GREEN BAY – It was only 50 snaps in the regular-season finale that wound up not impacting the Packers' playoff position.
But those 50 snaps meant the world to rookie safety Kitan Oladapo as he looks ahead to his second NFL season.
Oladapo, a fifth-round draft pick out of Oregon State and the third safety the Packers selected last spring, endured a trying rookie year.
He came to Green Bay fresh off surgery on a toe he broke at the scouting combine. His rehab and recovery kept him out of all offseason workouts and a good portion of training camp, putting him way behind fellow safety draft picks Javon Bullard and Evan Williams in the on-field work needed to learn defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley's scheme and compete for playing time.
Mentally, Oladapo stayed on top of everything. Defensive backs coach Ryan Downard would make a point to challenge Oladapo with questions during meetings, from the spring through the winter, and he didn't slip.
"He's got all the answers," Downard said, "but he doesn't have all those reps out there doing it."
So while Bullard became a Week 1 starter and Williams made his way into the lineup a month later, Oladapo toiled in obscurity, mostly in catch-up mode. For roughly half the games, he was inactive on game day. For the other half, he played 65 snaps on special teams (making three tackles) and just 18 as a defensive reserve until the finale.
The biggest lesson he took from it all? "Perspective," Oladapo said before heading out into what he hopes will be a healthy offseason. "Just the perspective of how you look at things. Do you look at the glass half full or half empty?"
The former helped him make the most of the chance he got against the Bears in Week 18. Williams and Zayne Anderson were out with injuries, and Bullard was playing mostly in the slot.
So Oladapo took his minimal experience and lined up next to All-Pro Xavier McKinney for those 50 plays, recording four tackles and holding his own without any glaring assignment errors. The Packers lost the game, but it was otherwise a win for Oladapo.
"He was on his details," McKinney said afterward. "He was in constant communication with me and he played a really good game. He's growing as a player."
That's all he could do, but the opportunity gave him so much more to build on than if the regular season had wrapped up the same way most of it went for him.
"It meant a lot to me, just to go out there and play with my teammates," said Oladapo, known as "KT" in the locker room. "Every week, I go out there, whether it's special teams or I'm inactive, I'm still cheering on my teammates, wanting my fellow teammates to do good. So it was great to go out there and actually play with them."
Where things go from here remains to be seen. With the way both Bullard and Williams established themselves as rookies, and with McKinney coming off an All-Pro season, playing time could be hard to come by for Oladapo in Year 2.
Then again, Anderson is a pending free agent, and Oladapo is physically the biggest (6-2, 218) of last year's three drafted safeties, bringing something a little different to the field, so maybe there's a sub-package role he could fit.
Either way, the Packers certainly feel good about the depth he'll be able to provide after, health permitting, he puts in the full offseason and training camp he couldn't as a rookie.
"I'm very much excited," Oladapo said of being able to focus on football this spring and summer rather than rehab. "Not going to lie to you.
"I mean, the sky's the limit."
