My first training camp stop for the 2016 season is the Green Bay Packers.
They started it all off back in the 1960s by winning Super Bowl I and II; their head coach back then was the legendary Vince Lombardi and the trophy everyone desires each year has his name on it.
I am not a Packers fan, but one has to really appreciate the organization. It is the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States, and it’s the third-oldest franchise in the National Football League.
Season tickets for the club have been sold out since 1960, which is astonishing for a city with a metropolitan area of approximately 306,000 people.
Lambeau Field, which holds 80,735, is always sold out. It doesn’t matter if it’s cold, raining, windy, or sunny. People come to the games. It’s incredible!
I remember when I was younger I had Bombers season tickets at the old Winnipeg Stadium: Section G, Row 43, Seat 1. My mom got them for me for my birthday. Even when the Blue weren’t winning cups, I still loved going to the games. Why? They were the Bombers, and that was my team. Of course, that changed in 1984 in Edmonton, when the Bombers knocked off the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to win the Grey Cup and end a 22-year championship drought, and my wife and I were in the stands on that -11 C day.
A question I get asked a lot is what we are looking for when we are on a scouting assignment.
Most importantly, we are looking for players that will fit into the Canadian game. The fundamentals that every player learns from a young age are the same, but in our league, an athlete that may not necessarily fit the typical NFL mold can still have success.
As an example; the men in the trenches do not have to be as gargantuan as they are in the NFL. We can recruit undersized running backs, and linebackers in the CFL can also be considered undersized for the NFL. CFL quarterbacks can be six-feet tall or shorter – and you’d like to have a guy that has mobility – but in any league accuracy is critical.
These are obviously generalizations and there’s always the exception to the rule. Bottom line; just get football players who can play the game of football.
I have included a Scouting Checklist that we refer to when scouting the offensive and defensive Lines. It is essentially a position-specific list regarding the guys in the trenches.
While scouting practice, I watch the third and fourth-team players, and the odd second-stringer. But the cool thing about scouting the NFL camps is when the first offence goes against the first defence, I get to witness some of the top players in the game. It can be fascinating to watch the best and the techniques they display. It is great to see the pass rush skills of a Julius Peppers or watch Clay Matthews read, react and fly to the football.
Several years back, I was scouting the Indianapolis Colts and witnessed one of the best practices I have ever seen by a quarterback. Not a single pass was off. He had one incompletion and it was a drop. The quarterback? Peyton Manning.
One of the interesting things about Packers camp is all the bicycles. Young Packers fans will bring their bikes to practice and wait by the Packers locker room at Lambeau Field. When a player comes out to go to practice, the young fan provide the players with a ride across Lambeau Field’s parking lot, across South Oneida Street, on their bikes!
It’s great to see the faces of the young fans and their parents.
That’s it from Packers camp – I’m now off to Bourbonnais, IL to scout the Chicago Bears!
Go Bombers!!!
Craig Smith, a native Winnipegger and lifelong Bomber fan who has worked in the CFL with the B.C. Lions, Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Saskatchewan Roughriders, is the club’s new National Scout.
He will be filing reports from his visits to NFL camps regularly to bluebombers.com over the next few weeks.
