'Wasting Rodgers' prime' a well-worn angle
So you’ve made it to PackersNews.com. You’ve bookmarked us, you’ve downloaded our app, you’ve friended us on Facebook, you follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, and you check back multiple times a day to see what is going on with the Green Bay Packers.
But even with all the talented writers here and all the different ways of consuming our content, you still want more. Of course you do. Interest in the Packers seems to have no end and, as much as we’d like to, we can’t keep our guys writing 24/7/365, though you might not know that from all the stuff they generate on a daily basis.
With that in mind, we thought we’d start keeping track of some of the interesting things that we find elsewhere on the internet. Good content is good content, and we want to highlight it all for you.
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To start, we’ll point you toward the site Football Outsiders and the excellent Almanac they produce every year. If you’re not familiar with FO, they are a great destination for not only an analytic look at the NFL but also solid straight-up football writing.
Their annual almanac costs $15, but it’s worth it for the chapter that previews the Packers' season alone. It’s filled with great nuggets like this:
James Starks faced a loaded box on 35 percent of his carries last year, the highest rate in the league; Eddie Lacy was third at 28 percent.
Gives you a bit of an idea how much defenses were simply not scared of the Packers’ passing attack. Read the whole thing, it’s well worth your time.
Elsewhere on the internet, you can’t click for long without finding a post or column about how the Packers are “wasting Aaron Rodgers’ prime.” But what, exactly, does that mean? And is that really even possible?
Check out this well-written post by Paul Noonan of ACME Packing Company. It is admittedly tongue-in-cheek, but it’s good commentary on the “wasting of NFL quarterback primes” narrative.
Finally, this post from Madison.com’s Tom Oates does a nice job illustrating how hard it has become to get much if any kind of a read on a team in the preseason when the team chooses to sit so many players for the exhibition games.
Money quote:
It grows increasingly difficult to evaluate the Green Bay Packers’ readiness for the regular season based on exhibition games that are becoming a bigger joke — and ripoff — every year.
The chilling effect of wide receiver Jordy Nelson’s season-ending knee injury last August has caused Packers coach Mike McCarthy to use some of his key veterans sparingly, if at all, in this year’s practice games.
Oates does a good job gleaning what he can from the mishmash of lineups the Packers have fielded so far in preseason.
Have another story you think we should highlight? Leave a comment, tweet us or send an email to anagler@gannett.com. Be sure to check back each week for the best content on the Packers from around the web.