GREEN BAY, Wis. -- To many around the Green Bay Packers locker room, rookie outside linebacker Jayrone Elliott was known not by his name, which, by the way is pronounced JAY-rone.

"Usually you walk around, and they'd be like, "What's up 91?' or something like that," Elliott said, referring to his jersey number.

That was before Saturday in St. Louis.

Jayrone Elliott had three sacks during the Packers' exhibition against the Rams. AP Photo/Tom Gannam

In a span of four snaps in the fourth quarter, Elliott sacked Rams third-string quarterback Austin Davis three times, the third of which caused a fumble. It will go down as perhaps the most productive short stint in recent Packers' preseason history.

For the entire preseason so far, the undrafted free agent from the University of Toledo has played just 14 game snaps, yet is the only NFL player with three sacks. That's three more that Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers have combined.

"Then they started calling me by name and calling me 'Sackmaster,'" Elliott said. "So it's just fun to joke around with Clay and Pep, because you know Peppers never really talks to anybody, so it's fun to hear him talk."

Not only did Matthews talk to Elliott, he talked about him on Monday.

"I heard he's starting this weekend in front of me," Matthews joked.

That won't happen this week, when the Packers likely will play their defensive starters for at least the first half of Friday's preseason game against the Oakland Raiders. But it could happen in the preseason finale against the Kansas City Chiefs on Aug. 28, when general manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy will get their last chance to look at the rookies.

"He's just a young man that's really taken advantage of pretty much every opportunity he’s been given," McCarthy said. "I was excited to see him have success."

If Elliott was unknown to most in the locker room, that wasn't the case in Thompson's office. His scouts identified Elliott as a prospect coming out of the Mid-American Conference and brought him in for a pre-draft visit.

Green Bay was the only NFL visit Elliott had before the draft. He said he connected with linebackers coach Winston Moss and two members of the Packers' personnel department, Danny Mock and Chad Brinker, during his visit and even though a few other teams called him after the draft, including the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints, he chose the Packers' offer, which included just a $5,000 signing bonus.

At Toledo, the 6-foot-3, 255-pound Elliott played defensive end for three years in a 4-3 scheme. Before his final year, the Rockets switched to a 3-4. In that scheme, Elliott played outside linebacker in the base scheme but moved inside on third downs.

The next step for Elliott is to show he can beat someone other than Rams backup left tackle Sean Hooey, who gave up five sacks on Saturday.

Despite playing in the MAC, Elliott has rushed against NFL-caliber tackles. As a junior, he said he beat Central Michigan's Eric Fisher for a couple of pressures in one game. Fisher went on to become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 draft.

On Monday, Elliott stood in the auxiliary locker room at Lambeau Field, where the undrafted rookies and practice-squad players change, and appeared to be taking his sudden success in stride. He said he received dozens of messages after Saturday's game, including some from family members who he said were "going crazy thinking I'm freakin' Clay Matthews."

Matthews, he isn't. But at least the Packers' All-Pro linebacker now knows Elliott's name.