Abdul Hodge & Jon Ryan Cut

[mnstinks]

Hodge = Slappy Gwynn JR on Wisconsin sports message boards

[TheGhostDog]

Replacing Ryan shocked me as well. We went almost a decade after Craig Hentrich left before we found a punter with a strong leg in Ryan, but the punts inside the 20 versus touchbacks numbers don't lie. I suppose directional kicking and not outkicking your coverage becomes more important when you face Devin Hester twice a year. As long as it's not B.J. Sander.

One thing is clear - special teams coach Mike Stock must have a lot of pull in Green Bay. It sounds like Derrick Frost was his guy, plus special team specialists that don't do much else like Jarrett Bush and Tracy White make the team while Abdul Hodge gets cut. I see Utah punter Louie Sakoda high on our draft board next year.

At least we can relax a bit about our QB depth chart - Matt Flynn was named our number two, so hopefully we won't be seeing or hearing much about Brohm until next year.

[crkone]

Maybe the Pack don't think they will be stuck deep in their own territory or they think Ryan took too long to unleash his punts. It will be nice to see some hangers inside the 20 though, and not line drive punts into the endzone.

[rilamann]

I thought Ryan was solid and this Frost guy better be very solid to justify the move of cutting Ryan.

With that said if you had to critque(sp) Ryan I guess you could say like some have eluded to that Ryan has a powerful leg but not a good ability to angle punts.I cant realy think of too many times last season when we punted and pinned our opponet inside the 10 or even inside the 20.

One other thing as well that maybe scared the Packers about Ryan was looking back at that Bears game in Chicago last december.In a bad weather game Ryan was terrible and one of the main reasons we lost,correct me if im wrong but didnt Ryan have 2 punts blocked in that game? Plus he punted horribly overall in that game,im going off memory agian but didnt Ryan have a punt in that game that went like 10 yards?

A punter plays a huge role in bad weather games since bad weather games are usually field position battles,maybe that scared the Packers about Ryan.

Obviously playing at home in Green Bay and places like Chicago its very important for the Packers to have a good bad weather punter.

With that said though I thought Ryan was pretty solid but I have faith in TT so lets see how good this Frost.

Speaking of bad weather punters ''Frost'' would be a great name for a bad weather punter,so at least hes off to a good start in that regard haha.

We should just kept Craig Hentich back in 96 or 97,I was suprized during the Titans game that hes still playing I didnt even know he was still in the league.

[eagle13]

totally surprsed by Ryan cut. Thot he was OK but in article it stated Ryans hang time was inconsistent.
Long kicks don't matter if you can't keep ball in air long enough for coverage to arrive.

As for Hodge - I'm not surprised at all. When you have two good position reserves you need to consider ST. I applaud TT for keeping White. Sends the right signal to other players that busting tail on ST counts and is rewarded. ST quality is not an accident! Hey it kept Bush on the team.

Gazette reported Pack tried trading Hodge, as I hoped, over weekend but no one bit.

[Neusch23]

in the Press Gazette today they had a good article where Crosby said he was shocked, and the Ryan was his best friend on the team.

[El Duderino]

in the Press Gazette today they had a good article where Crosby said he was shocked, and the Ryan was his best friend on the team.

Worrying about friendships of the kicker shouldn't be the concern at all of the GM

Cutting Ryan is a curious choice to me, but pretty damn unimportant unless Frost is a disaster at punting and/or holding for kicks. Punters just really don't matter much unless they are terrible.

Without looking online, anyone worried about the punter should try to name the punter of any of say the last 10 Super Bowl winners or runner ups?

[bucks59]

Part of the problem this year was the shortend roster sizes otherwise I bet TT would have had another punter on the team during the preseason and training camp and that punter could have recieved reps holding on kicks.

[eagle13]

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/app ... 1058/PKR01

Turns out, the genesis for the move goes back to January, when Ryan couldn't swing the field-position battle toward the Packers in the fourth quarter of the NFC championship game against the New York Giants. Though it didn't cost the Packers points, Ryan's last two punts — a 29-yarder from his 40-yard line that was returned 6 yards and a 31-yarder from his 17 that was returned 10 yards — stuck in their minds all offseason. Weather conditions that day were brutal, but the Packers expected more.

That's why they made the change to veteran Derrick Frost last week. If Frost's first game was any indication, it may have been the right move. Though Frost doesn't have the leg strength Ryan does, his consistency and his ability to place the ball in the ideal spot make him an upgrade.

Frost's first punt as a member of the Packers could serve as the model kick for all punters to follow. From his 31-yard line, Frost angled the ball toward the sideline, carried it 49 yards and hung it in the air for 4.22 seconds. It bounced once, then caromed out of bounds, allowing no chance for a return. That's exactly the kind of kick that gave Ryan problems.

[notoriousTJ11]

Hodge was cut simply because he thought he deserved a lot more playing time than the coaches were giving him and he was becoming somewhat of a nuisance about it.