Apparently, some of you posters on this forum are not well informed concerning the FG holder situation in Green Bay. I was at many Packer's training camp sessions. During training camp the Packers were trying out Nall, Rodgers, and Sander. Sander was the best of the group and the most experienced.(I think, he held for FGsat Ohio State.)) Rodger has never held for a FG holder in any real football game. I'm not sure of Nall experience(I think very little) but he did very poorly during summer camp tryouts.. As one poster said Packers were never going to have a player on the roster to just hold for Longwell. A spot on the roster is just too valauble for that especially with all injuries incurred on the team this season. Packer thought Sander would improve this season with practice in holding for Longwell, and Sander did, but at times he was not perfect, just like the majority of first year players are in NFL. Sander was a First NFL year holder, but field goal kicking team positions which are more unique than most positions in Football, the field goal kicking team must be perfect. It is either success or failure, and failure sometimes means loss of the game. Success can mean" walk off" field Goals and Ryan Longwell had four "walk off" field goals in '04. Those successful field goals gave the Packers four wins as time expired on game clock. This is the only time in the Packers history that four "Walk off" Field goals have occurred in one season. Ryan Longwell's four "Walkoff field goals (two against the Vikings) allowed the Packer to end up at 10-6, win NFC-North for the third time in a row and get into the Post season. Longwell is most accurate FG kicker in Packer history, but he is not perfect, no human is. The last seven years has proved ,he is one of the best FG kickers especially in windy & winter conditions of Lambeau Field which are some of worst conditions in NFL. He has not lost it, he has kicked three 50 plus yard FGs this year but he needs consistant NFL caliber Holder to kick at 80 plus % accuracy in stead of his present 70% accuracy. Lets quite the blame game and finger pointing to one player or coaches or the GM, Team president etc. The team wins or loses as a team and organization . This year was first losing season in 14 years, it will be turned around in '06 like other NFL teams have done in this era of competitive balance(free agency and salary cap) in the new century.
