Aaron Rodgers' backup battle futile without improvement
Although Hundley kept the Packers on the fringes of playoff contention with three victories after Rodgers broke his collarbone, coach Mike McCarthy's postseason assessment that even in his third year Hundley "wasn't ready for what he needed to be ready for" told all.
No wonder the Packers traded for DeShone Kizer in March.nfl cheap jerseys nike
Yet here are the Packers, with their offseason program completed and training camp just five weeks away, and they can't feel much better about their backup quarterback situation than they did when McCarthy made that bold statement at the combine. A spring's worth of individual workouts, OTA practices and an entire minicamp without Rodgers (who was excused from the final week of the offseason program) did little to convince anyone the Packers have a capable fill-in quarterback.
It will be a competition to see who backs up Rodgers this season, but if the winner doesn't show marked improvement, then it won't matter who has the job, because the Packers once again could be in trouble if either one had to play.
To be sure, both Hundley and Kizer had their moments in last week's minicamp: Hundley led a touchdown drive in a 2-minute drill with a 22-yard corner route to rookie receiver Equanimeous St. Brown, while Kizer hit Jake Kumerow on a 44-yard go route during his turn in the same drill. But the overall body of work included myriad missed throws and would-be sacks for holding the ball too long -- problems that plagued Hundley in his nine starts last season and Kizer in his 15 last year for the winless Browns.
"The confidence is here now," Kizer said near the conclusion of minicamp. "Now, it's about going out and showing that I can be a consistent quarterback. It's kind of universally known that the ability is there and the potential is there. Now, it's about going out every day and every rep and proving myself."
That will have to come in training camp and the preseason for the Packers to feel better about Kizer, who led the NFL with 22 interceptions and ranked last in completion percentage (53.6 percent). One NFL coach familiar with Kizer called him a "total rebuild" and wondered what the Browns were coaching last season.nike nfl jerseys wholesale cheap
"I think this is a normal process that you go through," McCarthy said of Kizer. "Really, the first two weeks is just all classroom. So that was really spent on the new language, a lot of the changes that we were making to the guys, to the existing veterans that were here, the comparables from prior offense to the new offense. And then really phase two was the first time really just starting to go through the installs. So, obviously the OTAs we were able to get through all eight of the installs."
