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Surviving Sundays with no Packers Football

Adam Czech usually puts together this post on Sunday, but he had other commitments this week, so I’ll do my best to pick up the slack.

Last Sunday, Adam called into attention the injury woes of the Packers’ recent first-round picks. Bryan Bulaga, Derek Sherrod and Nick Perry missed a combined 33 regular-season games last year. It’s a concern to a certain degree, but at the same time, all three players will be expected to compete for a major role with the team in 2013.

On the flip side, the Packers have struck gold recently in round two. This past week, the team decided not to place the franchise tag on wide receiver Greg Jennings, a second-round pick in 2006. Jennings played seven years with the Packers, made two Pro Bowls and helped the team to Super Bowl XLV.

This year’s draft may lack elite talent in the top-half of the first round, but it’s an extremely deep class in the first few rounds. The NFL went to a three-day format in 2010, featuring round one on Thursday and rounds two and three on Friday.

Let’s take a look at the Day 2 gems Ted Thompson has brought to Green Bay:  Read more... (897 words + 1 image, estimated 3:35 mins reading time)

• 2012: Casey Hayward (2nd, No. 62)
• 2011: Randall Cobb (2nd, No. 64)
• 2010: Mike Neal (2nd, No. 56) and Morgan Burnett (3rd, No. 71)
• 2008: Jordy Nelson (2nd, No. 34) and Jermichael Finley (3rd, No. 91)

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Surviving Sunday with no Packers Football

It’s shorts season in Green Bay once again. That time of year when we read about some unlikely, unknown or underdog player that suddenly flashes a “ton of talent” and is the surprise of OTA or mini-camp practices. Media members, bloggers and fans get themselves all in a tizzy over the possibilities.

I first fell victim to this unrealistic euphoria in the summer of 2009, when this website was not even six months old. The object of my affection that summer was Jeremy Thompson, who while running around in shorts, had supposedly risen to the top of the depth chart at one of the OLB spots in the newly-instituted Dom Capers 3-4 defense. Thompson took the first snaps at the position, even before new first-round draft pick Clay Matthews. If you’d like a humorous stroll down OTA memory lane, you can read the article I wrote about Thompson at the time.

Once the pads came on in training camp, it became obvious the NFL-caliber skills were just not there. Thompson plummeted down the depth chart and saw very limited playing time in six games, recording one tackle. Then in December of 2009, he suffered an unfortunate career-ending neck injury.

The injury notwithstanding, Jeremy Thompson taught me a lesson that year: pay little attention to the unexpected “stars” of OTAs until a few weeks into training camp.  Read more... (531 words + 3 images, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sunday with no Packers Football

The passing of the torch in the NFL can be cruel and never ceases. I’m referring to players: old and established giving way to players in their prime, all being chased by the up-and-coming new faces.

In Green Bay we have the example of future Packers Hall-of-Famer Donald Driver having ceded territory the last two years to the likes of Jordy Nelson and James Jones. Now fresh faces like Tori Gurley, Diondre Borel, Shakey Smithson, Dale Moss are all trying to get noticed.

I was reminded of this last evening, as I sat (and stood) in my local musical venue watching the still-amazing 75-year old Buddy Guy (video below) fill the air with powerful blues riffs and entertain a crowd like few others can.

Opening for Guy was Jonny Lang, a former child guitar-playing prodigy (now 31) who had his first album released at the age of 14 and was a Grammy-nominated artist at the age of 16. Guy was one of the people responsible for discovering and pushing Lang towards success.

Towards the end of Guy’s show, Lang naturally came out to jam with Guy and they tore the house down (or so we thought). That was until Guy brought out a new guitar-playing prodigy he had first discovered at the age of 7! Now 13, this young boy came onstage looking as uncomfortable as you might expect from a 13 year old, then proceeded to sound like a guitar God from the 60′s. he jammed the blues with Guy and Lang, then veered off into some Hendrix and finished up with some Eric Clapton (Cream-era).  Read more... (735 words + 4 images, estimated 2:56 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sunday with no Packers Football

Instead of kicking off this edition of Surviving Sunday with the usual long, rambling dissertation on the Packers or football, I’ll start things off with an important life lesson for our younger readers.

I am 3o years old. I went out last night and could barely get out of bed this morning. Those four 16-oz. Surly Cynics I consumed must have went straight to my head and morphed into a giant hammer, which is now pounding away at my brain.

In four hours, I will be going out again. More Surly will be consumed. Probably some other stuff, too (don’t worry, the “other stuff” is perfectly legal). I’ll likely be going out on Sunday, also.

Thirty is way too old to go out drinking on multiple nights during the same week. I have no idea why I’m trying to pull off three days in a row. I might never recover. My family might have to put me in a nursing home on Monday.

Back in my college days, three straight days of drinking was considered a warm-up for the weekend. Now that I’m 30, it’s considered a death sentence.

If you’re still in college or far enough away from 30 to still enjoy going out and getting crazy, congratulations. Make sure you have fun while it lasts, because when it ends, it ends suddenly.

And the ending isn’t pretty.

On to some Packers news:  Read more... (886 words + 1 image, estimated 3:33 mins reading time)

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Surviving Sunday with no Packers Football

I published my way-too-early Packers 53-man roster and depth chart prediction on Thursday. Now it’s time for some way-too-early predictions of the entire 2012 NFL season. I’m guessing my mind will change about several of these predictions between now and the period of time where it is no longer way too early to make these sorts of predictions, but for now, here goes nothin’.

Super Bowl
Steelers 34, Packers 27

MVP
Matthew Stafford, QB, Lions

Defensive Player of the Year
Patrick Peterson, CB, Cardinals

Rookie of the Year
Trent Richardson, RB, Browns

Coach of they Year
Mike McCarthy, Packers

Dark-Horse Super Bowl Pick
Eagles 27, Chiefs 24

Dark-Horse MVP Pick
Rob Gronkowski, TE, Patriots

Most Disappointing Team
New York Giants

Most Disappointing Player
Andre Johnson, WR, Texans

Player that Becomes a Star
A.J. Green, WR, Bengals

First Coach Fired
Jason Garrett, Cowboys

Ted Thompson speaks, OTAs, Dancing Donald Driver  Read more... (608 words + 1 image, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

• Ted Thompson spoke with Rob Reischel on a variety of topics in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. You can tell Thompson is a scout at heart. He gives longer answers and even a little bit of insight on questions about the scouting process, and pretty much blows off questions about the draft, contracts and team building.

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