GREEN BAY, Wis. -- If you're looking for someone to rip former first-round pick Derek Sherrod on his way out the door, don't go to James Campen.

The Green Bay Packers offensive line coach won't do it, even though Sherrod started only one game -- and played in just 20 -- in a four-year career with the team that picked him 32nd overall in 2011.

The broken right leg that Sherrod sustained as a rookie while serving backup duty against the Kansas City Chiefs set him so far back, and the Packers didn't see him getting any better. So they released him on Monday when they needed a roster spot to activate offensive linemen JC Tretter off the temporary injured reserve list.

And Campen refuses to fault Sherrod for that.

"That kid persevered through a bad injury and as far as I'm concerned, I don't care where that kid goes, he's a Packer,” Campen said Thursday. "He gave everything he could, and I love the kid."

Sherrod joined defensive end Justin Harrell as the only two Ted Thompson first-round picks no longer on the Packers' roster. The Packers general manager still has eight of his 10 first-round picks dating to 2005 on the team.

When the Packers picked Sherrod a year after they selected another tackle, Bryan Bulaga, in the first round, they thought they found their next set of offensive line bookends like they had in Chad Clifton and Mark Tauscher, who were drafted together in 2000 and started for the better part of a decade.

Sherrod didn't win a starting job as a rookie and never really had a chance to compete for one after he broke both the tibia and fibula on Dec. 18, 2011. The injury required immediate surgery, and he went nearly two years before he played in another game.

"To watch what he went through, that was a big-time injury," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "It was probably one of the worst ones I've stood over. He did everything he could. It was not an easy decision, but it was a decision we felt we needed to make."