The Green Bay Packers wrapped up OTAs this week and the team will not be together again until the opening of training camp late next month.

During OTAs and mandatory minicamp, the Packers showed that they had a key component to creating a winning culture: veteran players on both sides of the ball were mentoring younger players to help the team get better.

On defense, All Pro inside linebacker De’Vondre Campbell was already mentoring first-round draft pick Quay Walker.

Walker admitted he looked at Campbell as a role model. “I watch him a whole lot,” Walker was quoted as saying by the Packers official Twitter account during OTAs. “Just try to learn as much as I can from him.”

This week, Campbell tweeted back, “I try to help and give as much advice as I can even though he doesn’t really need it he already a baller. Very smart Young Man with a great future ahead of him.”

The addition of Walker will give the Packers a pair of inside linebackers who can stay on the field on all three downs, something the team has lacked for many years. This will allow Joe Barry’s unit to play a light box less often and should improve the team’s run defense.

Both Campbell and Walker should be able to blitz the quarterback on occasion as well which will give the defense more ways to pressure the quarterback and disrupt an offense’s gameplan.

On the offensive side of the ball, veteran wide receiver Randall Cobb has been mentoring the Packers younger wideouts during OTAs and minicamp. The Packers drafted three wide receivers this year in second round pick Christian Watson, fourth round selection Romeo Doubs and seventh rounder Samori Toure. Last year’s third-round pick, Amari Rodgers, has also been learning from Cobb as he enters his second training camp.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been criticized by some fans and members of the media for not attending voluntary OTAs. But Rodgers said that Cobb can teach the young receivers most of what they need to know at OTAs when Rodgers wasn’t there.

“We’ve got my closest buddy on the team with those guys every single day, Randall Cobb. And he’s been here the entire time, just about,” Rodgers said during mandatory minicamp. “So, he’s passing along everything they need to know about playing with me, and the expectations and the signals and the unspoken communication and non-verbal stuff. And they just have to feel me once we get back for training camp and it gets real.”

Cobb has also helped Doubs in practice fielding punts. Cobb was returning punts and kickoffs early in his career before he learned to play receiver in the NFL and became a full-time starter in his fourth season.

The mentoring of the receivers has gone beyond just Cobb. Cornerback Jaire Alexander has also been giving second-round pick Christian Watson some extra attention at OTAs to help make him better. It’s similar to what Rodgers and Davante Adams did last year to rookie cornerback Eric Stokes. They “picked on” him in training camp to help speed up his development and get him up to speed. It worked well as Stokes took the constructive criticism in a positive way as an opportunity to learn from some of the best in the game. He made the NFL All-Rookie Team after being thrust into a starting role early in the season due to injuries to Kevin King and Jaire Alexander.

Watson is also viewing what Alexander is doing in a positive light. “It only makes me better,” Watson said. “He'll tell me straight up exactly why he broke on my route, exactly which indicator I gave on the route, and I know if I get open then I know it was a great route for me. It's definitely a great experience to get to go up against him and him obviously coaching me up, even though I'm on the other side of the ball.”

The preparations for the 2022 NFL season will continue when all the Packers players return to Green Bay for training camp in late July. Between now and then, the young players will have to study their playbooks and prepare for their first NFL experience. But knowing there are experienced mentors like Cobb, Alexander and Campbell on the roster will only help accelerate that process and make the Packers a better team.