Continue reading this post »

No.

I'm sure Rodgers isn't mad at the fans, he's mad at all the media types that insist that the fans will turn on him because he isn't Brett Favre.  I'll bet that on draft day in 2005, ESPN started working on its "Brett Favre retirement/Aaron Rodgers scrutinization" programming.

Seriously, look at how many times Brett Favre has been mentioned on Sportscenter or PTI.  "Brett Favre hasn't filed his retirement paperwork!"  "Brett Favre dropped out of his celebrity golf tournament!"  "Brett Favre bought a bottle of Advil at the grocery store!"  All of these quotes inevitably lead to the same tired question: Is Favre coming back?

Brett's Hall of Fame status aside, put yourself in Aaron's shoes; wouldn't you simply hate being constantly subjegated to this kind of treatment?  Thank God that McCarthy has committed to Rodgers as the starter already, otherwise this guy's confidence would be in jeopardy.

So no, he's not mad at the fans.  Most of the real fans (fans who miss Brett but understand he had to go sometime and will continue following the team) are behind Rodgers, he knows that.  It's the media types that keep asking Favre-related questions and making outrageous statements on television, radio, or the Internets.

I vote that we, the fans, set up a petition to act as a 'vote of confidence' for our new QB.  In fact, I just might start that myself (although the site admins would be more knowledgeable on such matters.)

Keep your chin up, Aaron.  We've got your back.

According to ESPN.com, Green Bay has inquired about availability of star defensive end and dancing fiend Jason Taylor.  Taylor, who will turn 34 in September, was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year last season (on the worst team in the league) and deservedly so. 

Green Bay sure could use a defensive lineman of Taylor's skill level after trading Corey Williams to Cleveland and KGB's offseason knee surgery.  It's not like Ted Thompson to trade for a player using draft picks, but it seems that the Dolphins are looking for a 2nd rounder as compensation.

ESPN.com's Chris Mortensen writes that the deal has Ron Wolf's prints all over it.  Wolf, of course, was responsible for putting the 1996 championship team together, and also he served as a mentor for current GM Ted Thompson.

In the event this trade does happen, Green Bay would be putting out a defensive front of Taylor and Kampman at the ends, Pickett and Cullen Jenkins at the tackles, with KGB, Justin Harrell, Johnny Jolly, et cetera filling out the rotation.

Wow.  Sure seems like it'd be worth a second round pick to me.

Don't worry, hes not in trouble:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3424737

ww w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w  w w w

I just heard it announced on NFL Live on ESPN.

It makes me sad to see Koren Robinson go.  Here's a guy who had made some bad choices, gotten in trouble, decided to right himself, and he made a full comeback to the league.  It's a story that not many people really know because all we hear is the bad stuff that happens; Koren Robinson is an example of a good thing not just in sports, but life in general.

That said, from a football perspective, this move makes perfect sense.  Koren is a skilled player, no doubt about it.  But take a look at the new kid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIUu-nLx0lw

Jordy Nelson can flat out play.  There is a spot for him on this roster, which means there's less room for the other recievers.  Sad truth to the statement "the NFL is a business".

Aloha, I'm a new Packer Fan. What's a Green Bay Packer?  Someone who works at a packing company packing cheese, right? At least that's what I told my son's.

 I've alway's liked the Packers from the "Ol School". There's so much history, pride and accomplishments associated with Lombardi and Bart Starr.

PS. Now that I'll be coming to home games, do you think we can add a retractable dome to our wish list? Just checking! LOL!

First of all, I need to say that I trust Ted Thompson.  Over the past 3-4 years, he has built this team into an NFC contended.  His methods might be unconventional, but they are working.

Onto the actual draft: I <em>hated</em> that T-squared traded out of the first round.  Yes, it was smart financially and yes, it only moved them from 30 to 35.  But the player (arguably) he was targeting was Brandon Flowers, who almost made it but got snapped up by the KC Chiefs at 34.  Flowers was an excellent player that could shore up the CB position, especially as Al Harris and Charles Woodson get older.

That all said, I <strong>loved</strong> the Jordy Nelson pick.  The kid is a straight-up baller and will be a valuable contributor when Donald Driver starts to decline.  Between him, Jennings, Jones, and Koren Robinson, the WR position should be stacked for years and years.

I was confused by the Brian Brohm pick at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.  It gives Green Bay a little more national exposure, but it has people focusing on the so-called "controversy" at QB.  A-Rodg is going to be a fine player, Brohm will make a superb backup and (probably) excellent trade bait down the road.  I see this situation playing out a lot like the Mike Vick-Matt Schaub situation in Atlanta a few years ago.  Hopefully Rodgers can play the Vick role without all the extracurriculars, and we can turn Brohm into major draft ammunition.

Patrick Lee was a great value pick and, if he can learn what Al Harris and Charles Woodson have to teach, he'll make a solid replacement for when they're gone.  The two O-linemen taken were also puzzling, one of them wasn't even featured on espn.com's scouting report.  But, Teddy's made it work before.

All in all, I think this draft was overlooked by the majority and undervalued by the experts who did look at it.  A B/B- from Mel Kiper's Hair today fits perfect; the team didn't fill any huge needs or draft any major college superstars.  But the 2008 draft class for the Pack is going to go a long way to solidifying the team with young talent and keep them in contention for a long time.

Hey Acme Packing Company,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Acme Packing Company from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
7. Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Acme Packing Company and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Acme Packing Company now has all the basic information about the Green Bay Packers and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Green Bay Packers material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

-------

There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

Apparently, the Packers are talking to Dante Culpepper?

Good grief. Is this what it will come to? I don't dislike the guy because he was with the Vikings at one time - the guy gets tunnel vision after he gets hit once and it's all over after that.

Man, if this is all that's left of QB talent, just find someone new and start from there.

I'm looking for some input on a mock draft we are holding at milehighreport.com.

Continue reading this post »