GREEN BAY, Wis. -- In 16 regular-season games plus the NFC wild-card playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers, the Green Bay Packers' defense was on the field for 1,115 plays, according to weekly snap counts kept by the NFL.

Not one player took them all.

Cornerback Tramon Williams came the closest, playing all but 14 snaps. The only other player with more than 1,000 snaps this season was linebacker A.J. Hawk, who played all but 57 snaps.

Last season, safety Morgan Burnett played every snap -- one of only four non-offensive linemen across the entire NFL to do so.

Rob Demovsky  wrote:

TWilliams 98.7% Hawk 94.9 %. That is amazing.

Originally Posted by: wpr 

I want to give Mike Neal props. He played a year in transition at a difficult position and played most of it injured. We needed him given the injuries at OLB and for the most part he delivered.

Originally Posted by: DarkaneRules 

I suppose that depends on your definition of "delivered." Overall, I think his play was very average, and he completely disappeared at times.

EDIT: B.J. Raji 654 (58.7 percent), highest of all defensive linemen.

Originally Posted by: DoddPower 

This should be enough for those that said that Hawk made several good plays, he played almost every snap and he has more lost helmets than forced fumbles...

Originally Posted by: luigis 

I don't think the plan for Neal was a full on change to OLB. I think they just wanted him there to spell the starters and still pass rush inside in Nickle formations. Injuries forced a permanent switch. He wasn't great if you look at it as just an OLB playing football but that's not exactly the situation. I doubt the transition from a DT to an OLB is very easy because I can't think off the top of my head a single player ever doing it.

Originally Posted by: steveishere 

I'm definitely not trying to minimize the difficulty of the switch Neal made. But ultimately, what matters most is the production on the field. Neal had his moments, but I saw him getting completely stifled while being singled blocked many times. He just disappeared for stretches. That's not good enough for a good to great defense. Hopefully he improves if he comes back with the Packers. I would agree that he would make a decent backup, though. But at this point, he's an average starter, at BEST.

Originally Posted by: DoddPower 

He was a back up though.

Originally Posted by: steveishere 

I suppose, but I would hope he could be more than that. The Packers need more. It seemed like they preferred Neal to Perry at times, too, but I'm not sure how much that was due to Perry's injury. Either way, he was essentially a starter in certain packages. Moreover, Neal being a decent backup isn't going to help the Packers a whole lot. It would be nice to get more out of a second round pick. It's not that difficult to find decent backup OLB's. The Packers seem to find a couple every year, usually undrafted or late-round pick players.

Neal being a decent backup isn't necessarily enough for me to give him too many accolades. Especially considering how often he disappeared. At times, he wasn't even that good of a backup player.

Originally Posted by: DoddPower