Sunday, August 30, 2015

Annual 2015 Packer Camp Review and Season Prediction

By Mark

With the last public practice on Tuesday and cuts looming it's once again time for our annual review and prediction blog. This preseason which started out with much buzz and excitement has turned stale following injuries and inconstant play.

While injuries seem to be the headline story each day, the lackluster special teams and rather meh defense is our a bigger issue. ST have really not improved much and it's obvious Ron Zook won't/can't help that area.

Both the OL/DL depth hasn't been up to par so far throughout the preseason and that will be two key areas to watch as the season unfolds. While losing Jordy Nelson was a blow both Myles White and Jeff Janis should be able to cover that loss.

I spent a considerable amount of time watching the defensive backfield once again and really like the additions there. Gunter has been a great pickup and will join Shield as UDFA gems.

Green bay needs to get pressure on the QB and stop the run early in order for this defense to be successful.

Overall this looks like a 11-5 squad with potential to move up or down one depending on injuries etc. GB can not get in a hole this year and work it's way out. NFC north has improved and our depth doesn't appear to be there.

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Let's see what 2015 brings us ..... until next time Go Pack Go !!!

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Quick Hits : Preseason Football Isn't Going Anywhere

by Mark

Seems to be a lot of anguish in Packerland today after Jordy's injury on preseason football. First understand that what happened was a freak injury. It wasn't the turf or any other of the crazy things folks were complaining about.

Second preseason games are extra revenue to the NFL. From tickets and concessions to advertising it's money. In this era of revenue sharing and multi million contracts both sides won't let that go.

I think the uptick in injuries has more to do with the players obtuse new practice restrictions in OTA's and practice. Less conditioning and heavy work outs lead to players who are not fully in shape.

Maybe it's time for both sides to check the egos and money clips at the door and start working on a more realistic approach to not only the preseason but OTA's and work out rules that benefit everyone.

That's today's quick hit.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

The Packer Web Wars.. A Brief History

By Mark

Today I want to tackle a subject that rears it's ugly head too often  around the packer web world. That is some of the rivalries and bad blood you see from time to time.

Most of this started before social media and even before blogs were a thing. It goes back to some of the first message boards or forums that were at the time the only way you could get packer news or interact as fans. They were run by news media in some cases or were private.

I myself started on 3 of these sites. Because they were the only source of information at the time the competition was fierce. As time went on you had several  sites break away from the 3/4 big forums and members that followed them there. This created a trust issue. Even taking a couple members from a site created a war between sites and rival members.

Two events really made this bad blood boil even more. First the Favre retirement fiasco hit which deeply divided every site and board out there. More splits occurred because of this.

At about that same time we started seeing the blogs appear and this started to draw folks away from these same long standing communities. Again a loyalty and trust issue.

Let's stop a minute right there and digress a moment. At this point you need to understand that a site admin and or owner puts hours into his or her site. It's a labor of love, there is a lot of passion and hard work that goes into those boards.
Don't undervalue how much time and effort people put into making a place you can talk Packer football.

Now continuing as Packerland was dividing so were many of these sites. A few ..well a very few started running ads, etc to try to stay afloat. While there is a lot of logic to that it did and still does chap the hides of many independent sites/blog  owners. To them it's a labor of pure love.

Basically it's a purest issue and old school /new school that comes out. Many of the ill feelings are anywhere from 7 to 10 years old and stem from the old message board wars. To most of you this may seem like a petty issue, but to others it's history from way back.

Some of this you just won't change. The wounds are too deep, but I will ask all of you reading this post to do one thing. Stop clicking past sites. Most have free registration... take 2 minutes and register at ALL of them that means more to these owners than any amount of money. Seriously we are packer nation and when we unite it's a beautiful thing.

I hope this helped at least shed a little light into what went on in a place far far away. Ask questions and I'll answer the best I can in the comments below



Until next time GO PACK GO !