The Packers begin their season tonight, and in a twist (to hide from the authorities??) they’re doing it in Brazil. 7:15 PM Central Time. Peacock. Nothing says football like the annual Friday night game on Peacock played in Brazil. The opponent? The Eagles. A rematch of the famous 6–3 Packer win at Lambeau Field in Week 3 of the 2000 season. Darren Sharper had an interception that day.
In honor of the occasion (the Packers part, not the Brazil part), here’s how much cheese I think every Packer can eat. We’re going by position group.
Quarterbacks
Jordan Love: More than he thinks.
The key, for Love, is confidence, and after his anti-cheese curd comments this offseason, I’m worried about the quarterback’s belief in himself. He hasn’t tried them, has he?
Malik Willis: A small amount of cheese.
Nothing special, but I bet Malik Willis has downed some Kraft singles raw before.
Running Backs
Josh Jacobs: Lots of cheese.
I don’t care that it’d wreck his career. I want Josh Jacobs to become a bowling ball. I want Eddie Lacy back there. Good for the Packers? No. Good for Josh Jacobs? No. Good for me? No. Except for that once Josh Jacobs gets fat, as is his destiny, I bet he’ll pound cheese. There is so much untapped potential in that frame. Cheese-eating potential.
MarShawn Lloyd: No cheese.
Went to USC? May have a receding hairline? No chance that man eats cheese.
Emanuel Wilson: Quite a bit of cheese.
Emanuel Wilson doesn’t have Josh Jacobs’s “this guy would be awesome if he was fat” potential, but he does have a nice smile, and most people with nice smiles are also good cheese-eaters.
Ellis Merriweather: I guess we’ll find out!
Merriweather’s off the practice squad tonight, so we should see his cheese-eating chops live and on our televisions. In related news, I’m going to confess something to you all here: I don’t understand the practice squad elevation/emergency quarterback rules. Where is Sean Clifford tonight? Did the Packers bring Sean Clifford to Brazil? If they don’t use him, do they have to leave him there?
Wide Receivers
Christian Watson: Cheese.
Romeo Doubs: Cheese?
Jayden Reed: Cheese!
Bo Melton: Surprisingly, no cheese.
Dontayvion Wicks: Ehh, some cheese.
Malik Heath: Plenty of cheese.
I just saw Malik Heath’s face for the first time, and to be honest, I’m not sure he can actually eat plenty of cheese. I already wrote that he could, though, and we’re going with typewriter rules today in the blog shop.
Christian Watson understands the world of dairy. You don’t spend four years in Fargo without eatin’ cheese. I’m not so sure about Doubs. Reno—where he spent his four years—is a place where you either encounter much cheese or very little cheese at all. There are subcategories to those. They are: Fancy cheese and Not fancy cheese.
You bet your ass Jayden Reed can eat some cheese.
Dontayvion Wicks is an enigma.
Bo Melton is the best name ever for a fat man, but Bo Melton is not fat. All we can infer from this is that every time Bo Melton wanted to eat cheese as a kid, his mom said, “I’m sorry, son. If you eat the cheese, what will we give to Mike McCarthy when he comes down our chimney to give us our annual supply of footballs?”
(Now seems like a good time to mention Matt LaFleur, who is not on this list because we’re only doing players here. Matt LaFleur seems like he has only ever eaten American cheese. He seems like one time, someone offered him gouda, and he thought they were joking. Not in a way where he scorned it. He just seems like maybe he doesn’t know all the cheeses that exist. Can we blame him? Gouda sounds fake. It sounds too tasty to be real. It tastes too tasty to be real!)
Tight Ends
Luke Musgrave: Oh that boy can eat some cheese.
Tucker Kraft: Holy shit can that man eat cheese.
Ben Sims: Yeah, he can eat cheese.
Tyler Davis: No cheese. (He’s on IR)
Can’t eat cheese when you’re hurt, Tyler. If you could, people wouldn’t work so hard to get off the IR.
(Why are IR players on this list and not practice squad guys? Because of choices ESPN made when assembling their depth charts. I came of age in the early 2000’s. ESPN is my truth.)
I bet Luke Musgrave’s lactose intolerant, and I bet that never stops him. I’m so mad they let him take another headshot this year. His headshot last year rocked. He looked like he was photographed mid-Cha-Cha Slide. Right between, “Sliiiiiide to the left” and “take it back now y’all.” And he looks like he was really focusing on the instructions.
It goes without saying. Tucker Kraft has eaten more cheese in his young life than many nations eat in a year. Not because his last name’s Kraft, either. That has nothing to do with this. Tucker Kraft looks like he fucking houses cheese.
Ben Sims holds his own.
Offensive Line
Rasheed Walker: Less cheese than you’d think.
Elgton Jenkins: Yes but he also eats the wax.
Josh Myers: He does fine.
Jordan Morgan: He’ll learn.
Zach Tom: Yes. A respectable amount of cheese.
Andre Dillard: More than he used to!
Jacob Monk: No cheese at all.
Sean Rhyan: Not as much as he thinks he does.
Kadeem Telfort: Some cheese.
Travis Glover: Lots and lots of cheese.
This is weird, but the Packers’ line doesn’t seem all that into cheese-eating right now. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like they’re more into sausages. That’s just the vibe I’m getting. Also, for the record: I don’t think Elgton Jenkins is dumb. I think he eats the wax to send a message.
Interior Defensive Line
Kenny Clark: Hell yeah that man eats cheese!
T.J. Slaton: Yep. Cheese.
Devonte Wyatt: Cheese!
Karl Brooks: The least cheese on the defense among those who eat cheese.
Colby Wooden: Yeah, cheese!
Jonathan Ford: No. Did you forget the IR rules?
What gets me emotional here is that I do think a lot of these guys are lactose intolerant, like Musgrave. Like Musgrave, though, I think they power through, and unlike Musgrave, I think that’s because of a sense of duty (if I’m getting the right read on Luke Musgrave, he just likes cheese).
Exterior Defensive Line
Preston Smith: Medium cheese.
Rashan Gary: An appropriate amount of cheese.
Lukas Van Ness: No cheese at all.
Kingsley Enagbare: Yes, to be polite.
Brenton Cox Jr.: I don’t know.
Arron Mosby: A bit.
The Van Ness thing is weirdest to me. Surprising, I know. But I just don’t see it. I can’t picture him eating cheese.
Linebackers
Eric Wilson: Yes.
Isaiah McDuffie: Yes.
Quay Walker: No.
Edgerrin Cooper: Yes.
Ty’Ron Hopper: Yes.
Ralen Goforth: IR.
This is just a theory, but I wonder if Quay Walker is a little scared of cheese.
Secondary
Jaire Alexander: Sometimes, but he always has to address the cheese before he eats it.
Eric Stokes: Yeah, he eats cheese.
Xavier McKinney: Some cheese but not that much.
Javon Bullard: Tons of cheese.
Corey Ballentine: Yes, but only when he’s with Carrington Valentine.
Carrington Valentine: Yes, but only when he’s with Corey Ballentine.
Keisean Nixon: So much cheese. Most of it shredded.
Evan Williams: If you think that guy doesn’t eat cheese…
Zayne Anderson: Yes. The more unnatural the color, the better.
Kitan Oladapo: No, but he’s not obnoxious about it.
LJ Davis: IR.
Special Teams
Brayden Narveson: He just tried it for the first time and it turns out, he loves it.
Daniel Whelan: Yeah but not during the month of April.
Matt Orzech: For sure, bro!
With Musgrave taking a slightly less off-balance photo this year, Narveson’s is my new favorite. He looks so happy to be there. Also, sneaky hoss. Carefree, sneaky hoss. (I’m trying to will him being carefree into existence, and to address the question I know you’re asking, I don’t want him to get fully fat, but I do want a little belly.)
**
Now that that’s taken care of…
I’m going to my buddy Dan’s house for the game tonight. I suggested going to one of the Packers bars, because all of them, even the ones in Austin, seem to have one designated play area for kids in Rashan Gary jerseys, and while I am not a child in a Rashan Gary jersey, everything Packers is better when the whole family’s involved. This is what went wrong over the last ten years of Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay. Anyway, Dan wanted to host. He said his girlfriend’s gonna make pepperoni bread. I do like his girlfriend’s pepperoni bread. But it makes me uncomfortable. If there were infinite pepperoni bread, I would like it more. I wouldn’t feel worried that I was eating a piece of pepperoni bread some other person in Dan’s house had their eye on. I wouldn’t say, “Aw shit, did you want this pepperoni bread?” I wouldn’t hear them respond, “No!” I wouldn’t reply, “Then why are you staring at me while I eat this pepperoni bread?” I wouldn’t hear them say, “We’re wondering how much of that pepperoni bread you’re going to eat, and why you’re huffing and puffing while you eat it.” And don’t get me started on the farts.
If you’re wondering, yes, Dan’s house is the house where I pissed all over myself once in the middle of the Super Bowl. If you’re new to this story, don’t worry. Nobody noticed. I didn’t even notice at first. That’s how I pissed all over myself! I was checking if Isaiah Pacheco had recorded the fastest sprint speed (as measured by NFL Next Gen Stats®) in the first two quarters of Super Bowl LVII and I didn’t notice the end of my belt doing a Dikembe Mutombo impression. Or an impression of a jellyfish sting. I think it was more Mutombo. The belt wasn’t receiving the urine. It was blasting it right back at my pants.
Anyway, picked up some cheese last night to bring to Dan’s tonight. Some of the classier stuff. I made sure to get two from Wisconsin—a high-quality cheddar and a white cheddar-adjacent goat cheese (because I’d gotten some of those crackers with the dried fruit baked in, the kind beloved by the sorts of yuppie women who shop at Trader Joe’s). I also got a big block of HEB white cheddar. I was worried the Wisconsin cheeses wouldn’t be enough to match how many crackers I was buying, and I was self-conscious about bringing two of the same cheese. Dan’s parents bring down a trunkful of Spotted Cow once a year. I figure the least I can do is go a little overboard on the cheese. Make an occasion of it, you know?
Go Pack. If they lose, let’s all just ask the Philly people how they feel about the Sixers maybe moving to New Jersey.
