(PackerChatters Newswire – Dan Kowalsky) – *The new Ray Nitschke Field is gorgeous. It has perfect sight lines and is close to the action, not to mention being styled perfectly after Lambeau Field with the red brick and wrought iron gates. The only negative is during position drills where you used to be able to roam up and down Oneida to different parts of the field and watch the different groups. It was packed in so tight yesterday that it was impossible to leave your seat. I would expect that under more regular circumstances, there will be more open space to roam during a practice.

The facility holds 1500. There were 2100 there yesterday. Pelissero’s twitter said about 1000 this morning, so if the bleachers were only 2/3 full, I don’t see moving around being as much of a problem.

They held a very nice little ceremony an hour before practice started, emceed by Wayne Larrivee and with speeches from the mayor of Green Bay, the mayor (?) of Ashwaubenon, and Mark Murphy, followed by a presentation of a gift to Ray Nitschke’s daughter and grand kids.

One interesting thing to note is that Russ Ball was part of the party during the ceremony. One would think that unless negotiations with Raji were at a COMPLETE stand still, he would be inside Lambeau Field trying to get a deal done. I didn’t perceive that as a good sign.

Murphy hung around to sign autographs and talk with fans for as long as it took. I had a two minute conversation with him and he seems like a genuine guy who really enjoys the job he has.

On to practice…

*Al Harris was the first one out by at least 15 minutes. Must just like to familiarize himself with his surroundings.

*As you’ve all read in the blogs around the web, the only person not present was Raji. Both Barnett and Jones seemed to hang tight with the defensive coaches throughout the practice and seemed keen to not miss anything important even though they weren’t in pads.

*Jeremy Thompson is absolutely massive, and looks fluid in everything he does. He wasn’t taken off the first team D for Matthews or Poppinga even once, as far as I saw. I think that’s his spot to take and run with.

*Kampman didn’t look nearly as stiff in coverage as I thought he might. Seemed just fine to me, but we’ll see how it looks in live action.

*Right in front of us were the safety drills. Darren Perry is incredibly active with those guys and is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to making sure they understand their responsibilities in the scheme.

*It didn’t seem like there was anything TOO exotic going on out there, in terms of the defense. Mainly three (and occasionally two) down linemen with four (or five) linebackers, and pressure coming from different directions, but I know Capers has more up his sleeve than what we saw yesterday. TONS of communication on the defense. Every player in the line backing corps and secondary seems to be talking on every play, and there’s a lot of shifting with motion. To me it looked like the direction that the pressure is coming from (and the responsibilities in coverage) can change when people are sent in motion on offense.

*Boy, is Kevin Greene fiery. If he wants to be heard, he will. If he wants to get in your grill, he’ll do that too. His voice could be heard clearly from either end of the practice facility.

*All three QB’s looked a bit out of sorts. I don’t think the timing was quite there on day one, and the cross winds didn’t do them any favors. As is expected, Rodgers generally shows a lot more zip than either of the other two. Both Flynn and Brohm threw some ducks. Even so, Rodgers wasn’t sharp in his own right, missing a few open receivers and having a miscommunication with someone (Swain?) that led to him throwing the ball directly to Joe Porter. Looked just like the Favre toss to Aneas Williams where Bill Schroeder continued to run straight up the field in the 2001 divisional playoff game, if that gives you any illustration.

*Ryan Grant looks great. Obviously there’s not much real hitting at this point, but when the RB’s finish each play by sprinting 25 or 30 yards upfield, he looked to be going full speed without any hindrance from the hamstring. That’s encouraging.

*Tough day for Duke Preston. I heard from other fans of some other failures, but the one I saw was him getting absolutely destroyed (as in, picked up and thrown on his backside) by Anthony Toribio in a one-on-one pass blocking drill.

*Durant Brooks out-punted Jeremy Kapinos by a fair margin, but neither was a world beater.

*Crosby was bombing 45 yarder’s through the uprights, over the fence and onto Armed Forces Dr. Quite a leg on that guy.

*Play of the day: Rodgers deep down the right sidelines to James Jones after a nifty double move. About a 40 yard gain.

*Harrell looks to have slimmed down. He played strong early on in the practice, but seemed to get fatigued in the end. He was down on one knee trying to get his breath for about the last 20 minutes of practice. If he can be a force, it will calm a lot of nerves about the defensive line.

*Two first team offensive lines: [Clifton, Colledge, Spitz, Sitton, Barbre] and [Clifton, Colledge, Wells, Spitz, Barbre]. I would assume McCarthy is trying the two out, will settle on whichever yields the best results, and move forward with it. There was too much subbing for me to figure out which looked better yesterday.

*Colledge went down with what looked like some sort of calf injury in the last two plays of practice, and needed to be stretched out while the rest of the team huddled up. Apparently it was nothing big, because he was back on the field this morning.

*Despite lots of people being critical of him, I think Jermichael Finley has the right idea. He’s still overly competitive to the point that trash talking gets the best of him, but he’s far and away our most talented tight end, and seems to finally understand what it takes to improve and get better. He was clearly a fan favorite yesterday. He was the last person to leave the practice field, and walked back to the stadium surrounded by fans that he seemed genuinely interested in conversing with. If he gets his head on straight, he’ll be a force.

I think that’s about all I have. My analysis isn’t nearly as good as the newspaper guys, but I hope it shed a little insight on what it looked like from the stands.

Click here for pictures of the Nitschke Field, the practice, and a few shots from the Lambeau Tour after the practice.

Enjoy.

Dan Kowalsky – PC Staff

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