For veteran cornerback Al Harris, missing a game due to injury was a foreign concept for his first 10-plus seasons in the NFL.
But after playing in 175 straight games to start his career, Harris has battled injuries each of the past two years, including a torn ACL and LCL in his left knee in 2009 that sidelined him for the final six regular-season games as well as the Packers' playoff contest at Arizona.
Harris returned to Green Bay this week, where he said he will finish his rehab in hopes of being back on the field in time for the start of the 2010 season, after spending most of the offseason rehabilitating his knee at a facility near his home in Coral Springs, Fla.
"I don't want to give any predictions or anything like that, but I am going to do my part," said Harris, who also missed four games in '08 due to a lacerated spleen. "So if it is up to me and up to me working to get out there, then I'll be out there.
"We've got to go with the protocol and do what is right for the team and do what is right by me. I am going to do my part as far as preparing and working to get better."
While the players will have off after the mini-camp ends on June 23 until they report for training camp, Harris said his plan is to stay in town during the month of July to work out at Lambeau Field.
"This time of year it is best that I am here to utilize the facilities and the professionalism in the training room, guys that I am used to being around, guys that I have been around for the last eight years, when something is aching or things like that," Harris said.
Harris sustained the knee injury covering wide receiver Michael Crabtree down near the goal line in the fourth quarter of Green Bay's Week 11 victory over San Francisco at Lambeau Field. He underwent reconstructive surgery eight days later, and also had to have two manipulations done following the surgery due to tightness in the knee.
"Rehab, it sucks, honestly," Harris said. "That's a really tough part of it. I tip my hat to anybody that has ever had to rehab a knee injury or anything like that because rehab is tough, honestly, but it is a part of it. You take the good with the bad.
"The range (of motion) early off was the big issue. It's like you are bending your finger back, but it's supposed to go back and it doesn't want to. That was early off the thing, and I think anybody that has had this type of injury would probably tell you that getting the range back, that's the most painful part. That's just something you have got to block out. Actually you have to look forward to it because that is what is going to get you back."
Another challenge was watching his team play without him, something that was hard to stomach as he caught only "bits and pieces" of Green Bay's games following his injury. He didn't travel to Arizona for the Packers' Wild Card contest against the Cardinals.
"Anybody that knows me, Mike (McCarthy) or anybody, they know that I support every guy in this locker room," Harris said. "I am close to a lot of the guys on the team, especially on the secondary, but it's painful for me to watch.
"Like I said, that fuels me when it is time to rehab, when it is time to get up and go in and workout. That is my fuel."
Boasting a career that already included 182 games played and two Pro Bowl appearances after starting out his career on the practice squad with Tampa Bay in 1997, some players in Harris' situation might have chosen retirement over a long, grueling period of rehabilitation, but the 35-year-old wasn't ready for that.
"It's not done yet, and that's what drives me," Harris said. "There are naysayers, and that's not what drives me. You stop when you want to stop. It's not done yet, and when it's done, it's done."
A little time away
The Packers were back on the field Wednesday for their second of three OTA practices this week after a break last week.
McCarthy made some tweaks to the offseason schedule this year, which included giving the team a week off after the first week of OTA practices. After Thursday's practice, the Packers will have OTA workouts the next two weeks before the mandatory mini-camp the following week.
"I really like the new schedule as far as the week off last week," McCarthy said. "I think it came at a very good time, especially with the participation that we've had since March 15."
{sportsad300}The new scheduling format brought some mixed feelings from veteran defensive lineman Ryan Pickett.
"What I don't kind of like about it is prolonging it and it pushes back from us having the longer break after mini-camp," Pickett joked. "So it shortens our time, but for me it's kind of good (because) it gives me less of a window to get out of shape."
Although the veterans had some time off last week, Green Bay's rookies were at Lambeau Field for walk-throughs, weight lifting, and some player-development seminars to help them adjust to life off the field as they make the transition to the NFL.
"It was a really good week to get those guys acclimated, because this week, next week and the week after is going to be a big challenge for those guys as far as the amount of volume of offense, defense and special teams that we're going to throw at them," McCarthy said.
Havner getting closer
Tight end Spencer Havner, who sustained a fractured scapula in a March motorcycle accident in his hometown of Grass Valley, Calif, said he is feeling "near 100 percent."
McCarthy said that Havner's injury was scanned on Tuesday, but Dr. Patrick McKenzie didn't think Havner was quite ready to return to the field. McCarthy said it would probably be at least another two weeks before Havner could be back in action, making a return for the June 21-23 mini-camp at least a possibility.
"I wish it didn't happen, but it is something that I have got to go through," Havner said. "Everything is getting back to normal."
Rookie running back James Starks sat out Wednesday's workout due to a hamstring injury.
Pickett sat out practice as well because of a minor shoulder injury sustained on Tuesday, but he said he didn't expect to be out of action for very long. Second-year defensive end Jarius Wynn worked with the first-team base defense in place of Pickett.
