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Raji, Matthews gear up for weekend rookie camp

GREEN BAY — Give B.J. Raji and Clay Matthews this much: They’re in for some culture shock in NFL’s smallest market, but at least they were smart enough to prepare themselves for it.

The Green Bay Packers picked them both in the first round of Saturday’s NFL draft. Raji, a defensive tackle from Boston College, was selected No. 9 overall and Matthews, a linebacker from Southern California, was No. 26.

Both quickly hopped on their computers to learn more about their new team and new town.

But as the Packers shift into new defensive coordinator Dom Capers’ 3-4 scheme, the team can only hope Matthews and Raji are as motivated on the field as they are on Google. Because the club likely will need them both to be prepared to start when the season opens Sept. 13 against Chicago.

“I was told today by several coaches, including coach Capers, that me and Clay are very fortunate in the fact that the defense and the system is new to everybody,” Raji said. “So we’re not two, three years behind guys. We have the same opportunity as they do.”

In the Packers’ new defense, Raji will not only play nose tackle, his primary position, but he’ll also shift outside to end, new defensive line coach Mike Trgovac told him.

Matthews, meanwhile, is expected to line up at right outside linebacker, opposite Aaron Kampman, in a position where the de facto starter is Brady Poppinga. The position is similar to the “elephant” position he played in the Trojans’ defense last year, his only college season as a starter.

Raji and Matthews arrived in Green Bay Thursday afternoon, in advance of the team’s three-day rookie orientation camp, which kicks off today.

Both players also addressed erroneous pre-draft reports that they had failed drug tests—Raji for marijuana, and Matthews and fellow USC linebacker Brian Cushing for steroids.

—at the NFL scouting combine in February.

While Raji acknowledged Thursday that he did test positive for marijuana at BC, he remains bothered by the SI.com report about the scouting combine test, which Sports Illustrated later retracted.

Raji and Matthews said they spoke to one of the two doctors who administered the tests at the combine and were assured that they were clean. Matthews later received a retraction from NFLDraftBible.com for its erroneous report.

“The positive test at BC, I mean, I’m a man. That was a mistake that I made,” said Raji, who was also ruled academically ineligible for the 2007 season. “But I feel like what came about with Sports Illustrated For people who never met me, the first time hearing about me, that’s the perception they get? That’s the thing that bothered me with that. And the fact that I knew that it wasn’t true, I just had to wait the time out until the real results came out.”

Because both players are represented by the same agency (David Dunn’s Athletes First), the two actually met in advance of the draft and got to know each other while working out with other Dunn clients in California. After Matthews was drafted, Raji called him to congratulate him and talk about being teammates.

Both said they share a similar attitude of having to prove themselves, since Raji wasn’t heavily recruited out of high school and Matthews had to walk on at USC, his father’s and grandfather’s alma mater. Now, they have to do it again.

“We had to earn everything we got,” Raji said. “Some guys come out of high school with the luxury of being all-American this, all-American that. Clay and myself, we had to actually work to get to our positions. And that’s more gratifying for me, I’m sure it is for him, to know how hard you worked to get to this point.”