Howard Green: "I'm in good shape"
July 20, 2011 12:15 p.m.
Rest assured. Howard Green promises he has been staying in shape this off-season.
Generously listed at 340 pounds a year ago, the mammoth defensive lineman isn’t following a strict workout regiment. No long days of sprints for him. Instead, he has been the family handyman.
Cutting the grass. Putting in flower beds. Painting. The veteran insists he has been doing a little bit of everything around the house down in Louisiana — and it's keeping his body in check.
“I’m in good shape,” Green said by phone this week. “I’ve been getting up in the morning, running and stuff. I’ve been keeping active in anything. I go out and cut grass with my friend just to get out there and move around a little bit. I’m walking at night, stuff like that.
“With as hot as it is during the summer, you’ll lose 15 pounds just being out here this heat.”
Green hasn’t stepped on a scale in a week but estimated he’s about 350-355 pounds right now. The moment of truth may come soon at training camp. Last year, the waiver-wire pickup was a “stroke of luck” for the injury-ravaged Packers. Claimed off waivers Oct. 27, he finished with 17 tackles. His four stops and forced fumble in a 9-0 win over the New York Jets helped jumpstart the team's midseason surge. And of course, his pressure on Ben Roethlisberger in the Super Bowl led to Nick Collins’ pick-six.
Even at 32 years old, Green should remain a key cog on the Packers next season. He has been cut 10 times in his career, but insists he's not driven to prove people wrong.
“You just do it for yourself more than anything,” Green said. “If somebody else doesn’t want, you can do it for someone else. I tell the young guys that all the time — it’s a business. If you can’t stick with one team, somebody else will always want you.”
Look Green Bay to value such leadership on a defensive line that will be relying on youth next season. Mike Neal, C.J. Wilson and Jarius Wynn — a trio of 24-year-olds — will all be vying for significant playing time.If Green's still in fairly decent shape, he's worth keeping around.
No, he's not dispatched to a training center across the country or anything. Green opted to use the lockout as family time, as a chance to recharge the batteries. He was able to take his three kids to school every day, keep up to date on his favorite show "Swamp People," and even got a couple of fishing trips in himself.
No worries on the weight, he says. It hasn’t been too difficult to avoid the temptations of southern cooking this summer.
Nobody wants to barbeque when the temperature is in triple-digits.
“You don’t want to feed your face all day long,” Green said. “You need to drink your fluids…It’s so hot you don’t want to just sit down and pig out. It’s 100 degrees. That’d be miserable. You want to enjoy yourself but do what you do in moderation. You can’t do it every day.”
