Take a look at this. 

And this one, as well. 

I know it doesn't say a whole lot, but apparently, the experts see the Packers as one of the up and coming teams, primed for a deep run next year. Of course, this is before any FA and draft moves have been made, but still, it shows how good our team is off before that.

Flying under the radar is overrated, anyway. The best team wins. Not the one that's least publicized.

Woah!! Theismann picked us as number one. Cool :thumbright:

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Reasons why I can see the experts picking us this high.

1) Improvement from within. We have a number of players that will get better and the defense as a whole should be better in year two. Our pass rush should mature and be more consistant.


2) FA will not be the same this year and teams (especially the top eight) will be able to do little to shore up problem areas they were hoping to achieve through FA acquisitions.

3) Rookies playing a role and contributing. I don't know of any team that gets players thru the draft and gets more out of them in their first year. This will be a year where that will be important because nearly every team will be asking rookies to help their team be better next year.

4) These experts obviously feel the Packers will have the 0line problems fixed that haunted them early on last year and Aaron Rodgers will have a full year to perform upright.

Simply, we have a top five QB and teams with top five QB's win as long as the surrounding players are decent to good and we have some guys much better than even that.

Rodgers to Finley. Get used to it. You will see it often.

I fully expect to kick some butt in 2010.

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I wanted to flesh out a little of what Warhawk said. A scheme change often takes time, sometimes more than a full season. Our D looked horrid in the Playoffs but I don't think we'll see it exposed like that this upcoming year. Warner was pretty much upright the whole game.

The other thing, most of Rodgers' sacks came in the first 10 or 11 games. He pretty much stayed upright near the end of the season. I hope that trend continues into the '10 season. If so, it will open up the deep ball.

Which leads to Finley. Cover the deep ball and Finley will kick ass up the middle. Cover Finley and we'll hit them with the deep ball. We have four WRs who run solid routes.

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While this is no doubt true, I'm not convinced it is relevant. Consider the season Aaron Rodger had. He was sacked more than any other quarterback in the league -- and more than any quarterback in Packers' history -- yet he still managed to put up the fourth-most passing yards in the league and the second-most in Packers' history. Had he stayed on the field for the remainder of the game in Week 17, he easily would have shattered the Packers' passing-yardage record. (For Zombieslayer's sake, I'll point out that Green Bay also scored the most points in team history, with Rodgers throwing for the fourth-most TDs in the league.) This despite running for the most yards of any quarterback in the league and helming a team that was 8th in the league in total rushing yards. And that's not even taking into consideration the fact that this same quarterback went on to participate in the highest-scoring playoff game in league history, bringing his team back from 21 points down to tie it in the final minutes.

So clearly, this season was a statistical outlier. What more can we realistically expect him to do even if the offensive line manages to, say, cut the sacks in half? It's not probably that he will break the 5,000-yard mark, for example, or that he'll throw for 45 touchdowns, though it is theoretically possible.

I'm not saying that Ted Thompson should ignore the offensive line woes simply because it's not likely to improve our quarterback output. It's vitally important that the front office shore up the offensive line, if only to preserve the longevity of our quarterback.

But it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see Rodgers' output decrease somewhat as the quality of the team improves overall. I'd rather see his output trend moderate slightly and watch him slip on a couple of rings than watch him have a Marino-like career that never ends in a championship run.

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I feel very good about the Packers next season. Probably better than any time during the last decade.

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I can't believe they still put the cowboys that high. They haven't done anything with romo except win ONE playoff game. Dallas is not going anywhere. Green Bay on the other hand, is going all the way.

Just to play devils advocate, the Rodgers hasn't done anything except lose a high scoring playoff game.

Although I agree, I think the Packers will be great next year. I'd be suprised if the offense is much better next year, but it should be top 5, and the defense should be solid.

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I don't get the hatred towards the 'Boys, at all. If you look at it, Romo cost them one game by fumbling a snap and did a great job against the Eagles. He somehow loses this choker stigma and "gets a monkey off his back" only to get it placed back after losing the next game in pretty bad fashion.

If you ask me, he's an elite QB. I don't think that he "can't win the big ones".

That team looks stacked and there's no reason to believe that they won't go far next year. Add a solid rookie to the mix and that team gets awfully scary. They don't have a lot of holes and very little that can't be fixed by a good draft.

Going back to what Non said, our OL woes matter. I forgot the stat but saw it somewhere, but a VERY low percentage of drives where we had a sack resulted in any scoring.

Sacks were drive killers for us. We need to prevent them and it should be a top 2 priority, possibly even top 1.

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