Packers move Clements to booth on game day

The Green Bay Packers are changing their game-day coaching setup, with offensive coordinator Tom Clements working from the coaches' box and quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt on the sideline.

The last two seasons, Clements was on the sideline and former quarterbacks coach Ben McAdoo was in the booth. Coach Mike McCarthy remains the play caller.

"It's a change for Aaron (Rodgers), so we'll take the preseason to evaluate it, but Tom has great eyes," Van Pelt said Thursday. "Obviously, great knowledge of the system. He'll be a great source up in the box, you know seeing it from up top. You know I've always been on the sideline with the (Packers) players, quarterbacks, running backs, so obviously it's nothing that will be different for me."

Clements said: "I just thought I'd have a better viewpoint up there and be more helpful."

Clements said he worked from the box as an assistant in college at Notre Dame and in his first season with the Packers, when he was quarterbacks coach. Van Pelt has worked from both locations in previous stops as quarterbacks coach with Buffalo and Tampa Bay.

"Being on the field is important because that's the guy who spends the most time with the player," Van Pelt said. "You know, Tom is in all the meetings as well. But just the relationship that you have from the game plan week, things like that. I think, it's important, (but) I don't think it's necessary because I've been successful doing it both ways."

This year will be the first in which teams are allowed to use computer tablets to look at digital photos on the sideline. They previously viewed photos that were printed and bound on the sidelines.

According to a report on Businessweek.com, each team will get 13 tablets on the sidelines and 12 in the coaches' box. The tablets' cameras are disabled, connect only to a private wi-fi system in the stadium, and run only one program, which allows scrolling through the game photos. They also can be drawn on.

NFL rules prohibit teams from using devices than can shoot or display video, or any other kind of computer.

"I think I saw them zooming in like an iPhone, so you can go right to a technique, and you can get some good information out of those," Van Pelt said. "If they work all the time."