Friday, July 28, 2017

Packers Training Camp 2017 | Ticket King Green Bay

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This was “move in week” for Packers players at St. Norbert College, which means training camp is underway for the Green Bay Packers. Like most teams, they have some questions to answer in camp.

How will Brett Hundley look in year three? In the fifth round of the 2015 NFL draft, the Packers selected quarterback Brett Hundley from UCLA. Hundley is one of the most unique quarterback prospects in recent memory. The Packers have gone to great lengths to correct the most glaring issues Hundley brought to Green Bay. How will he look in year three? If he plays well when called up, and that means in training camp too, he could fetch multiple draft choices next offseason from a quarterback hungry team.

How will the running backs line up behind Ty Montgomery? The Packers have needed to inject new life into the running back unit for a while now. It looks like mission accomplished. Gone is Eddie Lacy, and an enigma known as James Starks. In comes Ty Montgomery, who was moved into the position during the season last year and played well. Behind Montgomery, we five rookies competing for the next spot. It’s three draft choices, and two high quality undrafted free agents. Draft choices Aaron Jones, Jamal Williams, and Devante Mays will get first priority, but that doesn't mean much here. William Stanback and Kalif Phillips, two good undrafted free agents, have just as good of a shot to make this roster as the others. This will be the best competition in camp.

How about the wide receiver position? The Green Bay Packers entered the offseason with the deepest collection of receivers in the league. We know that Davante Adams, Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, and Geronimo Allison (Who, by the way is going to sit out week one for drug issues,) will make this team. Who comes up after that four? Five guys, Jeff Janis, Trevor Davis, Max McCaffrey, Malachi Dupree, and DeAngelo Yancey will all be competing for essentially two spots.

How will the new tight ends look? The Packers are once again starting to take the tight end position seriously. After signing Jared Cook last offseason, he played well down the stretch, but was asking for too much money this offseason. The Packers dropped Cook and signed Martellus Bennett. A day later, Thompson went back into free agency and grabbed another tight end, Lance Kendricks, mostly for some depth at that position.

What about a rebuilt secondary, you ask? The Packers secondary got torched in 2016, especially the corners. To fix this, we have the top two draft choices from 2015, Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins returning to full health. In addition, the Packers released the often-injured Sam Shields, and replaced him with Davon House. They also added the mega-talented Kevin King from Washington in the draft. Will the secondary improve in 2017? Well, that can’t get much worse.  


Monday, July 24, 2017

Will Brett Favre Return to the Packers Organization? | Ticket King Green Bay

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For football writers, June and July is a time of great speculation, as well as some crazy predictions. If there's nothing to write about, sometimes a football writer will come up with their own crazy topic, just to get the fans talking. Sometimes though, a unique situation arises where they get some hard news to report. In this case, Packers legendary quarterback Brett Farve is returning to Green Bay to receive a “Distinguished Service Award” at the De Pere Rotary Club, which of course will be recognizing Brett Favre for his career achievements. In addition, Favre has also said recently that he would “never say never” to an official return to the Packers organization in some capacity. Let's focus on the second of those two stories.

If you've been hiding under a rock for the last decade, the story between Favre and the Packers took many strange, surprising, and sometimes ugly turns. Of course, there was Favre and his retirement waffling, back and forth. Then there was Favre wanting to stick it to the Packers by playing for the Vikings. That has been discussed in great detail over the years, plus we all know how that turned out. For a while there was a standoff between the two sides, before Packers President Mark Murphy reached out to Favre and mended fences a couple of years back. Now apparently there is mutual interest between the two sides to possibly see Favre return to the organization in an “advisory” role. Perhaps the role would be more symbolic than anything else. 

This seems to be a trend these days, rewarding athletes, by organizations, for their past accomplishments. Heck, some organizations are retiring numbers left and right. What happens when they run out of numbers though? Just a thought. I understand why this would appeal to some fans as it's nice to see their past heroes reunite with the teams they cheer for in symbolic public appearances. However, there are also a large number of fans who find these symbolic gestures to be both smoke and mirrors, and a waste of time. Some don't see what great meaning it would be to have the Packers organization roll out the red carpet, once again. The Packers have retired his number, they have mended fences, what's done is done. One quick thing to point out here, is that Favre never actually issued, or gave, a public apology for his actions. For a lot fans, that is not sitting well with them, so that should come into play with the Packers decision here as well. The Packers need to be careful as to how much they get involved here going forward with Favre.


As far as what it would mean for Favre, the organization, and the fans? Not as much as some people think. This is one of the best run organizations in professional sports. This organization has made it very clear over the last 20 years or so that they are not going to cling to aging athletes, no matter how great they once were. We saw that with Darren Sharper. We saw that with Favre and we saw that with Ahman Green. We saw that with Greg Jennings and we saw that with Donald Driver (If he did not retire that offseason, they were going to release him). The Packers are not going to bring Favre in like some other teams would, and hand him some level of control over the organization, nor will they give him a front office position. He will have very little influence as well. Just because a guy was a great player, does not mean he would be a great coach, or front office executive. Only time will prove Favre’s worth. Otherwise, this idea will just be considered to be another superficial gesture.