AllGreenBayPackers.Com

Desmond Bishop is now a former member of the Green Bay Packers

The first signs of trouble emerged last week and now the Green Bay Packers have made it official.

The Packers today announced that they have released LB Desmond Bishop roughly a week after speculation began about his future with the team.   Bishop missed all of the 2012 season with a torn hamstring and many have speculated that this is the reason behind his release.  Bishop for his part, however, has insisted that he was healthy.

With Bishop’s departure, this leaves linebackers A.J. Hawk and Brad Jones as the likely starters at inside linebacker in Green Bay’s base 3-4 defense.  A healthy Bishop was anticipated to help a Packers defense that struggled at times last year and was thought to be the best inside linebacker on the team.

Bishop was a sixth round draft pick of the Packers in the 2007 NFL Draft.  He enjoyed several successful preseason games before finally getting his chance as a full-time starter when Nick Barnett went down with injury during the 2010 season.  Bishop’s play exceeded all expectations that year and became a fan favorite over the next several seasons.

He finishes his Packers career with 310 tackles  (224 solo), nine sacks, seven forced fumbles, an interception and 13 passes deflected.

Green Bay meanwhile frees up approximately $3.46 million in cap room as a result of releasing Bishop.  Bishop is not subject to waivers since he has been in the league for more than four years and immediately becomes an unrestricted free agent.  Read more... (329 words + 1 image, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

Packers LB Desmond Bishop might be staring down offenses for another team if reports of his pending release are true.

If the reports are true, another member of the Green Bay Packers’ Super Bowl XLV-winning team is on his way out of Titletown.

Jason Wilde of ESPN Milwaukee tweeted Tuesday evening that, barring a trade or a restructured deal, that the Packers will likely be parting ways with ILB Desmond Bishop. It’s not clear what is propelling Green Bay to release Bishop, but Tyler Dunne of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tweeted that the release is part of a “numbers game.”

Packer Nation immediately went into an uproar, judging by fans’ reactions on Twitter. Cheeseheads everywhere were stunned the Packers would release arguably their best inside linebacker. Their argument was that if Green Bay really wanted to become more tough and physical, especially on defense, cutting ties with Bishop sends the opposite signal.

It’s a valid point. The Packers were missing Bishop’s physical presence last year when he went down or the year after tearing his hamstring in the preseason. He’s also a fan favorite on defense and releasing him makes little sense to many of the Packer faithful.

That said, releasing Bishop may actually be a much better move than many think.  Read more... (1056 words + 1 image, estimated 4:13 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

Can Rodgers surpass the two Super Bowl rings won by Bart Starr?

Every time quarterback Aaron Rodgers sits down for an interview, Green Bay Packers fans move forward in their seats to see or hear what the face of their beloved franchise has to say.

Rodgers recently sat down with Tyler Dunne of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and talked about a wide variety of subjects, ranging from what he was doing with his $35 million signing bonus to revisiting his plummet in the draft in 2005.

However, there was one thing that Rodgers told Dunne that sticks out.  When Dunne asked Rodgers if winning multiple rings drives him, he replied with the following:

“For sure. Bart has two Super Bowl rings. Brett (Favre) has one. And I have one. I’d like, when I’m done, to have the most rings. I don’t know if it’s possible to get as many championships as Bart has, but maybe I can equal him in rings.”

Rodgers is right about Starr.  Starr won five championships including two Super Bowls and it will be tough in this day and age for any quarterback to win five Super Bowls.  However, equaling or surpassing Starr in Super Bowl titles is a feasible goal for Rodgers.  Read more... (1133 words + 1 image, estimated 4:32 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

Nate Palmer, OLB, Illinois St.

Ted Thompson didn’t have to do it. Nate Palmer was not going to be drafted. You would be hard pressed to find him breaking the top 400 in anyone’s big board or player rankings.

Yet, when the Packers’ turn came up in the sixth round, they made Palmer the 193rd player drafted. This despite the fact they were holding three seventh round picks, and could have surely taken him with their last pick at # 232. Even better, as the only team that had him in for a tryout, the Packers would have been frontrunners to sign him as an Undrafted Free Agent (UDFA), although I can understand not wanting to risk that.

But why jump the gun and take him in the sixth? This is a question that’s been bugging me for the last month. In a draft where the Packers got fantastic value by not jumping the gun on Eddie Lacy or Johnathan Franklin, why not let Palmer fall to them in the 7th? That’s what Ted does.

Now, I can hear you all out there saying, “Hey Al – that’s speculation, some other team could have taken him.” Of course that’s a possibility, but pretty remote, as neither Palmer or his coach expected him to be drafted at all. He wasn’t even listed as a Free Agent signee on most draft boards, meaning he was expected to be a tryout invite guy. He was shocked when he got the call from Green Bay.  Read more... (658 words + 3 images, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

Will Don Barclay be the Packers sixth offensive lineman?

There has been a lot of news worth following on the Packers offensive line this offseason. Another storyline up front that should develop further once training camp heats up is who will “win” the sixth-man slot on the offensive line.

I put “win” in parentheses because, technically, if you’re the sixth man on the line, it means you failed to land a starting spot. In other words, you lost the battle you were actually trying to win.

Nobody goes into camp hoping to “win” a spot on the bench, but when it comes to the offensive line, the sixth man typically ends up getting at least a few starts and playing some type of meaningful role during the season. If you don’t start on the line, being the sixth-man is the spot you want to secure.

The leading candidates to be the Packers sixth man appear to be Marshall Newhouse, Don Barclay, Derek Sherrod and rookie David Bakhtiari.

Derek Sherrod
In an ideal world, I think the Packers would like to see Sherrod storm into camp fully recovered from his broken leg and show everyone why Ted Thompson spent a first-round draft pick on him. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like Sherrod is on track to do that.

Ideally, the sixth-man on the line needs to be able to play multiple positions. Sherrod was drafted as a left tackle, but did compete at guard during training camp of his rookie season. Strength and nastiness appeared to be Sherrod’s weaknesses before he was injured.  Read more... (791 words + 1 image, estimated 3:10 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

Wait, is that a wide receiver over there?

Shhhhhh… be vewy, vewy qwiet… It’s wabbit wide receiver season…

Trapper Ted is up to his old tricks., i.e.,  his normal off-season compulsive collecting of no-name wide receivers. On Wednesday, the Packers signed Alex Gillett, a 6’1″, 214lb former QB turned receiver from Eastern Michigan.

That brings the number of wide receivers currently on the Packers roster to eleven. That may seem like a lot at first glance, but it’s actually fairly normal for the Packers. I know this because I remember calling a few years in a row for the Packers to carry one less wide receiver on the camp roster so that they could bring in a second placekicker to make Mason Crosby actually, you know, earn his spot.

But no, we can’t waste a precious roster spot on a second kicker, I kept hearing. Well lo and behold, look what the Packers have done this season. Hey, they even went out and got an Italian kicker – Mama mia!

But before this veers off into another epic Crosby rant (I’m kind of due, aren’t I), let’s get back to the subject at hand.

The argument in favor of bringing so many receivers to camp has always been that they need camp bodies to run routes during practices so the main receivers don’t get worn out. I totally bought into that theory, but still felt it was a waste with the Packers only keeping five wide receivers – until last year.  Read more... (541 words + 3 images, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny

Will Packers LB recover from his injury and be on the team come September?

This story from Tyler Dunne in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about Packers linebacker Desmond Bishop is extremely well written. After reading it, you can’t help but like the guy even more than you probably already do.

In the story, Bishop says one of his goals is to win defensive player of the year in 2013.

Unfortunately, as entertaining as the story is, it doesn’t really address the main question I have about Bishop as the Packers open OTAs: What are the odds that he’s actually on the team once the season starts?

Reports surfaced during the NFL draft that the Packers were trying to trade Bishop. Several moves the Packers made in the offseason — bringing back A.J. Hawk, re-signing Brad Jones for $4 million, adding another inside linebacker in the draft — made it appear that the Packers might not be too confident in Bishop’s chances of returning from the torn hamstring he suffered last preseason.

“Trade or release Bishop?” you’re probably asking. “But I thought he was supposed to boost the Packers physicality and automatically improve the inside linebacker corp?”

In a perfect world, that’s exactly what would happen. But how perfect is the Packers’ world when it comes to injuries lately? Not very. J.C. Tretter, one of Green Bay’s fourth-round draft picks, just snapped his ankle in a fumble-recovery drill. Two of the past three seasons have seen the team ravaged by injuries. The scuttle around the Packers is that Ted Thompson won’t hesitate to jettison players who are hampered by injuries.  Read more... (461 words + 1 image, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

---- Get AddToAny