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Can the young Sam Shields improve after his impressive rookie campaign?

The Green Bay Packers allowed the second fewest points in the NFL last season mainly because Clay Matthews became one of the best pass rushers in the league, BJ Raji held down the middle of the line, Tramon Williams emerged as a high-end cornerback and players like Charles Woodson, Nick Collins and Cullen Jenkins were their usual outstanding selves.

But to go from good to great, a team needs more than just its most talented and proven players making big plays. It needs under-the-radar guys to step up and not only provide depth, but also chip in with a big play every now and then. The Packers defense got just that last season from Desmond Bishop, Charlie Peprah and Sam Shields.

Can they do it again in 2011?

Desmond Bishop
2010 Expectations: Talented backup, but not quite good enough to start.
2010 Reality: Got his chance to start and proved he is more than capable.
2010 Highlight: Pick-six against Brett Favre in week seven.
Outlook: If there was a defensive player of the year award for the preseason, Bishop would probably have a few of them by now. Every preseason Bishop flies around the field and looks like the second-coming of Ray Lewis. Then the regular season starts and he gets stuck in the linebacker logjam.  Read more... (820 words + 1 image, estimated 3:17 mins reading time)

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Brothers Aaron and Jordan Rodgers work out together at Whole Body Fitness in their hometown of Chico, CA.

It’s become the big topic of debate during the lockout and it unfortunately involves the entire Green Bay Packers squad.

No, they haven’t gone on a cruise “Love Boat” style like the Minnesota Vikings did a few years ago. Rather, it’s a question about the Packers ON the field.

Why haven’t the Packer players held an informal team workout yet?

It’s a fair inquiry to make.  Most NFL teams have held some kind of group workouts involving a good chunk of the squad.  Yet the world champions have yet to do so with training camp possibly about a month away (assuming the lockout ends relatively soon).   This has not set well with many members of the media, including several former NFL players—namely former New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi.

To them I say, relax. The Packers will be fine.  Just because a majority of league has had team workouts does not put Green Bay at a significant competitive disadvantage.

Where is the proof of this? First, one has to look no further than the Packers squad that won Super Bowl XLV.  The team enjoyed outstanding chemistry in the locker room which is remarkable given all the injuries the team suffered and having to bring in some players basically off the street.  Read more... (892 words + 1 image, estimated 3:34 mins reading time)

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When the lockout started, many NFL observers thought the Green Bay Packers were built to survive an offseason without OTAs and a shortened preseason. Truth is, nobody knows for sure how a team will react to an entire offseason without contact with coaches and organized workouts.

Speculating which team is built to withstand a lockout is kind of silly, anyway. It’s not like Ted Thompson built the Packers with the idea that they wouldn’t be able to practice one offseason. I don’t think he instructed his scouts to find him players that perform better without the benefit of OTAs and a full training camp.

Thompson built the Packers by acquiring talented players. And talented players should perform with or without the benefit of offseason practices.

Unfortunately, the Packers are not the only team with talented players. Every team has talented players. It’s the teams that get the most out of that talent that ends up winning. OTAs, training camp and exhibition games play some sort of role in determining which players get the most out of their talent.

That said, let’s take a look at the Packers position group by position group and try to determine how the lockout and lack of OTAs (and possibly a shortened training camp and reduced preseason games) might impact them. We will give each position group a rating after some brief thoughts. One means the lockout has minimal negative impact on the position group, 10 means the lockout has a major negative impact on the group.  Read more... (671 words + 1 image, estimated 2:41 mins reading time)

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When Jermichael Finley found out the final bad news about his knee injury suffered in the week five game against the Redskins, he turned to twitter to let Packers fans know that, “YOTTO has been rescheduled for the 2011-2012 Green Bay Packer Season.”

Of course, whether Finley likes it or not, the Packers’ “Year Of The TakeOver” continued on just fine without him in 2010. In fact, it continued on just fine without more than a dozen Packer players lost for the season. I’m still amazed by that…

But getting back to Jermichael Finley, he’s talking about his knee again, but this time it’s all good. Back on April 22, Finley tweeted, “Today was the first time since Week 5 that I caught a ball & ran routes. An my my my I look good.” (never one afraid to kiss the mirror is Finley…)

Yesterday, just 20 days later, Finley let Packer Nation know, “I just thought to myself that its May & this knee feels brand new already. smh. This what my Pack Fans been waiting 4 huh.”

So here we are in this spring of much discontent in the world of the NFL, and the Packers’ star tight end is obviously healthy and chomping at the bit to get a piece of that championship feeling. Sadly, at a time when Finley could be running routes on Ray Nitschke field and we would all be hanging on every tweet about how good Finley looks in OTAs, we have nothing.  Read more... (413 words + 3 images, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

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With the 32^nd pick, the Super Bowl Champions selected Derek Sherrod, offensive tackle from Mississippi State and raised one big question, where is he going to play?  The question stems from the 2010 NFL draft, where the Packers used their 1^st round selection to nab offensive tackle Bryan Bulaga from Iowa.

Bulaga and Sherrod seem to have a lot in common; both players were predicted to be drafted far ahead of where they actually ended up and both were technically sound and athletic offensive linemen who weren’t as highly touted as some of the other offensive linemen in their respective drafts (such as Russel Okung and Trent Williams in 2010 and Gabe Carimi and Tyron Smith in 2011).  Both are considered more technicians than maulers and were considered left tackle prospects.

The Packers have claimed after drafting Sherrod that both will get a chance to battle it out in training camp, but lets see how they compare to each other and who fits the mold of a left tackle.  Below is a side by side comparison of Bulaga and Sherrod.  I don’t claim to be a evaluator of talent, so I’ve used analysis from CBSports.com (most likely written by Rob Rang), Doug Farrar (of Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner and Football Outsiders) and Kevin Seifert (of ESPN).

   Read more... (1477 words + 1 image, estimated 5:54 mins reading time)

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Defensive Ends (Defensive Linemen): Here’s the seventh of a series of articles and first for the defense, looking specifically at the NFL combine and the Packers’ drafting tendencies. (Read here for the rationale for this series, here for quarterbacks, here for running backs, here for wide receivers, here for tight ends,  here for offensive tackles and here for offensive interior linemen).  This article will use the combine numbers from previous players drafted by GM Ted Thompson as a guide for what defensive ends are likely to fit into the Packers’ scheme.

Again, this is merely an attempt to make a best guess based on statistics at which players the Packers might be interested in, game tape naturally trumps combine numbers, so take all of this with a grain of salt.  But I believe it will make for some interesting discussion.  Also listed below are also two defensive ends in this year’s draft who I think fit the Packers scheme the best, based on their combine numbers.

Statistics of offensive interior linemen drafted by the Packers:  Read more... (1211 words + 1 image, estimated 4:51 mins reading time)

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Offensive Interior Linemen: Here’s the sixth of a series of articles and final for the offense, looking specifically at the NFL combine and the Packers’ drafting tendencies. (read here for the rationale for this series, here for quarterbacks, here for running backs, here for wide receivers, here for tight ends and here for offensive tackles).  This article will use the combine numbers from previous players drafted by GM Ted Thompson as a guide for what offensive interior linemen are likely to fit into the Packers’ scheme.

Again, this is merely an attempt to make a best guess based on statistics at which players the Packers might be interested in, game tape naturally trumps combine numbers, so take all of this with a grain of salt.  But I believe it will make for some interesting discussion.  Also listed below are also two offensive interior linemen in this year’s draft who I think fit the Packers scheme the best, based on their combine numbers.

Statistics of offensive interior linemen drafted by the Packers:  Read more... (1011 words + 1 image, estimated 4:03 mins reading time)

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