GREEN BAY -- Kenny Pettway, as is often the case when you're the New Guy in the Green Bay Packers' locker room, had no idea what he was in for.

"They didn't warn me at all," the Packers defensive end said of his new teammates with a chuckle. "I wish they would have."

But they didn't, so Pettway, who'd been signed last Tuesday to replace an injured Cullen Jenkins on the roster, found himself in a religious discussion late last week with veteran pass-rushing defensive end Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, whose passion about his Christian faith is a fact of conversational life at that end of the locker room.

"I'm always talking about God, so I don't know how it came up," Gbaja-Biamila confessed. "To me, everything's about God. Some people talk about cars, some people talk about girls, some people talk about their money. I like to talk about God."

"Kabeer's heart is in the right place," said halfback Ryan Grant, who joined in the discussion. "But ..."

But Pettway wasn't in need of conversion. Raised in the church by his mother and a frequent chapel- and Bible study-goer during his time with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Pettway's didn't need his new pal to tell him how blessed he is.

"I know," Pettway said.

In the early-morning hours of Sept. 2, Pettway and his former Jaguars teammate, Richard Collier, were sitting in Collier's burgundy Cadillac Escalade in an apartment complex parking lot, waiting for two women they had met that evening at a club.

With Pettway, who'd been released by the Jaguars on the final roster reduction, in the driver's seat and Collier in the passenger seat, shots rang out, and Collier was struck by 14 bullets. He spent two weeks on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of Shands Medical Center in Jacksonville, and last week, his surgeon, Dr. Andrew Kerwin, said at a news conference Collier was paralyzed below the waist and had to have his left leg amputated because of a life-threatening blood clot that had developed.

Pettway, meanwhile, miraculously escaped without injury.

'The grace of God'

"For him to get hit 14 times, and me not get a scratch, not have anything happen to me, it's the grace of God," said Pettway, who was hoping to fly to Jacksonville during the team's day off Tuesday but expected to have to wait until the Oct. 26 bye week.

"I couldn't get out of the car. My door was locked, so I couldn't get out. I was in the car the whole time it was happening. For not one bullet to hit me, not be harmed, not be touched -- there's no other explanation. It's not good luck or anything like that. Someone up above was watching over me."

No arrests have been made in the shooting, and police have offered no description of the shooter or shooters. Although police previously described Collier as the target of the attack, no further information has been released.

"If I was in that situation, and that was me, I probably wouldn't even be here right now. I'd be dead," Pettway said. "But he's a strong guy. The way he came through that, I'm going to be there for him any way I can. We're always going to be friends."

Pettway struggled with his grief in the aftermath of the incident, and while his fiancee, Victoria, recommended he seek counseling, he chose to confide in her, his mother and his brothers. While the days that immediately followed the shooting were the worst for him, Collier's improved condition has helped him with his grief.

"Man, that first week? Tough. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I was just worried about him. Day by day, trying to take a step forward, it was hard," said Pettway, who then had to go home to his native Houston to clean up damage from Hurricane Ike.

"I've talked to some people, and we talked about that. The first week, I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to know how he was doing. I didn't care about anything else. I just wanted him to get better.

"As he started to come around, it became a little easier for me, knowing he was getting better. Then I heard the bad news from my old teammates, about him being paralyzed and losing one of his legs. But they said he was still in good spirits, he was ready to go on with his life, get to work on his rehab. He's a strong guy. I just feed off of him."

'He did everything right'

What bothered Pettway was the way the story was portrayed.

Although Collier wasn't perfect -- he was suspended by the team for two games last season after a drunk-driving arrest last November, to which he pleaded no-contest and received six months of probation -- Pettway was shocked when news reports grouped the incident not only with the high-profile shooting deaths of Denver cornerback Darrent Williams and Washington safety Sean Taylor, but with several other run-ins Jaguars players had had with the law in recent months.

"I was like, 'Wait a minute, he wasn't doing anything wrong,' " said Pettway, who was serving as Collier's designated driver that night. "The first day or two, people were asking, 'Why is he out that late? What's he doing there?'

"He did everything right, by the book. I'm going to be (drinking), I'll get somebody to drive for me, make sure I make it home safely.' I mean, there was no trouble at the place we were. It wasn't like he was doing something wrong. He did everything he was supposed to do and he was asked to do by the team. It's just a terrible outcome to the night."

Said Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio: "The person who shot the gun is the problem, not the guy who got shot. You ought to be able to go out and have a good time and go back home and not be worried about being killed or being put in the hospital."

And the Packers, for their part, had decided Pettway was the No. 1 defensive end available at the time and had no reservations about his character.

"We researched the thing. The bottom line was, everything we heard about the kid, he's a great kid. That was never an issue," Packers co-director of football operations Reggie McKenzie said Tuesday. "It was unfortunate that it was lumped in wit, Uh-oh, another football player in trouble again.' We feel like he's a good-character kid. His feet are planted firmly to the ground."

Life's too short

The 6-foot-3, 248-pound Pettway played "very well" on special teams, according to coach Mike McCarthy, plus took a half-dozen snaps at defensive end during Sunday's 27-24 loss to the Atlanta Falcons. An effective edge rusher for Jacksonville (three sacks in 17 games the past two years), he was the odd man out when the team drafted defensive ends with its first two picks this spring but could help the Packers' ailing pass rush.

"He's got the speed, the athletic ability, the quickness. I just have to spend more time with him on Wednesday and Thursday learning our (defense)," defensive ends coach Carl Hairston said. "I have to see if I can get him more playing time. He's got everything else to do it."

Including perspective, which Gbaja-Biamila, who didn't know about the Collier shooting until a teammate told him, now realizes as well.

"You know me, I don't look at the news much. So when he told me, 'Man, my life's changed,' at the time I didn't know what he meant," Gbaja-Biamila said. "One thing I like about Kenny, he likes the conversations we have. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings. I'm just being me."

Which is fine with Pettway, even if he and Gbaja-Biamila don't see eye-to-eye on every issue. Life's too short, he says -- and knows so first-hand.

"It changed me. It just makes you appreciate life that much more," Pettway said. "Coach (McCarthy) was saying it the other day -- you never know when your last game will be, your last play will be. So play every game and every play hard, like it's your last. That's life. You never know.

"I look at Richard. He never knew that this person was going to do this. He had no idea that it was going to be his last day to walk, or his last day to have his left leg. He never knew that. Nobody ever knows that. So I live like that now. I never know if I'm going to wake up in the morning, or if I'll be alive when this day is over. So I try to play every play like it's my last one. I'm just happy I got another chance to be out on the field."