Dom Capers for President (and other premature conclusions)

How much can you tell about your team from watching its preseason games? It's so hard to say!

Is the coach trying to win games, or just make roster decisions? Are they practicing everything, or hiding some things? And, likewise, what are the opponents doing and trying to do?

Whatever conclusions we reach from the Packers' preseason performance thus far, they must be lightly held.

A win at home against the lowly and dysfunctional Browns can be the source of only so much excitement. The Bills, likewise, are an uncertain standard against which to measure oneself. On the other hand, the dominating first-half performance against the defending NFC Champs on the road was very encouraging, indeed.

It certainly appears that our first team offensive and defensive units are functioning at a high level. Aaron Rodgers is loose, decisive, and confident. And the defense has been absolutely eye-popping.

I have seldom been inspired by Ted Thompson's offseason moves with players, but you have to like the offseason hiring of Dom Capers as our new defensive coordinator. His enthusiastic unit is flying around the field. They are ball-hawking with ridiculous effectiveness. And the 3-4 scheme is looking very good in its auditions. I haven't been this excited about a Green Bay defense since Fritz Shurmur and the mid-90s.

All that said, the performance of our back-ups has been dismaying -- especially since these are guys presumably fighting for their jobs. The way that we gave up a big lead in that marathons second-half in Arizona was particularly unsettling.

Still, we recognize that, barring a catastrophe, these guys will never be on the field all together. Instead, what playing time they'll see will be spelling the first-teamers, and that is a very different picture, indeed.