NFC Notes: Lions, Packers, Vikings

Lions

• ESPN’s Eric Woodyard lists Lions QB Tim Boyle as a veteran cut candidate, as he’s in a battle with QB David Blough for the backup job. 

Packers

Packers QB Aaron Rodgers talked about his rookie wide receivers during a recent media appearance. Green Bay used second, fourth and seventh-round picks respectively on Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, and Samori Toure. 

“Physically, they definitely look the part. All three of them,” Rodgers told The Pat McAfee Show. “All of them have physical gifts. It’s going to be great. There’s no better teacher for them than going up against our top three corners. So those guys will get a real quick initiation into the NFL. It’ll help us get better.”

Rookie receivers have a pretty poor history of production in the Rodgers era but the veteran basically said “r-e-l-a-x” to anyone panicking about a Packers receiving corps that will be reliant on them. 

“Let’s, everybody, take a nice, deep, long breath,” Rodgers added. “Trust the training camp time we have. Trust the coaching staff. Trust the relationships. Trust the guys in the room, like Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb and Sammy Watkins to help these guys out.”

Vikings

• The Athletic’s Chad Graff and Arif Hasan note that with largely the same roster coming back, the Vikings are counting on new HC Kevin O’Connell being the real difference-maker in 2022 and hopefully leading the team to a playoff berth. 
• While the Vikings could take a step back on defense, Graff and Hasan expect O’Connell to be really good for the Vikings’ offense coming from the Rams and HC Sean McVay‘s staff. Minnesota also has a lot of talent and a top 10 offense is not out of the question. 
• However, Hasan points out the history of first-time head coaches, even ones taking over teams as solid as the Vikings who finished 8-9, is not great. There’s a real transition period O’Connell will have to overcome. 
• The two also point out that O’Connell might be overall more aggressive and pass more than the offense under former HC Mike Zimmer, but McVay is actually one of the most conservative coaches in the league when it comes to fourth downs, so it remains to be seen what O’Connell’s philosophy is.