, the immediate impact means there are about a dozen snaps on the line needing to be picked up each week.
This could be a silver-lining opportunity for Clark to save his season to a degree. As mentioned earlier, the opening four games were his best stretch of play this year; that coincided with Pennel being absent, giving him one less person to fight for time.
Him playing better is not guaranteed, nor is him even being given those newly available snaps — others who are currently playing better might just get them instead — but the slate ahead of him is the kind Clark could use to end the year on a positive note.
The early signs are encouraging, with Clark being involved in four tackles across 25 snaps against Seattle. Based on the competition that alone isn’t much to be excited about (nobody will mistake Germain Ifedi for more than roster fodder with high draft status in his rookie season), but the competition isn’t going to improve all that much in the remaining contests.
Ted Larson, Brandon Fusco, Larry Warford: that’s who Clark is set to face based on where he lines up (the left side of Green Bay’s defensive line, opposite the right guard of the opposition). All are suspect at best. Of those guys only Warford has shown himself to be more than a replacement-level player in 2016, and he’s still only been an average player for three seasons running.
Should he keep up this 20-plus snap count rate going through the rest of the season, whether or not Clark can make something happen in these winnable matchups will be something to watch.