Paul Bretl | 8/19/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. — For Packers quarterback Sean Clifford, who is embarking on his third NFL season, he is playing with a level of clarity and comfort that he hadn’t experienced during his first two NFL seasons.
“I feel like in the games I’ve gotten into so far, I’ve felt extremely comfortable,” Clifford said after Monday’s practice. “Feel like I’m seeing the field really well and I thought that was on display on Saturday this past weekend.”
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Year 1 for most incoming rookies, especially at the quarterback position, is like drinking water from a firehose between all of the information players are inundated with and the jump in competition.
On the outside, while we often talk about Year 2 leaps, the experience gained by a quarterback in their first NFL season and the knowledge they now have of the offense can come with a downside as well–overthinking.
“Year 1 you’re kind of just out there just running plays,” Clifford said. “Sometimes you don’t know the rhyme or reason and you’re just kind of going out there trying to produce whatever you can.
“Year 2 I think, for me personally and I think for a lot of quarterbacks, it’s a year of overthinking. You know everything now and now you’re thinking too much and it’s going to make you slow on reads, slow to say yes to something.”
A fifth-round pick by the Packers in 2023, Clifford secured the backup quarterback role as a rookie with Green Bay wanting to take a swing at developing the playmaking potential he showcased in his first training camp and during that preseason.
Over Clifford’s first two seasons, we often heard coaches praise him for his resiliency and gamer-like play style. It wasn’t always pretty, but Clifford was often quick to bounce back and often did with a big play.
However, embracing that competition element, GM Brian Gutekunst spent another draft pick on the quarterback position in 2024, selecting Michael Pratt. He and Clifford would compete all summer for the backup role last season, but it came with underwhelming results.
That overthinking that Clifford described led to very up-and-down play. There were still those playmaking flashes, but they felt few and far between. Pratt struggled as well, which prompted Gutekunst to trade for Malik Willis, who took over as the backup.
Clifford was then relegated to the practice squad, while Pratt was released.
This training camp, Clifford finds himself in another competition, this time with Taylor Elgersma. With Jordan Love and Willis at the top of the depth chart, Clifford and Elgersma are competing for the third quarterback role, which could come on the practice squad.
The comfort that Clifford is experiencing in meeting rooms and on the field this summer began during the offseason. Every offseason is different for an NFL player, with what they learned from prior years and how the previous season unfolded dictating what their plan and routine look like.
Clifford believes this past spring, he found the right combination of training, nutrition, and working out–cultivated from his past experiences–that allowed him to have his best offseason to date.
“You’re always trying to make the offseason the best offseason you’ve had. That comes with a bunch of different things. That comes with taking some things out that didn’t work. Adding things that you need to work on and just trying to refine your craft.
“I think that for me, this was the best offseason that I had. I felt like this was the first offseason in my time playing football that I really truly just understood every bit of what I needed to do from nutrition to throwing sessions to weight lifting, speed. I just feel like I got a lot better.”
Against the Colts this past Saturday, Clifford took over for Elgersma on the final possession. With the Packers trailing by three points, Clifford helped orchestrate a 13-play, 68-yard drive that ended with Clifford running it in from 11 yards out.
There wasn’t anything too flashy about the drive. In fact, Clifford was just 1-for-4 passing. But trailing and with a number of young players surrounding him, Clifford was in control and led the charge down the field.
Given those circumstances, that’s another sign of the growth and progress he’s made.
“The way he was really able to take command of that huddle, lead the guys, really speaks to Sean’s approach and his understanding of our system,” said quarterbacks coach Sean Mannion.
As the Packers enter the final week of the preseason, we are just one week away from when final roster decisions have to be made. When it comes to where things stand with this quarterback competition between Elgersma and Clifford, from the outside looking in, it’s a bit of a mystery.
Not unlike Clifford, Mannion was a fringe roster player at the quarterback position during various points of his career. Having been in similar shoes, Mannion’s advice to Clifford has been to ignore the big picture outcome, focus on the day-to-day, and everything else will take care of itself.
“I think what I’ve stressed to Sean in regards to that is really just focus on just day to day improvement and not get caught up in the birds eye view of everything,” Mannion said. “Just focus on a day to day basis, what can I be working on to get better because ultimately that’s going to serve you best in the long run because if you don’t worry about the birds eye picture of everything and you’re taking things that really are outside of your control into consideration, just focus on this day, this week.
“How can I improve? What are the things I need to work on post practice? What do I need to study up a little more on in the meetings? Because ultimately that’s going to get you better and you’re going to be best if you take that approach day in and day out.”