In Brett Hundley the Packers Must Trust

Writer: Anthony Aleman

Sports Illustrated

The Green Bay Packers looked to be the NFC Super bowl favorite this season; with Aaron Rodgers playing the best football of his career while leading an injury riddled team to a 4-1 start, losing only one game to a very good falcons team. However, Mike McCarthy and his team got thrown a huge curveball on Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings when Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr delivered a blow to Aaron Rodgers that broke his collarbone, more than likely ending Aarons season. In came Brett Hundley, fifth round pick and former UCLA star QB who had only thrown ten passes in the NFL in three seasons in his young career. Hundley looked like a deer caught in the headlights, he looked like the guy who had never taken first team repetitions since he entered the NFL. Every Packers fan seemed ready to call Matt Flynn and try and get a 2013 season out of him again; but let’s be real for a minute, Flynn is not coming back, Brett Favre is not coming back, Tony Romo isn’t leaving the booth, so this year is now the year of Hundley. Brett Hundley will get his first opportunity to practice with the first team this week, then he will go head to head with the Drew Brees led New Orleans Saints team that is firing on all cylinders at the moment. What is the ideal scenario for the Packers now that Rodgers is out?

Well it depends on who you ask; some will be telling you the Packers need to lose almost all if not the rest of their games in order to gain a high draft pick, while others will say they (Green Bay) needs to win as many games as possible so in the case Aaron can return this year they are still in the playoff hunt. The Packers need to try and win with Hundley. While yes drafting high looks on paper to be very nice; the Packers have not had much success scouting in the last few years, as only one of the previous seven first round picks has become a pro bowler. Drafting high could come with a greater risk of drafting a bust for this organization who has not picked the best players in the past few years. Next the Packers need Hundley to succeed, because if he does not then the team will have to begin looking for another backup to groom for the future. The Packers thought they had received a steal in Hundley after he dropped all the way to the fifth round of the draft, however if he turns out to be a bust then it is back to the drawing board. Sure the team has Joe Callahan and Jerod Evans (newly signed to practice squad) but neither of those two looks to be the quarterback of the future, although the development of Evans could be something to watch this season. Hundley would also lose all the trade value the packers had in him at the beginning of the year, which included rumors getting a second or third round pick out of him. However with a bad year in his books, that trade value would be wiped right off the board and his values drops to nearly nothing.

So in the end, the Packers and their fans must hope Hundley can weather the storm and create a season that could still end in the playoff hunt. Remember this division is not concrete lead by any one team now that Aaron is out, as the Vikings are still without Teddy Bridgewater for at least three weeks, Mitch Trubisky is a rookie who will go through growing pains with a bears team who is not top tier, and finally the lions, who have looked like contenders and are more than likely the new division title favorites for this year. In the end this is a huge year for Brett Hundley, and packers man must hope he show a glimmer of a Matt Flynn type season in order to lead the team to the playoffs.

Five NFL MVP Candidates

Writer: Caleb Akpan

NFL football will be back on our TV screens very soon. Come Thursday, the best of best will take the field to try and eventually play on the biggest Sunday of the year. The night prior to Super Bowl 52, the 2018 NFL Honors will take place, recognizing the greatest performers of the season, including the Rookie of The Year, Defensive Player Of The Year, and of course, the MVP. Today we’ll look at five candidates for the most coveted award of the season, five players who have a chance to lead their teams to Super Bowl victory:

Sports Illustrated

. Le’Veon Bell, Running Back, Pittsburgh Steelers

If Bell didn’t sit out of training camp, he’d probably be higher on this list, but even though the star back just signed his franchise tender to officially join the team for 2017, he still has an opportunity to do great things. There’s almost no chance coach Mike Tomlin doesn’t immediately plug Bell back into the gameplan, seeing that he can do so much on the field. The Steelers will need Bell to once again contend for a championship, and with the perfect pieces around him, all Bell really has to do is keep on pace with his 2016 season (1884 yards from scrimmage, 9 touchdowns) and play a few more games (he only played 12 in 2016) to deserve MVP consideration.

4. Matt Ryan, Quarterback, Atlanta Falcons

Back-to-back MVPs aren’t completely out of the ordinary. Legend Joe Montana won back-to-back in the 80s. Peyton Manning did it twice for four of his five. Brett Favre three-peated from 1995 to 1997. Matt Ryan isn’t on the same level as those three Hall Of Famers, but he probably has more to prove than any of them did in their MVP winning seasons. The sting of Super Bowl 51 will probably never go away, but 2017 offers a chance for redemption and Ryan seems unlikely to regress with a great team still around him, even with offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan, gone to the 49ers. If Ryan decides to take his frustration for the historic loss out on the league, watch out for a quarterback who can do major damage.

3. Dak Prescott, Quarterback, Dallas Cowboys

Dak Prescott has done a lot of good things to start his NFL career. He successfully filled in and then fully replaced a Pro Bowl Quarterback in Tony Romo, essentially sending him into retirement. He brought the Dallas Cowboys back to (actual) relevancy, and relevancy that seems like it will stay for years to come. Prescott has his doubters heading into year number two, but he also has a great opportunity. There’s still a decent chance that his partner-in-crime (no pun intended) Ezekiel Elliott will be suspended to start the year, and that happening could shoulder a large amount of the Cowboys offensive load onto Prescott’s shoulders. If he handles that anything like the pressure he faced in 2016, Prescott will be more than just a great young prospect this year.

2. Aaron Rodgers, Quarterback, Green Bay Packers

After an already insane 2016 campaign, the sky’s the limit for Aaron Rodgers in 2017. Bad taste left in his mouth after the NFC championship game? Check. Coming off a career year in pass completions? Check. A healthier and likely better team around him? Check. Everything looks right on paper for Rodgers, he just has to execute, and if he’s shown the NFL’s viewing audience anything since he took the reigns on Green Bay in 2008, it’s that more often than not, he can get the job done.

1. Tom Brady, Quarterback, New England Patriots

The Patriots are going to run the table, be the greatest team ever, destroy everybody, blah blah blah. That’s an uncertainty at this point, if anybody knows how hard that is, it’s New England, and they already have a major setback with the injury to Julian Edelman. What can almost be called a guarantee is Tom Brady being really good at football. It rarely matters who lines up with Brady, but even with Edelman gone, Brady still has Rob Gronkowski (for now) and Brandin Cooks, whose already drawing comparisons to Randy Moss, who Brady threw 23 touchdowns to in the almost perfect season. If Brady can create a connection like that with Cooks and do what he always does with Gronkowski, few will be able to compete with him for the title of the NFL’s best player.