Rookie linebacker Blake Martinez is a fourth-round draft choice of the Packers. Credit: Mark Hoffman

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Green Bay — The job description for rookie linebacker Blake Martinez continued to expand Thursday when, for the first time, he assumed the majority of first-team reps in the dime package.

The dime defense appears to viewers as a 4-1 alignment, with four players along the line of scrimmage and just one linebacker in the middle of the field. Last season, the dime linebacker role belonged to Joe Thomas, who has split time with Martinez through the first three days of camp.

But on Thursday it was Martinez who took the field first and worked heavily with the starters. He's already working with the 1s in base and nickel, too.

“Right now base and nickel, mainly, and then I’ve been running with the 1s in the dime package and stuff like that,” Martinez said earlier this week. “I’ve been working on it and doing what they need me to do, as long as I can get the job done.”

Martinez’s experience with the dime defense reflects the evolution of the sport. During his time at Stanford, where Martinez was named first-team All-Pac-12 last season, he observed a complete overhaul of the Cardinal’s philosophy in regards to the dime.

At the beginning of his career, Martinez said Stanford relied on a “Big Dime” package that used a traditional linebacker in the middle of the field. That player’s primary responsibility was to provide run support for the four-man defensive line, an obvious indication that pass-happy offenses were still in their nascent state.

“You kind of put more of a linebacker type in there because you mainly just had to focus on the run,” Martinez said. “Whereas now, most teams are starting to put nickels, corners at that dime position to be able to cover down and make those third-down plays, to be able to know and have confidence that you can cover a running back out of the backfield, tight end, all those types of things.”

And the coaches continued to tinker. Martinez recalls one particular dime package from later in his career that featured four linemen, seven defensive backs and zero linebackers. That, he said, was the normal dime.

But by his senior year the coaching staff believed in Martinez, who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.67 seconds, to cover the tight ends, running backs and receivers that had begun to run rampant across college football. For the first time in his career he became an every-down player, and the dime role he fulfilled last season is not unlike the one he is learning under defensive coordinator Dom Capers.

“I think my coaches just trust me being able to cover guys and do those things,” Martinez said. “Before, it was tough for them. … Then all of a sudden once we got to the end of my fourth year, our coaches finally trusted me to go in there and be able to play those things.”

Now he’s trying to convince the Packers of the very same thing.