GREEN BAY, Wis. — Despite a remarkably ugly player-front office dispute that turned training camp into a circus, the Green Bay Packers didn’t fail this season because Brett Favre was playing somewhere else.
“Favre had nothing to do with our season,” wide receiver Greg Jennings said. “So people can look at it whatever way they want to view it. But we played, he didn’t. It was on us.”
True, first-year starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers didn’t convert several chances at last-minute victories. Green Bay lost a stunning seven games by four points or less to stumble to a 6-10 record after reaching the NFC title game last season.
But statistically, the Packers’ offense didn’t drop off significantly from last season.
Instead, the major culprit was an injury-riddled defense that gave up big plays in bunches and struggled to hold on to fourth-quarter leads.
Green Bay came into the post-Favre era hoping to win with a defense-first mentality, but that notion was derailed when backups couldn’t make up for several significant injuries to starters.
The Packers lost defensive end Cullen Jenkins to a chest injury early in the season and later lost middle linebacker Nick Barnett to a knee injury. Safety Atari Bigby was hurt all season and never seemed quite right, even when he was on the field.
Veteran pass rusher Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila couldn’t regain his speed following knee surgery in the offseason and was waived.
Defensive tackle Justin Harrell — whom the Packers were counting on after their decision to trade Corey Williams to Cleveland in the offseason — was slowed by injuries for the second straight season.
Would the Packers be back in the playoffs if the defense was healthy?
“When you start thinking about the ifs, you can ‘if’ all day,” Jenkins said. “You start thinking about different scenarios. Obviously, the bottom line is, you’ve got to win with the guys you’ve got out there.”
But the Packers’ backups weren’t able to take up the slack.
The secondary was the defense’s best unit, but couldn’t always make up for a pass rush that was almost nonexistent outside of defensive end Aaron Kampman. The run defense was also a consistent disappointment.
Now veteran cornerback Charles Woodson, who played some safety in the second half of the season because of injuries, is lobbying the front office for help.
“We need to get some more veteran guys in here on the team, the guys who have weathered a few storms in their careers and know what it’s all about,” Woodson said. “I don’t know what’ll be done, but I know that there will be some things done.”
There also is speculation about defensive coordinator Bob Sanders’ job.
“I know it’s the nature of the business, but the guys, we hope Bob will come back,” defensive tackle Ryan Pickett said. “You always feel responsibility. A lot of the stuff is not on him. A lot is on the players.”
Beyond boosting the defense, the Packers have several other pressing offseason priorities. Among them:
—They’re searching for continuity on the offensive line after rotating players all season. But they could lose cornerstone right tackle Mark Tauscher, a free agent whose future with the team was up in the air even before his season-ending knee injury.
—Jennings, who led the Packers with 80 catches, 1,292 yards receiving and nine touchdowns, has another year left on his contract but is angling for a new deal.
—The special teams, which took a major step backward, must get back to the success they had in 2007.
But the Packers are the only NFC North team without major questions at quarterback.
The team had high expectations for Rodgers — and he generally met them, throwing for 4,038 yards with 28 touchdowns and only 13 interceptions. And he started all 16 games despite sustaining a painful shoulder injury in Week 4.
Rodgers says he needs to become more consistent and plans to lock himself in the film room during the offseason.
After heading down under to blow off some steam, that is.
“I’ll probably sit on the beach in Australia and think about some of the things that went wrong — and then get back in the water,” Rodgers said. “But on a serious note, I’ll definitely think about it the next few days. But I’m going to clear my head a little bit. It’ll be a long offseason. There’ll be plenty of time to watch the plays from this season and think about the things that went wrong and ways to fix it.”
And with the seemingly never-ending issue of Favre’s potential retirement not hanging over the franchise for the first time in years, the Packers can count on a relatively calm offseason — a huge plus, despite players’ best efforts to brush off the Favre drama.
“Trust me, if it had been a distraction, some guys probably would have voiced that,” Jennings said. “But it wasn’t a distraction. I’m sure it was tough for ‘A-Rod’ at the beginning, but in hindsight, this is where we are. This is not where we would have liked to have been, but it is what it is.”
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