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With two rookies arriving in the draft and two other veterans bidding for playing time, this is not the right moment for a Packers running back to be missing practices.

Thanks to surgery to remove a cyst near his lungs discovered during a team physical, that’s just what DuJuan Harris had to do this spring. Harris, who closed last season as the Packers’ starting tailback, might ultimately benefit from the operation as it may improve his breathing but, for now, he’s got some work to do if he’s going to maintain that spot at the top of the depth chart. That effort should start on the first day of training camp.

“I’ll be ready. I’ll be there,” Harris said, via Tyler Dunne of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Reports over the weekend pushed Alex Green as the frontrunner for the top job ahead of Harris, James Starks and rookies Eddie Lacy and Johnathan Franklin, but thing will likely remain fluid well into training camp and the preseason. With Mike McCarthy promising a better run game in 2013, everyone is going to get a few more shots to show they are capable of providing it before any final solutions get made in Green Bay.