Fuming at SI's Josh Elliott

Let me open with the closing line of Josh Elliott's latest at CNN-SI:

And as I shudder at the thought of the collective fury of Wisconsin's Internet-savvy citizenry, I bid you farewell until next Thursday...

Shudder you should, Josh.

For those of you who aren't big link clickers, I'll summarize. Elliott pushes the panic button on the Packers while taking a look at Brett Favre's decision to play another season. I calmly read Elliott's column until the next to last sentence of the article:

Because the fact remains: Favre last led the Pack to the Super Bowl in 1997, and there's increasingly little to suggest that he'll ever take them back there again.

Frankly, Josh, I'm not sure that I'm confident of your NFL analysis skills.

Now, before Jiblog readers get their hackles up, I will say this-no diehard Packer fan believes next year will be an easy season. This team has problems that can be directly attributed to Mike Sherman's decisions as GM. But I still think Elliot is wrong, at least for next year. So I will now take up my soapbox and refute what I see as the weaknesses in Elliott's thought process.

Elliott focuses on two major points-that the loss of Rivera and Wahle on the line will further erode Ahman Green's effectiveness, and that the loss of Darren Sharper will render the defense impotent. Let's look at what he has to say about Green and the line first.

Indeed, Green took a major step backward last year (1,163 rushing yards, 4.5 yards per carry, 10 total TDs) from his '03 star turn (1,883 yds./5.3 ypc/20 TDs), despite running behind one of football's three best offensive lines. Having lost starting guards Mike Wahle (Carolina) and Marco Rivera (Dallas) and center Grey Ruegamer (who started 11 games a year ago) to free agency, it's folly to think Green's numbers will improve.

There is no question that no team would want to lose guards of the quality of Wahle and Rivera. It is a bit of a stretch to think that there is not enough talent left on the line to get Green back over the 1200 yard mark, though. Back in the days when I was a kid wondering if I'd ever see a Packer run for 1,000 yards in a season, 1,183 was an impressive number. These days, it's almost pedestrian. A big part of the running game's problem last year was injuries to the running backs. I don't think Green was full speed for much of the year, and Najeh Davenport was never 100% all season. With a healthier Green and (hopefully) his heir apparent Davenport back and healthy, this offensive line can still produce a healthy running game. What we are looking at is replacing one guy on that line. The Packers have two good centers in Mike Flanagan and Scott Wells. Flanagan can probably move back out to tackle if Clifton or Tauscher can move inside to guard. Kevin Barry can pick up the slack at the other guard position, leaving the team looking for a passable right tackle. While you want every guy on your line to be an all pro when they are protecting Brett Favre, this is still a very manageable situation. As long as Green stays healthy, his productivity should improve this year, meaning that there will not be a collapse in the running game that Elliott uses to predict dangerous Favre risk taking.

The second issue I have with Elliott's article is the importance he places on the departure of Darren Sharper:

Meanwhile, Sharper's departure only sinks an already-bad Green Bay D further into the muck; last year, the Pack had the NFL's 25th-ranked defense in total yards allowed and against the pass, and gave up 23.8 points a game (up from 19.2 ppg allowed in '03). Their pass rush is terrible, their linebacking corps is middling, and their secondary is in tatters.

It pains me to criticize Sharper because I liked the guy, but losing him is not going to be the end of the world. Sharper was at his best when he was in the defensive backfield with a likely future hall of famer, Leroy Butler. After Butler retired, Sharper became the default leader on that defense. Problem is, I never saw him lead. The quality of his play steadily declined after Butler's retirement, and his tackling got worse and worse. Last year was a good preview of what this defense would look like without Sharper. Elliott makes the mistake of looking at Sharper as the two time Pro Bowler. That isn't the Sharper the Packers lost. The Sharper the Packers lost was an injury prone guy with a tackling problem who was at best an average safety. He's a hole to plug and nothing more. The Packers now have a defensive coordinator who is a known, quality talent. While this defense won't scare anyone in 2005, I actually think it will be marginally better than it was in 2004.

Now, if we assume that my analysis is correct, then the Packers are a team that will have maintained the status quo from 2004 to 2005. Normally, that'll get you killed in the NFL. The Packers have the luxury of playing in the NFC, though. Last year they were the number 3 team in the conference. With the departure of Randy Moss from the Vikings, they will probably remain the number 3 team in the conference. In today's NFL, if a number 3 team in a conference catches fire late in the season, they become a serious threat to win the whole thing. If Elliott wants to run this article back out before the 2006 season, I might not disagree with him. As for 2005, he's flat out wrong as long as this team stays reasonably healthy.