AllGreenBayPackers.Com

Matthews and Perry will anchor the Outside Linebacker spots in 2013

Packers Outside Linebackers:  This is a group that had a lot of promise heading into 2o12 but after an injury to rookie Nick Perry and an underwhelming season from 2011 incumbent Erik Walden, there wasn’t nearly as much production as the defense needed nor wanted.  The Green Bay Packers enter the 2013 offseason with some questions at this vital position.

(Note: Listen to the combined linebackers podcast at the end of this article:)

Where are we now:

Here are the current suspects:

Clay Matthews III (1st round)

Nick Perry (1st round)

Erik Walden (UDFA)

Dezman Moses (UDFA)

Frank Zombo (UDFA)

Jamari Lattimore (UDFA)

Matthews was, once again, the steady rock of this group.  He had has second-best season, posting 13 sacks despite missing several games with a hamstring injury.  Not much more can be said of Matthews other than he makes the entire Packers defense better and he has to be a top priority of the team to retain when his contract expires at the end of the 2013 season.

Perry had high expectations after being drafted in the first round.  He showed some flash early in the season but was shelved after just six games due to an injured wrist ligament that required surgery.  It’s hard to say what Perry’s impact would have been but the team will enter the 2013 season program with him slated to start at left outside linebacker.  Read more... (1517 words + 3 images, estimated 6:04 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

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)

---- Get AddToAny

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)

---- Get AddToAny

Frank Zombo

1) Introduction:  Packers outside linebacker Frank Zombo appeared in just seven games for the Packers in 2012.  Zombo has battled injuries for most of his three seasons in Green Bay and started this past season on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list.  His first game action did not come until week 11 against the Detroit Lions and he played sparingly from there.  Zombo was not active for either of the team’s two playoff games.

2) Profile:

Frank William Zombo III

• Age: 25
• Born:3/5/1987 in Sterling Heights, MI
• Height: 6’03″
• Weight: 254
• College: Central Michigan
• Rookie Year: 2010
• NFL Experience: 3 years

Career Stats and more

3) Expectations coming into the season:  Zombo injured his hamstring before the team entered training camp and he was eventually placed on PUP.  Having been hurt for most of the 2011 season, Zombo was not slated to be a prominent part of the team’s defensive scheme in 2012.  It was unknown whether the team would get Zombo’s services at all and there had been some talk that the team might put him on season-ending injured reserve.

4) Player’s highlights/low-lights: Zombo did receive a game ball after the week 16 win over the Tennessee Titans but did little beyond that.  Zombo did not appear for many snaps in any of the games in which he was active.  In the week 17 game at the Minnesota Vikings, he played just one snap and was inactive for both playoff games.  Zombo graded out below average overall and did not make any impact plays for the team this past season.  Read more... (403 words + 3 images, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

A image many thought was impossible even a year ago.

Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers: Reunited. Maybe the Mayans were on to something after all.

In a moment that stunned everyone, especially fans of the Green Bay Packers, Favre and Rodgers appeared on stage together to present the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year Award to Peyton Manning during the NFL’s annual Honors award ceremony. Favre and Rodgers poked fun at Favre’s decision to retire and then comeback. It was likely a scripted moment, but it brought laughter to the crowd.

It also brought hope to fans who are sick of the arguing over the former quarterback.

It was a moment many expected to see at some point in the future, but maybe not so soon and definitely not at this venue. How fast this news spread opened up a lot of old wounds and brought back a lot of emotions regarding the Packer hero-turned-villain.

With Rodgers apparently the one who gave the go ahead for this moment to happen, it has brought renewed hope that Favre will once again be a beloved member of the Packers family and that it would be sooner rather than later. As divisive as a figure Favre is amongst the Packers faithful, this was a good first step towards healing those wounds.

By appearing on stage with Favre, it is almost as if Rodgers is giving some Packers fans the go-ahead to once again fully embrace the former Packer legend.  Read more... (757 words + 1 image, estimated 3:02 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre

…And then there was peace.

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former quarterback Brett Favre will share the stage together, presenting the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award tonight on CBS.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy hinted at it early Saturday evening via Twitter, tweeting, “There’s an unlikely pairing of presenters you will have to see on #nflhonors 9p ET on CBS. their numbers added up to 16.”

Some basic math suggested that Favre and Rodgers were the “unlikely pairing of presenters.”

The NFL Honors program will be televised at 8 p.m. Central tonight on CBS.

The award winners have already been announced. Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III was named Offensive Rookie of the Year, Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly won Defensive Rookie of the Year, Adrian Peterson was named Offensive Player of the Year and J.J. Watt won Defensive Player of the Year.

Peterson was also named league MVP for the first time in his career.

Packers cornerback Casey Hayward finished third in the voting for Defensive Rookie of the Year behind Kuechly and Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner.

Rodgers and Favre will present the Comeback Player of the Year Award to Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning.

The relationship between Rodgers and Favre has certainly been rocky, so it’s nice to see them smoothing things out. According to NFL Network’s Michelle Beisner, both men were ready to move on.  Read more... (361 words + 1 image, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

While doing research on my last article, I noticed one very interesting fact: Dominant 3-4 defenses tended to have a star 5-technique defense end.  The 3 best 3-4 defenses in terms of dEPA (defensive expected points added) in the NFL right now are San Francisco, Arizona and Houston and each team boasts impact 5-technique defensive linemen like Justin Smith, Calais Campbell and JJ Watt, each of which is among the top five 5-technique defensive linemen according to ProFootballFocus.  This got me to thinking: everyone knows that the quarterback effects offensive success more than any other position on the field (hence why Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning can keep winning games without good offensive lines and running backs), but is there a position on a 3-4 defense that is most important to defensive success?

Traditionally, the hallmarks of a good 3-4 defense has been it’s nose tackle and outside linebackers; indeed in 2009 when Green Bay switched from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense, general manager Ted Thompson drafted nose tackle BJ Raji with the 9^th overall pick and then traded up back into the 1^st round for outside linebacker Clay Matthews III.  The argument has always been made that a dominant nose tackle that can eat up multiple blockers and outside linebackers who are athletic enough to rush the passer are the keys to a dominant 3-4 defense.  You could argue that Green Bay seems have both positions covered, both Clay Matthews III and BJ Raji are both dominant players but while that seemed to have translated to success in 2009 and 2010, it didn’t seem to matter much in 2011 and 2012.  Read more... (1231 words + 1 image, estimated 4:55 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny