8-6-10 Practice

[swede]

I'll be #50.

That ought to narrow it down.

I'll bring back some notes later on tonight. My cell phone came in a suitcase that plugs into the lighter in the front seat so it's a little hard for me to send updates during practice.

I'll bring back some photos that I steal from Joe Arrigo and call them my own. I have had no luck uploading Polaroids.

[swede]

First let me express my appreciation and annoyance with gbpackerfan. He and Justin Harrell (the PR poster) have raised the bar pretty high as far as Training Camp reports go. Allow me to knock it back down to ground level.

Arrived at the beautiful new stadium seating at the Ray Nitschke practice field at 12:20. No one was around. Place was dead. Went to a local bistro where my oldest daughter happens to work and had a plate of pasta. Returned to practice field at 1:20. Not a single seat was left in the stands. Bummer. Wandered back over to Oneida Street and watched the Packers ride the little kids' bikes to practice.

Mike Neal is an unbelievable specimen of a human being. He has arms like legs and legs like tree trunks. Apparently obeying some sort of injunction brought against him by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Bicycles, he was walking. He stopped right in front of me to let a gramma take a picture of him holding a small child. It was adorable. I am now a big fan of Mike Neal, the supremely muscled nice guy.

Even when he is not wearing his jersey you can spot James Jones a hundred yards away because he is that good looking.

Brian Bulaga has the look of the quintessential football player. It's like we hired him out of central casting rather than drafted him.

After the parade my companions and I sort of hung around debating what to do since the stands were full. We ended up peering through the people standing three and four deep at the north fence to watch some special teams work. I apologize for not knowing, but I think they may have been kickoff returns. I was viewing from a flat angle and looking through many spectators and players.

Brandon Jackson looked surprisingly quick in a couple of returns and had a beautiful quick cut for a big gain.

Sam Shields muffed one, returned one spectacularly for a big gain, and then muffed another. He muffed a third one during live punt returns. Ouch! We have enough room in our hearts for players like Sam Shields but the roster not so much.

Jordy fields the ball with smooth confidence but lacks the burst to make much happen.

Mason Crosby was 6/8 in FG tries. He is kicking the ball all over the place in a pretty big swath. I'm a little nervous for him. He raised some cheers when he crushed one of his attempts--from about 35--so hard that it cleared the catch net and banged off the camera crane.

The crowd thinned a bit and I had a great view of some of the defensive walk-throughs and drills.

Justin Harrell is back and at work, but he does not really impress.

Cullen Jenkins stands out in every snap and in every drill as a very good football player.

Clay Matthews and Brandon Chillar are just plain fricking swaggering out there. They are carrying themselves with some pretty high octane attitudes, and I hope they can cash the checks their attitudes are writing. Hawk and Jones were observing more than playing, and Brady Pop was out for some reason.

Mike Neal, Jarius Wynn and Raji also impressed during different drills.

The stands began to clear out after an hour and a half, and when we moved up to some good seats we found out why. If you ever baked biscuits in a solar oven for a Boy Scout merit badge you understand how sunlight reflecting from different angles onto a single point dramatically increases temperatures. Baby, those aluminum stands are HOT! And so are the packer wives who are in town for Family Night. Sat next to Donald Driver's family. We had some Donald Driver masks that the Packers handed out as souvenirs, so it was fun putting on the mask and attempting to parent DD's kids. They seemed to see through my ruse. When i wasn't messing with DD's kids I got to see some nice full team scrimmage stuff.

Aaron Rodgers got some laughs when he bailed out of the pocket for a three yard gain and slid to the ground in great exaggeration, holding one leg up and out as a kind of white flag.

That Porter kid busted out a TD. Holy crap was he fast! Have we stumbled onto something?

Greg Jennings had a fully extended two toe tapping touchdown, the kind of play you see to win NFC Championship games. I'm not sayin' I'm just sayin'.

We hung around the Atrium for a while after practice and accidentally discovered that if you sneak behind the arcade machines in the Kids Zone you can see the players arrive in their secure parking lot for the 7:00 film meetings. Bulaga, Barnett, Chillar, Hawk, Giacomini, and Ryan Grant were the most generous with their time in terms of signing autographs. Escalades, luxury compact SUV's, Chevy Avalanche trucks, and GMC Denali's were common vehicles of choice for players. I saw only three cars one could consider a sports car. Spitz drove up in a black truck with a huge metal platform rigged up in the bed, making me think he stops his truck in remote places, climbs up on the platform and shoots animals.

Respectfully submitted as the kind of coverage you just can't get at other Packers sites, I remain the swede.

[swede]

Oh, hey, I forgot to add something that surprised me a lot. Next to #21, the player that had the sweetest, most fluid backpedal and hip turn in defensive back drills was...can you guess?

[Brando19]

Oh, hey, I forgot to add something that surprised me a lot. Next to #21, the player that had the sweetest, most fluid backpedal and hip turn in defensive back drills was...can you guess?

Thanks for the posts....very good!

Well...I'm going to say Pat Lee?

[swede]

Oh, hey, I forgot to add something that surprised me a lot. Next to #21, the player that had the sweetest, most fluid backpedal and hip turn in defensive back drills was...can you guess?

Thanks for the posts....very good!

Well...I'm going to say Pat Lee?

Nope. Lee was tall, athletic, but a little stiff.

It was Jarrett Fricking Bush. There has to be some reason the coaches keep him around. He really is a very smooth looking athlete.

[Brandon494]

That Porter kid busted out a TD. Holy crap was he fast! Have we stumbled onto something?

I hope so, did he get any action in KR duty?

[Fritz]

Thank you Swede. You also provided an important service to the female and gay Packer posters here, delineating who the hot Packer players are.

More importantly - from my perspective - you provided more detail and insight than all the Packer reporters put together. So thank you.

Looks like Sam Shields ain't gonna make the cut given his hands of steel. But quinn Porter ... hmmm. Maybe he'll beat out Starks and Lumpkinn esp. if Starks can't get on the field.

[Brandon494]

Thank you Swede. You also provided an important service to the female and gay Packer posters here, delineating who the hot Packer players are.

More importantly - from my perspective - you provided more detail and insight than all the Packer reporters put together. So thank you.

Looks like Sam Shields ain't gonna make the cut given his hands of steel. But quinn Porter ... hmmm. Maybe he'll beat out Starks and Lumpkinn esp. if Starks can't get on the field.

I hope we can keep both Porter and Starks instead of three 3 FBs. I think both could upgrade our kick return unit over what we had last season.

[Fritz]

It's a great question as to where that extra spot should go this year. Running back? Tight end? Offensive line?

Wherever the most talent is, perhaps, positon group-wise?

[gbpackfan]

That was a great camp report! Thank you.

[Joemailman]

Thank you Swede. You also provided an important service to the female and gay Packer posters here, delineating who the hot Packer players are.

More importantly - from my perspective - you provided more detail and insight than all the Packer reporters put together. So thank you.

Looks like Sam Shields ain't gonna make the cut given his hands of steel. But quinn Porter ... hmmm. Maybe he'll beat out Starks and Lumpkinn esp. if Starks can't get on the field.

SS still could grab the last CB spot if he can excel as a gunner, which he did at Miami. Bush digressed a bit last year in that role.

[Joemailman]

Pretty decent summary of what's happened the first week of camp.

http://packerupdate.net/?p=5505

[DannoMac21]

We had some Donald Driver masks that the Packers handed out as souvenirs, so it was fun putting on the mask and attempting to parent DD's kids. They seemed to see through my ruse.

This geeked me out hard.

[retailguy]

Thank you Swede. You also provided an important service to the female and gay Packer posters here, delineating who the hot Packer players are.

More importantly - from my perspective - you provided more detail and insight than all the Packer reporters put together. So thank you.

Looks like Sam Shields ain't gonna make the cut given his hands of steel. But quinn Porter ... hmmm. Maybe he'll beat out Starks and Lumpkinn esp. if Starks can't get on the field.

I hope we can keep both Porter and Starks instead of three 3 FBs. I think both could upgrade our kick return unit over what we had last season.

We're revolutionizing the NFL. Every team is going to be keeping 3FB's and 4TE's. It's a trend. You heard it here first.

[swede]

Thank you Swede. You also provided an important service to the female and gay Packer posters here, delineating who the hot Packer players are.

More importantly - from my perspective - you provided more detail and insight than all the Packer reporters put together. So thank you.

Looks like Sam Shields ain't gonna make the cut given his hands of steel. But quinn Porter ... hmmm. Maybe he'll beat out Starks and Lumpkinn esp. if Starks can't get on the field.

Thank you. I'm no Laurie Nickels, though. If I were you'd know Mike Neal's favorite color by now.

Honestly, I am impressed by how gbpackerfan came at us with instantaneous information. 1:1 drills happen rat-a-tat and you'd better know your players by number and have the skills to input text like a courtroom stenographer in order to keep up with the action the way that gbpf did.

I was hoping to give a little feel for the pageantry and enthusiasm of Training Camp to the Packerrats who have never been to a practice.

It was amazing to me to see that the Packers have built this mini-stadium alongside Ray Nitschke Field that holds about 1,500 fans. At least another 500 hung around the fences. You would think the packers would make a lot of money by charging entrance, but apparently if a team were to do this then other teams could pay their five or ten bucks and send their own scouts.

So they can make this rule that a team caught scouting another team's public practices will get in trouble with the league, but for the life of me I don't know how the team and league can enforce it. Do you think the Patriots would get caught cheating if they simply dressed up a scout in an Aaron Rodgers jersey and had him take notes and pictures?

Hmmmm. Maybe the Packers tape the crowd as well as the practice looking for Bill Bellicheat plants!

Anyway any Packer fan who has never been to a training camp practice needs to consider making a trip to Green Bay in August. Fans from all over, and city residents who trek down every day shower those players with love and devotion. I sometimes wonder what the players must think. I imagine it is a complicated and mixed bag of emotions ranging from "This is wonderful. They love me," all the way to "What the hell is wrong with these people? For crying out loud, it's a PRACTICE!"