Lombardi Hit and Miss On Packers Offense

Mike Lombardi has a look at the Packers offense today over at the Post. It’s a decent take that suffers from comparisons to what Lombardi seems to think will be a Favre-controlled Vikings offense. (Is there a need for national outlets to include Favre in as many Packers stories as they can? Silly me. Traffic rules.)

Lombardi is spot on in his appraisals of Rodgers and what should be an improved overall game for the second year starter, and he correctly labels Grant’s 2008 as the classic ‘get paid’ year, intimating that Grant was more worried about his money than his game last offseason.

Mike also does a good job of laying out McCarthy’s strengths as an offensive architect. It’s something that you didn’t hear so much of last season as the losses piled up, but it’s true that McCarthy remains one of the best offensive minds in football, one that can attack defenses in myriad ways without resorting to stale formulas.

Where Lombardi’s take breaks down is in his assessment of Ryan Grant as the key to the offense being ‘great’ as opposed to ‘very good’. It’s true that a healthy and focused Grant will make a big difference heading into 2009, and I fully expect to see him breaking more than a few of the big runs that were sorely missing from the offense last season.

But he is not ‘the key’ to the offense.

That would be Aaron Rodgers.

(Finally, Greg Bedard and I agree on something)

McCarthy’s offense, as it is currently designed, does not require a top-flight back. It just needs someone who can be serviceable and can help move the chains. There’s no special gameplan that gets the ball in Grant’s hands in space, there’s no set of specific running plays that work best for Grant’s particular skill set the way Sherman designed his running game around Ahman Green. McCarthy’s system is efficient in the way any half-way decent back can make it go.

Now, that back needs to be studied and needs to be able to play at a certain level, obviously. But there’s a reason Thompson was able to pluck Grant off the Giants’ roster for a single late round pick. And there’s a reason Thompson has generally shied away from backs on the first day of the draft, Brandon Jackson being the lone exception, who you could almost say is proving why Thompson does so. I like Jackson and think he looked better than Grant during his limited playing time last season, but you can’t call him anything other than a dissapointment as a second round pick, especially when you see what the Bears own second rounder Matt Forte is doing.

Fans get excited about Lumpkin showing in preseason or breaking a 19 yard run in Week Two the same way they got excited about Jackson showing in preseason his rookie year or the way they got excited by the few screen passes Grant caught early in 2007. These could be any decent back – fans keep hoping they are seeing the beginnings of a ’special’ back. I’m sorry, but there isn’t one on the roster, and it’s the biggest reason I was against caving in to Grant’s demands last off season.

I have no doubt that Bedard’s assertion that ‘certain people in the Packers organization wanted Grant to play’no matter how well Jackson and company played, stems from Thompson and his wanting to validate his giving Grant the deal he did. It’s one of the few real head-scratchers for me when it comes to Thompson’s tenure (the other big one being the punting fiasco last year, though there are several smaller ones as well, like the pressing need to keep Danny Lansanah, the signing of Matt O’Dwyer, etc)

As I’ve stated over and over, for as much lip service as McCarthy gives to the running game, he knows it’s second fiddle to the passing game in the NFL. Look no further than the participants in last years Super Bowl. The Steelers were a horrible running team. The Cardinals? Dead last in the NFL. No, the running game is a good tool to have, especially in the 4th quarter when you have a lead. But it’s a passing league. In fact, a national pundit with a long history working in several front offices around the league just last week wrote an excellent column on this very subject. Who you ask?

None other than Mike Lombardi.

So yes, Grant will be better this year, but he’s not the key to the Packers fielding one of the best offenses in the league. That distinction belongs to Aaron Rodgers.