GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Fans will fill the bleachers and line the fences along Armed Forces Drive to the north and Mike McCarthy Way to the south to watch Green Bay Packers training camp practices as usual.

They just won't have to get there so early in the morning or stay so late at night.

This is not your father's training camp. It's not even McCarthy's typical camp.

For the first time in his 13 years as head coach, McCarthy's summer practices will mimic his regular-season schedule. All 14 of the practices open to the public will start no earlier than 11:15 a.m. and no later than 12:15 p.m. Gone are the 8 a.m. practices that had been a staple at the beginning of McCarthy's camps. The same goes for the 6:15 evening practices that prompted the Packers to install lights around Ray Nitschke Field early in McCarthy's tenure. The only session under the lights this year is the annual Family Night practice at Lambeau Field on Aug. 4.

"We just felt it was best that we get right into the in-season schedule," McCarthy said on the eve of Thursday's first practice, which starts at 11:30 a.m. "There's routine and regularity that you chase each and every year because every one of your teams is different, every training camp is different. There's different challenges each and every year.

"We have the 100-year anniversary celebration, which is an outstanding opportunity for the fan experience, but those are things that you also have to factor in in just the normal scheduling of your football team. We are starting on a regular season-type schedule, but there's obviously added meetings that will go into the evening. On top of that, we'll have our young-player meetings that we've always done in training camp. I would say the practice time, which is probably more what you're referring to, is in line with the normal in-season schedule."

These are different times, even for McCarthy.

One of the most successful head coaches of his era (hence the street named after him), McCarthy finds himself in the unusual position of having only one more season left on his contract after this year. He signed a one-year extension late last season but that only binds him to the Packers through 2019. His previous extensions -- after the 2007 NFC title game, after the 2010 Super Bowl and during the 2014 season -- all have been multiyear deals that typically kept him and then-general manager Ted Thompson on the same contract schedule.

Not only does McCarthy's deal expire well before that of new general manager Brian Gutekunst, but McCarthy does not even report to the GM anymore; both Gutekunst and McCarthy work under team president Mark Murphy.

"I'm also very realistic and clearly understand and make sure everybody around me understands that this is our opportunity, 2018, and that's really all that matters," McCarthy said when asked about his personal approach to this season. "We've been guaranteed 16 regular-season games, and we need to make sure we're doing everything through this training camp process to get ready for really those first four games.

"The challenges for every team is different. As a team, as a unit, offense, defense and special teams and individual. And I'm no different. Every coach, every player, everybody has things you have to be in tune with as far as the challenges that are coming personally and professionally. That's all part of the opportunity. It's the 2018 Green Bay Packers. This is our opportunity. We've done the preparation to this point, and today we finally get to kick it off and get going and make sure we max out the training camp opportunity."

McCarthy has typically tweaked his camp schedule, especially since the restrictions of the latest collective bargaining agreement went into place for the 2011 season. But this might be the most extreme change he has made.

The constant quest to limit injuries probably drives most schedule decisions, although McCarthy would not come right out and say as much.

"To me that comes under the physiological challenge," McCarthy said. "There's so much data that's available throughout history, whether it's pre-CBA, post-CBA. If you just look at the data collecting components, just with the GPS that's available, so you're able to look at that. You have to have your instinctive old-school experiences that you apply to the training of your football team. That's really why we work the hours that we do and have the conversations that we have throughout our structure of football operations."

With a combination of morning, evening and midday practices last year, the Packers spent 33 hours and 52 minutes of total practice time on the field during the 15 open practices at camp, including Family Night. That was even less time than the previous year.

"Every practice is already scripted," McCarthy said. "But we've always overplanned for training camp and the norm is we'll end up deleting as we go and get criticized by the media for cutting down on practice. But we always have overprepared because it gives you that level of detail that you're looking for and it keeps that conversation going amongst the staff to just make sure you're hitting everything. And then frankly, as we talked about this morning, if we feel like we do need to add something, we will. But the physical challenge is really what you spend the offseason on to make sure you're using this stress opportunity to develop your football team."