GREEN BAY, Wis. — It took a devastating and significant injury to Edgerrin Cooper for Ty’Ron Hopper to see the field. Would the Green Bay Packers have preferred it this way? Of course not, but, unfortunately, it’s the hand that they’ve been dealt.
Cooper, who has blossomed into one of the league’s best young linebackers, suffered a torn Achilles in the Packers’ Oct. 4 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He’s going to be shelved until the start of training camp next summer, assuming his rehab schedule doesn’t hit any speed bumps.
That bumped Hopper from the bottom of the depth chart to the starting lineup, or at least much closer to it than he was before. He’s now one of the room’s three primary headliners, alongside Zaire Franklin and Isaiah McDuffie.
The Packers are going to have an extensive look at Hopper, a former third-round pick in the spring of 2024. Outside of the preseason, that’s been a relatively foreign luxury.
