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Georgia DL John Jenkins.

Green Bay Packers NFL Draft prospect profile: DL John Jenkins

Player Information:

John Jenkins, DL Georgia
6-4, 346 pounds
Hometown: Meriden, CT

STATS

NFL Combine:

Bench: 30 reps

News and Notes:

Weight fluctuated between 336 and 376 pounds at Georgia. … He says he’s now educated on how to keep his weight down and weight will not be an issue in the NFL. … Body type screams nose tackle, but he played several positions on the D-line at Georgia. … Totaled 78 tackles and four sacks over four years at Georgia. … Credited with 14 QB pressures in two seasons, a lot for a guy his size. … Compares to B.J. Raji, both in his body type and tendency to get wiped out by double teams.

What they’re saying about him:   Read more... (718 words + 1 image, estimated 2:52 mins reading time)

• NFL.com: “Jenkins is a massive junior college transfer with great upside as a run-stuffer, but is limited to being a nose tackle in a 3-4 scheme because of his lack of quickness. His impressive size and strength will likely make him coveted, but needs to improve his balance and pad-level.”
• Doug Farrar: ”Will dance through trash in tight spaces and keeps the effort toward the ballcarrier even after he’s blocked out of a play. Comes off the snap with good intensity and gets into “fighting stance” quickly. Can play well enough in multiple gaps, though he’s ideally an interior defender at the NFL level. Played some end at Georgia and did it well enough for it to be a part of his NFL palette.”

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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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B.J. Raji

From the time BJ Raji was drafted in 2009, I’ve taken a special interest in this player. Maybe because he’s from a local town here in NJ, maybe because I was hoping he would be one of the linchpins for Dom Caper’s new 3-4 defense – the next “Gravedigger.”

I wrote a profile on Raji back in May of 2009, and later talked to some people who saw him in his HS playing days. “Really nice kid from a nice family,” I heard repeatedly, followed by, not sure if he has enough “mean” in his personality to thrive in the trenches in the NFL.

I discounted those comments for the most part. Surely the Packers wouldn’t have spent a top-10 draft choice on him if the Packers didn’t think he was a potential star.

B.J. Raji made the Pro Bowl in 2011, probably based on the rep earned by his 8 sacks and strong sophomore season  in 2010 (film study here).  Ironically, though, he just wasn’t that good in 2011.

Raji’s 2012 season for the Packers was noticeably better than 2011, but one major thing was missing; consistency.  It seemed to these non-expert eyes that as the season unfolded, Raji had some very strong performances, and some downright awful ones.

Raji terrorized the Bears (film study here) late in the season and a few weeks later was bounced around like a pinball machine by the 49ers offensive line. With those two offensive lines being on opposite ends of the talent scale, a thought crossed my mind; were’s Raji’s “good” performances all against “bad” offensive lines and vica versa?  Read more... (837 words + 4 images, estimated 3:21 mins reading time)

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Packers DT Ryan Pickett getting after it.

If you’re an NFL fan who subscribes to Game Rewind and likes to re-watch games in order to see what happens away from the ball, Packers defensive lineman Ryan Pickett is your type of player.

The 330-pound 33 year old doesn’t make many plays that garner immediate attention on the game broadcast. To appreciate what Pickett does, you have to watch the film. That’s when you’ll nod your head at the veteran’s quickness off the ball. You’ll pump your fist when he shoves two blockers backward and frees up a linebacker to make a tackle. You’ll notice that Pickett is often the reason why a mess of players pile up at the line and the ballcarrier fails to pick up a short-yardage first down.

After 12 seasons, Pickett should be slowing down. Instead, he looks as strong and nimble as ever. It’s not a rarity to see space-eating defensive linemen play effectively as they creep into their mid-30s and beyond — Casey Hampton, Ted Washington and Pat Williams come to mind as older, run-stuffing linemen who excelled as they aged.

I planned to do an in-depth study of stats and numbers to tell you just how great Pickett has been the last few years, but I said the hell with it. Pickett’s worth goes beyond *numbers.* Let’s watch some film instead.

Here’s Pickett wrecking the Houston Texans offensive line:

   Read more... (462 words + 1 image, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

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Aaron Rodgers and Josh Sitton are two of the Packers “blue chip” players.

Now that my fellow staff members and I have completed our annual player evaluations and report cards, I thought it might be fun to take a look at the Green Bay Packers’ impact players. Taking a page from Michael Lombardi, former NFL Network analyst who now works in the front office for the Cleveland Browns, I have categorized the players into representational colored chips.

I’ve added a couple more categories beyond the usual blue and red chips, but for the latter groups, I have taken some of the qualifications as used by Lombardi. While some players might have fallen short of their expectations this past season, I have attempted to look at their entire body of work and where they stand going into 2013.

One thing I did notice in this exercise was the lack of playmakers on the defense, which Ted Thompson, Mike McCarthy, and Dom Capers need to work on correcting.

Feel free to chime in with any agreements, disagreements, or additions to the lists!

Blue Chip Players:

» Demonstrates rare abilities and creates mismatches that have an obvious impact on the game.
» Is a premier player in the league and a weapon on the field.
» Combines competitiveness and skill to provide a consistent championship-level performance.  Read more... (914 words + 1 image, estimated 3:39 mins reading time)

• Aaron Rodgers – One of the best quarterbacks in the modern NFL era, Rodgers is the heart of this team. His exceptional football intelligence, technique, and work ethic make everyone else around him look better.

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Pickett is currently the oldest player on the Packers roster at 33

Since the Green Bay Packers’ 2012 season ended, the team has lost three of their oldest veterans in that of Donald Driver (37, retired), Jeff Saturday (37, retired) and Charles Woodson (36, released).  That makes defensive lineman Ryan Pickett their oldest player at 33 and the only veteran on the current roster with 10 or more years of experience.

It’s impossible to say what the team’s average age will be come the end of this year’s training camp, but it is clear that the team is headed for a youth movement for the next year or two.

The Packers being one of the league’s youngest teams is nothing new to most of us who will recall that from 2006 – 2009, they were the NFL’s youngest.  In 2011, the Packers were third youngest and in 2012 they were fifth youngest roster in the league.  In 2013, the Packers will be strong contenders for the “youngest” label once again.

Here is a list of players , courtesy of ESPN, that were on the roster during the 2012 season.  I don’t expect the team to bring running backs Cedric Benson nor Ryan Grant back in 2013.  That leaves John Kuhn as the only player currently 30 years old or more.  Several players are set to turn 30 this year; AJ Hawk, Aaron Rodgers, Tramon Williams and Greg Jennings.  Read more... (910 words + 3 images, estimated 3:38 mins reading time)

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