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[Green Bay Packers]

Packers All-Quarter Century Team: Left Tackle voting

Which blind side protector will earn your top spot?

Now that we are about wrapped up with the ball-handling positions on offense, our quest to name the Green Bay Packers’ All-2000s (so far) team moves on to the offensive line. We will start with the premier pass-protecting position, the left tackle spot, where the Packers have had two players locking down the blind side for the majority of the last 25 years.

Another pair of players have multiple seasons as starters around those two longtime stars, giving us just four nominees for consideration. Take a look below and give us your vote for who is the Packers’ best left tackle of the last 25 seasons.

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Left Tackle Nominees​

Chad Clifton (2000-2011)​

2x Pro Bowl

The Packers started this century off with a bang, finding a decade-long rock at left tackle in the second round of the 2000 NFL Draft. In fact, they found bookend tackles that year, first drafting Clifton 44th overall out of Tennessee before landing Wisconsin’s own Mark Tauscher in the 7th round.

Clifton was as steady as they come on the right side for most of 12 seasons with the Packers, taking over as a starter a few weeks into his rookie season and never looking back. After he missed the last six games of the 2002 season following a brutal blind-side block from Warren Sapp on an interception return, Clifton returned to become a set-him-and-forget-him tackle. In fact, he was so reliable that over the 8-year span from 2003 to 2010, Clifton missed a grand total of six games while making his two Pro Bowls (2007 and 2010).

After protecting Aaron Rodgers’ blind side en route to a win in Super Bowl XLV, Clifton returned at age 35 for one more season in 2011 but missed 10 games with back and hamstring injuries. He was able to suit up in week 17 and in the Packers’ playoff game that year, but the team released him with a failed physical the following spring and retired shortly thereafter.

In all, Clifton played in 165 games with 160 starts, protecting both Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers throughout his career as one of the longest-tenured full-time starting offensive linemen in team history.

Marshall Newhouse (2010-2013)​

When Clifton missed those ten games during the 2011 season, it was Newhouse who took over for him. The 5th-round draft pick in 2010 did not play as a rookie but Clifton’s injuries thrust him into the starting lineup, where he would remain through the end of the season. Clifton’s return late in the season then shifted Newhouse over to right tackle for week 17, filling in for an injured Bryan Bulaga.

With Clifton retiring and Bulaga solidly entrenched on the right side for the 2012 season, Newhouse was the team’s every-week starter at left tackle that year. His first and only season as a full-time starter for the Packers was a bit of a roller-coaster, which did help lead the Packers to flip their offensive line around during spring practices in 2013. The plan was for Bryan Bulaga to move from right to left tackle, while Newhouse would battle for a job on the right side.

Ultimately, Newhouse did not win a position battle, even with Bulaga suffering a torn ACL on Family Night and both tackle jobs being up for grabs. After starting 31 games in Green Bay, Newhouse went on to play until the 2020 season, starting 50 more games (mostly at right tackle) for seven different teams. However, his job as a full-time starter for two seasons helped the Packers bridge the gap between a pair of ten-year starters.

David Bakhtiari (2013-2023)​

2x first-team All-Pro, 3x second-team All-Pro, 3x Pro Bowl

As mentioned above, Newhouse’s short tenure as the Packers’ left tackle came after Clifton and led into the Bakhtiari era. A 4th-round pick out of the University of Colorado in 2013, Bakhtiari was a player whose size and length screamed guard. However, with Bulaga going down, he got a chance to fight for the left tackle job and he took it immediately, impressing the Packers’ coaches with his lateral mobility and pass-blocking chops.

Getting a day-one starter on the offensive line in the 4th round is unlikely. Getting one of the NFL’s elite pass-blocking tackles is unheard of. But Bakhtiari earned either first- or second-team All-Pro honors in five straight seasons from 2016 to 2020. During that time, he and Trent Williams were uniformly discussed as the top two pass-blockers in the NFL, and he played in at least 12 games in every one of his first 8 seasons.

Unfortunately, that 8th year, 2020, was cut short with an injury that would define the remainder of his NFL career. Bakhtiari had missed three games in the first half of the season with other injuries, but after signing a massive new contract extension midway through the season, he blew out his knee in practice on New Year’s Eve. He tore his ACL and had other structural damage, and he missed all but one game in 2021 before trying to come back in 2022. He suited up in 11 games that season, missing games here and there with issues related to fluid buildup in the repaired knee.

Bakhtiari would play just one game in 2023, the season opener, before being shut down again for a season-ending knee surgery. He played just 20 games after signing his contract in 2020, an unfortunate end for both player and team. However, Bakhtiari’s exceptional 8-year run — and incredible 5-year peak — make him one of the best offensive linemen to suit up in Green and Gold.

Rasheed Walker (2022-2024)​

A 7th-round pick in 2022, Walker fell in the draft amid injury concerns during his final year at Penn State. However, after a de facto redshirt season, Walker was ready to step in when Bakthiari was unable to continue after week 1 of the 2023 season. Although he and Yosh Nijman rotated a bit that season, Walker took control of the job late in the year and finished the season by playing over 75% of the team’s total offensive snaps.

In 2024, he continued where he left off, starting every game at left tackle after fending off a challenge from first-round rookie Jordan Morgan in training camp. Walker’s only missed snaps last season came when the starters were pulled late in a 34-0 blowout of the New Orleans Saints.

Like Bakhtiari, Walker is a plus pass blocker. However, while Bakhtiari eventually developed into an above-average run blocker, Walker has yet to reach that level despite his 6-foot-6, 320-plus frame. Still, he heads into 2025 as the likely starter on the blind side once again, though he heads into a contract year in 2026, when the Packers have a lot of mouths to feed with extensions.

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Source: https://www.acmepackingcompany.com/...s-all-quarter-century-team-left-tackle-voting

 

[Green Bay Packers]

Packers Top Plays of 2024, #7: Jaire Alexander pick-sixes Will Levis

Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

Jaire Alexander collects his first career pick-six courtesy of Will Levis.

Our campaign through the Packers’ top plays of 2024 as voted on by the staff of APC continues today with our #7 play. This time, we’re heading to the Malik Willis era of Green Bay football, specifically his would-be vengeance against the team that drafted him.

The Game​

The Packers were not expected to beat the Tennessee Titans.

That would have been a strange thing to hear at any point prior to the days immediately before the Packers’ Week 3 matchup with Tennessee. But with Jordan Love still fighting the effects of a knee injury sustained in the season opener, oddsmakers installed the Titans as three-point favorites over the Packers, clearly not believing in the possibility of a Malik Willis revenge game.

And to their point, there was some reason to be skeptical. The Packers had pulled out a bizarre game plan the week prior, calling an absurd 53 runs (32 alone for Josh Jacobs) to try to help Willis along, new to Green Bay as he was.

The Packers themselves clearly seemed to believe that Willis was going to need some serious help to beat the Titans, and betting markets didn’t think they’d get it. Fortunately, thanks in large part to one man, they were wrong.

The Situation​

Late in the first quarter, the Packers already held a 10-7 lead over the Titans. Willis had come out throwing, completing a pair of 30-yard passes on the Packers’ first drive en route to a game-opening touchdown. After the Titans tied the game with a touchdown of their own, Willis again maneuvered the Packers down the field, generating 49 yards on two scrambles to set the Packers up for a field goal to take a 10-7 lead and sparking what looked like a quarterback duel between himself and Tennessee’s Will Levis.

Levis, not short on physical gifts, had already developed something of a reputation as a gunslinger early in his second season, albeit one with a tendency to misfire in hilarious ways. With the ball on the Titans’ 31-yard line, Levis came to the line ready to lead another scoring drive.

The Play​

In an empty set, Levis and the Titans were clearly thinking pass to open their drive. And lined up across from DeAndre Hopkins on the right side of the Titans’ formation, Jaire Alexander was clearly keyed in on what Levis was thinking.

Over his six seasons with the Packers, Alexander was never much of an interception-generator. His career high of five picks in 2022 was an outlier; he’d logged five total across his previous four seasons and didn’t make a single interception in the seven games he played in 2023. Health, as with all things related to Alexander, may have played a factor, but even when healthy, he wasn’t coming down with the ball a lot. He missed just four games his first three seasons in the NFL, but managed only four picks in that span. It just wasn’t a significant part of his game.

But he’d already recorded one pick in the 2024 season, taking one off Jalen Hurts in the season opener, and facing the trigger-happy and scattershot Levis, he had eyes on another.

As Levis dropped back to throw, Alexander never took his eyes off the Titans’ quarterback, even as Hopkins bore down on him. For that matter, Alexander hardly took a step as Hopkins ran his route, lurking about eight yards off the line of scrimmage, watching Levis all the while. And the moment Hopkins began to break on his route and Levis cocked his arm to throw, Alexander sprung his trap.

He deftly stepped in front of Hopkins, collected Levis’ ill-advised pass, and cruised 35 yards for a touchdown. Hopkins, never a speedster, gave up on his pursuit of Alexander before the Packers’ defensive back had even reached the Titans’ 15-yard line.

The Impact​

Alexander’s only career pick-six with the Packers gave Green Bay a 17-7 lead, effectively an insurmountable figure for the Will Levis-era Titans. In 21 games with Levis as their starter, the Titans scored more than 17 points just six times. And now trailing by 10 points, the Titans had no choice but to pass, opening Levis up to intense pressure as the Packers pinned their ears back and set to work on Tennessee’s patchwork offensive line.

The Packers hadn’t sacked Levis once prior to the pass, but bolstered by their lead, they teed off, taking him down eight times over the game’s final three quarters. Willis and the Packers offense produced 13 more points, and Green Bay earned another hard-fought victory without their starting quarterback, taking down Tennessee 30-14.

Source: https://www.acmepackingcompany.com/...-2024-7-jaire-alexander-pick-sixes-will-levis