Hawk is one scary looking dude. I hope to see him staring down opposing QBs for years to come.
Hawk is one scary looking dude. I hope to see him staring down opposing QBs for years to come.
I'm livin' here in Ohio and have seen Hawk play for four years now. I like the guy. I think he can be a solid LB. Still, I'm a bit worried about his ability to cover deep. The mental aspect of it seems to be fine. He seems bright, knows coverages and adjest very well to a mobile QB. What I am sorried about is his size and ability to react to the ball covering TEs right up the middle. Certainly he's fast enough, but will his vertical be enough. I know it seems like a minor point, but when the Packers line up against the 49ers, and Hawk gets to cover VD, perhaps then we'll know the answer for sure.
one thing seems certain - the face and character of the GB Packers looks very different. I can't imagine how the offense will be explosive this year and if Hawk plays as well in the NFL as he did with a loaded defense in college, it should improve the Packer's defense.
"Never, never ever support a punk like mraynrand. Rather be as I am and feel real sympathy for his sickness." - Woodbuck
>90% happy with Brett returningOriginally Posted by HarveyWallbangers
HOFer
Nobody will be able to temper my enthusiasm about this pick.
HOFer
Who are the other 10%? Do they not know enough not to believe Prisco, my new mortal enemy? I want M3 to tape that article on the locker room wall and then stuff it down his throat at the end of a stellar season.>90% happy with Brett returning
(I sincerely apologize to the person who posted that we should avoid reading that article. I should have remembered your warning and heeded it.)
"Greatness is not an act... but a habit.Greatness is not an act... but a habit." -Greg Jennings
Sort of like Nitschke with hair.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
HOFer
Hawk rekindles Ray of hope in Green Bay
Richard Pufall, JSO
You could almost see Ray Nitschke looking down from the heavens and uncurling that snarling lip into a big, broad smile. Cynical Bears and Vikings fans would argue that old No. 66 had to be looking up and smiling. But the direction doesn’t matter. It’s the smile that’s important.
And why wouldn’t he smile? After all, it was a great week for the defense and a very good one for Nitschke’s beloved Packers in general.
It all started with the best possible gift you can give to the boys on “Dââ⠀šÂ¬Ã‚ Ã¢â‚¬â€ a future Hall of Fame quarterback who is capable of keeping the offense on the field while the defense rests.
And that’s what happened when Brett Favre ended his 113-day Mississippi-lawn-tractor pull by announcing his return for a 15th season with Green Bay.
Then there was the turnabout gift to Favre, the mini-blockbuster signing of free-agent cornerback Charles Woodson. Good defense, you see, can only help Favre’s offense in this the ultimate team sport.
With Al Harris on the other corner the improvement in Green Bay’s defense should be hugely significant. And it would appear now that Ahmad Carroll will be called upon only when the Packers are in dire need of a clutch holding penalty.
And don’t forget the Packers had already signed nose tackle Ryan Pickett along with safety Marquand Manuel, who will play opposite the young and talented Nick Collins.
Then came the draft and what many are boldly hailing as the second coming of Nitschke at linebacker. But let’s give A.J. Hawk a chance to play a few games before we start chiseling his bust for the Hall of Fame in Canton.
To be sure, when the Packers used that No. 5 pick to select Hawk out of Ohio State it created a buzz that makes many believe Green Bay’s defense can now do to opponents what it had been doing to the home fans at Lambeau Field  scare the hell out of them.
Then there’s GM Ted Thompson. Give this guy a few loaves and fishes and he can feed all of Packer Nation. Thompson insists that he and Mike McCarthy aren’t rebuilding the Packers, but Teddy Ballgame has done a masterful job in the last several days of reconstructing what had become his own tattered professional image.
Thompson went into draft weekend with seven selections and came out with 12 new players on Green Bay’s roster. And you know what? Some of them look to be pretty good, too.
After Hawk came Daryn Colledge with the first of Green Bay’s two second-round picks. Colledge, primarily a left tackle at Boise State, has a good chance to step in and start at left guard. (OK, no big deal you say, because you think your uncle Ollie could beat out last season’s guards. But hey, it’s a start).
The Packers, with their second pick in the second round, drafted wide receiver Greg Jennings out of Western Michigan. Jennings is just the 11th player in NCAA Division I history to gain more than 1,000 yards in three seasons. That’s impressive, but the lad now plies his trade in the National Football League, not the Mid-American Conference. So we’ll wait and see if Mr. Jennings makes us forget about Javon Walker.
Of course, Walker in recent months has made himself most forgettable. The rebellious wide receiver had been howling that he never again would play for the Packers, who had wronged him beyond repair. You see folks, the Green Bay organization had committed the unpardonable crime of making Walker a millionaire after he had turned in one great season of work in four years on the job. Wouldn’t you want your boss to slap you around like that?
So Thompson traded Walker to the Denver Broncos for a second-round draft choice. And that is, indeed, excellent value for a former good guy who had become a team cancer, missed about 15½ games of the 2005 season and is trying to come back after a serious knee injury.
But more to the point, the greatest player in the world  which Walker isn’t  is no good to your team if he doesn’t want to be there.
Give Thompson credit for erasing the Walker distraction long before the Packers hit training camp.
Meanwhile, back at the draft, it looked like Thompson was reloading, not rebuilding.
The GM selected Abdul Hodge, a hit seeking missile of a middle linebacker. The Packers have to be considering moving the speedy Nick Barnett from the middle to the strong side, putting Hodge in the middle with Hawk on the weak side. Others, of course, such as Ben Taylor, Brady Poppinga and Kurt Campbell factor in at linebacker, so the Barnett-Hodge-Hawk trio might not take the same stage for a while.
In any event, the linebacker position which was a weakness just a few days ago, now appears to be a strength.
And the jewel of this unit, to be sure, is A.J. Hawk. This youngster brings an intensity to Green Bay that reminds us of  dare we say it  Mr. Nitschke.
Hawk, like Nitschke, is a search-and-destroy hitter who loves contact. Nitschke was bigger, but Hawk is faster.
Nitschke, like Hawk, was a no-frills guy. Green Bay was all the big city Nitschke wanted and Hawk seems to agree.
When many of his peers were strutting their stuff in New York on Day 1 of the draft, Hawk was with family and friends at home in Ohio.
By all accounts, Hawk is a wonderful, gentle, warm, well-spoken, intelligent family guy off the field. And so was Nitschke.
But Hawk, like Nitschke before him, is transported into his private little world of all-consuming violence at the moment he snaps that chin strap.
Nitschke would love this kid.
These two are almost alike in every way.
Now, all Hawk has to do to complete the comparison is play 15 years, win five NFL championships and be inducted in the Hall of Fame.
now we know for sure. He can't do it.
"Never, never ever support a punk like mraynrand. Rather be as I am and feel real sympathy for his sickness." - Woodbuck
This. Now this is some gold. Every scout and journalist is just raving about the guy. Definitely never lived up to the hype. Wish we had Haloti.
LOL! This is priceless.
C.H.U.D.
HOFer
I've had a lot more of these. I loved the Hawk pick. I hated the Rodgers pick. Around 2007 I realized I didn't know what I was talking about, and tried to remain positive about every pick until the dude showed up in played in the NFL.
"There's a lot of interest in the draft. It's great. But quite frankly, most of the people that are commenting on it don't know anything about what they are talking about."--Ted Thompson
I miss FritzDontBlitz and Sparkey.
People predicting the draft are like weather forecasters. By the time you figure out they are wrong, its too late to do something about it.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
If every first round pick played like Hawk, we'd have a better O line. Much worse OLB corp.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
I remember wanting to trade down if we didn't get D'Brickshaw Ferguson. I simply didn't want a linebacker in the top 10.
I don't hold Grudges. It's counterproductive.
Still feel this way?
I don't hold Grudges. It's counterproductive.
Would Hawk have slid, Rodgers like, if Packers traded down?
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
I doubt it. He was taken where the pundits rated him, and I don't remember seeing anything 'bad' about him.
--
Imagine for a moment a world without hypothetical situations...
retires a Packer.
hawk-retires-as-a-packer
Smash mouth!
For two years he looked like this player with those athletic traits, then everything came apart. I think he had an injury and then he rebuilt himself for teh 3-4 and lost all that quickness and speed.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
Where the hell did FritzDontBlitz go?
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
