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“What happened to him?” Urlacher asked. Given the bad news, Urlacher sounded genuinely bummed. “Aw, that really stinks, man,” he said. “He’s a good player.”
Then, unprompted, Urlacher offered his conjecture on the Packers’ replacement plan for Sunday’s game against the Bears at Lambeau Field. “I’m sure they’ll put (A.J.) Hawk ...” he began, before stopping himself. “I mean, I don’t know what they’ll do.”
Aw, sure you do Brian.
While Packers coach Mike McCarthy wouldn’t say definitively that he’s going in that direction, the Packers are in fact moving Hawk from his will linebacker spot and into the middle to replace Barnett, with No. 4 linebacker Brandon Chillar moving into the starting lineup at Hawk’s spot. Desmond Bishop, who replaced Barnett during the loss to the Vikings, will back up at all three spots.
McCarthy said in his conference call with Chicago-area reporters that he would “rotate those three guys in,” and he said during his news conference that “they’re all going to be ready,” although he acknowledged that by watching practice, it wasn’t too hard to figure out what was going on.
“A.J. is getting a lot of work there,” McCarthy said.
Barnett leads the Packers in tackles (68), while Hawk ranks third (55). Chillar spent several weeks earlier this season spelling Hawk in the nickel defense, while Hawk recovered from a Sept. 28 groin injury.
Hawk never played in the middle in college at Ohio State and all 41 of his career regular-season NFL games have been played at outside linebacker. He has rotated through the position during minicamp and training camp practices, however.
“Playing ‘mike,’ it’s different,” Hawk said after taking most of the practice snaps Wednesday in the middle. “When it comes down to it, it’s all just still football. ... As linebackers, we try to tackle the guy with the ball. So that’s my goal.”
Hawk and Barnett had been the two defensive players with radio headsets in their helmets, so Hawk, who took over the defensive play-calling duties from Barnett after the injury, expects to do so again against the Bears.
“I called the defense in college; it’s not too hard. I don’t mind doing that,” Hawk said. “I like being in there, in control of the huddle, and calling the defense, it keeps you in the game. It’s not too big an adjustment for me.”
But when asked how losing their middle linebacker will affect them, Urlacher cited that change as the most significant for the other 10 players on defense.
“That’s a tough thing because you’ve got to have a guy calling the defenses, and he’s been that for six years now and they’ve probably grown accustomed to him calling the huddle,” Urlacher said. “So it’ll be a little different getting a new guy in there making the calls. But the next man up has to go; that’s just the way it works. But it’s a tough position to kind of just throw somebody in there.”
Bishop, meanwhile, might have gotten the nod against the Bears if not for the two colossal mistakes he made against the Vikings after Barnett went down.
On his first play from scrimmage, Bishop overran running back Chester Taylor on a short checkdown pass to the left, allowing Taylor to sprint 47 yards for a touchdown. Then, on Adrian Peterson’s go-ahead 29-yard touchdown run with 2:22 left in the game, Bishop evacuated his gap and went to where he thought Peterson would cut back, leaving Peterson an open lane toward the end zone.
“You can’t think like that, but then again, it’s in the back of my mind: Maybe if those two plays would’ve went the way I wanted to, then maybe they might’ve had a little more confidence in me,” said Bishop, who also stripped Peterson on a crucial fourth-down play. “But you can’t go back. I can only look forward.”
Alamon wrote on Nov 13, 2008 5:27 PM: