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Have Packer fans seen the last of Driver's trademark smile?

Green Bay Packers wide receiver Donald Driver learned a brutal lesson last week on the power of social media.

Driver, whose place on the Packers’ 2012 roster is most certainly up in the air, sent out the following message on Twitter this past Thursday:

“Hello everyone: I’m a packer for life. It will never change. Go Pack Go!!!!”

With that comment, Packer Nation immediately awoke from its post-draft slumber. Had the Packers decided to hang onto one of the most beloved players in franchise history or was this a way for Driver to cryptically inform Cheeseheads all over the world that his time in green and gold was indeed up?

Even after clarifications issued by Driver and his agent, Jordon Woy, it’s currently the hot topic around the water cooler for Packer fans everywhere. Some see things through the eyes of GM Ted Thompson and say that while they will always love Driver, the Packers are so deep at the wide receiver position that Driver has to be a casualty to keep players like Tori Gurley on the roster.  Read more... (1009 words + 1 image, estimated 4:02 mins reading time)

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It's too early to question Nick Perry's effort.

There are several words used by analysts to describe college players entering the NFL draft that drive me crazy.

Examples include:

• Athletic. What does it mean to be athletic? Shouldn’t all athletes getting paid to play sports be considered athletic?
• High upside. How many teams draft players because they have little or no upside?
• Get-off. This is a newer term and it’s just weird. Am I reading about NFL prospects or porn actors?

Perhaps my least favorite words, however, are “effort” and “motor.” I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think effort has to do with how hard you try and motor has something to do with how hard you try throughout an entire play/game/season (I’m not sure about motor. It’s another one of those words, like “athletic,” that people tend to throw out there even though they really don’t know what it means).

Nearly every prospect is judged as either a max-effort guy with a high motor or someone whose effort is questionable with a motor that runs hot and cold.  Read more... (736 words + 1 image, estimated 2:57 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sunday with no Packers Football

This is the time of year when we plant our flowers/veggies while NFL teams hold rookie camps. There are some parallels there.

We select what we think look like healthy new plants/vegetables, and give them an initial strong foundation, planting them firmly in the ground. We then watch over them, monitoring their progress and giving them the care and nurturing they need to sprout into flower or veggie-producing mature plants.

NFL teams pick this years plants (rookies) in the April draft and the free agency period in the days following. Rookie mini-camps are held, where the players are given their initial foundation of knowledge with regards to team operations and offensive/defensive schemes. They are evaluated by the coaching staff, who then decide what kind of individualized ongoing attention and care they will need.

Training expectations are established and their progress is monitored and assisted. The goal is for these young players to develop and blossom into valuable producers in their own right.

Staying on that theme, today’s “Surviving Sunday” will focus on these new Packers players. While we all know their names by now, here are some articles that will tell us a little more about some of these players.  Read more... (396 words + 1 image, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

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Rookie S Sean Richardson

Ted Thompson and the Green Bay Packers have signed a total of 27 rookies to contracts this offseason. Eight of those were his 2012 NFL Draft picks, while the other 19 were undrafted free agents picked up immediately after the draft or brought in as tryout players during Rookie Orientation Camp. With the roster now at a full 90 players, it’s time to get to know some of these new faces.

Next up is safety Sean Richardson.

Born on Jan. 21, 1990, Seandre Antonio Richardson hails from Linden, Alabama, where he was given a key to the city upon his signing with the Green Bay Packers. He is the first football player from Linden to earn a Division I scholarship. He is the son of Darnell and Sandra Richardson and brother to Darnell, Jr., and sister Shonedra.

Sean was a starter at safety for his last three seasons with the Vanderbilt Commodores, and he never missed a single game, despite undergoing hand surgery in 2009. He became an instant contributor on special teams during his freshman year, concluding with the Commodore’s only touchdown (a muffed punt recovery) against Boston College in the Music City Bowl.  Read more... (507 words + 1 image, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

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Donald Driver: Packer for life?

When Donald Driver tweeted that he’d be a “packer for life”, speculation around the Internet and Twitter grew rampant.  Did Driver just re-work his contract?  Had he been released and will be retiring at the end of the year?

Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk.com spoke to Driver’s agent, Jordan Woy, who stated that, “the Packers have always wanted Driver back.”

He went on to add,

“He has been busy with the DWTS show and the team knows that.  I discussed deal structure with the team a while ago and we will work out the details once Donald returns to Green Bay.”

This clearly doesn’t put an end to the questions surrounding Driver and Green Bay’s plan for him in 2012.  However, upon first glance, it definitely appears as if Driver could be back for another year with the Packers.

This is certainly a bit puzzling because of the depth at wide receiver that Green Bay is already blessed with.  Without Driver, the Packers still have Greg Jennings, Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, James Jones and youngsters like Dale Moss and Tori Gurley.  So, with all this younger talent, where does Driver exactly fit in?  Read more... (255 words + 1 image, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

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Versatility could be Casey Hayward's greatest strength.

Remember when the NFL was about taking your best 11 guys and putting them against the other team’s best 11 guys? Those days are over.

Well, kind of. You still want your best 11 against their best 11, but those 11 change throughout the game much more often than they used to.

Today’s NFL is all about matchups and sub packages. Of course, certain players are so good that they will never leave the field, but just because a guy doesn’t play all three downs doesn’t mean he’s an inferior player. It means his skills might be a better fit in specialized situations, perhaps as a pass rusher on obvious passing downs, a slot corner on third down or a run stuffer in short-yardage.

Sub packages also depend on a coordinator’s scheme and gameplan. On defense, most coordinators these days want to try and create as much confusion for the offense as possible. Causing chaos is always good, too. The coordinator is likely asking himself how he can maximize the skills of each of his players to achieve the general goal of creating confusion and causing chaos, and he knows that this goal is easier to achieve with players that have diversified skill sets in line with the coordinator’s overall defensive vision.  Read more... (769 words + 1 image, estimated 3:05 mins reading time)

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Sam Shields sends the Packers to the Super Bowl.

Think back to the beginning of the 2010 season for a minute. The Packers defense was coming off an embarrassing playoff loss to the Arizona Cardinals and the secondary faced many of the same questions that the pass rush faces today.

But instead of answering those questions in the draft, Ted Thompson’s solution was to plug in an undrafted rookie free agent that few people had heard of and actually had more experience as a wide receiver than a defensive back. Sam Shields came into camp with the reputation as a speedster, and that’s about it. Besides his ability to run really fast, nobody knew much else about him.

“This is how you’re going to fix the secondary, Ted?” Packers fans asked.

“Yup,” Thompson replied before taking another sip from his bottled water and turning away.

“Improving from within” was a talking point that Thompson and Mike McCarthy hammered home through training camp and the preseason. By 2010, most reasonable Packers fans understood that Thompson was rarely going to sign a free agent or make a trade that grabbed headlines.  Read more... (685 words + 1 image, estimated 2:44 mins reading time)

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