2011- Green Bay's 6 Indespensible Players

Going Into the Season, here are the players who I would call Indespensible as well as how Indespensible they are by Ranking:

1. Rodgers

2. Matthews-When he is Off the Field the Pass Rush Vanishes

3. Tramon-His ability to cover #1's is Huge, an injury would limit would Woodson could do and would put Bush on the field in our Nickel Defense

4. Woodson-His Jack of All Trades Ability gives a huge boost to the Defense. Losing him would limit the D's creativity and take away its biggest Playmaker. Plus if he gets hurt say Hello to Bush on the field.

5. Shields-His loss would almost be as bad as losing Tramon. Woodson would be limited what he could do and teams would torch his replacement Bush.

6. Raji-I am sure the coaching staff would place him higher on the list and he is awesome but it is much easier to exploit a corner like Bush than a backup DT.

**These are the 6 I would say are Indespensible due to their Importance/Ability and the people they have for backups at those positions. Any other player I think could be covered up for pretty well.

As you can see, I greatly fear any usage of the Bush/Lee combination and am hoping House is good.

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Most Despensible

53. Crosby
52. Lee (If he makes team)
51. Bush

Chad Clifton easily should make this list.

Jennings. Without him, they don't go to or win the Superbowl last year.

I considered Clifton #7 but suspect they could get by now that they have options at tackle, although it would definitely be an adventure for a while. Between Sherrod, Lang, and Bulaga they have much better options than they did in 2009.

I think without any single receiver we are still good. With a Finley, Nelson, Jones, Driver, Cobb passing attack that is still pretty dynamic

We'll see how things shape up after the preseason. Don't forget, Davon House and Josh Gordy are good DB prospects which'll make us deeper. But it's so obvious that, at the time of the SB, losing 1/3 corners mentioned shook us up.

I'm sorry, but your not looking at the whole picture of the football team. Jarrett Bush may be our most important special teams player besides Masthay. Just because he is a bad Corner, safety, linebacker, runningback, etc, doesn't make him the worst player.I would say at least Lee is worse than him. You could make an easy case for Dietrich-Smith, who was basically an escort for defensive linemen to Rodgers. What about Graham Harrell? He doesn't even touch the field during the regular season. What about Francois, who was literally a dispensable player for the Packers last season (He was released 3 times during the year. Just saying.

I think you missed the point, its about he 6 most indispensable players.

1. Rodgers
2. Matthews
3. Woodson
4. Jennings
5. Williams
6. Bishop

Rodgers
Woodson
Raji
Tramon
Clifton
Hawk! <--Yeah, I just went there.

You went there and you went somewhere else with no Matthews on the list!

1. Rodgers
2. Matthews
3. Woodson (yeah, we won XLV game without him for half-2, but we "hung on"... night/day before/after he went out)
4. Clifton
5. Jennings
6. Raji

#1, #2 undebatable.
Clifton, the crucial left tackle... that guy is one of THE BEST pass protectors in the league. We've seen disaster when he's out, and Bulaga and Sherrod will be a dropoff, and that is an issue that will have a big negative impact on the whole offense.

Yeah we have good WRs #2-#5, plus Finley.
But Jennings is special. Ask the defenses. Losing our deep threat would hurt. We've seen it last year in Minny with Sidney Rice, and I remember us when we lost Javon Walker.

Raji makes the list because we lost Cullen.
BJ gets to the QB, something Pickett and big Howard don't. That's huge.... maybe Mike Neal will, but we know Raji can, and Jenkins did.

I think we could survive missing Tramon a few games better than missing Raji, because we still would have Woodson and Shields (hypothetically). Nobody can do close to what Raji does. Dude is a beast.

GOod thread.

:wacko:

Rodgers
CM3
Woodson
Raji
Tramon
Clifton

None. No one player is indispensable to a repeat. Losing any combination of 3 or more of the players listed by others would be tough to overcome. I believe the backups will step up again if needed. The schemes will be altered to fit other strengths. Depending on when in the season the losses occur would affect post season success. Losing ARod in Dec would be tougher to compensate for than a Sept mishap. It would not be easy or even pretty to lose Tramon, Raji, Arod, bloodline, or Woodson but any one can be overcome.

I like Kitten's list but I think Starks could be sustituded for Grant. One or the other...preferrably both.

I gotta say Rodgers would be crushed a lot more by DT's rushing up the middle without Sitton. I'd try to put him in there somewhere. The guy just flats out stones the best DT in the League. Suh who? Wilfork what?

People who still rag on bush make me wonder how much they really know about football.

GB Packers 5 most indispensable employees

1. TT
2. Capers
3. Rodgers (even though I think the drop off wouldnt be as bad as most teams)
4. Tramon Williams (allows Woodson more freedom, holds down a #1, can pick off passes in big moments)
5. Sitton (mostly because of Rodgers really, Sitton goes down and your going to open the flood gates. Most underrated player in the league arguably.)

Matthews would have been 6th. He doesnt make top 5 bc of his so so run stopping ability and he went games last season without making a huge impact. Now knowing about his skin that makes sense. I really dont think I would feel very good if we lost Nick Collins, and packer fans seem to not bring him up very often for watever reason.

The only reason you can make a case for Hawk is bc we just cut all his back ups, lol.

You could make a strong argument for Finley being on the list of 5 most dispensable. Due to last season and the insane number of TEs we have that would start for alot of teams.

People rag on Bush because he gets torched almost anytime he is on the field playing Defense. Maybe he is an All Pro in practices but it does not translate to Sunday's.

People understand in a perfect world that he would only play Special Teams, but knowing he is only 1 injury away from starting in our Nickel Defense is absolutely terrifying. The emergence of Shields is what put the Defense over the top last year, without Shields GB cannot play Nickel, Woodson cannot terrorize from the slot, and the Defense gets torched by Elite Qbs.

I am praying that House is decent so that Bush is 2 inuries away from starting in the Nickel D as opposed to just 1 away

He seemed to do fine in the SuperBowl.

He isnt the same player he was several years ago. He has progressively gotten better. Enough so that TT resigned him and other teams were interested. The reason he is an injury shy from being a starting corner is bc he earned it. Bottom line is no one stepped up more in the SB. His number was called and he played as well as anyone. So yeah he does well in practice, enough so that beat writers rave about it. You really think Capers would leave a hole in his defense like that? doubt it

I think he's phenomenal, but makes some of the most bewildering mistakes for a player of his caliber.

Rodgers
Matthews (Remember the 2nd half of Redskins game last year, and the Dolphins game? Oh man we were bad. Is this when he said he fractured his leg?)
Woodson
Raji
Clifton
Bulaga (who's his backup anyways right now?)

I was about to weigh in on this thread and give my top 5 or so... But then I stopped and thought... Isn't it amazing, our team is soooo talented and deep, that you can make an argument about just about every position on how valuable almost any player is to our team? We have SERIOUS talent on literally every position on the team, which is why we all have different opinions on who's the most valuable across the board. We're pretty damn lucky. Imagine being a Bengals fan right now and thinking... "well, our new qb and wr COULD be good. But we also need this, this, this, and this..."....

I believe we have starting caliber backups at every position except kickers and maybe center. The TE reserves are average and the QB hasn't proven it over a stretch. Every other position besides ILB has players who did start or would start in the correct circumstance.

Offense: Rodgers

Defense: Capers

Defense in a game, or during a small stretch of games, soon set straight by Capers: Woodson, Matthews, Raji, Tramon and Shields (has to be both together), Hawk and Bishop (ditto).

Indispensable for what? Winning another SB? If so, the only one I can say 100% is Rodgers.