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TE Andrew Quarless will probably start the year on the PUP list.

The first NFL roster cut-down of the season is fast approaching. On Monday, August 27th, the Green Bay Packers will need to have trimmed their roster down to 75 players from their current total of 90.

Even though these are essentially the worst players on the team, the decision of who to cut is a tough one. Not only do Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson need to consider the skill of each player, but they also have to take into account the remaining depth they’ll have to work with for the remainder of the preseason. This being the case, the first roster cut-down can be a good time to declare some of the Injured Reserve (IR) or Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) players for the start of the season.

As a reminder, only players who did not practice at all during training camp are eligible for the PUP. They remain on the list for the first six weeks of regular season, after which they have a three-week window to return to practice. From the point at which the player returns to practice, the team has an additional three weeks to decide whether to elevate them to the 53-man roster, place them on injured reserve, or release them.

Here is a group of eight players who could possibly end up on one of these lists during the upcoming roster cut-down:

Physically Unable to Perform (PUP)  Read more... (944 words + 1 image, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)

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Herb Taylor: Packers’ starting left tackle

Offensive tackle was a position of strength for the Green Bay Packers at this time last year. Chad Clifton was coming off a resurgent 2010 season, Derek Sherrod was the Packers’ first-round selection, and Marshall Newhouse was perhaps the most pleasant surprise of training camp.

But now, a concussion is keeping Newhouse out of practice, Sherrod still has yet to practice all summer, and Chad Clifton is out of football entirely.

In comes 27-year-old journeyman Herb Taylor.

Although he hasn’t played in a regular season game since 2008, Taylor has been far more consistent than rookie Andrew Datko in practice, thus giving him the nod alongside T.J. Lang on the left side of the line in Newhouse’s absence.

Taylor was selected by the Kansas City Chiefs in the sixth round of the 2007 NFL Draft out of Texas Christian, making one start and appearing in 18 games with the team. After a relatively promising first two seasons in Kansas City, Taylor bounced around between Denver, New York, and even spent some time in the UFL with the Las Vegas Locomotives.

Still, despite Taylor’s tenacity and refusal to give up on his NFL dreams, he simply isn’t ready to be relied upon to protect Aaron Rodgers’s blindside at this point.

At Monday night’s practice at Ray Nitschke field, Taylor faced the daunting task of blocking three-time Pro Bowl outside linebacker Clay Matthews. On one occasion during a red-zone period, Matthews played Taylor like a puppet, sliding the 305-pound tackle into the Packers backfield and disrupting Rodgers’s throw.  Read more... (471 words + 1 image, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

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Packers with injuries fail their physicals

A good number of Packers players (including some surprises) failed their physicals this week and will not be able to participate in the first days of training camp. Here is a rundown on what is know about each player so far:

Charlie Peprah:  (Released by the Packers)  A lingering knee injury caused Peprah to fail his physical and the Packers quickly decided to release him. I suppose that speaks highly of the plethora of young safeties the Packers currently have on their roster and how the Packers feel about them.  For Peprah, his best time with the Packers was certainly the Super Bowl season, but his play last year was dreadful at times, and I was considering him likely to be a camp cut anyway.

Desmond Bishop: (PUP) Bishop please! Say it ain’t so!. Desmond has a calf strain suffered in his training session last week and was placed on the non-football related injury list. He’ll be back soon.

Derek Sherrod:  (PUP) Sherrod’s recovery from the broken leg has gone very well, according to Mike Mccarthy, and the Packers expect him to be ready “soon,”, which I would take to mean sometime in the next week or two.

Andrew Quarless: (PUP) No surprise here. The severity of the knee injury he suffered last Dec 4th makes him a longshot at best to even participate in camp. I’d say he’s a lock to never be activated in camp and be on the PUP list when the season starts.  Read more... (849 words + 3 images, estimated 3:24 mins reading time)

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Most of the offseason chatter about Packers starters getting benched has centered on A.J. Hawk being replaced by D.J. Smith. That very well might happen, but what about other starters that could find themselves on the bench once the season starts?

Erik Walden
According to Pro Football Focus (PFF), Walden totaled just three sacks, 14 QB hits and 22 QB hurries in 15 starts. From week 12 through the playoff loss, Walden had zero sacks, four hits and six hurries (he also got arrested). His (-20.5) overall rating by PFF was the worst among 3-4 OLBs by almost 10 points.

Packers fans don’t need fancy stats and analytics to know that Walden was bad. If he was simply average, and provided at least a little pressure on the QB down the stretch, who knows how last season might have ended? Rookie Nick Perry likely will take over here.

Jarius Wynn/C.J. Wilson
These two combined to start six games, so it’s a stretch to call them starters. Howard Green also started five times, so we’ll consider Wynn/Wilson/Green a sort of three-headed monster that started most games somewhere on the defensive line. With Green gone, there’s only two heads of the monster left, and I’m not sure that either head will start this season.

Wilson seems like a good athlete, which gives me some hope that he could eventually turn into a serviceable player. A permanent starter? The jury is out.  Read more... (568 words + 1 image, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

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Packers seventh-round pick Andrew Datko.

The word “if” is used a lot when evaluating rookies before they’ve ever played a snap in the NFL. If Rookie A can learn the offense, he’ll be a star. If Rookie B fixes his technique, watch out. If Rookie C stays out of jail, he’s a pro-bowler.

The Packers 2012 draft class – like everyone else’s – features plenty of “if” guys, the biggest of which might be seventh-round selection Andrew Datko, an offensive tackle from Florida St.

When healthy, Datko was an excellent tackle in college. He’s tall, he’s agile, and he only allowed four sacks in his final three seasons. He was one of the more highly-regarded tackles in the nation before the 2011 season began and his future looked bright.

But here’s where the “if” comes into play: Datko has a bum left shoulder. Surgery before the 2011 season didn’t take and the 6-foot-6, 315-pounder only played in four games. It was his third surgery on the same shoulder since high school and Datko’s draft stock plummetted.

It’s not that Datko didn’t want to play. He showed his toughness by playing his entire junior season at FSU with a torn labrum. But the size, agility, intelligence and toughness wasn’t enough to impress teams who were scared away by the shoulder.  Read more... (543 words + 1 image, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

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Packers should keep Bulaga at right tackle.

Mike McCarthy said this week that Bryan Bulaga will not move to left tackle and replace Chad Clifton. The coach said that Bulaga is “on the verge of becoming a pro bowler at right tackle” and will stay right where he is.

I’m fine with keeping Bulaga on the right side. Until recently, I’ve been in the “move Bulaga to left tackle” camp, but I folded up my tent and left that camp a couple months ago. To the faithful readers who argued with me in the comments section to keep Bulaga at right tackle: Congratulations. You helped convince me.

But mostly my change of heart can be attributed to Aaron Rodgers. I always contended that the Packers should have someone proven to protect the All-World QB’s blind side. Bulaga fit that description much more than Marshall Newhouse or Derek Sherrod. After all, those in the know have been telling us for years that left tackle is arguably the second most important position on offense. They even made a movie about it.

The game changes, though. Now, the best person to protect Aaron Rodgers’ blind side might be, well, Aaron Rodgers. 

An MVP quarterback who knows the offense and reads a defense better than most coaches does a lot to protect himself. Rodgers’ ability to read where pressure is coming from — whether it’s from his blind side or somewhere else – and quickly progress through his options to identify mismatches and/or hot reads goes a long way in mitigating any shortcomings in pass protection.  Read more... (431 words + 1 image, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

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Chad Clifton spent 12 seasons in green and gold.

According to a report from Adam Schefter and ESPN.com, the Green Bay Packers are releasing veteran offensive tackle Chad Clifton.

Clifton was drafted by the team in 2000 in the second round out of Tennessee. Clifton was a remarkable player for most of the past 12 seasons, but found his body beginning to betray itself after missing ten games this past season. According to the ESPN report, Clifton was the oldest starting left tackle in the National Football League.

He started 160 of his 165 career games as Packer and was selected to two Pro Bowls. Clifton and Mark Tauscher provided much needed stability to an offensive line that was greatly in flux during the beginning of Mike McCarthy’s time as Packers head coach.

It’s truly an end of an era in Green Bay. Clifton was the last piece standing from the great offensive line the Packers had in the early 2000s. he helped Ahman Green become one of the the best running backs in Packers history and helped transition the team between Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre

Clifton was owed $5.7 million in salary and bonuses this year.

Marshall Newhouse, Derek Sherrod and maybe even Brian Bulaga wait in the wings to replace Clifton. That could give Packer fans cause for concern as Sherrod went down with an injury last season and Newhouse was inconsistent. Bulaga meanwhile has shown potential to be one of the better right tackles in the game so it may not make much sense the Packers to move him to the other side.  Read more... (318 words + 1 image, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

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