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Surviving Sundays with no Packers Football

Of the many things that make the NFL great, one of my personal favorites is how new trends tend to pop up out of nowhere.  Just when know-it-all types like yours truly think we have it all figured out, some new wrinkle arises that brings us crashing back down to Earth.

For example, we all understand that the NFL is a passing league these days, but it’s probably safe to say that next to nobody saw the read-option and power-running game trend that came on and played such a major factor in the league last season.

Read option? Power running? In today’s NFL? Nah! What coach is stupid enough to try that? Well, thanks to a new breed of quarterback, several coaches gave it a try and it worked. We’ll see if it continues.

In NFL free agency this offseason, thanks to a stagnant salary cap, there are a lot of usable veterans cut by teams and left on the market. In the past, many of these veterans would have signed bloated new deals with new teams on the first day or two of free agency.

These types of deals are still happening, but not quite like they used to.

Is this the new trend in free agency? It appears to be, for this offseason, anyway. More  teams are taking the Packers’ Ted Thompson approach and being patient, either because they think it’s the right thing to do, or because they have no other choice due to the stagnant salary cap.  Read more... (1009 words + 1 image, estimated 4:02 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sundays with no Packers Football

Adam Czech usually puts together this post on Sunday, but he had other commitments this week, so I’ll do my best to pick up the slack.

Last Sunday, Adam called into attention the injury woes of the Packers’ recent first-round picks. Bryan Bulaga, Derek Sherrod and Nick Perry missed a combined 33 regular-season games last year. It’s a concern to a certain degree, but at the same time, all three players will be expected to compete for a major role with the team in 2013.

On the flip side, the Packers have struck gold recently in round two. This past week, the team decided not to place the franchise tag on wide receiver Greg Jennings, a second-round pick in 2006. Jennings played seven years with the Packers, made two Pro Bowls and helped the team to Super Bowl XLV.

This year’s draft may lack elite talent in the top-half of the first round, but it’s an extremely deep class in the first few rounds. The NFL went to a three-day format in 2010, featuring round one on Thursday and rounds two and three on Friday.

Let’s take a look at the Day 2 gems Ted Thompson has brought to Green Bay:  Read more... (897 words + 1 image, estimated 3:35 mins reading time)

• 2012: Casey Hayward (2nd, No. 62)
• 2011: Randall Cobb (2nd, No. 64)
• 2010: Mike Neal (2nd, No. 56) and Morgan Burnett (3rd, No. 71)
• 2008: Jordy Nelson (2nd, No. 34) and Jermichael Finley (3rd, No. 91)

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Surviving Sundays With No Packers Football

When is it time to get worried about the Packers recent history in the first round of the NFL draft?

• Bryan Bulaga (2010): Missed four games in 2011 with a knee injury and seven games in 2012 with a season-ending hip injury.
• Derek Sherrod (2011): Broke his leg toward the end of a ho-hum rookie season and missed all of 2012.
• Nick Perry (2012): Broke a bone in his wrist and missed the final 10 regular season games and the playoffs.

Ouch.

Of those three, Bulaga appears to be a good to great player if he can stay on the field. The jury is still out on the other two.

If you’re looking for a silver lining with these three, you could probably say that these are not re-occurring and nagging types of injuries. It’s not like these three are always hobbling around with a strained hamstring, sore back or migraine headaches. If these injuries heal as they should, the chances are good each player’s development could get back on track.

Or maybe the serious nature of these injuries has set each player back so far that they will never reach their potential.

Either way, I’m sick of the tough luck (or maybe the fragility) of the Packers recent first-round picks. Here’s hoping things turn around this April and Ted Thompson finds another Clay Matthews or B.J. Raji who is productive and stays on the field.  Read more... (735 words + 1 image, estimated 2:56 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sundays With No Packers Football

The only thing you need to survive this Sunday without Packers football is Tom Silverstein’s story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on the Packers front office and scouting operation.

Once again, the Packers were shorthanded at the NFL combine thanks to the departure of John Dorsey for Kansas City. In 2011, John Schneider left for Seattle and Reggie McKenzie departed for Oakland in 2012. All three of Ted Thompson’s right-hand men took general manager jobs.

You want your favorite NFL team to have as much talent as possible, both on the field and in the front office. It’s never a good thing to lose a talented player, just like it’s never a good thing to lose a talented executive. Silverstein’s story does a nice job of showing just how much of a team sport scouting, player evaluation and draft day can be.

However, every team has a star. On the field, the Packers have Aaron Rodgers. In the front office, they have Thompson.

As long as Rodgers is playing, the Packers should be good. As long as Thompson is the general manager, the front office should be fine.

I don’t get overly worried when Packers executives start making their annual exit from Green Bay for opportunities elsewhere. As long as Thompson is around, the Packers should remain on the right track. He’s the star. He’s the one that makes everything go.  Read more... (754 words + 1 image, estimated 3:01 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sundays With No Packers Football

As I get older, I can’t tell if I’m getting soft, getting smarter, or both.

I was always one of those people who wasn’t bothered by the use of American Indian imagery and slang for team logos and nicknames. I went to school at St. Cloud State University (the Harvard of the Midwest), which was in a hockey conference with the North Dakota Fighting Sioux.

The Fighting Sioux nickname has been debated endlessly in North Dakota and Minnesota for years. Some say it’s offensive to American Indians and should be scrapped. Others say it’s honorable and should be kept.

In college, I proudly supported keeping the Fighting Sioux nickname. I was the guy at parties who had one too many Keystone Lights and got into fierce political debates. When someone said that the Fighting Sioux nickname should be changed, I would shout them down while cracking open another can of Keystone.

I’ve grown up a lot since then. Most importantly, I now drink good beer, not Keystone Light. Almost as importantly, I now hate American Indian team logos and nicknames.

The Fighting Sioux nickname is bad enough, but nothing gets me going more than the Washington Redskins.

I mean, seriously. The Redskins?! How is it ok to name your team after an obvious racial slur? The fact that our nation’s capital still refers to its professional football team as the Redskins in the year 2013 makes me embarrassed to be a football fan.  Read more... (938 words + 1 image, estimated 3:45 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sundays With No Packers Football

Should it matter that Aaron Rodgers probably didn’t check in with the Packers before doing his schtick with Brett Favre last weekend?

It shouldn’t.

I doubt Ted Thompson or Mike McCarthy really cares about that kind of thing. And if for some reason they do, they shouldn’t.

If Rodgers wants to run off and do commercials, play in celebrity golf tournaments, host Saturday Night Live or share the stage with his predecessor, so be it. I don’t think public relations are at the top of McCarthy’s and Thompson’s list of offseason priorities. To those two, the only PR they need to worry about is winning in 2013.

Unless Favre goes completely crazy and tries another comeback, No. 4 has nothing to do with how the Packers will play next season.

I could see Mark Murphy maybe being a little irked. As the team president, part of his job is to try and manage the team’s image and handle situations like when to welcome Favre back into the Packers family. Perhaps Murphy had a plan on how to approach the issue, and Rodgers deviated from the plan without asking first.

Or maybe he didn’t. Who knows?

Either way, I’m glad it happened. I’m looking forward to the day when Packers fans can cheer Favre again and remember all the great things he did for this organization. After a few years of uncertainty, it looks like that day might actually happen sometime in the near future.  Read more... (684 words + 1 image, estimated 2:44 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sundays With No Packers Football

Sundays with Packers football are over for a long time. In fact, there is no football at all this Sunday (the pro bowl doesn’t count), so it’s time to resurrect Surviving Sunday. As long as I have time and as long as I remember, I’ll try and do a Surviving Sunday every week to muse about some sort of topic and recap the week in Packers news ad other nonsense.

This week, I want to talk about the atmosphere at Lambeau Field.

At the end of this column about the Packers being too soft to join the NFL’s elite, Bob McGinn takes a dig at Packers fans:

And the crowds at Lambeau Field have started to remind me of those staid assemblages at the University of Michigan. It’s the place to be seen and all that, but it has been a long time since a visiting coach or player went on and on about how difficult it was to hear and play in Green Bay.

Nowhere is it written that the Packers shall contend for if not win the Super Bowl every year, but some fans sure seem to think it is.

So, McGinn thinks Packers fans are just as soft as the players. I’m not sure how he can reach that conclusion while sitting far above the unwashed masses in the press box, but I respect his opinion.  Read more... (1128 words + 1 image, estimated 4:31 mins reading time)

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