Read the following from ESPN. DeShawn Wynn cut along with others. Also, Harrell placed on PUP list. Perhaps Harrell should have been placed on the NHBAPDBIPBD (Never Has Been Able to Perform Due to Being Injured Prior to Being Drafted) list.
RUNNING BACK CAN’T CUT IT IN GREEN BAY (1:28 p.m. ET)
Despite cracking the starting lineup for four games as a rookie last season, running back DeShawn Wynn was among four players who were cut by the Packers on Monday.
The moves allowed Green Bay to reach the 75-player limit a day before the deadline. The cut to 53 players has to be made by Saturday.
Defensive tackle Justin Harrell, the Packers’ first-round pick in 2007, was placed on the physically unable to perform list. Also, fullback Ryan Powdrell, wide receiver Chris Francies and offensive lineman Ryan Considine were cut by the team.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wynn missed a total of nine practices and two preseason games because of a concussion and ankle injuries. In his four starts last season, he led Green Bay with 50 carries for 203 yards and four touchdowns. He later was put on IR because of a shoulder injury.
packergeeks 
August 25, 2008 at 3:11 pm |
Harrell should be cut. He comes into training camp out of shape. He didn’t play much at the beginning of last year. Now he won’t play at all at the beginning of this year. Teddy made a big mistake drafting this kid at number 1. Get rid of him. I was surprised to see Wynn and Francies cut. But with Wynn goen, that means Lumpkin is still in and I liked what I saw of him so far this pre-season.
August 25, 2008 at 3:11 pm |
Is it time to write off Justin Harrell into the Tony Mandrich category?
August 25, 2008 at 3:54 pm |
Interesting series of Q & A with Thompson about Harrel and the D-Line. I think my head is going to explode. Hasn’t he been watching any of the pre-season games? Another back surgery will speed up recovery? Is there anything we can believe from this man?
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(What are you finding out about Justin Harrell from the specialist?)
We had him see another guy, and after consultation with Pat, we felt like another procedure would kind of hurry things along. He’s gotten himself in remarkable shape. I think our guys have done a great job in the rehab, but we’ve reached a point where we sort of plateaued, and looking out over the timeline, we felt like it was going to take a few weeks without doing anything, but maybe doing a little extra procedure might hurry things along, and we felt like reserve/PUP was an appropriate spot for him.
(When is he going to have that surgery?)
Fairly soon. Maybe today. The quicker the better, obviously, because then you can start back on the whole recovery thing. It’s too bad. He’s worked very hard, and I know being a high-profile pick, a No. 1 pick, there’s a lot of pressure put on that and expectations of fans. It’s not his fault, and he’s trying his best to get back, and we’re still counting on him to help us this year.
(Same procedure he had last time or different?)
A little bit different, and I’m not going to go too far into it, because it’s really not appropriate for me, but it’s a little bit different. A little different take.
(How good is this kid, because none of us have seen a whole lot out of him? What do you think Packer fans are going to see from him eventually?)
I don’t know. Eventually we hope that he’s the good player we think he is. He was a good player in college, he had some injuries in college, and we need to get past that. We don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with him. We don’t think it’s a lack of toughness. We just think he’s just had some bad luck. We think he’s going to be a good part of a good group.
(Do you need to find some defensive tackle help here?)
We feel pretty good about our defensive tackles, and we’ve always felt like the group was good. Amongst our defensive line, we think we have a fair number that are going to make this team and be a pretty solid group.
August 25, 2008 at 4:14 pm |
Calm down people. Harrell’s injuries are frusterating, but he is a second year player. It’s a little early to give up on the guy.
Before he was drafted he had a *biceps* injury. Now, according to all the medical experts on the intertubes, it was totally obvious that Harrell would suffer ankle and back injuries. Totally.
Maybe Harrell will never play. That is certainly a possibility. It’s way too early to come to that conclusion. People are overreacting just a little bit.
August 25, 2008 at 4:24 pm |
Though I sometimes wonder if you should go by “Ted’s Designated Defender”, I agree with you on this one. I think we ought to give him a little more time (middle of this year) before determining that this guy doesn’t have it. He may be in the midst of a stretch of really bad luck and he might emerge a quality player once healthy. That said, anything involving the back and surgery causes me to have serious doubt.
If it doesn’t work out though, I’ll have no problem saying TT blew it and his gamble on an injury-prone player was not a good one.
August 25, 2008 at 4:41 pm |
Putting Harrell on the PUPT list. Shocker. I wouldn’t put him in the same catagory as Mandrich. At least Mandrich made the cover of SI!
August 25, 2008 at 4:45 pm |
I think Triple D offers the best analysis on this site. If part of that is defending Thompson, so be it; TT’s done a pretty good job restocking the talent level on this team in a pretty short period of time. He’s certainly had his stumbles, and Harrell may turn out to be one of those, but he’s a damn sight better than the joker who had the job before him.
And no, even if Harrell never plays another down, he won’t go down as a Tony Mandarich. Tony was the number 2 guy in the draft; Harrell was the middle of the first round. He’d be closer to a Jamal Reynolds sort of pick, in my book. Admittedly, that’s bad enough.
August 25, 2008 at 4:56 pm |
Let’s see, he had bacck surgery after the season. He has still not recovered. But this surgery, which is kind like the first one but not quite is going to speed up recovery.
I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I think that’s a bunch of crap.
Good group of Defensive Tackles? 6+ yards per carry for Denver is good? Please! I’m beginning to get a clearer picture of his communications with Favre.
August 25, 2008 at 5:21 pm |
Ted’s Designated Defender. Has a nice ring. Mainly, I guess I know that there is a boatload of stuff that I don’t know. I strongly suspect that everyone else knows about as little as I do.
Thompson has a fulltime job managing a profootball team. That may be sound obvious, but really think about it. He probably spends 50-60 hours a week performing his job. We spend 15 minutes a day ripping him apart based upon our gut feelings.
I have a real job. It’s not managing an NFL team. I don’t have nearly enough information to judge what Thompson does. Moreover, even if I had a special access to information I wouldn’t have nearly enough time to review and analyze that information. The only thing we really have to go on is his record, and for the time being his record speaks for itself.
August 25, 2008 at 7:16 pm |
DDD rules! Woo hoo! I really hope Harrell gets healthy and turns into John Henderson. However, the longer he stays out of the weight room and off the playing field the more and more unlikely it seems. But goodness, I hope he does. Pickett’s pretty darn good at run defense, but I can’t remember the last time the Packers had a dominant DT.
What about the Wynn cut? Does no one remember him looking good in his limited time last season? Does Noah Herron really look that much better? I would have liked to see him play a little bit more.
After C. Francies caused that A-Rodg interception against the Bengals, I was done with him. They should have cut him last year.
August 25, 2008 at 7:22 pm |
Agreed that TT has been good on balance during his time here and that his record does speak for itself. At present, I think it’s accurate to say that he’s made more really good decisions than bad ones. I find it difficult to follow TT-personnel-bashing arguments. That said, he’s not above criticism just because his overall record so far has been pretty solid. He has screwed up here and there and when he does he should be called out for it – just like he ought to be lauded when he makes great decisions (like picking up Grant or Pickett or Woodson or drafting Jennings).
But don’t sell yourself short Triple D – you and many other Packer fans are tremendously thoughtful observers of the game. Not all good decisions require massive info and analysis (Sherman didn’t seem to do well with all of this data) and sometimes the best decisions are just obvious ones based simply on game performance.
August 25, 2008 at 9:23 pm |
It’s not that I think Thompson is beyond reproach, I just dislike instant punditry. These thing play out over the course of seasons. Quick example: I don’t know how many Packer fans were up in arms last year at this time about . . . Ahman Green. In hindsight, it looks insanely silly.
After the first couple weeks when Ahman Green played solid and the Packers were still sorting out the RB position there were some pretty livid fans. But what Thompson knew was that Ahman Green could no longer hold up throughout the course of a 16 week season. So he made the tough, and somewhat unpopular decision to move on without an obvious replacement in the wings. If everyone would have just taken a deep breath, they would have realized by the end of the season that Thompson actually did know what he was doing.
I can’t imagine the level of ridicule that Ron Wolf would have taken from some of these people. In his first few seasons he traded away a first round pick for a drunken hillbilly QB, let Bryce Paup leave town the season before Paup was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year, and drafted a cocky midget CB over the in-state hero Troy Vincent.
In the long run it all worked out just fine, but can you *imagine* what the bloggers would have said about that idiot?!
August 25, 2008 at 9:24 pm |
What a difference a year makes. I was all concerned last summer about the stable of RB’s not being up to par. Thompson cut loose Green at the right time and picked up Grant for a steal. The DT position goes from extremely deep and a strength to what appears to be a weakness.
August 25, 2008 at 9:57 pm |
[…] will be undergoing yet another surgical proceedure to try and correct his back injury. Packergeeks chimes in, “Harrell should have been placed on the NHBAPDBIPBD (Never Has Been Able to Perform Due to […]
August 26, 2008 at 12:38 am |
I still think that Harrell will be a bust unless he grows up and matures a bit. He should have done a better job of keeping himself in shape during the off season. I think that may be a reason Wynn was passed over in favor of Herron. Herron committed to the Packers by living in the city and going to work everyday to get back into shape after an injury. It’s a mindset to play as a professional. You come to work everyday and do your thing. For Harrell it seems that after the season was over he went back to mama’s house and pigged out on some good home cooking. Then he shows up for training camp out of shape and gets injured again.