Nobody Has Anything To Say About the Packers

Hey Mike, anything new going on? No? Ok!

The Packers might be the most boring team in the NFL right now. That’s the only reasonable conclusion you can come to if you’re a regular reader of the national media coverage focused on Green Bay.

Take, for instance, this week’s meditation on the Packers by Andy Benoit of The Monday Morning Quarterback. Benoit, whose entire reputation as a football writer is built around meticulous film study, offers these ten stunning insights about the Packers:

• Aaron Rodgers needs to be better this year
• Jordy Nelson is coming back and that’s good
• The Packers should have re-signed John Kuhn
• Eddie Lacy needs to be better this year
• David Bakhtiari will be a free agent next season, but the Packers drafted Jason Spriggs
• Sometimes the Packers' defense is bad and sometimes it is good
• Playing Clay Matthews at outside linebacker could hurt the Packers at inside linebacker
• Julius Peppers should be productive this year
• Some people think Sam Shields is good and some don’t
• Ha Ha Clinton-Dix is going to be good this year

Benoit’s reasoning for some of these points is so specious it doesn’t even merit further consideration. However, it is emblematic of the larger national media landscape as far as it concerns the Packers: nobody’s got anything to say.

And yes, that could be true of almost any NFL team this time of year. We’re at the point of the season where we really know almost nothing about anyone. But the national press has had literally six months to investigate storylines about the teams they’re going to cover this year. It would be great if we could come up with something better than pointing out that Aaron Rodgers played below his standards last year.

For any national media types who might be reading, here are a few ideas for free:

• Should Mike McCarthy be considered a good coach if he can’t get the Packers back to the Super Bowl?
• Does Ted Thompson’s player acquisition philosophy put the Packers at a competitive disadvantage?
• Is it time for the NFL to consider forcing the Packers out of a community ownership model?
• How many undrafted free agents actually make a difference for the Packers? Is the undrafted free agent opportunity storyline just good marketing?
• Why would B.J. Raji walk away from the Packers, the team most likely to pay him?

See? Not that hard.

Or you could just look at what The Ringer did and come up with some really outside the box ideas. Either way, write better things.