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Packers right tackle Bryan Bulaga has struggled this season.

According to Pro Football Focus, Packers right tackle Bryan Bulaga has allowed 18 quarterback hurries, three sacks and three hits through the first five games.

In 12 games last season, Bulaga allowed 21 hurries, one sack and two hits.

I’m no math whiz, but after crunching those numbers, Bulaga has already allowed the same number of hurries, sacks and hits through five games in 2012 that he allowed in 12 games in 2011.

So what the heck is going on? Bulaga was one of the buzz players entering training camp. He was pegged as a player with the chance at going from good to great.

Injury report
Could he be hurt? Bulaga popped up on the injury report with knee trouble, and perhaps the injury is more serious than the Packers are letting on. That’s pure speculation, but given the way he’s played so far, it’s a definite possibility.

At this point, I almost hope he’s playing hurt. I don’t want to believe that the Packers once promising first-round draft pick at tackle has taken a turn for the worst and is going from good to not-so-good. If he’s playing hurt, there’s hope that he’ll get healthy and get back to playing at a high level again.

If he’s just regressing, well, that’s scary. That gives the Packers two first-round draft picks at tackle who are shaky at best (Derek Sherrod being the other). First-round draft picks are precious commodities. It’s tough to be a successful team if you whiff on your first pick in consecutive drafts.  Read more... (572 words + 1 image, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)

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Aaron Rodgers and the Packers should have put Sunday’s game against the Colts away at the end of the first half.

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers gets annoyed when people ask him about not having many fourth quarter comeback wins on his resume. Rodgers usually points out that he’s won a lot of games in the second and third quarter, making any type of late comeback unnecessary.

The Packers had one of those game-clinching opportunities late in the second quarter on Sunday against the Colts. Instead of putting the game away, the Packers went three-and-out and everything unraveled from there.

After Adam Vinatieri missed a 53-yard field goal, the Packers had the ball on their own 43 with 1 minute, 17 seconds left in the first half. The offense was rolling, the Colts were reeling, and another score — even a field goal — would have probably been the deciding blow.

Time to end this one early, right? Unfortunately, the Packers did just the opposite.

Rodgers hit John Kuhn for six yards on the drive’s first play, then missed Jordy Nelson, then saw Jermichael Finley drop another pass (the drop was bad, but it was also a weird play call, Finley likely would not have reached the first-down marker even if he caught it).

We’ve seen some pathetic efforts from the Packers offense this season, but that drive might have been the worst.  Read more... (452 words + 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

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Randall Cobb played a big role in the Packers’ emotional win over the Saints on Sunday.

I laughed when the headline to Kevin Seifert’s game story popped up on my Twitter account Sunday night: “Emotional Packers save their season.”

“Really, Kevin?” I thought. “A season cannot be saved in week four. Calm down.”

I thought Kevin was reaching for a story angle to try and be different, get people riled up and generate web traffic.

But Seifert is an excellent reporter, one that isn’t prone to hyperbole and weird narratives that attempt to push reader’s buttons just for the hell of it. So I clicked on the story, read it, and decided that Seifert might be on to something.

This passage in particular stood out:

At 1-2, the Packers were facing some long odds if they lost Sunday’s game. Since the NFL moved to its current playoff format, 85.3 percent of teams that started 1-3 missed the playoffs. In a league in which most teams have relatively equal talent, the so-called “snowball effect” is very real.

I won’t summarize Seifert’s entire post — read it for yourself — but he makes some excellent points about emotion and the toll it would have taken on the Packers to lose another emotionally-charged game, this time at home to a team that was just as desperate as they were.  Read more... (659 words + 1 image, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

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