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Green Bay: A new Brooks hits town

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Posted: Friday August 06, 1999 12:37 PM

This is the fifth in a series of postcards Sports Illustrated's Peter King will e-mail from his annual NFL training-camp tour.

Wednesday, Aug. 4

TEAM: Green Bay Packers

SITE: Don Hutson Center, across the street from Lambeau Field. The Packers have a time-honored tradition of practicing adjacent to their stadium, and fans have a time-honored tradition of standing five deep behind the fence that rings practice field.

PLAYER I SAW WHOM I REALLY LIKED: Rookie quarterback Aaron Brooks . Suddenly, the Packers may have to find a way to squeeze this total unknown onto their roster. He's been tearing up camp, throwing well if a bit inadequately on the run and displaying a tremendous pocket presence. From what I saw this morning, this guy definitely belongs in the NFL. He's a fourth-round pick from Virginia who thinks he belongs in the same league with the Culpeppers and McNowns . He is going to get a chance to prove it in the preseason.

THE FOOD: Screwed up again. I skipped lunch to do interviews and was forced to get by on an Arby's regular roast beef sandwich with barbecue sauce and a medium jamocha shake. I promise when I get to Platteville, site of the Bears camp, that I will have a real lunch.

Dear NFL Junkie:

It is always nice to come to Green Bay in the summer and remember why what I do is so important to so many people. When I landed at the airport late Tuesday the top of the front page of the Green Bay Press-Gazette screamed, "Fans lament the loss of Robert Brooks ," with a story about the retirement, because of injury, of the popular Green Bay wideout. At practice, you see the press corps from Oshkosh, Madison and Milwaukee and points all over Wisconsin taking very serious notes and trying to figure out who is ahead in the nickelback battle between all the new corners the Packers brought in. (By the way, the Packers picked three corners in the first three rounds of the draft, and the third one, Mike McKenzie of Memphis, has played the best so far in camp.) Afterwards it was good to sit down with one of the most honest guys and one of the best interviews, safety LeRoy Butler , who talked about how great it was to be back in a training camp where the focus was on football, and not on the status of a lame-duck coach. "Nothing against Mike Holmgren ," Butler told me, "but there was always that thing hanging over us last year. Finally one week in the middle of the season I just said to him, 'Are you outta here or what?' And he really didn't say. This year we really feel like everybody who is here is pointed in one direction and not thinking about where they are going next."

I've got a five-hour drive ahead of me so I will write more from Platteville.

Check back soon for more Postcards from Camp. To send a question to Peter King's King's NFL Mailbag, click here.

 

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Postcard from Minnesota: Aug. 4 Postcard from Tampa Bay: Aug. 3 Postcard from Detroit: Aug. 2 Postcard from Cleveland: July 25
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