10/12/2006
Happy Birthday to me!!!
Today I turn 49 with 43 years of following the Packers!!!
Martin punts in a pinch
With punter Jon Ryan having gone back to Canada during the bye week to be with his ailing father, the Packers could have used the JUGS machine to spit picture-perfect balls into the air for the punt return and punt coverage drills in practice. Instead, special teams coordinator Mike Stock called upon Martin, the No. 3 quarterback who punted in college at Florida and Furman. The person most entertained by Martin, who punted 46 times for a 35.2-yard average as a redshirt freshman at Florida in 2002 and 33 times for a 43.2-yard average as a senior at Furman last year, was kicker Dave Rayner, who's been listening to Martin talk about his kicking exploits for a while now. "I'm glad he got to punt, because he's been bragging about that for like six months now. He was an all-American, wasn't he?" Rayner said, laughing. "He had a couple decent punts. He had more than enough shanks, too."Getting his kicks
Stock has been pleased with Rayner's work at his regular job - place-kicker. Although he missed a 45-yard attempt wide left in Sunday's loss to St. Louis, he is 8-for-11 on the season and his other two misses have come from beyond 50 yards - a 53-yarder against Chicago in the Sept. 10 opener and a 54-yarder at Philadelphia Oct. 2. Rayner made a 54-yarder, tying the franchise record, earlier in that game. "I feel good with where he's at," Stock said. "He's not going to be perfect, but he's going to be solid."
A streak ends
Not only did the St. Louis Rams post a 23-20 victory on Sunday, they did something to Favre that no other opponent ever had done. Entering the game, Favre had been 43-0 as a starter at Lambeau Field, counting playoffs, in games in which he didn't throw an interception. The Rams failed to intercept Favre but beat him, anyway. Counting playoffs, Favre has started 246 games. He has thrown at least one interception in 161 games, or 65.4%, and none in 85 games, or 34.6%.The Packers were 74-11 (.871) when Favre wasn't intercepted and 77-84 (.478) when he was. In games without an interception, Favre is 43-1 at Lambeau Field, 2-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium, 28-10 on the road and 1-0 at a neutral site.Staff moves
Scott McCurley has been assisting the defensive coaches since the start of training camp as a coaching administrative intern. "He helps with the quality control," defensive coordinator Bob Sanders said. "Scott mainly works as an office assistant." Meanwhile, the Packers have three offensive line coaches for the first time in their history with the decision last month by McCarthy to add camp intern Jerry Fontenot as a full-time assistant under Joe Philbin. The other O-line assistant is James Campen. "A lot of times in team (practice) I'll take one side and 'Campy' will take another and Jerry will take the center," Philbin said. "Those guys do a fabulous job when we break them up into individual periods. They're very competent coaches." Campen and Fontenot were starting centers in the NFL.
Extra pointsThis morning's practice will be the last of the week, and the players will be off Friday through Sunday before returning to work Monday. Most players are headed home - wide receiver Koren Robinson, for example, is headed to Raleigh, N.C., for his son's fifth birthday party - but a number of players decided the short vacation isn't worth the effort to get home.
It looked like a crutch convention in the locker room Wednesday, as three active players - linebacker Abdul Hodge (knee), defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins (ankle) and wide receiver Robert Ferguson (foot) - were on crutches while a fourth, defensive tackle Kenderick Allen, was also using them to get around. Allen is on injured reserve with a foot injury.
Packers will let Robinson situation play out
By Rob Demovsky
greenbaypressgazette.com
There's no indication the Green Bay Packers are pushing receiver Koren Robinson to accept the one-year suspension he's facing for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy so he can return to the field sooner. The Packers signed Robinson to a two-year contract, and if he began the suspension immediately, he could return for the final 11 games of next season, when the Packers could be in better position to contend for a playoff spot than they are this season after a 1-4 start. But Robinson has no interest in doing that. He wants to continue to play and says he has the full support of the team. "I'm not thinking about it like that," Robinson said on Tuesday. "Right now, I'm just thinking about football and concentrating on helping this team win. We'll address (the suspension) when we get there." Robinson and his lawyer, David Cornwell, are appealing the suspension and have asked the NFL to postpone the appeal hearing until after his criminal case is resolved in Minnesota, where's facing several alcohol- and traffic-related charges. Robinson is facing a one-year ban because he already was suspended for four games in 2004 while he was a member of the Seattle Seahawks. The Packers signed Robinson knowing a suspension was possible. -- MoreReception problems
Ferguson out four to six weeks
By BOB McGINN
journalsentinel.com
The Green Bay Packers need wide receiver Koren Robinson to put off as long as possible his pending one-year suspension from the National Football League because Robert Ferguson will be out until mid-season with a major injury to his right foot. On Wednesday, Ferguson said he suffered a mid-foot sprain and was told by doctors that he would miss four to six weeks. He was injured Oct. 2 returning a kickoff in the second half of the 31-9 loss in Philadelphia. Ferguson, who was on crutches and moving slowly, said he didn't know if the front office considered him a candidate for injured reserve. -- More
Police escort flapmay put Packers'
foes in local hotel
Nonstop rides from Appleton
to Lambeau violate state law
By Ed Lowe
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
National Football League teams that stay overnight in downtown Appleton may need to stay closer to Lambeau Field because officials say their long-established police escort practices are out of bounds. Brown County Sheriff's Capt. Randy Schultz said the department's long-standing practice of escorting visiting NFL teams from the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel in downtown Appleton to Lambeau Field violates state law. "The question was, essentially, was there law enforcement authority to escort professional sport teams through traffic lights?" Schultz said. Schultz said he plans to ask the state Legislature to allow the escorts much as funeral processions now are permitted. And he also said he has asked two hotels in the Green Bay area if they would house visiting teams and "both are substantially interested." -- More
Okay... so like sometimes I think the writers get a 'little too close' to the players and they write these 'puff pieces'. Remember my 'marshmallow ratings'? Well today I'm handing out a 'Drinking the Kool-aid' award for this article...Defense Gives Performance To Build On
By Mike 'Kool-Aid' Spofford
Packers.com
Not one player on the Packers' defense is going to be excessively proud of the unit's Week 5 performance against the St. Louis Rams because they know they still have plenty to improve upon. But a breakdown of the effort last Sunday shows that considerable progress was made by a defense trying to work its way up from near the bottom of the early-season rankings. The Packers gave up a season-low 327 yards, including only one drive longer than 50 yards, reduced their big-play problems and kept the Rams out of the end zone the entire second half. All of that gives the Packers something to build on heading into the bye week and a challenging stretch of three road games in four weeks beginning Oct. 22 in Miami. "It was definitely one of our best games as far as emotion, the passion the guys played with," defensive coordinator Bob Sanders said. "I thought we played physical, thought we played tough. I thought we flew around, we gang-tackled on a good back. We still gave up some big plays, some situations we hope to eliminate, but from effort, emotion, passion, the things you like to see in a football team, we definitely came out and played hard. I hope we play hard every week." -- MoreMeanwhile... back on Planet Earth with the rest of us...
Defense makes slow progress
There's plenty to do on fix-it list
By ROB REISCHEL
Special to Packer Plus
Baby steps.When you rank 28th in scoring defense, 31st in overall defense and 31st in passing defense, perhaps baby steps are where you begin. Green Bay's defense - an absolute train wreck throughout the first half of the 2006 season - made some minor progress in its 23-20 loss to St. Louis Sunday. For example, the 23 points the Packers allowed were the fewest they'd given up this season. But Green Bay also had its weekly share of busts, mistakes and missed opportunities. And those failed chances played a major role in the Packers falling to 1-4 for the third consecutive season. "Our guys played hard throughout," defensive coordinator Bob Sanders said. "(St. Louis) still got some plays they shouldn't have gotten. We just have to continue to work on those." -- More And this one...
Is offseason to blame for defense's slide?
By Rob Demovsky
greenbaypressgazette.com
Perhaps the Green Bay Packers still would have a 1-4 record and their porous defense wouldn't be any better, but maybe, just maybe, things would be different if some of their key veteran players would have participated in all of first-year coach Mike McCarthy's offseason activities. The Packers' two starting cornerbacks, Al Harris and Charles Woodson, blew off the voluntary minicamp in late May and the month-long organized team activities in June. Their new starting safety, Marquand Manuel, attended the sessions but couldn't participate because he was recovering from a groin injury sustained in the Super Bowl while a member of the Seattle Seahawks. Perhaps it's merely a coincidence that the Packers' secondary has had numerous coverage breakdowns during each of the first five games and has underperformed despite an apparent improvement in talent level with the addition of Manuel and Woodson, or perhaps the missed time left several players unprepared for the season and unfamiliar with their new teammates. -- More
Colledge wins back starting job at guard
But rookie laments ball that got away
By RICK BRAUN
Packer Plus writer
"I've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to be a starter out there and I'm going to have to keep working and try to keep that job. I know that this thing is liquid and they can get rid of me again if they wanted to, so I've just got to improve every week and just show them that I have to be out there and I can help the team." -- Dayrn Colledge
Daryn Colledge is back. Not that he'd ever gone away, but the rookie guard has basically reclaimed his starting spot on the left side of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line. Colledge, a second-round pick and the highest among the three offensive linemen the team selected in April, started his fourth consecutive game in Sunday's 23-20 loss to the St. Louis Rams. But it was his first start since Packer coach Mike McCarthy admitted Colledge had reclaimed the starting spot at left guard. Colledge opened up training camp as the starter at left guard, but lost the position after a bad performance in the exhibition opener at San Diego. -- MorePeak performance?
Packers feel Jennings has room to grow
By Tom Silverstein
journalsentinel.com
It took 51 selections to occur before receiver Greg Jennings was picked in the 2006 NFL draft, so it's not surprising that a brilliant start to a rookie season would be widely overlooked nationwide. But such is life when you enter the league with Reggie Bush and Vince Young. Jennings is among one of the top producing rookies through the first five weeks of the season, and his presence has been a bright spot in an otherwise dismal 1-4 start for the Green Bay Packers. Every week since being held to one catch for 5 yards against Chicago in the season opener, Jennings has done something special. Yet you can forget about him being in the running for offensive rookie of the year honors because unless Bush gets hurt or somehow fades into oblivion he'll win the award. And if it's not him, you can bet it will be Young, who became a starter last week and is off to the races. -- MoreBye week bonanza for backup QBs
By JASON WILDE / madison.com
"Most of our development comes during training camp and the preseason," Rodgers, the Packers' 2005 first-round pick, said after running the first-team offense in 11-on-11 drills in Wednesday's practice. "But there's always things to work on."
While Brett Favre has spent most of this week resting his just-turned-37-year-old bones, the Green Bay Packers' backup quarterbacks, Aaron Rodgers and Ingle Martin, have tried to make the most of the past two days of practice. You see, during the regular season, with actual games to get ready for, there are precious few opportunities for Rodgers, the heir apparent to Favre, and Martin, the No. 3 quarterback and rookie fifth-round pick, to get meaningful practice work. In fact, their brief time in the limelight will end today - just like the team's bye-week work week - because today's practice will focus on preparing for the Miami Dolphins, the Packers' opponent when they return to game action Oct. 22. -- MoreFranks looking for opportunity
By Rob Demovsky
greenbaypressgazette.com
The play was one the Green Bay Packers have run dozens of times. It was a play-action pass, and quarterback Brett Favre rolled to his left. He found a wide open Bubba Franks in the flat, and the tight end looked like he was on his way to a big gain. But Franks couldn't make a cornerback miss, and he was stopped for a 9-yard gain. It happened on first-and-10 from the Packers' 32-yard line on their second series of Sunday's 23-20 loss to St. Louis at Lambeau Field. The Packers scored a touchdown on that drive, but if they hadn't, a play like that might have stuck out even more. The 28-year-old Franks, who is in his seventh NFL season, couldn't find a way to get around cornerback Travis Fisher. When asked whether Franks should have been able to get around Fisher, Packers offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski said: "Either that or run him over. One of the two. He's got an option. That option is to go get the first down. That's really the only option. Go get it." Even Franks admitted he "might have gotten 18 or 20 yards" had he beaten Fisher, but he said his first priority was getting the ball secured so he wouldn't fumble. Though there's nothing wrong with picking up 9 yards on first down, and, one play earlier, Franks caught a 7-yard pass to convert a third-and-5, that seemingly meaningless play in the grand scheme of things was a sign of Franks' inability to produce any big plays this season. -- More
Back to basics
A fundamentally sound professional football team,
The 1-4 Packers are not.
By The Sports Xchange
via PackerReport.com
Following a day off, the players reconvened Tuesday for the first of three straight practice days during the bye week. The workouts Tuesday and Wednesday were earmarked for review of the two most recent games with a heavy emphasis on getting back to the basics. "Those are the root of our improvements and the root of our corrections is fundamentals," head coach Mike McCarthy said. "It's always the little stuff. You can go through every position, every phase of the game, and there's just little things that we need to continue to work on. We're getting better in a lot of them ... most of them, actually. But, there's still some things we need to get cleaned up and continue to work." Prominent on the weeding-out list is shoring up the communication breakdowns and misalignments on defense that have engendered a slew of big pass plays for the opposition each and every week so far. The Packers have allowed an astounding 35 completions of at least 16 yards, which the coaching staff chalks up as explosive plays. It's also incumbent on defensive coordinator Bob Sanders during the week off to get the substitution signals straight with players between plays. Three times incredibly in the 23-20 loss to St. Louis on Sunday, the defense had either 12 or 10 players on the field. -- More
Meet CameronSan Diego Chargers
Cheerleader
Year(s) on Team: 2
College: Mt. San Jacinto College
Personal:
Hometown: El Cajon, CA
Favorite Charity: Invisible Children. I fell in love with the children in Africa
Hobbies: Trophy trucks, running
Favorite Quote: "In spite of everything … Life is beautiful." -Leon Trotsky
Published by PackerPundit On Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 6:57 AM.
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Happy B'day Pat!