The ol' google news search for "Packers" turned up a new article to help me (and now us) get through this offseason. Rick Gosselin chimes in on our Green Bay Packers:

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There's strength in returning numbers for young Packers

Green Bay boasts season of experience, maturity for roster that was NFL's youngest last season

09:16 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Green Bay fans may not have liked what they saw from their team in 2008 when the Packers won only six times in their first season without Brett Favre.

But the Green Bay brass obviously did.

The Packers are bringing back 21 of their 22-player starting lineup in 2009. Only offensive tackle Mark Tauscher is missing. At 32 and coming off a season-ending knee injury, Green Bay opted not to re-sign him.

No NFL team is returning all 22 starters intact from a year ago but Indianapolis, New Orleans and San Francisco join the Packers with just one starter missing apiece.

Not surprisingly, the Detroit Lions are without a league-high nine primary starters from the NFL's first 0-16 entry. A "primary" starter is defined as a player who started at least eight games at his position that season.

The Packers may be on to something by trying to keep this current team together. Green Bay endured those struggles last season with the youngest roster in the NFL at an average age of only 25.5 years.

Despite all that youth, the Packers defeated 12-4 Indianapolis and NFC North champion Minnesota, fell in overtime to 13-3 Tennessee and blew fourth-quarter leads in losing four other games. Green Bay had the talent to compete in 2008 but lacked the maturity to close out opponents.

The continued development of a young playmakers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and wide receiver Greg Jennings are both 25 and running back Ryan Grant is 26 and an overhauled defensive approach has coach Mike McCarthy believing his Packers can return to Super Bowl contention after a year's absence. Green Bay won 13 games in 2007 and hosted the NFC title game.

Rodgers isn't Favre, but he wasn't the problem a year ago, throwing for 4,038 yards and 28 touchdowns. In addition, Grant rushed for 1,203 yards and Jennings caught 80 passes for 1,292 yards.

Green Bay's struggles were on defense, where the Packers finished 26th against the run and managed only 27 sacks. So McCarthy hired 3-4 guru Dom Capers to change the defensive scheme. The Packers then used their first-round draft pick on a key element for that scheme 320-pound All-America nose tackle B.J. Raji.

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And that 320 lb. all-American nose tackle is playing defensive end. I don't quite understand that.

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And end in a 3-4 is closer to the 4-3 Tackle than what you think of when you think defensive end.

Personally, the ability to move those hog mollies around on that line and have the offensive line have to adjust to the strengths of each is going to create another element of confusion in addition to the changing looks that Capers will throw at the opposition..

Personally, I can't wait to watch our DC play a version of chess against the offense.. I keep thinking back to Fritz and the in game adjustments he would throw out there.. that is a special quality that most successful long term DC's have... damn I can't wait.

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I know. just sayin'

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At the nose, I wanna see Raji "Pick-ett".

Get it? "Pick.... It" ??


Yeah, I've got the sense of humor of an eight year old.

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Where is Sanders working this year. Man that defensive shift sure happened a year too late. A lot of games are won at halftime in the locker room.

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That was very "Cheesey" of you. :thumbright:

Caper's hiring was the most exciting event of the off season for me, getting Raji and Matthews were 2nd and 3rd.

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I am happy that Raji is playing DE. It is closer to what he was used to in college, and we all know how dominating he was in college. Also, we basically have 2 big NTs playing on the field at the same time. What a disadvantage for the OLine!

Haha, wow I can not wait. Preseason will even be interesting this year.

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Two big NTs who can MOVE. It should be fun. 😃

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