SportsLine’s Over And Under (Rated) » Brats & Beer

With the dog days of the off-season dragging on, CBS SportsLine columnist Pete Prisco made a desperate attempt to fill the void the other day with a piece on underrated and overrated NFL players. I suppose it’s a valid topic to debate, at least on par with mid-summer college football rankings and best Mel Kiper hairstyle (extra greasy or extra, extra greasy), but I don’t know how worthwhile it is. We’re all bored here, though, so I’ll play along.

For the most overrated player on the Green Bay roster, Prisco of course singles out Brett Favre. OK, fine, he’s an easy mark, especially for a columnist (and now Internet troll) writing against deadline looking for big names he can slam. But more than that, I think this is backlash to the cult of personality Favre worship that has fostered in the past few seasons, evidenced by his comment, “at 37 he’s not what he once was — no matter what a certain four-letter network would lead you to believe.” But is Number Four really overrated?

Packer fans, I think, have a fair sense of what Favre is capable of, both good and bad, and we certainly saw a display of the bad (exacerbated by a number of other factors) last season. And while it is true that his performance is a key part in the success of the team, I think we all know that it is just a piece of a big Green & Gold jigsaw puzzle that must fit together. Anyway, out in the wasteland beyond the gilded glens of Packer Nation, I think the perception this year is that Favre is well past his prime, so if he has another bad season wouldn’t that be living up to expectations?

After the debacle of last year, it’s kind of hard to think of a Packer that is overrated, but if I had to choose a name, I would go with Sam Gado. This is not a knock on him, but an observation on the expectations heaped upon him. Gado was about the only positive story to come out of Wreck of ‘05, and now he’s almost expected to pick up right where Ahman Green left off. If he doesn’t produce a 1,000-yard season this year, a lot of NFL commentators out there will probably being calling him a bust. (Maybe a few Packer fans, too.) But the reality is that Gado’s talent is still pretty raw, and while I hope it blossoms this year, it’s still too soon to set the bar that high for him.

As for underrated player, Prisco misses the mark again by choosing Charles Woodson, a marquee free agent who has everyone excited. If anything, Woodson might turn out to be a bust, given our expectations of greatness and his history of injuries. I would say Aaron Kampman is a much better choice for underrated player: He’s the best player we have on the D line right now, and last season contributed 62 tackles, 6 1/2 sacks, and forced three fumbles, but he gets almost no recognition outside the Badger state. My sense is, though, that Kampman would rather have the victories than the SportsCenter highlights, yet another reason to like him.

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