INISIDE OR OUTSIDE

It seems the great debate these days, instead of who General Manager Ted Thompson has signed in free agency, is whether Clay Matthews would be moving back to the outside instead of staying in the middle. The latest poll on Packers.net has 61 percent saying stay inside.

 

I'm in the stay inside camp. I think, and the statistics will back me up, the move inside energized him and gave the Packers defense a new dimension that made it harder to victimize the middle as was being done on a regular basis for years.

 

2013 was Claymaker's second worse season to date. After registering 10 sacks in rookie season and 13.5 his second he fell off to just six sacks in 2011 despite starting 15 games. He rebounded with 13 sacks in 2012, but 2013 was beginning to look like another lost season before and after a broke thumb kept him out of games six, seven and eight, made his one armed in games nine through 12 and then had him sitting out the final two games of the season. He finished with just 7.5 sacks.

 

The beginning of the last season was just a continuation of 2013. He seemed lost as the Packers tried to deal with the read-option. When the bye finally came he had only 2.5 sacks and 19 tackles in the first eight games and the Packers defense ranked last against the run.

 

Then came the CHANGE (if I may borrow a phrase from you ladies). Who made the change? I don't know. I don't remember reading anything about Dom Capers making the decision or Mike McCarthy finally asserting his new role as he stated before the season when he said he would be more involved in the defensive planning. Whoever made the decision it turned out to be the greatest thing since slice bread both for Matthews and the defense as a whole, which finished ranked 18th overall and 10th against the run (23rd against the pass).

NO SURPRISES IN FREE AGENCY

Free agency is in its second wave and the Packers have lost two players in each wave and retained six of their own.

 

To be honest I was beginning to get nervous about losing wide receiver Randall Cobb, but General Manager Ted Thompson pulled his head out of his very tight ass and re-signed him two days before free agency opened to a 4 yr. $40,000,0000 contract, which is probably a bargain. GOOD MOVE.

 

Davon House

Then word came down that reserve cornerback Davon House had been signed by the Jacksonville Jaguars to a four-year $25,000,000 contract. I went back and forth on keeping House and eventually decided it would be right to let him go for two reasons.

 

First, he was injury prone. Leaving out his rookie season he's played 38 games out of a possible 48 since he was drafted in 2011 in the fourth round. He's had injuries every year. His rookie year he began the season with an ankle injury. 2012 it was a separated shoulder during training camp when he was supposed to challenge for a starting job.

 

In fact, it seemed that every time he would start or get a chance to start he would come up with an injury. In 2013 it was a knee injury that bothered him and last year it was a knee, then a dislocated finger and finally a shoulder. It seems it’s always something.

FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS, PART ZWEI

FROM THE SUBLIME

 

If any of you are keeping score 10 posts ago in the first edition of "From the Sublime to the Ridiculous" I was talking about Mr. and Mrs. Sean McEvoy from North Carolina who had purchased a genuine Vince Lombardi artifact - his West Point sweater - from a local Goodwill shop for $0.58. At the time if was estimated the value at auction (I love Antiques Roadshow) would be around $20,000.

 

As Paul Harvey used to say, "and now for the rest of the story". The sweater was donated to the Goodwill by Ann Wannamaker, the widow of Bill Wannamaker, a fellow coach at West Point with Lombardi.

 

The McEvoys put the sweater up for auction at Heritage Auction in Dallas and the winning bid was $36,000 and after a 19.5% buyer's premium is tacked on the total came to $43,020. Add kudos to the auction house for donating their share of the transaction to Goodwill like Mrs. Wannamaker had requested.

 

THROUGH THE INTERESTING

 

Packers left offensive tackle David Bakhtiari introduced a game to the locker room that has turned into an addiction. Most of the offensive line and many others spend long nights at "The Shrine" or at Bakhtiari's house playing the board game "Settlers of Catan". I guess there's not much to do at night in Green Bay, although I have heard from a very reliable source there are some very friendly strippers near to Lambeau Field. But since James Lofton's unfortunate liaison back in the day I guess you won't be seeing any current Packer players inside or in doorways near a strip club. So game on, guys.