Debating the Best Green Bay Packers of All-Time

As you may or may not already know, i am a huge football fan. More specifically, I am a huge fan of the Green Bay Packers. The other day, I found an article on Yahoo! Sports on the Top 10 Packers of All Time, and I wanted to give my own input. Since the Packers have such a long history with a lot of great players, figuring out the top ten would be incredibly difficult. I'll show the names the original author, Dave Radcliffe, placed is his article, then I'll show what changes I would make to this list with my reasons behind them. I will not provide my own list at this time, though. Here are the names Radcliffe lists:

• Donald Driver
• Brett Favre
• Paul Hornung
• Don Hutson
• James Lofton
• Ray Nitschke
• Aaron Rodgers
• Sterling Sharpe
• Bart Starr
• Reggie White

He also mentions Willie Davis and Forrest Gregg, two very crucial players in the Lombardi era, but did not place them on his list. I would place those two on, given how dominant they were at their positions at the time. But who to remove? That is the question. Most of the players on this list I would keep. I would probably first remove Rodgers, mainly because he is still playing and is relatively young yet (age 29), even though he currently is the all-time leader in career passer rating (104.9) and touchdown-interception ratio, but those stats can change since he is an active player. If he keeps up his productivity for the rest of his career and maybe win at least one more Super Bowl, then I'd put him on here, no doubt about it; but right now, he is still relatively green.

 I'd also remove Sharpe, while he was a great player, started every game in his career, had several accolades (five Pro-Bowls; three All-Pros), amassed strong stats (led the NFL receptions three times- in '89, '92 and '93; and touchdowns in '92 and '94) and was a key player in the Packers' rise to prominence in the early-mid '90's. There are two problems, though, one is that his career was cut short by injury, so who knows how great a play he could have been otherwise. The other problem is that in the three immediate seasons after his retirement after the '94 season, the Packers were a much better team (going 11-5 in '95 and reaching the NFC Championship Game; 13-3 in 1996 and winning Super Bowl XXXI; and 13-3 in 1997 and losing Super Bowl XXXII). For those reasons, I'm removing Sterling Sharpe.

There are two other players here that are debatable as well, those being James Lofton and Donald Driver. You can make a good case either way for either of them. Lofton was the lone bright spot in the franchise's dark ages of the 1980's; and Driver is the Packers' all-time leader in receiving yards and receptions. What he has done off the field helps his cause as well. If I were to remove one of those two, it would probably be Lofton, mainly because of other, more critical players in another, more successful era. It doesn't help that I was not alive to see him play either.

As for players I would add, I already mentioned Willie Davis and Forrest Gregg. Willie Davis was one of the most dominant defensive linemen the Packers ever had (aside from Reggie White), he was also the face of Lombardi's defensive line, much as Ray Nitschke was the face of the linebacking corps. As for Forrest Gregg, Lombardi said he was the "finest player I ever coached". Gregg was instrumental in the Packers' Sweep in the '60's and also started in 188 consecutive games.

Another name I would add (among others) would be Jimmy Taylor. He was a punishing runner back in his day. He also finished as the team's all-time and single-season yardage leader until they were broken by Ahman Green in 2009 and 2003, respectively.

Yet another possible name I'd have is Jerry Kramer. I know, I have a lot of Lombardi Packers on here, but it makes sense considering how dominant they were, then. As for Kramer, he is a very underrated player. He was a top offensive lineman, also instrumental in the execution of that famous sweep. He also made the most crucial block of the Lombardi era at the end of the Ice Bowl for Bart Starr's quarterback sneak. It could be argued that without that block, and if the Packers lost that game, the Lombardi legacy might not be what it is today.

There are also a lot of other players who could also be on this list, so it all boils down to a matter of opinion. As I said, I'm not going to show my own specific "Top 10" list, again considering the sheer amount of players. I would, however, like to hear what you think about the bast Packer players of all time.