GREEN BAY – Bryan Bulaga wasn't making any predictions as to whether or not he'd be playing against the Rams, but the Packers' starting right tackle sounded on Friday as though nothing with his injured knee was going to hold him back.
"I don't like to miss any time," Bulaga said. "Like I said Wednesday, if I feel good, I'm going to play."
Bulaga, who has missed the last three games, practiced in pads on Thursday for the first time since the injury. The Packers didn't practice on Friday and will have one more on-field workout on Saturday before Sunday's home game vs. St. Louis. He is officially listed as questionable on the injury report.
"From yesterday's practice to today, I think everything went well," Bulaga said. "Nothing really happened today that gave me any alarm, but I still have to work tomorrow, and we'll see how it goes from there."
He said he's still taking the situation day by day but is pleased with the progress he's made. Earlier this week, Bulaga said he wanted to see how his movements looked on the practice film, and that checked out OK, too.
"I was happy with the way it looked, and not only from how it looked, how I felt," he said. "What I was feeling is what I was seeing, which was good. Obviously there was a little rust I needed to kick off, but I think after about an hour of practice, I was back in the swing of things and it felt good."
Bulaga was replaced in the starting lineup the last three games by Don Barclay. Before Bulaga got hurt, the Packers had played 18 of their previous 19 games with the same starting five on the offensive line, with the only exception being the one game Bulaga missed last year, in Week 2.
If Bulaga returns to the field this week, he would be ahead of schedule compared to some of the reported timelines for his knee injury. That's exactly what longtime linemate Josh Sitton predicted three weeks ago, that Bulaga would be back before anyone's projections.
"I never set a goal for what week I was going to come back," Bulaga said. "It was just whenever I feel ready and the doc feels ready and everything looks good on tape and I can move well without any pain, and just go from there."
