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RHODES LEADS HIS FIRST PACKERS TEAM INTO PRESEASON INAUGURAL AGAINST NEW YORK JETS BEFORE SELLOUT CROWD AND ON NATIONAL TV SATURDAY NIGHT
posted 08/13/99
 With a spirited intrasquad scrimmage now behind them, the Green Bay Packers are, in the words of Head Coach Ray Rhodes, "looking forward to a real game."
They will get their wish this weekend when Rhodes leads his first Packers team into a nationally-televised preseason debut against the New York Jets at Lambeau Field Saturday night (August 14).
Under the highly-combative Bill Parcells, the Jets promise to provide "a real game" for the Green and Gold, having captured the AFC Eastern Division championship last season and come within respectable range of qualifying for the Super Bowl.
Kickoff for the contest, the 50th annual Midwest Shrine Game, will be 7 o'clock, CDT. It is a season-ticket sellout (60,890).
THE TV COVERAGE: The game will be televised by CBS, with Greg Gumbel calling the play-by-play, Phil Simms providing the analysis and Armen Keteyian reporting from the field. Mark Wolff produces and Larry Cavolina directs.
THE RADIO COVERAGE: Wayne Larrivee, a 21-year veteran of "calling" NFL games, makes his network bow as the new play-by-play "voice" of the Packers, succeeding Jim Irwin. He will be joined in the booth by Larry McCarren, Packer Hall of Fame member and current sports director of WFRV-TV, who begins his fifth season as a Packer Radio Network analyst.
THE SERIES: The Packers have had good success against the Jets in preseason play, having won four of six non-league meetings with the New Yorkers. The Jets, however, hold the upper hand in regular-season competition, with five victories in seven encounters.
Their most recent meeting occurred in 1994 (November 13), a day on which the Packers posted their second regular-season victory over the Jets (17-10).
THE SHRINE SERIES: One of the nation's oldest charity contests, the Midwest Shrine series was initiated at Milwaukee in 1950 and has raised $2.5 million for the Shrine's burn centers and hospitals for crippled children.
The Packers have won 22, lost 24 and tied 3 in the 49 games played to date.
THE COACHES: Ray Rhodes, beginning his fifth season as an NFL head coach and his first as the Packers' field leader, has compiled a 30-36-1 record to date, including a 20-12 mark during the first two of his four seasons as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles (1995-98).
In the latter role, he led Philadelphia into the playoffs in each of those first two seasons, thus becoming the first head coach in club history to take the Eagles into the postseason in his first two years at the helm.
En route, he was accorded consensus acclaim as the NFL's "Coach of the Year" in 1995 - a rare honor for a first-year NFL head coach.
Earlier, in 12 seasons as an assistant coach with San Francisco, he helped the 49ers capture postseason berths 10 times, reach the NFC Championship Game on seven occasions and win five Super Bowls.
The Jets' Bill Parcells ranks among the NFL's coaching elite, both past and present. The winner of two Super Bowls (while commanding the New York Giants), he will enter the 1999 season with the second-highest total of career victories among the league's active coaches (141), ranking behind only Atlanta's Dan Reeves (172).
Parcells, now in his 15th season as an NFL head coach, is only the third mentor in league annals to guide three different franchises (New England and the Jets, in addition to the Giants) into postseason play.
In addition, the 57-year old Englewood, N.J. , native last season became the first head coach in NFL history to take over a 1-and-15 team (in 1996) and lead it to a division title in two years' time.
As a Packers adversary, he posted a 3-1 regular-season record as a head coach while with the Giants and a 1-0 mark with the Patriots. The Packers, however, prevailed in their most meaningful meeting with a Parcells team, defeating his Pats, 35-21, in Super Bowl XXXI at New Orleans January 26, 1997.
THE VISITORS: The Jets will be escorted into Lambeau Field by Vinny Testaverde, the AFC's leading passer in 1998 with an impressive 101.6 rating, based on 259 completions in 421 attempts for 3,256 yards and 29 touchdowns - with only 7 interceptions.
He will be accompanied by his favorite target, wideout Keyshawn Johnson, the AFC's fourth-ranking receiver last season with 83 catches for 1,131 yards and 10 touchdowns, and talented running back Curtis Martin, who finished fourth in the AFC with 1,287 yards rushing on 369 attempts, a 3.5-yard average, and 8 touchdowns.
The Jets' defense will be headed up by linebacker Mo Lewis, a consensus All-Pro selection in 1998.
-Head Coach Ray Rhodes, provided with his first look at his '99 team under game conditions on a balmy Saturday evening, said he had come away from the intrasquad scrimmage with "mixed emotions."
He conceded he had seen "some good things...and a lot of things you have to work on and improve in" during a 52-play session, staged in Lambeau Field before a highly enthusiastic, pom-pom waving crowd of 46, 420 on "Family Night."
"And, looking at some of the players and hoping some would step up, and not only young players but veteran guys, too, in certain areas, it leaves you with mixed emotions," Rhodes summed up, "about what you saw."
"I know that Brett Favre was sharp - I know the quarterbacks were sharp. I thought the D-line, the first unit D-line, was very strong and stout at the point of attack.
"Our offensive line, I thought, did a pretty decent job...The receivers jumped out. There were several guys that showed up in the scrimmage and made plays.
"On the flip side of that, you know, you'd like to see better tackling. We didn't tackle well in the secondary. We've got one young man who is still playing college rules, and these are things that we go over about touching guys down. He neglected to do that, and that was a big play.
"Some of the things that I'm talking about are the flagrant things that happened on the field. We had a couple guys pushing and shoving, a couple of guys picking people up and body-slamming them. And these are things that we talked about not doing. And we're going to continue to stress that - the importance of not getting a flagrant foul like that. And the parties involved have already been addressed on the field a little bit, and addressed in the locker room. But I'll get that part cleaned up.
"When I look at the tape, I'm sure that I'm going to see a lot of things that I can discuss...But, right now, my head's spinning a little bit with some of the things I've already seen.
"Next week, we have to get ready for a real preseason game...a real game. The scrimmage part is over with now for our football team and our veteran players are looking forward to a real game.
"Our young corners, I want to say that one play was made by (Antuan) Edwards. As far as (Mike) McKenzie is concerned, I have to look at his play. I saw Edwards make a play. Some of the other young corners that go in the game - a couple guys made plays, a couple guys also made mistakes. We've got some things that we definitely have to clean up from our secondary standpoint, and we'll get those cleaned up.
"I would have liked to have seen some more plays made downfield defensively - like a turnover, for instance. I mean, we didn't turn the ball over after a lot of plays, and you'd like to see some turnovers...interceptions, things of that nature.
"The defensive line and linebackers...I think the first unit ran around pretty good as far as movement and getting into position to make tackles. Our linebackers...Jude Waddy had an exceptional night tackling. He's a pretty sure tackler.
"I didn't expect to see the missed tackles. I thought we missed a few more tackles than we should have missed as a defense."
Offensively, the evening's efforts produced 17 points - via two aerial touchdowns and 32-yard field goal by rookie Jeff Sauve of Clemson.
Favre, completing 4 of 6 passes for 69 yards during his opening, single-series stint, orchestrated the night's first touchdown, setting it up with a 56-yard pass-run collaboration with Bill Schroeder, who made it to the one-yard line with the aid of a final lunge. Favre subsequently hit Derrick Mayes with a two-yard, third-down strike in the heart of the end zone.
Rick Mirer, who followed Favre under center, was denied access to the end zone despite completing 8 of 11 passes for 81 yards overall. Matt Hasselbeck then came on to preside over the evening's other touchdown, which came on a 13-yard bullseye to rookie wideout Zola Davis of South Carolina.
The score was keyed by a 39-yard Hasselbeck completion to rookie wide receiver Donald Driver of Alcorn State, who emerged as the receiving yardage leader in the scrimmage with 73 via 3 catches, an imposing 24.3-yard average. Second-year pro Corey Bradford also impressed with 3 receptions for 62 yards.
Rookie free agent Basil Mitchell surfaced as the rushing leader, gaining 31yards in 6 attempts, a 5.2-yard average, followed by rookie De'Mond Parker of Oklahoma, who has caught Rhodes' eye with his quickness and courage. Parker posted 20 yards in 6 tries, a 3.3-yard average. Established wheelhorse Dorsey Levens made a cameo appearance, carrying 4 times for 11 yards.
On the defensive side of the football, linebackers Waddy, Bernardo Harris and Lamont Hollinquest emerged with 3 solo tackles apiece, as did rookie defensive back Tod McBride of UCLA and second-year pro Scott McGarrahan.
Rhodes, asked to assess the performance of Parker, counted upon to back up Dorsey Levens at running back, declared, "I thought he had some nice runs. I thought he was willing to hit it up in there. He's not shy to go inside. The guy's going to make plays for this football team. You know, the footing was a little treacherous out there and, for a quick back, sometimes the footing catches you a little bit...but this kid's going to be quite a football player for this team."
The Packers coach also made these other observations:
-'If it was encouraging to see some of the receivers step up:' "It was. You know, you get a chance to see those guys in situations and you see guys making plays; Corey Bradford, you know, he's a second-year guy but he's very strong and he catches the ball and he's a tough kid to tackle. He's probably one of the strongest receivers that we have on our football team - and the fastest. And he made some plays tonight.
"Billy (Schroeder) made a big play...The Driver kid made plays down the field. But I felt, overall, these guys were ready to come out and make a statement because it's a position where they're all fighting to start."
-On the crowd: "You know, it's amazing...I've had a chance to talk to the coaches in the locker room when they arrived today. I tried to tell some of the new coaches about the fans - that these are probably the greatest fans in football...And regardless that I predicted that we would have just about a full house, some of the new coaches didn't really believe me.
"And when they pulled up (in the parking lot) they said, 'This is a scrimmage? This is a like a big-time, regular-season game.' It was unbelievable...The fans were there supporting this football team - they've always been there. And I'll tell you what - they made a believer out of a lot of our coaches. Because they could not believe this turnout for a scrimmage.
"One of our coaches - from Miami - Larry Beightol, said they advertised in Miami, they just about gave tickets away and they could only get 10,000 people. So this is really great and I just want to thank the fans for coming out, because the turnout was super."
-On injuries: "We have a couple guys with some bruises. The Driver kid has a bruised shoulder and Howard Burns, a defensive lineman, has a twisted ankle. But that's the extent of it. We came out of it pretty healthy.
"We held LeRoy Butler (ankle) out of the scrimmage...He'll be ready to get some action now in the next couple of weeks."
-On the play of the quarterbacks: "When you look at (Rick) Mirer, he came in against our first defensive line. Now the running part is going to be tough -- tough sledding running against the (first) defense. But he threw the ball against the defense and made some plays.
"Matt (Hasselbeck) came in - I think Matt may have been against our third unit - and he still moved the ball down the field. But I thought the quarterbacks in general (rookie Aaron Brooks of Virginia followed Favre, Mirer and Hasselbeck) - they all made plays. They came up with plays here and there."
The Player Perspective:
-Matt Hasselbeck: "There's a lot of competition at a lot of positions, which raises the level of play...I thought all of the receivers played well."
-De'Mond Parker: "I felt like it was a good first showing. I know I have a lot of work to do. I know I need to be more patient and let my blocks get set. And I know I have to figure out when to use my speed."
-Antuan Edwards (on how his "surgical" toe held up): "The real test will come next week (when the Packers make their preseason debut against the Jets)...I didn't get enough reps for a true test."
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