AllGreenBayPackers.Com

Surviving Sundays With No Packers Football

The only thing you need to survive this Sunday without Packers football is Tom Silverstein’s story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on the Packers front office and scouting operation.

Once again, the Packers were shorthanded at the NFL combine thanks to the departure of John Dorsey for Kansas City. In 2011, John Schneider left for Seattle and Reggie McKenzie departed for Oakland in 2012. All three of Ted Thompson’s right-hand men took general manager jobs.

You want your favorite NFL team to have as much talent as possible, both on the field and in the front office. It’s never a good thing to lose a talented player, just like it’s never a good thing to lose a talented executive. Silverstein’s story does a nice job of showing just how much of a team sport scouting, player evaluation and draft day can be.

However, every team has a star. On the field, the Packers have Aaron Rodgers. In the front office, they have Thompson.

As long as Rodgers is playing, the Packers should be good. As long as Thompson is the general manager, the front office should be fine.

I don’t get overly worried when Packers executives start making their annual exit from Green Bay for opportunities elsewhere. As long as Thompson is around, the Packers should remain on the right track. He’s the star. He’s the one that makes everything go.  Read more... (754 words + 1 image, estimated 3:01 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

Winston Moss is being rumored as a coaching candidate in Oakland.

It’s nothing more than speculation at the moment, but Green Bay Packers inside linebackers coach and assistant head coach Winston Moss is being rumored as a potential candidate at head coach or defensive coordinator for the Oakland Raiders.

Speculation regarding Moss comes on the heels of Oakland’s hire of former Packers director of football operations Reggie McKenzie as their new general manager. Pro Football Talk added fuel on the fire earlier today when they reported that McKenzie will be given the power to fire head coach Hue Jackson if he so pleases.

The majority of new GMs want their own hire at head coach, so the possibility exists that McKenzie could show Jackson the door. If he went that route, Moss would likely become one of McKenzie’s leading candidates to take the job. Most believe that McKenzie will keep Jackson, who led the Raiders to an 8-8 record in his first season, as the head coach, however.

But even if Jackson is retained, Moss could be a candidate for the Raiders’ looming defensive coordinator vacancy. Chuck Bresnahan, the incumbent at the position, is widely assumed to be done in Oakland after this season. At this point, a move to defensive coordinator looks like the most likely scenario for Moss to leave Green Bay for Oakland.

A veteran of 11 seasons in the NFL, Moss played four years in Oakland from 1991-94. The linebacker led the Raiders in tackles in ’93 and was a three-time defensive captain.  Read more... (419 words + 1 image, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

If someone were to ask either Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson or head coach Mike McCarthy about their legacies, both men would likely scoff at the question and say that they’d rather wait until retirement to reflect on that and instead say they are focused on the present.

They’re right.  Still, with the Packers coming off a regular season in which they won the most games and scored the most points in franchise history as well as making a push for a second consecutive world title, the legacies of both men are coming into focus.

There is no further proof of this than the interest both Thompson and McCarthy’s assistants are drawing around the NFL.  Before last season, I wrote an article wondering if McCarthy would soon be the next head coach to form a “coaching tree” like Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren.  Both men had assistants go on to long and successful head coaching careers and with McCarthy’s development of Aaron Rodgers, it seemed like a distinct possibility.

Well, with the Packers in position to win a second straight Super Bowl with one of the most potent offenses in the league such a tree is indeed beginning to sprout.

The first example is offensive coordinator Joe Philbin.   Whenever an offense breaks all sorts of records, the offensive coordinator naturally is the one people begin to look at.  Philbin has drawn interest from the Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Rams.  Read more... (821 words + 1 image, estimated 3:17 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

McKenzie appears headed to Oakland to be the Raiders new GM.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Oakland Raiders are planning to hire Packers director of football operations Reggie McKenzie as their next general manager.

McKenzie has long been rumored as a leading candidate for the job after Raiders owner and GM Al Davis passed away this fall. The two sides had reportedly been in contact this week, as McKenzie received a high recommendation from former Packers GM Ron Wolf for the job. Wolf has been assisting the Raiders in the search for new GM, along with former Raiders coach John Madden and Ken Herock.

McKenzie has served 18 years in the Packers personnel department, including the last four in his current capacity. He joined the Packers in 1994 as a pro personnel assistant and was later promoted to director of personnel in 1997.

McKenzie took over for John Schneider in May of 2008 as director of football operations after Schneider left to become the Seattle Seahawks general manager.

A former linebacker, McKenzie was drafted in the 10th by the Wolf-run Raiders in 1985 and played four years in Oakland. After two years in Phoenix with the Cardinals and another in San Francisco, McKenzie was out of the NFL. In 1993, he joined Phillip Fulmer’s coaching staff at his former alma mater in Tennessee. A later year, he landed in Green Bay in his first front office job.  Read more... (414 words + 1 image, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny