GREEN BAY — To hear Brian Gutekunst and Matt LaFleur tell it throughout the offseason, the Green Bay Packers have their tight end of the future — and the present — in Jace Sternberger.

At every turn, starting with before Gutekunst, the Packers general manager, departed for the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, and carrying through the end of the team’s virtual offseason program under LaFleur, the Packers’ coach, Sternberger’s name seemed to be on the tip of each of their tongues.

“We’re really excited about Jace and where he can go. I think the sky’s the limit,” Gutekunst said. “He’s got to put in the work and do it, but there’s a lot out there for him. We’re excited about it. But, again, it’s the National Football League. Until you do it, I don’t know how much you can count on it. But we’re excited where he can go.”

Those are some heady expectations for a player who missed most of his rookie season with injuries (a concussion early in training camp, a left ankle injury at the end of preseason that landed him on injured reserve for the first half of the year), and didn’t catch a single regular-season pass last season before making three receptions for 15 yards and a touchdown in two playoff games.

Add to that Sternberger’s thin college resume — he transferred from Kansas after two unproductive seasons, spent a year at a junior college (Northeastern Oklahoma A&M) and then had one productive season at Texas A&M (48 receptions for 832 yards and 10 touchdowns) before declaring for the 2019 draft, in which the Packers took him in the third round (No. 75 overall) — and that’s a lot of faith being put in him.

Nevertheless, LaFleur believes it’s well-placed.

“I’m excited for Jace,” he said in early June. “Certainly, it didn’t start off the greatest. He was injured quite a bit and then was on IR and we brought him back. It was a process. But I thought he started to get a good handle on things toward the end of the season. I thought (Packers tight ends coach) Justin Outten did an incredible job with him, just putting in the extra time needed for him to get up to speed. I thought he was playing some good ball at the end of the season in the limited reps that he got.”

Those reps are set to skyrocket. With the Packers having cut veteran Jimmy Graham with one year left on his three-year, $30 million deal (he went to the rival Chicago Bears shortly thereafter), locker-room favorite Marcedes Lewis defying Father Time (he turned 36 in May), Robert Tonyan having had last season derailed by a significant hip injury, and rookie third-round pick Josiah Deguara facing an uphill climb with no on-field offseason practice work, Sternberger obviously will be given every opportunity to show he can be the guy.

With Jace, I think it’s just being consistent, understanding the system and understanding his role, where he fits so he can get on the field and understand what he needs to do to get his job done,” Gutekunst said. “Because he has an element of speed that’s very impressive. He’s got fearlessness, he’s very aggressive. He has a lot of intangibles, and I just think being able to be consistent, both being available and understanding what he needs to accomplish on the field, is going to be huge. And if he gets that, he’ll be a guy that potentially can help us.”

If he doesn’t show that the Packers will be in danger of having another year of hit-or-miss production from the tight end position. The team has seemingly been in an interminable search for a playmaker at the position since Jermichael Finley’s career-ending neck injury in October 2013, having tried drafting (Richard Rodgers) and signing (Jared Cook, Martellus Bennett, Lance Kendricks, Graham, Lewis) a capable replacement.

The Packers even made a push to sign ex-Atlanta tight end Austin Hooper in free agency this spring, but they opted not to get into a bidding war for him and he wound up in Cleveland. Now, their hope clearly is that Sternberger is the guy, based on those three playoff catches and the H-back, fullback, traditional tight end versatility he showed late last year.

“He was really at Texas A&M for about six months. He had a ton of production and was a dynamic player down there, but they didn’t move him around like that,” Gutekunst said. “We’re excited about what he could do. Especially the blocking; they didn’t ask him to do a lot of that at Texas A&M. Obviously, when he started his career as a wide receiver at Kansas, you knew you had it in his body but how long would it take him to actually be able to function like that? He didn’t blink, so that was good to see.”

Here’s a closer look at the tight end position as the Packers prepare for training camp, which is scheduled to begin for the full roster next Tuesday:

Depth chart

89 Marcedes Lewis: 6-foot-6, 267 pouunds, age 36, 15th year from UCLA.

85 Robert Tonyan: 6-5, 237, 26, third year from Indiana State.

87 Jace Sternberger: 6-4, 251, 24, second year from Texas A&M.

81 Josiah Deguara: 6-2, 238, 23, rookie from Cincinnati.

88 Evan Baylis: 6-5, 250, 26, first year from Oregon.

49 James Looney: 6-3, 287, 25, second year from California.

Burning question

How vital is the tight end position to LaFleur’s offense?

While Graham’s best days were clearly behind him, the way LaFleur used him last season showed that the coach/offensive play-caller really does see the position as vital to his system. Graham’s forte was never blocking, but he came through with multiple clutch plays in two of the biggest wins of the season — in the regular-season opener at Chicago to get LaFleur his first head-coaching victory, and in the NFC Divisional playoff round to give LaFleur his first playoff triumph. Add in the way Sternberger was lined up everywhere down the stretch, and it’s clear that LaFleur values the position.

Now, LaFleur has to hope Sternberger can be that do-everything guy that his coaching best-buddy, San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, has in George Kittle. Because the two teams who played in Super Bowl LIV — the 49ers with Kittle, and the world champion Kansas City Chiefs with Travis Kelce — were teams with dynamic tight ends.

“Those are two of the best tight ends in the league. You’re certainly looking for those guys,” Gutekunst said. “You’re looking for mismatches, guys that can do enough in the run game and they can stay on the field. They have to figure out how to match up with them. Do they have a (line)backer that can run with him? Do they have to bring in a defensive back to handle him? And is he going to be big enough to post up and make a play? Tight ends are a mismatch position, and those are two of the very best. But I think Jace in time has a chance to be the kind of guy that can be a mismatch for us. He has some dynamic ability in the passing game.”

On the rise

Marcedes Lewis

Can a player who just turned 36 really be on the rise? While Lewis may not have found the fountain of youth in Green Bay, the former first-round pick and Pro Bowler certainly showed last season that the previous coaching staff underestimated him. Miscast as essentially an extra offensive lineman in run-blocking situations, Lewis went from catching just three passes for 39 yards in 2018 under Mike McCarthy to 15 receptions for 156 yards and a touchdown with LaFleur and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, who had coached Lewis in Jacksonville.

“Marcedes is one of the best pros and he is a great leader on this football team. He’s a pros pro,” LaFleur said. “I still think he is playing at an extremely high level. I think he’s one of the best blocking tight ends in the National Football League. And then when given the opportunity in the pass game, he produces for us. I know we didn’t target him a bunch, but he made some critical play throughout the course of the season. He consistently performed. And so you can never have enough guys like Marcedes Lewis on your football team.”