Packers rookie LB Vince Biegel returns to full practice

GREEN BAY – After more than a five-month absence, Green Bay Packers rookie outside linebacker Vince Biegel will return to the practice field Wednesday afternoon, coach Mike McCarthy said.

Biegel, drafted in the fourth round this spring out of Wisconsin, has not practiced since breaking a bone in his foot during the second day of rookie orientation in May. After missing all of training camp, he was placed on the physically unable to perform list, preventing him from practicing for the first six weeks of the season.

McCarthy said Biegel will be a full participant Wednesday, the first time the Packers are on the practice field in Week 7. There’s still work to do before he’ll be activated on the team’s 53-man roster.

“I look at any player’s initiation into the practice structure,” McCarthy said. “I think it’s like a lot of things in training. He’s been training at a very high level to prepare to go practice football. So with that, where he is right now, as far as the way his body feels and his approach, he needs to get beat up. He needs to get scarred up a little bit, lean on people, go through the padded practice and kind of go through that natural cycle of getting back into it.

“I think it’ll obviously be important that he practices today and tomorrow, and we’ll work through that process. But I know he’s excited to get back on the field.”

McCarthy said cornerback Demetri Goodson will not be on the practice field Wednesday. Goodson was placed on the physically unable to perform list while recovering from a torn ACL last November.

The Packers have three weeks to activate Biegel and Goodson from the PUP list. If they are not activated before Week 10, they will miss the remainder of the season.