Who Will Lead the Young Packers?
Welcome back to another edition of Ask Jon Anything! This time we’re taking questions on everything ranging from leadership to actual bears. Enjoy!
Since the Packers have a quite young and inexperienced team, who do you think will be the leaders that can get the team back on track when they inevitably get setbacks on the field? Who will be the most vocal in the locker room? And who will be the most vocal outside the locker room, with the media? And along those lines, which players do you think will be named team captains?
This is an important question for the Packers to answer internally, but we can take a crack at it here, too.
To an extent, Jordan Love is going to have to be that guy on the field. Offenses go the way of their quarterback, for better or for worse, and he has to be willing to be a leader if the team is going to succeed. If he can’t at least get the team to buy into who he is as a player (whatever that ends up looking like,) Love will fail and the offense will fail with him.
But beyond that obvious answer, I think leadership on offense will center on David Bakhtiari and Aaron Jones. Bakhtiari is by far the most accomplished player on the Packers and even with his injury issues the past couple of seasons he still commands the respect that comes with being one of the best at his position. He can also provide a significant stabilizing effect for the offensive line.
Aaron Jones, meanwhile, will be a key cog for the Packers on offense, and that should give him the same kind of credibility as Bakhtiari. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s a man of seemingly unimpeachable character. That’s a great combo!
On defense, Rasul Douglas seems like a great choice, and will probably end up being the most vocal in the locker room and with the media. He provided a few great quotes last year and figures to fill the same kind of role this year.
As far as the captains go, I’d bet the final selections from this group of players:
Jordan Love
David Bakhtiari
Aaron Jones
De’Vondre Campbell
Kenny Clark
Jaire Alexander
Pat O’Donnell
Dallin Leavitt
Keisean Nixon
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