Roster Cuts Looming For Packer Hopefuls: 3 Thoughts

After a long and arduous training camp, four pre-season games, and numerous bumps and bruises, many hopeful young man awake this Saturday not knowing their future. Will they be invited to play on the most storied franchise in the history of football, or will they be seeking work elsewhere with another team or outside of football altogether.

So first, congratulations go out to all the young men who tried out for this team. Packernation is excited, however, to see what the exact makeup of this year’s team will be. Here are my pleas for this year’s roster cuts.

Coach McCarthy has made it very clear that the players on this team are fighting for 63 spots (53 on the roster and 10 on the practice squad) and they will choose the best 63 players on the team. This tells me a few things:

1. The Packers will keep three quarterbacks

Matt Flynn was being outplayed by Scott Tolzien earlier in the preseason but Flynn showed up in the game against the Chiefs. Aaron Rodgers trusts him and says he has “moxie”…true statement, the guy is a winner in a LOT of ways. Tolzien threw a better ball, had better spin in the preseason but the fact of the matter is, the Packers are scared to not have a couple decent backups just in case the worst (of which we shall not speak) case scenario comes into play. The fact that Flynn plays the quarterback position makes him a more valuable player than a safety or another outside linebacker and so I think Flynn makes the team. Personally, I don’t think this is the best course of action but the Packers will not carry risk in this area again.

2. Please keep Jayrone Elliott

Jayrone Elliott put the cap on his 5 sack preseason Thursday night with another sack…against a starter this time. Elliott was double teamed and still getting pressure which makes for some good tape on the kid. It seems obvious that he will get a roster spot because this is a guy that is gonna get picked up right away. Can’t wait to see if this guy can do it for the long haul and against superior competition. But the Packers roster still has him at 4th string which (though preseason depth charts don’t mean much) makes me wonder if we won’t be surprised by the Packers decision. We are every year are we not? At least one cut player has us scratching our heads. Hope it is NOT Elliott.

3. Keep Morgan Burnett and Micah Hyde as the starting safeties

I know a lot of people in Packernation are not happy with Morgan Burnett but I think he is gonna have a bounce back year. Why? Pressure. Morgan Burnett has received a clear message that he can be replaced. The addition of Ha Ha Clinton Dix, who will inevitably get quite a few snaps this year, made that crystal clear. I know, I know…neither of these guys are gonna get cut, I just want to see Ha Ha get a chance to grow into the defense and I also want to see Banjo and Richardson make the team. We will see what happens if the Packers keep six cornerbacks. Again, it all comes down to who Ted and Mike think are the best players, everyone is competing against everyone else.

All in all, the Packers have a much improved and generally healthy roster going into the upcoming game against the Seattle Seahawks. Good thing too…we cannot afford to have a repeat of last year’s season opener where we shut down the run (perhaps the ONLY game we shut down the run) but gave up about nine million yards of passing. Green Bay should be a scoring machine this year and as I’ve said before, if our defense improves (which it has) the sky is the limit for this team.

GO PACK!!!