season ruined by not having a backup

[bobblehead]

Well, Red, you can't completely discount injuries either. You also can't say they haven't tried to draft tackles. They just haven't stayed healthy, and that's never good for the development of young players, or the o-line in general. It's like dead money on your roster. You can't really afford the cap space to replace them with another high rounder, and while you're hoping for them to rehab their way back, you play a rookie at LT and a second year undrafted guy at RT, until he gets dinged and you have to put in a 5th round turnstile. Has anyone ever stopped to think what this line would be playing like if they hadn't had to deal with all the catastrophic injuries on the o-line? I'm guessing that if Sherrod had never gotten hurt in December 2011, or anyone else after that, and all the guys would have had the time to gel together since then, I think the line would have looked like this:

LT Sherrod
LG Lang (he probably never would have been moved from left to right)
C EDS
RG Sitton
RT Bulaga

I'd sign up for that line, plus imagine Lacy running behind that line. Certainly, their draft strategy may have changed had their line stayed healthy. Look, I know that's not what has happened, but then you have to take into account what has happened. Are there any other teams out there who have had to overcome so much on the o-line? Sometimes you just have to muddle through until you can get everyone healthy, and that's not looking like until next year.

Harlan, I disagree with your point about letting TT and MM off the hook on backup QB. Sure, it's easy to kill them when it all goes south. They clearly needed to ask harder questions about Harrell once 2012 was over and bring in way better competition for him as soon as the most current off-season program began. You can't really fault Coleman (practically undrafted), and you can somewhat fault Harrell (he had his chance as was around for a while), but ultimately you have to fault TT and MM for not correctly evaluating what those backups were capable of. I never liked having a never was as a backup for Rodgers. A veteran backup who is serviceable would have been much better, but I think the Packers took draft/sign and develop a little too far on this one and it blew up in their faces unfortunately.

Without google tell me. Who is the backup for Peyton, Brady, and Brees? I am betting never weres. When you pay your QB 20 million it gets hard to pay a backup and still build a roster.

[woodbuck27]

Actually wells is the anti packer rule. He never got hurt with us, but when he left its been nothing but pain.

Ahh Scott Wells and not retaining him after he was recognized as a Pro Bowler !

Is that somehow connected in some karma like fashion of a curse?

A curse leading to the phenomena of over the top injuries to anyone on the Green Bay Packer roster?

If that's the case then maybe this direction is prudent:

All managerial moves will have to be carefully scrutinized to see if there's any connection of familiarity.



Would bringing in a team like these guys help with any determination?

[gbgary]

does atl have pass rush? it may not matter.

[red]

does atl have pass rush? it may not matter.

They'll have a decent pass rush this week

[denverYooper]

They'll have a decent pass rush this week

Yeah, they'll be looking at kind of an undersized center in Quarless. It should be a matchup advantage for Atlanta.

[Patler]

Ahh Scott Wells and not retaining him after he was recognized as a Pro Bowler !

Is that somehow connected in some karma like fashion of a curse?

A curse leading to the phenomena of over the top injuries to anyone on the Green Bay Packer roster?

Or maybe a curse leading to Wells being injured in the two years since?

[red]

Its amazing to me that we keep breaking yardage and scoring records with such a crappy line.

It really is amazing. When you watch other games you see qbs that can just stand around in the pocket forever, without even have to worry about getting hit.

With us, its almost like our guys just try to delay the pressure, not try and stop the pressure. With our line over the years it hasnt been a matter of "if" our qb gets hit on every play, its a matter of "when". our qbs have their couple of seconds, then they have to get out of the pocket to stay alive. You watch a guy like brady, and he can just stand in that pocket all day without a care in the world

And again its not just because of injuries, our line has been playing like that for at least 3 or 4 years

But, we lost our #1 tackle for the year early. We found out very early that our other #1pick wouldnt give us much this year. What did we do? Next man up. We went with an unproven rookie and a n undrafted second year player.

Baltimore had problems with their LT early in the year, what did they do? They sent a 4th and 5th rounder to jacksonville for one of the best young LTs in the game. Even if it is just gonna be a one year rental, i think thats a good move. The eagles i think sent an undisclosed late round pick to the cardinals for levi brown. He got hurt right away, but i applaude the effort.

We could have inproved the o line after the injuries if we wanted, we didnt, and our line sucks

Not that better players would improve our shitty blocking scheme

[red]

Yeah, they'll be looking at kind of an undersized center in Quarless. It should be a matchup advantage for Atlanta.

I though kuhn was the backup center

[denverYooper]

I though kuhn was the backup center

You could be right. I haven't checked the depth chart lately.

[Kiwon]

Ahh Scott Wells and not retaining him after he was recognized as a Pro Bowler !

Is that somehow connected in some karma like fashion of a curse?

A curse leading to the phenomena of over the top injuries to anyone on the Green Bay Packer roster?

If that's the case then maybe this direction is prudent:

All managerial moves will have to be carefully scrutinized to see if there's any connection of familiarity.



Would bringing in a team like these guys help with any determination?

This guy might do it a little cheaper.

[woodbuck27]

Its amazing to me that we keep breaking yardage and scoring records with such a crappy line.

Yes it's rather strange.

We were off like a ROCKET there before Aaron Rodgers went down.

Even after that the offensive side of the ball Stat's looked very decent.

[woodbuck27]

This guy might do it a little cheaper.

Yes but he demands live insects in his diet. Will that be an issue?

[Carolina_Packer]

Without google tell me. Who is the backup for Peyton, Brady, and Brees? I am betting never weres. When you pay your QB 20 million it gets hard to pay a backup and still build a roster.

So, you're saying, for example, the Bears, with McCown as backup and Cutler not yet making his big payday, are in a more fortunate position of being able to afford to spend more cap at the QB position? I guess that's good if you are getting what you need from your #1, but not if it's a situation where you have two mediocre guys (see Minnesota). The bad thing about paying "The Man" is that you can't really afford to give your backup much, and if he goes down, you're probably going to have a severe drop-off anyway, especially with how much of the offense that depended on Rodgers. All I'm saying is that the Bears haven't been god-awful with McCown, and the Packers should have put themselves in a similar position, but decided to develop Harrell too long without enough real competition. That said, I wasn't really talking about what they could afford, but rather pressing harder and allowing enough time and competition at the backup spot and really knowing what you have there. I think they were hoping more than knowing about Harrell until it became blatantly obvious they had spent too long developing him and had to let him go.

BTW, I did not look at Google and I know it's Osweiler (Denver) and Mallett (New England) but I have no idea who backs up Brees (used to be Chase Daniel from Missouri, but I think he went to KC).

[pbmax]

I am forgiving of TT for the backup QB situation. Nobody could have predicted that Graham Harrell, BJ Coleman, Vince Young, Seneca Wallace, Scott Tolzien and Matt Flynn would all be washouts. In fact, every fan and professional analyst have been on the bandwagon of one or more of those guys.

But at backup center, TT never addressed the position. Tretter was gone last May. Van Roten is an undrafted flyer. The thinness at center-guard has been a predictable problem.

I think you could be selling GVR short. He was good enough to be active for 3 games and while we cannot know how he would fare up against Tretter, he beat out the rest of the competition at Center.

[Harlan Huckleby]

I think you could be selling GVR short. He was good enough to be active for 3 games and while we cannot know how he would fare up against Tretter, he beat out the rest of the competition at Center.

This same praise could be lavished on Marshall Newhouse. They are both winners of the tallest pygmy contest for their position.