Surviving Sunday: Packers News, Notes and Links for the Football Deprived

The Green Bay Packers aren’t doing anything in free agency, I’m frantically preparing to move later this week, so let’s go with an abbreviated Surviving Sunday:

Packers News, Notes and Links

  • What was your favorite Tramon Williams moment in Green Bay? Williams signed with the Cleveland Browns this week. In last week’s Surviving Sunday post, I predicted Williams would re-sign with the Packers by Tuesday. The fact that Williams immediately signed with Cleveland is further proof that you should never, ever listen to anything I say.
  • Wes Welker to the Packers? Eh. I’d pass if I were Ted.
  • Bring Greg Jennings back to the Packers? Eh. I’d also pass if I were Ted.
  • Charles Woodson was back in town this week and revealed that he wanted to return to Green Bay after the Packers signed Julius Peppers. Woodson is one of my favorite all-time Packers, but I can’t see how he would have helped much last season.
  • The Vikings signed former Packers RB DuJuan Harris. It’s like the fine print in every contract a player signs with the Packers contains fine print that says the Vikings will pick you up once we cut you. I’m going to miss the “Rolling Ball of Butcher Knives.” Seemed like a good guy and he had a great story.

Non Packers links and other Nonsense

  • The hyperbole and ridiculous hot sports takes surrounding Chris Borland’s retirement would be laughable if they weren’t so absurd. In this piece, Dave Zirin compares football to Russian Roulette and claims players from middle class background will become “scarce” one day. The injuries caused by football should be taken seriously, but comparing the sport to a pointing a loaded gun at your head and pulling the trigger will not make people think more seriously about the football’s risks. Claiming the game will be played only by people who come from poor backgrounds also doesn’t move the discussion about the role of football in our society forward. The issues raised by Borland’s retirement are legit and real. They should set the stage for meaningful discourse. Unfortunately, there are too many people out there like Zirin who take the sports-talk radio route of seeing who can yell the loudest and most ridiculous thing about the issue, stifling meaningful conversation and drowning out the insights of reasonable and smart people.
  • Wanna win a 20-game Twins season ticket package courtesy of Minnesota’s corn farmers? Click here for details.
  • I’ll have a full review next week, but Out of the Park Baseball 16 releases on Monday. If you’ve never played Out of the Park Baseball, it is the greatest sports simulation game of all time.
  • Here’s a story about high school students serving as tour guides at Ground Zero in New York City. I’m not sure a 16-year-old version of me could do that. Kuddos to these kids.
  • Lately there have been a lot of good pieces written (like this one) by media members about the struggle of media members to develop meaningful relationships with today’s professional and collegiate athletes. As a member of the media myself, I see this firsthand, but I can’t imagine anybody besides other media members care enough to warrant the number of stories written about the subject.