NFC’s good, bad and ugly from OTA’s
After checking in on the AFC last week, I move on to the good, bad and ugly offseason news from NFC teams in my latest column for Bullz-Eye.com. Among the updates: Donovan McNabb’s recovery from knee surgery and Calvin Johnson wowing the Lions with his work ethic. Any guesses on the ugly news for the Falcons?
Ahhhhh, Anthony, don’t my Bears have enough issues without highlighting Greg Olsen’s collegiate days………
As of yet, this guy is still just a draftee and is not yet a Chicago Bear. I didn’t know you could do rap without having all that “stuff” in it to make a hit……
I did not know about this prior to your mentioning it. Maybe we could trade the rights to Olsen and get Mike Ditka as a tight end. What do you think??
I think the “Man upstairs” is playing a joke by giving all this athletic talent to all of these guys who have nothing else going for them………………………..
Sorry to break the news about Olsen to you Da Bear…and here we thought he was just a nice white boy from the “U” right?!
Him and his group (i.e. girlfriend, agent, etc.), chalked up the incident as a stupid thing he did when he was younger. It caught the media’s attention for about a week and then it went away, so I don’t think you’re going to hear too much about it from here on out.
The kid should be a solid pass-catching tight end though; I like his speed and hands…
OK – I’m fixated on the Packers, but you knew that. The only retirement drama was last year when I think he really thought hard about it. There was nothing like that this year. The Moss thing was blown out of proportion.
Favre is a passionate guy – not given to thinking much about his words. We all know that up here. He’s sorta the poster boy for adult ADD. I’ll start paying attention to the Favre drama again a little closer to the end of pre-season. Until then, the national sports media pays a lot more attention to it than most of us up here in Wisconsin.
At least, that’s my opinion. As for Jackson, weird things happen. I wouldn’t push him for OTAs either. The kid seems to have a great attitude – I have great hopes for him especially since he can split carries with Morency who appears to be at least reasonably competent.
I agree with the Favre stuff being overblown – as far as me including it in the column, it was the only thing the Packers have really had to deal with this offseason that was “ugly” (if you noticed how I did other teams, the “ugly” issues were all offseason problems).
I could have hit on Koren Robinson issues again, but how important is he going into the season? If he’s on the roster, great, he’ll contribute, but if he doesn’t make it – no big deal. That’s why I went with Favre (plus quite frankly, the Robinson issue wasn’t that big either…).
I think the reason the Favre stuff is blown up outside of WIS is because you guys are used to it up there. The topic is probably beaten to death to the point nobody cares anymore. The rest of the nation thinks it’s still a big issue at the end of every season, so therefore the national media is all over it.
It’s all relative.
Yup – we’ve kinda grown accustomed to the occasional oddity coming from Brett.
A word or two on Robinson.
To wax poetic about the Packers, I’d like to think that Green Bay is a special place – a special organization. It’s a place where expectations of the team go beyond the stadium. Going back to players like James Lofton and Tim Harris, we don’t brook at lot of nonsense up here. (permit me to forget the Forrest Gregg/Mossy Case/Charles Martin era for a moment) It’s a very small city – a working class place. They want to see their Packers in neighborhood homes, preferably married and working on a family.
If you mess up (as Favre did earlier in his career) you go in front of the people, be contrite and penitent, deal with your issues, and get your ass back on the field and your life out of the papers – everything will be fine. For this reason, I think Robinson has a chance. All he has to do is get up here, settle in, stay clean and play hard, and he could easily play here five or six years. Heck, he’s only 27. If he holds up, he could be a very significant part of the team’s rebuilding.
If he gets back, and he’s in any kind of condition, Favre closes the season with Driver, Robinson and Jennings at WR (plus any rookie contributions). If we could get any kind of a run game and a little action at TE, this season could be a lot of fun. I don’t think we’re even near the top of the NFC yet, but we could challenge for a wild card even with the tougher schedule.
I think what helps your Packers, Jeff, is that the rest of the division has issues. It’s not like the NFC East were all four teams essentially have a shot or the West and South were teams are either on the rise (Saints, Cardinals, 49ers) or teams are usually pretty competitive (Rams, Panthers, Seahawks).
Other than a solid run defense and essentially what should be a good ground game, the Vikings have quarterback issues and have done next to nothing to sure up their pass defense. The Lions have the makings of a tremendous offense, but I’m questionable about Tatum Bell and TJ Duckett taking over the reigns while Kevin Jones is out. Plus the DET defense is still a mess. As for the Bears, they’ve got more issues than people think. The defense has a few holes now that Briggs and Brown are demanding trades, Cedric Benson has never carried a full load (can he hold up health-wise?) and you don’t know what you’re going to get out of Grossman each week.
By far it’s still Chicago’s division to lose, because it does have the best team on paper. But you have to like Green Bay’s chances to at least give the Bears a run for their money…now, the backfield, receivers and secondary all have question marks, but once again, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Pack put together a good season and made a playoff push…