When you look back at the 2007 Packers, you see a team that really overachieved and we watched a young team grow right in front of our eyes. The expectations weren't very high for the Packers last year and almost everyone had the Bears penciled in to win the division. What happened you ask? One word: Playmakers.
The Packers got an infusion of playmakers last year, we saw some new faces and some players that have been here for a year or two take their game to the next level. Guys like Greg Jennings, Ryan Grant, Donald Lee, James Jones, Ruvell Martin, and Koren Robinson really sparked the Packers offense and gave Favre the playmakers he hasn't had since 2003.
Brett Favre had a resurrection of sorts last season and posted his best numbers in years but why was he so bad the 2 years previous? The problem was two-fold, one, he didn't have any playmakers outside of Donald Driver and had to look his way almost every time he dropped back. Another factor was that the team was just not very good and we all know what Brett Favre shows up when he's forced to come from behind. You get the Brett Favre that had 38 Touchdowns and 47 Interceptions from 2005-2006 and you also get a record of 12-20 over those 2 same seasons.
Their Defense played very well last year and kept them in nearly every game. They finished the season 6th in Defensive Passer Rating, 3rd in Third Down %, 6th in Pts Allowed per Game and 11th in Yards Allowed per Game.
Their Defensive Line was solid overall last year but really had lapses in putting pressure on the QB. Our Jim Bates based Defensive Scheme is very vanilla and most of the time last year we just rushed 4 down lineman and relied on them to get the QB.
Word out of Training Camp is that Mccarthy and Sanders have been playing around with some new looks and will blitz a lot more than we did last year. Now I am going to tell you why the Packers can be better and will be better than last year, even with a new QB at the helm.
Quarterback
I think it's safe to say that Aaron Rodgers is going to be our QB heading into next season and he has the job on lock for now. I keep hearing people say "QB's that follow legends always fail" and it's such a baseless statement and SUCH a copout. I did a little research and the only QB's who had similar situations to Rodgers were Rivers, Tony Romo
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