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According to reports, Packers C Scott Wells is leaving Green Bay.

Packer Report is reporting that Packers free agent center Scott Wells will likely be leaving Green Bay today. The report also says that the Packers are looking at two centers in free agency.

Wells will be missed in pass protection. If the Packers do opt for the free agent route, hopefully they end up with a stronger run blocker.

First let me say that I have never been a huge fan of Scott Wells. I really don’t see him as a Pro Bowl center. He’s a guy who definitely made the most out of what he had and with experience, made himself valuable in the protection calls. He turned himself into a very good center in this league, but not great.

Now, with Wells not likely to get any better at age 31, the Packers will look for less expensive options. All season long I’ve felt that the Packers disinterest in talking contract extension with Wells was the proverbial handwriting on the wall.  It was hard to believe for most people and even for me at times, but alas, it seems to now be true.  - Jersey Al

We’ll have more as this story develops.

Adam Czech is a freelance reporter and a Packers fan living in the Twin Cities. Follow Adam on Twitter. Read more of Adam's writing on the Packers here.

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Scott Wells is likely to hit free agency, which opens Tuesday.

Barring any late change of heart or mind, Green Bay Packers center Scott Wells will get to the start of free agency without a new contract from the Packers.

According to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Wells “appears headed for free agency barring a last-minute deal.” The sides are still far apart on what the value of Wells’ new contract should be.

In my opinion, the two sides are playing a game of chicken, with the Packers going low and Wells going high and waiting to see which side breaks first. My guess is that the Packers are going to have to give in some, but whether it’s enough to sign Wells, I don’t know. Wells remembers that the Packers gave up on him two years ago only to see him beat out Jason Spitz for the starting job and become one of the most valuable players on the offensive line.

It appears that Wells is wanting a contract that puts him on par with the top centers in the NFL, somewhere in the $7-8 million a year range. The Packers are almost certain not to give him that kind of money, especially considering Wells will be 32 at the end of 2012-13 season and is a touch undersized for the position.

Given that wide impasse in yearly negotiations, the Packers are likely to let Wells scour the open market. Once there, it’s possible Wells will find out a harsher truth about his real value and the Packers will be able to negotiate a more cap-friendly deal for the veteran center.  Read more... (617 words + 1 image, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sundays With No Packers Football

I was watching the Minnesota Gophers play the Michigan Wolverines in the Big 10 tournament on Friday night and somehow the end of the game made me think about the NFL.

It was one of those down-to-the-wire college basketball games that makes the sport so exciting, or at least should make the sport so exciting. Unfortunately, whenever the intensity got ratcheted up to 10 and you were getting to the edge of your seat, a timeout would be called. Or the refs would need five minutes to review a play. Then another timeout. Then another review. And so on, and so on…

The end of what should have been a memorable game was ruined by meddling coaches and refs who relied too heavily on the crutch of instant replay.

So what does this have to do with the NFL? I guarantee you if a similar problem existed in the NFL, it would do something to correct it. The NFL isn’t afraid to innovate, even if it means upsetting some people in the process.

If I was in charge of college basketball, I would ban timeouts in the final two minutes. Actually, I would still allow timeouts, but only to stop the clock. Once a timeout is called, the clock would stop, the team that called the timeout would get the ball out of bounds, and play would resume. There would be no long break as the players wandered over to the bench, listened to their coach draw up another play, then wandered back onto the court.  Read more... (1123 words + 1 image, estimated 4:30 mins reading time)

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Packers RB Brandon Saine

Packers running back Ryan Grant is set to hit the open market and, in my opinion, likely won’t return to Green Bay. Once Grant signs elsewhere, get ready for a segment of Packers fans to start clamoring for Ted Thompson to sign or draft Grant’s replacement.

If a RB high on Thompson’s draft board is out there, he very well could draft him, but don’t expect Thompson to reach for a RB based on a perceived need. And if you’re holding your breath that Thompson will sign a name free agent RB or trade for one, exhale now. If a RB comes to the Packers from a different team, it’ll be a guy that nobody has heard of, like Grant was.

Don’t be surprised if Thompson rolls with the RBs currently on the roster. If he chooses that route, it shouldn’t worry Packers fans at all.

James Starks had a disappointing and injury-filled 2011, but he showed he had the talent to be a competent every-down back if he can stay on the field. Hopefully a full offseason builds Starks’s endurance and makes him a stronger player. It’d be nice if he learned to be a little more decisive, too.

Brandon Saine’s main job was catching swing/screen passes, building a head of steam, and plowing forward after initial contact. The undrafted rookie seems versatile and able to do a variety of things out of the backfield, sort of like Grant. We know way too little about Saine to declare him anything but a longshot, but with some seasoning in pass protection, I could see him as a third-down back.  Read more... (636 words + 1 image, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

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Sundays are rough without football, especially after how the Packers season ended.

I love Sundays, but I love Sundays more when football is on. Football makes you forget about your hangover from Saturday night and the fact that you have to go back to work on Monday. Football also makes you feel less guilty for lazing around on the couch all day, eating food that raises your cholesterol and swearing at your TV.

Now we’re stuck with the NBA, NHL, MLB and golf on Sunday for the foreseeable future. I like all of those sports, but none of them makes a Sunday like football. Those other sports are for the other six days of the week.

Sunday is for football.

To kill the time on these offseason Sundays, I’m going to publish Surviving Sunday: Packers New, Notes and Links for the Football Deprived.

It’ll be a regular notebook-style column that opens with a random thought or rant (like the one you’re reading now), followed by some quick opinions on a couple of key issues related to the Packers that I didn’t have a chance to cover with a full post during the week. From there, I’ll include links to must-read/must-see stories, videos and blog posts from the previous week and a preview of possible Packers storylines for the upcoming week. I’ll close each Surviving Sunday with a few words on a subject unrelated to the Packers.  Read more... (914 words, estimated 3:39 mins reading time)

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Packers free agent C Scott Wells might get the chance to test the open market.

Quarterback Matt Flynn and tight end Jermichael Finley have commanded most of the free agent spotlight this offseason in Green Bay, with it being widely assumed that the Packers would eventually come to a deal with highly valuable free agent center Scott Wells sometime in the process.

Not so fast, says Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

While mostly speculating on the issue, McGinn said his best guess would be that “the Packers will play with a new center next season.”

His reasoning?

A bull-headed approach from the Packers on the value of Wells, who has started 100 regular season games for Green Bay since being drafted in seventh-round of the 2004 draft, combined with an equally hot-headed response from the veteran center, who obviously thinks he deserves top-5 money at the position after a Pro Bowl season in 2011-12.

Simply put, the Packers do not think Wells is worth as much as the he and his representation do. Undersized and 31 years old, the Packers have some leverage in the talks.

But Wells has just as much leverage, as he has put together back-to-back seasons of Pro Bowl-caliber play and then watched several other centers, who are older and less talented, get big deals on the open market.  Read more... (659 words + 1 image, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

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Tagging Jermichael Finley is one option for the Green Bay Packers this offseason.

Starting today, all 32 NFL teams will have the ability to place the franchise tag on one player of their choosing. The deadline for applying said tag is Monday, April 5, eight days before free agency begins.

The underlying purpose of the franchise tag is for teams to have the option of retaining a player with an expiring contract if a long-term agreement can’t be had before free agency begins.  Unlike previous seasons, in which a franchised player would receive the average salary of the five highest paid players at his position, the NFL’s new CBA introduces a complicated formula that now controls what the number for each position will be.

For 2012, the numbers figure out as such:

QB: $14.4 million in 2012; down from $16.1 million in 2011

RB: $7.7 million in 2012; down from $9.6 million in 2011

WR: $9.4 million in 2012; down from 11.4 million in 2011

TE: $5.4 million in 2012; down from $7.3 million in 2011

OL: $9.4 million in 2012; down from $10.1 million in 2011

DE: $10.6 million in 2012; down from $13 million in 2011

DT: $7.9 million in 2012; down from $12.5 million in 2011

LB: $8.8 million in 2012; down from $10.1 million in 2011

CB: $10.6 million in 2012; down from $13.5 million in 2011

S: $6.2 million in 2012; down from $8.8 million in 2011  Read more... (1057 words + 4 images, estimated 4:14 mins reading time)

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