Packer receivers are green and gold

By Darrell Laurant | Wednesday, August 01, 2007 | ( 0 )

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This must be why the Green Bay Packers didn't want Randy Moss ....

Packers General Manager Ted Thompson can do the math -- 11 doesn't divide into four.

That's the situation at wide receiver for Green Bay this preseason. While injuries to RB Vernand Morency and TE Tory Humphrey (probably lost for the season with a broken bone in his leg) and the absence of Brett Favre (back in Mississippi after the sudden death of his wife's stepfather) has left the other skill positions thin, the Pack is virtually swimming in wideouts.

In a way, the personnel at that position fits the team colors. Donald Driver and Greg Jennings are gold. Everyone else, with the exception of Robert Ferguson, is green.

Driver is back on the field after sitting out the first few practice sessions because of lingering soreness from a shoulder separation suffered last season. Even playing hurt down the stretch, however, he caught a career-high 92 passes from Favre for 1,295 yards.

Jennings will be the starter on the opposite side, having emerged from last year's receiver pack right out of camp and finishing with 45 catches for 632 yards and three touchdowns (one a 75-yarder) as a rookie. He has become the primary home-run target for Favre, who still loves to go long.

After that is where it gets sticky.

Anyone who watched last season's finale with the Chicago Bears may have felt they were seeing the wide receivers of the future in Carlyle Holiday and Ruvell Martin. Holiday, who played quarterback most of his career at Notre Dame, caught five passes for 87 yards against Chicago, while Martin went over 100 yards and scored a touchdown.

This time around, though, both will have to struggle to make the team -- especially given the strong performance so far of third-round draft choice James Jones. Like Jennings last year, the San Jose State product has opened eyes by catching almost everything thrown his way. He also showed impressive elevation in leaping for touchdowns on throws from second-string QB Aaron Rodgers and rookie Paul Thompson.

Ferguson is the wild card in the bunch. A better-than-average receiver during his six-year career, the Texas A&M grad missed all but four games last season with a foot injury. According to the Wisconsin Journal, he, Jones and Martin are neck-and-neck for the No. 3 spot among wideouts, with Jones currently holding a slight lead.

The injury to Humphrey could help the wide receiver situation if Thompson and head coach Mike McCarthy decide to go with three tight ends this season instead of the four the team carried in 2006. It will also help veteran TE Bubba Franks, rumored to be on the bubble, breathe easier.

So figure Driver, Jennings and Jones for three of the wideout spots, with Ferguson and Martin options four and five. But this is not a perfect world, but a salary-cap world, and the team might consider Ferguson too expensive to sit on the bench.

"I ain't naive," Ferguson told the Green Bay Press-Gazette. "I understand the position I'm in."

Other contenders, besides Holiday, include Virginia Tech rookie David Clowney (the fastest of the wide receivers with a 4.35 40), Shaun Bodiford (who played with Rodgers in junior college and might make the squad as a return man), Texas-El Paso product Chris Francies (also impressive practice), NFL Europa standout Carlton Brewster and '06 practice squad member Calvin Russell.

Given this crowd, a lot may depend on who puts up the best numbers in the exhibition season. Or, perhaps, on less self-evident qualities like blocking and special teams play.

Or even whom Brett Favre likes the best.

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