I have said it before and I'll say it again: The Packers' receiving corps as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The team is one injury away from having a mediocre to sub-par receiving corps. Therefore, I disagree with all the critics who have lambasted Ted Thompson for drafting "too many" receivers. I also hope we find a way to incorporate our 5th receiver more actively into our offense.

By the way, the fact that our WRs went from 1st to 14th in the league in YAC shows that not only did our relative QB production not decline in 2008 from 2007 levels, it actually went up.

Rodgers critics seriously need to get a clue.

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He's a Packers fan. He just doesn't get any positive enjoyment out of it, because he is obsessed with anything he can say or quote that will shed a negative light on Thompson, Rodgers, or the current team. Just look at the forum. That's pretty obvious. I'm not sure why he would want to spend so much time doing it though. I feel sorry for him. He's stuck in a rut of negativity and bitterness.

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Johnson is, not Williams.

Roy Williams is overrated. He's had two 1,000 yard seasons in his career. That's it. I'll take so many receivers over Roy Williams. Statistically, he'll do okay this year as Dallas' No. 2 target behind Jason Witten, but as an overall player, guys like Donald Driver, Hines Ward, and Wes Welker trump him. They do everything and are consistent.

As far as this article. If you believe the Packers have five Pro Bowl worthy receivers then you're living in a dream world. However, they have depth. Their receiving core is talented. Nobody is saying guys like Jones, Nelson, and Martin are amazing players, but for a No. 3 receiver, Jones isn't bad. For a No. 4 receiver, Nelson isn't bad. For a No. 5 receiver, Martin isn't bad.

That's what makes the Packers have and yes they have a deep receiving core. You don't need Pro Bowl players at every position to be deep at that position. You just need players who fill their role well and GB has that. Saying otherwise and the article is nowhere near saying that is just ridiculous.

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I dont agree we are 1 injury away from a sub par year.

IMO we have 3 great receivers on our team jennings, DD and jones, then we got nelson whom is decent and our 5th martin or swain? ...

Jones was pretty much down last season and we did great. We got him back this season. So if DD or heaven forbid jennings goes down IMO we will still have a pretty good year. ya ya not as good if he were in the game but our other guys can still make some decent plays. Check out jones in 07

I have been doing some thinking before I post (And it hurts.)

From his narrow viewpoint Dhazer is correct that GB has drafted so many WR between 05-08. That however is not the whole story.

Between 05-08 only TN has drafted as many WRs as GB (8). One thing that has to be considered is the injury factor. Murphy's career was cut short due to injury and both Jennings and Jones had serious injuries as well. The Javon Walker incident. Coupled with the fact that DD is getting older and it is nice if the team has the chance to give a younger player a couple years in a lessor role to DD so that they can grow into the position.

I feel that players drafted in the the 1st three rounds are the ones who are most likely to make a team and eventually become a starter as I am looked at all the NFL teams for 05-08.

GB once again led the league in drafting WRs. They selected 4. 5 other teams had 3 and I contend if Murphy had been healthy and Walker wanted to play for GB, they just might have only selected 3 as well perhaps 2. I assumed that since GB is a West Coast team it makes sense to draft a lot of WRs. To my surprise not a lot of other WC teams took 3 Wideouts in the 4 years.

Like I said, to this point I have to acknowledge that Hazer is somewhat correct in saying GB has selected more WR than most teams but htey had a reason to do so.

Here is where I must call him out for being overly selected in his argument.
He leaves out 2009 draft all together. When we add 2009 into the mix everything changes. It no longer appears is if Ted Thompson has a WR fetish at all.

Looking at all draft picks in the past 5 years GB still has 8. TN 10. Cin 8, Chicago, Jacksonville, KC and Oakland all have 7. That is a quarter of the NFL. 9 more teams selected 5 or 6. This hardly makes GB over loaded with WR.

When we check for players drafted in the first 3 rounds GB still has 4. NYG 5, Pit and TN 4. 10 other teams selected 3. (I could see GB only selecting 2 or 3 without the injury to Murphy or Walker's trade. My opinion of course.)

Take it a step further. In 2004 GB finished 10-6 and won the division. WHO were the WRs that year?

Donald Driver
Robert Ferguson
Javon Walker
3 good players
Antonio Chatman
Kelvin Kight
Andrae Thurman
3 journeyman players at best.

Antonio has spent the last 3 seasons with Cincinnati. None of them statistically were as good as when he was in GB which isn't saying much.
Andrea was on 4 teams in 2 years before heading to the CFL, Arena Football and the feared UFL.
Kelvin was on 5 teams in 4 years. Only on 2 teams active rosters.

Ferguson played 2 seasons in MN he has 32 receptions and 391 yards in 2007 and only 3 receptions for 25 yards in 2008.
Walker had a Pro Bowl season in 2006 with Denver but he has been a bust the next 2 years.

A very long story short, GB had no choice but to draft a whole lot of WRs from 2005 -08.

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I think making moves to get the WRs we have has been VERY beneficial for our team. They are making good developments and this past draft we were able to address our lines. Driver is getting up there as was stated and we must start work on who will replace him down the road as well as getting the person who is taking that person's place up to speed. I like the players we have. It will be interesting to see what happens with Martin, Jones, Nelson, and Swain this training camp.

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The YAC going down is not a valid argument because Rodgers threw more downfield passes instead of Brett's short slants and such. That is also probably the reason why Jennings was #1 in the NFL in 40+ yard catches (Driver tied for 5th) and #2 in 20+. Also why Aaron Rodgers was tied for 1st with Drew Brees in 40+ yarders even though he threw 100 less passes.

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ya interesting ... perhaps its also the throw styles of the QB that play a role in what the receivers do after the catch.

I thought I had typed "one or two injuries," but that's beside the point. Is anyone seriously going to make an argument that if Jennings goes down with a season-ending injury, we'll still have an elite corps of wide receivers?

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Not an elite corps, but still a very decent one. If Roddy White, Steve Smith, Bernard Berrian, Derrick Mason (I know, retired), Andre Johnson, Brandon Marshall etc. etc. goes down, their teams will be worse as well.

You can't possibly have a 4 deep elite WR core. You can have players who could fill in as starter pretty effectively (Thinking James Jones here), but it's pretty unrealistic to expect that the WR group would put up the same numbers with or without Jennings.

There's a reason why everyone was so high about the Cardinals having 3 WRs with a 1000 yards. It doesn't happen often. The Cards have the best WR group to me (At least, the top 3) and if people are amazed at how they can rack up that kind of yards, we should be very content with having multiple receivers put up some nice numbers.