GREEN BAY – Looking out his window as the plane descended into Austin Straubel International Airport, Johnathan Franklin saw nothing but green.

Upon landing, Franklin couldn’t help but take it all in.

Well, what there was of "it."

"There was nothing here," the Los Angeles native said with a laugh. "All it is is Lambeau Field and the Green Bay Packers, so it was definitely different than where I was from."

Used to choked highways, shimmering glass windows across a skyline – and of course a layer of smog in the valley – Green Bay was all new for the rookie running back out of UCLA. The same could be said for his roommate, fellow running back Eddie Lacy out of the University of Alabama, and rookie free agent receiver Charles Johnson out of Grand Valley State in Allendale, Mich.

"My initial flight in on my visit up here, I’m like, it’s small," said Johnson, who grew up in tiny Elsmere, Kentucky. "I got to the airport and I’m like the airport’s even small."

But for the rookies, there is no better place to be than Green Bay.

Holed up in a hotel – the rookies don’t have cars yet – and there isn’t much to do. As a result, this rookie class is studying more than …

"Ever?!" bellowed Lacy, whose head then rocked back with a laugh.

"Yeah. Yeah," he continued. "I would agree with that. But it was a lot easier in college. You’d spend maybe a couple weeks on it and get the basics on it and go from there but this is a whole different level. Everything is a lot more difficult so you tend to spend a little more time on it."

The two rookie running backs say watching television gets old, so they hit the playbook hard and test each other on Mike McCarthy’s famous offensive terminology and vast call set.

"I think it’s definitely a great thing for it to just be football, to just be the team where you can focus," Franklin said. "It’s not as many distractions. You can lean on some of the vets, try to build some relationships with them and reach out to them because at the end of the day, they’re all we really have."

Lacy agreed.

"For a rookie, I think it is one of the better places to come because you don’t have those distractions outside when you finish practice," he said. "You get out of practice and you go to your room and all you have is a TV and a playbook. TV gets old and you look in the playbook and you just go back and forth and you pick up on things faster."

Such studiousness won’t surprise Packers general manager Ted Thompson or the coaching staff – these are the types of rookies they pinpoint, either in the draft or free agency.

"You’ve got to think about it – this is the Green Bay Packers – they’re the best team in the NFL," Johnson said. "There’s not too many distractions and that shows on the field. There are not a lot of guys out there doing things outside of football. It’s about football here. Whereas in Miami, there are things off the field that you can do, there’s things that you can get into to get in trouble. It’s about football here, and the guys that they bring in to come here are the guys that they know love football and want to be a Green Bay Packer."

That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a bit of an adjustment necessary. When told Franklin wondered where all the buildings were on his flight in, second year linebacker Nick Perry nearly doubled over laughing.

A Detroit native who also played his college ball in L.A. at USC, Perry knows what they’re going through.

"I was a little culture shocked because I didn’t have a visit here so I was blind coming in," he said with a laugh. "As you go through a year you get used to it, you find your things to keep you out of trouble. It’s nothing but football here, which you’ve got to love. Love the fans. There’s a lot of people here that love the Packers so taking advantage of that – you have to. I’m enjoying it. It is a blast."

Even if finding places to eat – or people to see – was difficult.

"I don’t want to say it’s a ghost town, but you very rarely see people around," Lacy said. "It’s real different. It’s just real different."

Franklin nodded at Lacy’s assessment of springtime in Green Bay.

"You see all kind of colors where I’m from and different culture and I’m just coming to the team and these are the only people I’ve seen since I’ve been here, the football team – that’s it," he said. "It’s been crazy but I’m definitely adjusting to it."

As for food, the rookies were on their own before the veterans joined the squad last week for the start of offseason training activities. So, they would pile into the hotel shuttle and ask the driver to take them around until they found something.

"Me and Eddie, we went to Texas … Roundhouse?," Franklin asked a reporter.

Roadhouse?

"Roadhouse!," he said, eyes popping wide. "It was bomb, man, it was the best barbecue I’ve had in my life, the best loaf of bread I’ve ever had."

He laughed again.

"We’re finding our ways slowly but surely."