TJ Lang

It sure is nice to not see a green and white jersey go flying backwards on the left side of the screen every other play. He's tough and he's only going to get better now that he has just one spot on the line to worry about. He's had time pretty much everywhere except C until now.

Been a nice upgrade from Colledge. Continue to improve.

I gotta hand it to Campen, he's done a nice job with the O-Line lately and he has improved too. Wells, Sitton and Lang are real good players inside. Newhouse did a nice job vs. the Bears last week and of course Bulaga & Clifton are decent.

Let's see what he does with the rookie Sherrod now.

It is unfortunate that they had to play the musical Lineman during the preseason. I think it also hurt Sherrod's development.

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I gotta hand it to Campen, he's done a nice job with the O-Line lately and he has improved too. Wells, Sitton and Lang are real good players inside. Newhouse did a nice job vs. the Bears last week and of course Bulaga & Clifton are decent.

I was thinking that same thing. But I didn't want to be the first person to give Campen a compliment. The lone remaining goat on that staff is Slowcum.

Campen has always received an unfair amount of critism. Until the last two years the Packers have not placed much emphasis on drafting offensive linemen. I haven't stopped to look it up, but until Bulaga I can only recall one OL being drafted in the first 3 rounds of a Thompson draft. They've asked Campen to get more from less and he's done a pretty good job. Especially considering the guys he started with were used to playing a completely different blocking style.

Colledge was a 2 and Spitz was a 3.

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Originally posted by Boris:
I gotta hand it to Campen, he's done a nice job with the O-Line lately

IIRC, Philbin (old OL coach) has taken a more active role this year with the OL.

With Lang, the offense has gotten better in the offseason at three positions - LG, RB and TE with the returns of Grant and Finley. You could argue that WR is better too with Cobb and Jordy blossoming along with a dominant Jennings. This offense is silly. No wonder in I read today that scouts are saying that what GB is doing on offense is scary.

If either Newhouse or Sherrod pans out at LT next year, this offense save Grant and Driver is absolutely loaded for the long haul too.

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Originally posted by Herschel:


Colledge was a 2 and Spitz was a 3.

I forgot Spitz was a 3rd. But there you go. 2 players in the first 3 rounds over a five year stretch.

Yep. And they were drafted for that dum zone/hybrid/whatever scheme. Since those days, Ted's been drafting bigger, more physical guys, especially on the interior. His hit rate has gone up it seems since they settled on a prototype for that position. Before that it seemed like a whole lot of grab-ass when acquiring players.

They still did maximize Colledge, IMHO. He's a marginal player who they coached up to be adequate at times. I'm liking TJ Lang a lot, though.

There were some questions last year after he hurt his wrist and was not able to make a big leap forward in TC. They wanted him to take the position away from Colledge and he wasn't healed / strong enough to do it yet

MM came out and said he thought TJ's future was at left guard even though TJ was more comfortable at tackle at that point.

And Daryn was still on the team when MM said that...hint hint

If the coaches can get TJ settled in there at LG, it makes the post-Clifton transition that much easier next year

Lang had been more than a upgrade, he has been close to dominant in the run game. It helps that he is playing next to Wells, but Lang is more than getting it done.

Lang has made Clifton and Wells look a lot better. That whole side just seems to have a better attitude and be more cohesive. They work together, communicate, and are far more dominant than when Colledge was in there.

Lang, along with Burnett, is listed as one of 10 Breakout Stars of 2011.

Here's the writeup:

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T.J. Lang , Packers, G: He is playing better than the player he replaced in the starting lineup -- Daryn Colledge , who left Green Bay to sign with Arizona as a free agent. Lang is very strong and has outstanding punch as a blocker. He is the only player on this list not from the 2010 draft. He fell to the fourth round in 2009 largely because of the Eastern Michigan program he came from struggled to win games. He should have been a late second- or early third-round pick.

Super Bowl champs with 2/10s of the "new" faces in the league Brandt felt were worth mentioning. I don't know how that idiot Thompson has kept his job.

A significant upgrade from the overly soft Colledge.

I've never seen Lang projected that high. I wonder if he's basing it on performance to date or at the time of the draft.

I hadn't really thought about it before, but the change to Lang also officially marks the end of the Zone linemen experiment.

Did McCarthy want Lang at Guard or Tackle? I remember there was a lot of disagreement among the coaching staff about him...Campen/Philbin thought he should be at Tackle (I think?) and McCarthy thought he should be at Guard. I think that's what it was. Looks like whoever wanted him at Guard was right, he's been solid.

Lang may not be the athlete that Colledge was, but he's head and shoulders stronger and more physical. It will be huge to have a solid LG in place when Sherrod takes over at LT.

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Originally posted by JJSD:
Yep. And they were drafted for that dum zone/hybrid/whatever scheme. Since those days, Ted's been drafting bigger, more physical guys, especially on the interior. His hit rate has gone up it seems since they settled on a prototype for that position. Before that it seemed like a whole lot of grab-ass when acquiring players.

They still did maximize Colledge, IMHO. He's a marginal player who they coached up to be adequate at times. I'm liking TJ Lang a lot, though.

I disagree on Colledge. He was a good prospect but was never built to be a guard. Heck, he didn't practice at guard a lot of times during the week either in the ever-shuffling rotation. The guy was built to play left tackle but never really developed there like he should have been. Somewhat the same with Shufflin' Spitz. Versatility is great and all but those are two guys whom I think were shuffled too much to develop their talent.

I do agree that drafting guys built like guards to play guard is a good move. Lang maybe hasn't gelled with Clifton like Colledge had but he's stronger in the run game.

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Did McCarthy want Lang at Guard or Tackle? I remember there was a lot of disagreement among the coaching staff about him...Campen/Philbin thought he should be at Tackle (I think?) and McCarthy thought he should be at Guard.

I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the thinking was he would replace Tauscher.

Bulaga, I thought, was drafted to replace Clifton. Obviously things didn't work out that way.

There was disagreement though. I think McCarthy wanted him strictly as a Guard and either Campen or Philbin thought he could have a future at Tackle...which is why he was Clifton's back-up.

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Originally posted by Herschel:
I do agree that drafting guys built like guards to play guard is a good move. Lang maybe hasn't gelled with Clifton like Colledge had but he's stronger in the run game.

I would disagree with you on this. I think Lang has gelled better with Clifton than Colledge ever did. Since the start of this year, they are running more to the left than they ever did last year because Colledge was never physical and Clifton isn't overly physical as well. Lang is physical (he admits he likes to hit guys in the mouth), while Clifton uses better feet and technique. On several plays in the first two games they combined to knock guys backward and reach the second level (despite Clifton's knees), which was something never seen last year on the left side. In 2010 we ran to the right side of the line because it was the only side where we got any push ; this year we are running to both sides, which gives us better balance.

Perhaps Starks didn't have a great game or the line was a little off against the Bears, but I think Lang is a heck of an upgrade over Colledge. I'm happy with his play so far. It will be interesting to see if Lang can gel with Sherrod, should he ever see the light of day before next year.

Lang's obviously more physical than Colledge, but there have been stories and quotes about how Colledge worked so well with Clifton in pass protection. There's a reason Lang could never supplant him and it wasn't because of run blocking where there's less interdependence because the offensive linemen are on the attack instead of reacting.

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Originally posted by JJSD:
Yep. And they were drafted for that dum zone/hybrid/whatever scheme. Since those days, Ted's been drafting bigger, more physical guys, especially on the interior. His hit rate has gone up it seems since they settled on a prototype for that position. Before that it seemed like a whole lot of grab-ass when acquiring players.

They still did maximize Colledge, IMHO. He's a marginal player who they coached up to be adequate at times. I'm liking TJ Lang a lot, though.

Simple fact. Early days of trying to implement ZBS was a joke. Campen's "success" is as equitable as TT drafting 4 year, consistent olinemen like Sitton, Buluga and Lang.

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Originally posted by Henry:

Simple fact. Early days of trying to implement ZBS was a joke.

Remember - they were supposed to have Jagodzinski on board to assist with that implementation. Whether he would have helped is open to debate, but he was allegedly the "expert" they brought in

Glad he didn't stick around....and its nice to see GB drafting a larger body type on the OL

I like Big,Bad,Nasty & quick OLmen !!! ( No,not that much, "Not that there anything wrong with that").

I'm racist. I'd prefer all our OLmen be Samoan.

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The guy was built to play left tackle

Is that why he was constantly yelling "OLE'" when Jared Allen would run right by him in 2009?

He was never going to be a LT. He completely sucked there. He was adequate last year at LG.

Lang reminds me of Marco Rivera. Not the biggest, strongest, or most athletic, but the guy is a heck of a football player and gets the job done.

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Originally posted by Boris:

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The guy was built to play left tackle

Is that why he was constantly yelling "OLE'" when Jared Allen would run right by him in 2009?

He was never going to be a LT. He completely sucked there. He was adequate last year at LG.

Again, he was never properly developed there in a position he was better suited for and Spitz was also shuffled around a whole lot even though he was truly an interior guy. The whole first few years of MM was a clusterf**k on the offensive line with Jagoffzinski, Campen and crew seeming to disagree and shuffle guys regularly. With the scheme du jour it was a mess and they never had the right guys to properly put it in place from both the coaching side and even from the draft side. Colledge was built to play tackle, Spitz was built to smash people, not dance with them, as was Clifton and Tauscher. There was also the Barbe shuffle. There seemed to be numerous disagreements where guys fit (which appears to still happen some, see Lang).

They learned from that utter mess when they went with the 3-4. They brought in a real, experienced, good coordinator in Capers and a good set of coaches for the scheme and used two first round picks to get guys to specifically make the transition. If only they had done that with the offensive line.

I agree that the line shuffling was/is a issue but there is no way in hell Colledge would ever develop or even have the potential to develop into an effective LT on the pro level.

Mike Wahle is a prime example. The difference being Wahle excelled at LG unlike Colledge. That guy is as average as average can be.

Compare Lang's time at LT vs. Colledge's time. No comparison in the level of play and even Lang has questions around him about developing into a pro LT.

Lang is doing decent at LG and I expected he'll improve at all facets as a LG. College never could run block, Lang,at this early stage, can. I was surprised Colledge got $5 million per year with nis new team.

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Originally posted by Mcpacker64:
I was surprised Colledge got $5 million per year with his new team.

more surprising is that Colledge is replacing Alan Faneca for the Turdinals

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I'm racist. I'd prefer all our OLmen be Samoan.

You really think



make good linemen?

Better than Girls Scouts as lineman---they cry too much.