Paul Bretl | 8/5/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Packers’ cornerback Nate Hobbs is currently rehabbing a meniscus injury that he sustained in his right knee during last Thursday’s practice.
As Hobbs recalled at his locker on Tuesday, the injury occurred this past Thursday, he learned on Friday that the meniscus was torn, and the cleanup procedure was completed on Saturday.
“There was a play,” Hobbs said, “there was a collision and there was a slight, little minor bump that I felt. Something I always get, somebody ran into me, it was cool, but it turned out to be something deeper than that.”
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A few days removed from the procedure, Hobbs was walking around the locker room on his own with a bandage on his right knee and a slight limp. “I feel good,” he told local reporters.
The decision to get the procedure done now was to ensure that the injury wouldn’t linger into the season and potentially force Hobbs to miss time down the road.
“I feel like that’s part of my job. I’m a professional,” Hobbs said. “I get paid to do this, so anything that’s a concern on my body, I need to try to get on right away. I felt like it was something we needed to do. They gave me the option of whether I wanted to do it the next day or the day after, I’m like, ‘We can do this today. Let’s get ahead of starting to get back.’”
Matt LaFleur wasn’t going to put a timeline on Hobbs’ return, but a report from ESPN says that Hobbs is expected to miss the remainder of training camp but “could be back” for the Packers’ Week 1 matchup against Detroit on September 7th.
When Hobbs was asked about his potential availability for Week 1, he didn’t specify a date or timeline for his return, either, but he is confident in his ability to bounce back from this.
“I’ve been hurt before,” Hobbs said. “I came back before. I played in big games. I’ve been asked to do things that I didn’t know I could do till I did them.”
As a new member of the Packers’ cornerback room, signing with the team earlier this offseason as a free agent, Hobbs made a very quick impact in training camp. Within the first few practices, he had already forced several pass breakups, and the Packers were utilizing Hobbs’ versatility, lining him up both inside and out.
Fellow defensive backs have described Hobbs as confident, energetic, and a dog. That physical play style that Hobbs brings to the Packers’ secondary has led to some questionable hits on teammates MarShawn Lloyd and Dontayvino Wicks. However, that physicality is an element of Hobbs’ game that very much caught the attention of Brian Gutekunst during free agency.
“You’re trying to balance a lot of things as you’re going through camp,” Gutekunst said of the physical play. “We’re trying to become a certain kind of football team that can win and win deep into the playoffs. There’s a certain kind of physicality you have to have and Nate Hobbs brings all that. That’s why we brought him here. It’s very important that all our guys have that kind of edge to them.”
After undergoing his procedure on Saturday, Hobbs had already started his rehab on Sunday, wanting to show teammates that he was going to “attack” this process, and he will carry that same energy forward in meetings and around the building as he works his way back.
“I was having a good camp and I was proving to my teammates and gaining their trust,” Hobbs said. “That’s something I take real serious. Just trying to be the best version of myself out there. And so, whenever you truly try to do that and something like that happens, it hurts. But you either take that and use it or take that as something that’s going to hold you back or look at it like a lesson.”