Antuan Edwards will get the start Saturday night against the Carolina Panthers, but that doesn't mean he's won the safety spot opposite Darren Sharper, just like it didn't mean anything last weekend when Marques Anderson started against the Cleveland Browns.
Locked up in what is arguably the Packers' most hotly contested position battle, Edwards and Anderson have shared the reps with the No. 1 defense throughout training camp, and likely will continue to do so right up to the first week of the regular season.
"We'll just let the thing play itself out," GM/Head Coach Mike Sherman said this week. "There's no need for me to make decisions today, because I don't have to ... If this was a quarterback position it would be a little bit different, but it's a safety position and we're going to wait it all the way out to see what happens."
Sherman indicated that he's seen positives in both players this preseason, but neither has pulled noticeably ahead of the other.
"One day I see it one way, one day the other," Sherman said. "But they're both competing especially well."
For Edwards this is a chance to win a job that has been in and out of his grasp for the past two seasons.
In 2001 he tore his anterior cruciate ligament in the first month of the season, and wasn't available when LeRoy Butler suffered what was a career-ending shoulder injury in November.
Last season Edwards fractured his right arm in Week 3 and lost his starting job to Anderson.
This year, Edwards approaches the season as healthy and as confident as he's been since the team drafted him in 1999.
"Two years ago, I was rehabbing a knee (injury), so I wasn't able to go out and do everything to get ready for the season," Edwards said. "This year I had a clean slate of injuries. I was able to go out and work hard and do the things I normally do ...
"Whatever happens, as long as I gave it all I got, I'm comfortable with it. I'm out here working really hard, I'm healthy, and that's a big plus."
