GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The question was: Eddie Lacy or Sam Shields? The answer turned out to be Makinton Dorleant.

For most of the year, fans wondered whether the Green Bay Packers would use their one injured-reserve/designated-to-return exemption on their starting running back or their veteran cornerback. So it was no surprise that the reaction among the fan base was less than enthusiastic when coach Mike McCarthy announced on Nov. 23 that the undrafted rookie cornerback from Northern Iowa would get that designation -- which meant Lacy and Shields were officially shut down for the year.

Dorleant understands.

“Yeah, for sure,” he said this week. “I didn’t really know that I would be a candidate, but eventually I started getting better and I was getting to the point where I could play again. So I guess some decisions were made and I got a call and they said, ‘You’re going to be the one.’

“Was I surprised? Maybe a little bit. But you never know with this game, with the numbers game at certain positions. So I just made sure I was ready.”

Little did anyone on the outside know that Lacy was -- and still is -- wheeling himself around the facility on a scooter because he still can’t put weight on his surgically repaired left ankle, and Shields wasn’t even around; he was back in Florida dealing with his concussion issues.

So it was Dorleant or no one.

“I’m just trying to contribute the best that I can, because if one of those guys were to come back, they’d be trying to contribute,” said Dorleant, who was inactive last week against the Texans but could see his first NFL action this Sunday against the Seahawks. “So that’s my job, too, just to contribute and produce wherever they put me at.”

Dorleant came to the Packers as one of the most promising members of their 2016 undrafted rookie class -- he ran a 4.40 40-yard dash at his Pro Day and began his career at the University of Maryland before transferring to UNI.

However, his chance to make the opening-day roster was dashed when he sustained a hamstring injury in the penultimate preseason game at San Francisco on Aug. 26.

“He’s quick,” Packers cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt said of the 5-foot-11, 182-pound Dorleant. “He’s a little guy but he plays bigger than what he is. He can play inside, he’s really quick, has really good feet and has decent vertical speed. The things that interest us, you can see those things during the summer before he got hurt."

Dorleant credited Whitt and several members of the secondary for helping him stay sharp mentally while he rehabbed his hamstring injury. “He was teaching me as hard in the meeting room as he was teaching [starter] LaDarius Gunter,” Dorleant said of Whitt.

Said Whitt: "When he was out, he was in the meetings, he was learning and trying to stay abreast of what we were doing from week to week. He’s been out there working the past couple weeks to get his legs back under him, to get back in football-type conditioning. If he’s called on to play, he needs to give a winning performance. It’s no different than anybody else."