Packerlifer
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2008
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The season ending injury to Cullen Jenkins leaves the Packers d-line in a bad way. Jenkins was having a strong season and since the final month of the '06 season has been a vital cog in giving the Packers an improved defense against the run while also providing pass rushing ability.
It's reminiscient of the situation 6 years ago when the Packers thought they were set at the ends with former first round pick Vonnie Holliday and newly signed Pro Bowl free agent Joe Johnson to help lead a charge back to the Super Bowl.
The injury prone Holliday missed games off and on and early in the year the unproductive and disappointing Johnson ended up on IR. Luckily the Packers that year had drafted, in the 5th round, a relatively unheralded de from Iowa Aaron Kampman.
Kampman was able to step in and become an impact player immediately and we all know the rest of the story: A 3 time Pro Bowler and the NFL cumulative sacks leader of the last 3 years.
In this year's draft the Packers selected a relatively unheralded de in the 4th round out of Wake Forest Jeremy Thompson. Not only selected him but traded up to get him.
So far Thompson has been quiet and hasn't been able to get on the field or make a contribution. But with the end position now thinned down with the loss of Jenkins, the one-dimentional capability of Kabeer Gbaja-Biamilla, and the back-up caliber of Mike Montgomery & Jason Hunter now is the time for Thompson to make like another Kampman and start showing up.
The guy has all the dimensions to be a complete, every down end at 6-4,270; pretty much the same as Kampman. His basic college stats show starts in 32 of 46 games, 112 tackles (73 solo), 8.5 sacks his senior season and 20.5 stops for losses of 92 yds. Comparable stats to what Kampman showed in his college days.
Exactly what has been the hold-up on this rookie's development I don't know. But he needs to bring it and the coaches need to push him to come thru more and more as the season goes on or it'll be a long hard season on one side of the D.
It's reminiscient of the situation 6 years ago when the Packers thought they were set at the ends with former first round pick Vonnie Holliday and newly signed Pro Bowl free agent Joe Johnson to help lead a charge back to the Super Bowl.
The injury prone Holliday missed games off and on and early in the year the unproductive and disappointing Johnson ended up on IR. Luckily the Packers that year had drafted, in the 5th round, a relatively unheralded de from Iowa Aaron Kampman.
Kampman was able to step in and become an impact player immediately and we all know the rest of the story: A 3 time Pro Bowler and the NFL cumulative sacks leader of the last 3 years.
In this year's draft the Packers selected a relatively unheralded de in the 4th round out of Wake Forest Jeremy Thompson. Not only selected him but traded up to get him.
So far Thompson has been quiet and hasn't been able to get on the field or make a contribution. But with the end position now thinned down with the loss of Jenkins, the one-dimentional capability of Kabeer Gbaja-Biamilla, and the back-up caliber of Mike Montgomery & Jason Hunter now is the time for Thompson to make like another Kampman and start showing up.
The guy has all the dimensions to be a complete, every down end at 6-4,270; pretty much the same as Kampman. His basic college stats show starts in 32 of 46 games, 112 tackles (73 solo), 8.5 sacks his senior season and 20.5 stops for losses of 92 yds. Comparable stats to what Kampman showed in his college days.
Exactly what has been the hold-up on this rookie's development I don't know. But he needs to bring it and the coaches need to push him to come thru more and more as the season goes on or it'll be a long hard season on one side of the D.
