Zero2Cool
13 years ago

Packers well-positioned for more Super Bowl runs in years to come 

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Now that the Pack is all the way back, the reality is they're not going away again for quite some time. If you had to identify a team that's well positioned to weather what could be the most unusual offseason in NFL history, and come out standing strong on the other side, the Green Bay Packers might just win by unanimous vote.

The newly christened champions of Super Bowl XLV are young, talented and extremely well run, from the very top of their organization on down. Plenty of teams talk about having a Super Bowl window of opportunity, but the view from where the Packers stand today looks clearer and brighter than it has for any NFL champion in recent memory.

Consider the following:

Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers is just 27 and entering his prime as one of the game's elite quarterbacks. His 4-0 playoff run and Super Bowl victory over the Steelers finally chased away the last lingering ghost of Brett Favre in Green Bay and established Rodgers as one of the game's preeminent playmakers and team leaders. Only Rodgers' penchant for concussions in 2010, when he suffered two, registers as a potential concern that bears monitoring.

Green Bay general manager Ted Thompson and head coach Mike McCarthy are an effective and disciplined management tandem, and Packers team president Mark Murphy indicated that both are in line for contract extensions this offseason following their Super Bowl triumph. Thompson and McCarthy have two years remaining on the five-year deals they signed after Green Bay's trip to the 2007 NFC title game, but now they're in line for even longer deals and significant pay raises as they continue working like hand in glove in terms of their now-proven personnel and coaching philosophies.

If there is free agency this offseason in the NFL, which is no sure thing given the state of the league's labor stand off, the Packers are in relatively great shape. Defensive lineman Cullen Jenkins, receiver James Jones, running back Brandon Jackson and kicker Mason Crosby would be unrestricted under any format that makes unsigned veterans of four years or more free. But Green Bay has a whopping 69 players under contract and wisely moved this season to lock up talents like emerging cornerback Tramon Williams, inside linebacker Desmond Bishop, defensive lineman Ryan Pickett and safety Nick Collins.

The Packers averaged just 27.4 years per starter in Sunday night's Super Bowl, and perhaps have just started to scratch the surface in regards to young stars such as outside linebacker Clay Matthews, 24, tight end Jermichael Finley, 23, offensive tackle Bryan Bulaga, 21, cornerback Tramon Williams, 27, cornerback Sam Shields, 23, guard Josh Sitton, 24, nose tackle B.J. Raji, 24, and, of course, Rodgers.

Running back James Starks, 24, emerged as a weapon late in the year, giving Green Bay reason to believe he and two-time 1,200-yard rusher Ryan Grant, 28, will more than capably handle the backfield duties for the foreseeable future. At receiver, even if the Packers lose Jones in free agency, Greg Jennings, 27, and Jordy Nelson, 25, still make the position a strength, and valuable veteran Donald Driver could well return for a 13th NFL season.

Though it will be choosing in the No. 32 slot of the first round, Green Bay has eight picks plus a likely compensatory selection (for losing free agent Aaron Kampman) coming in the 2011 draft. That should allow the rich to get richer, with the Packers likely in need of another youthful option at offensive tackle or outside linebacker, with maybe the luxury of taking a game-breaking rushing threat if one falls to them.

The theme of continuity should also largely extend all the way down through McCarthy's ultra-capable and respected assistant coaching staff. Coordinators Joe Philbin (offense) and Dom Capers (defense) will both return. In two years, Capers has already transformed Green Bay into one of the most effective 3-4 teams in the league, with the Packers finishing second in points allowed behind Pittsburgh this season. Capers winning his long-awaited Super Bowl ring after 25 years in the league ranks as one of the best stories of this championship season in Green Bay.

The Packers could lose either assistant head coach/inside linebackers coach Winston Moss or safeties coach Darren Perry, both of whom are on the radar in Oakland and Arizona as defensive coordinator candidates. Moss is probably the most likely to leave, with Raiders head coach Hue Jackson targeting him, but the Packers defensive staff would still be formidable. Cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt is regarded as an up-and-coming talent, outside linebackers coach Kevin Greene has done strong work for Green Bay, and the proven Mike Trgovac remains as defensive line coach.

Aaron Rodgers Joins The Club
Source: SI

SI.com's Andrew Perloff explains how Super Bowl XLV proved Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers is now among the NFL's QB elite.

As for their place in the NFC North, the Packers are clearly the class of the division. Sure, they had to take the wild-card route to the playoffs for the second year in a row, and wound up facing and beating the champion Bears in the NFC title game in Chicago. But Green Bay is the only division club to make back-to-back postseason trips the past two years, and who among the Bears, Vikings and Lions wouldn't trade rosters with the Packers in a split second?

Broadening the horizon even further, the NFC has advanced 10 different teams to the Super Bowl in the past 10 years, but Green Bay has to be considered a legitimate threat to end that improbable streak. Scan the NFC standings and ask yourself who will be the conference's likely Super Bowl favorite heading into the 2011 season?

New Orleans, Atlanta and Tampa Bay should still be strong, and the Eagles, Cowboys, Giants and Rams could be playoff contenders. But I can't find anyone I like as much as Green Bay when it comes to divining the NFC representative for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis next February. This is a Packers team that could be knocking on that particular door for a long time by today's ephemeral NFL standards.

In short, heading into a unique offseason that features so much uncertainty, with issues like the continuation of the salary cap, free agency, a rookie wage scale and the length of future regular seasons still unsettled, the Packers have as many questions already answered as anyone in the league. Thompson has built a deep and resilient roster, and whenever NFL football resumes later in 2011, the Packers know they have a young and still-ascending nucleus of players who have just begun to make their mark. Green Bay (14-6) has every right to believe it'll be even better next season, especially once good health returns to the league-high 15 players it placed on injured reserve this season.

It's almost comical to talk about dynasties in a league that has featured just one repeat champion since Denver won two Super Bowls in a row in 1997-98, but these Packers have obvious reason to dream big. Often derided for perennially assembling one of the youngest rosters in the league, and eschewing the free-agent quick fix, Thompson can now rightfully claim that his methods have been vindicated and his penchant for patience rewarded.

The NFL still needs to do the hard work of hammering out a new CBA, and the process of determining a new economic model could be long and arduous. But amid all that, the Pack is indeed back. And it looks like they're going to be staying a while.


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Fan Shout
Zero2Cool (7h) : Chase Young to sign $13M contract with Saints
Zero2Cool (7h) : Yosh to Panthers what noooo. Wait he didn't do crap
wpr (18-Mar) : I say that he is technically HER BIL as he married her sister. I checked it out, he's considered my BIL as well. Sad.
Mucky Tundra (18-Mar) : wpr, I assume its your BIL via marriage to your wife? If so, I can figure out where the smarts in the family went ;)
wpr (18-Mar) : Mucky my B-I-L is Bare Stupid. I could write a book.
Mucky Tundra (18-Mar) : As a teenager in Rockford IL I would get heckled by adults in public for wearing GB gear
Mucky Tundra (18-Mar) : if you think the online ones are bad, try *living amongst* them
Mucky Tundra (18-Mar) : Never doubt wprs loyalty. Poor guy is surrounded by Bears fans in Northern IL
wpr (17-Mar) : pass Martha. Thanks for the invite though.
Martha Careful (17-Mar) : blog * as the same ugly Illinois colors were adopted by the Baer
Martha Careful (17-Mar) : WPR, perhaps you should be joining the Bears fans blog has the same ugly Illinois colors were adopted by the Bears
Mucky Tundra (17-Mar) : Ah a fellow U of Illinois hater. I can respect that though I imagine it's for different reasons
Zero2Cool (17-Mar) : BTW. I didn't catch the game. I just hate Illinois.
Mucky Tundra (17-Mar) : They're your Big Ten Chumps and you will like it!
Zero2Cool (17-Mar) : No, not for the record. Referee's handled that BS. Orange team was trash ass
Mucky Tundra (17-Mar) : *Your* Big Ten Chumps for the record
Zero2Cool (17-Mar) : No, not Big Ten Champs. IL is big ten CHUMPS
wpr (17-Mar) : Big Ten Champs
wpr (17-Mar) : !!!
wpr (17-Mar) : INI
wpr (17-Mar) : ILL
Martha Careful (17-Mar) : Wisconsin with an outstanding on in the men’s Big Ten basketball tournament. Let’s hope it continues in the NCAAs
Zero2Cool (17-Mar) : Almost like taking QB in 2020 even if you don't need one is good move.
Mucky Tundra (16-Mar) : 2021 QB Draft class looking like a real clunker
Mucky Tundra (16-Mar) : A conditional 6th rounder? I remember Bears fans arguing they'd get a day 2 pick at worst lol
dfosterf (16-Mar) : So I got the no extension part right and the have to wait on the CW physical wrong
Zero2Cool (16-Mar) : Bears are trading Justin Fields for a 2025 6th-round pick that goes to a 4th-round pick based on playtime, per sources.
Zero2Cool (16-Mar) : Former Packer Jarrett Bush opens Wisconsin’s first blow dry bar in Green Bay
dfosterf (16-Mar) : If the Bears are not doing a deal with Washington, they also cannot trade Fields until Williams physical with them. All hail Caleb Williams!
dfosterf (16-Mar) : The talent is undeniable, but the (advertised) haul is obscene.
dfosterf (16-Mar) : If the Bears are cutting a deal with the Commanders, in either scenario, cannot happen until williams passes a Commanders physical
dfosterf (16-Mar) : My guess is no to the Fields extension, but yes to the trade back with the Commanders.
dhazer (15-Mar) : I think the Bears do a Love extension and they will trade out of the 1st pick and take the haul
Martha Careful (15-Mar) : that might make sense
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : Justin Fields to Steelers?
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : Kenny Pickett. Eagles. Done.
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : They can claim best two WR tandem.
Mucky Tundra (15-Mar) : Aaron Donald retiring
dhazer (15-Mar) : Campbell signing with 49ers
dhazer (15-Mar) : I love how the Bear Fans are now claiming they have the best skill players in the NFC North lol
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : Vikings made a move to get a 2nd first round pick
Mucky Tundra (15-Mar) : That's a not a bad deal for the Bears
Zero2Cool (15-Mar) : Bears have traded for WR Keenan Allen sending Chargers a fourth rounder.
Martha Careful (15-Mar) : *signs
Martha Careful (14-Mar) : MLB Devon White science with the Eagles
Mucky Tundra (14-Mar) : But that was before FA started
Mucky Tundra (14-Mar) : Dhaze, I thought Kurls would be their #1 target when I read that he was an Amos comp (jack of all trades guy)
dhazer (14-Mar) : I would like to see the Packers target 2 more FA still available Kamren Curl Safety and Chase Young edge
Martha Careful (14-Mar) : wow...didn't see that coming
Zero2Cool (14-Mar) : AJ Dillon re-signing with Packers.
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