Lombardi Ave » Wisconsin sports

Michael Barnard Will Get Kicking Audition In Green Bay Today

Raymond Rivard — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 15:43:05 +0000

Barnard had a tryout with the Eagles two years ago.

Had Green Bay Packers kicker Mason Crosby not had such a terrible season in 2012 we wouldn’t be hearing the name Michael Barnard.

But that’s water under the proverbial bridge … and because Crosby converted just 63.3 percent of his field goals last year (21 of 33 attempts), today the Packers will be holding an audition for the free agent kicker who has been working the past couple of years with former pro kickers.

Whether the Packers consider Barnard a legitimate NFL kicker will determine whether they invite him to camp next summer as competition for Crosby. In the six years Crosby has been the Packers place kicker, he hasn’t had any competition in camp for at least the past five years – he’s been the guy.

In a story that our own Tom Marquardt wrote here on lombardiave.com back in December, the Packers were considering bringing Barnard in for a tryout at that time. If you remember, that was at the time when Crosby was struggling through a rough stretch of the season. The Packers kept the faith in Crosby and he connected on his final four kicks of the season, including a couple of conversions in the playoffs.

However, now that it’s the offseason, this seems like as good a time as any to audition potential competition for Crosby.

Barnard, 6 feet 1½ inches and 216 pounds, is not a prototypical candidate … he hasn’t kicked in competition since 2008 when he was at Division III Fairleigh Dickinson. While kicking there he made 59.3 percent (16 of 27) and missed five of 54 extra points. Not glowing statistics.

But the Packers must see something in him to give him today’s tryout.

Stay tuned and should we hear any news about the tryout, we will post it here as soon as possible.

Here’s to the readers of Lombardiave.com – Thank You!

Raymond Rivard — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 21:30:53 +0000

As you can see, two of our Packers friends from Liverpool, England, were reading our site Sunday afternoon. And we were thinking that it probably wasn’t Paul or Ringo.

Editor’s note: Proceed with caution – this is a piece of unashamed promotion of lombardiave.com, not necessarily because we like to toot our own horn, but because we want to show you how far we’ve come with the help of you, our readers and because we have such a diverse and interesting group of people writing for the site. Believe me when I say the monetary rewards for producing this site are literally pennies for the amount of time spent, but the overall rewards are immeasurable. Yes, we love doing this because first of all, we love the Green Bay Packers, and second of all, because we feel that there are so many of you out there dying to soak up any news about the team that you possibly can. This is all for you.

To you, the readers here at Lombardiave.com, I have two simple words: Thank you!

You see, we’ve worked really hard over the past couple of years raising this site from the ground level up to what it is today – what we feel is a great site covering the Green Bay Packers. That’s because of two things – you, the reader, and the great staff we’ve added the past few months. Without their timely and sometimes unusual takes on one of the oldest of NFL franchises all of this wouldn’t be possible.

And without you, the reader, we wouldn’t be here at all.

So, again, Thank You!

The reason I write this is because of what I’ve seen developing recently. Yes, the bulk of our readers come from across every state in the Union. However, we also have international readers. I’ve noted them in Germany, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Australia, the Far East and, of course in the British Isles, among others.

In fact, today, at about 2:30 p.m. CST, I noted two readers from Liverpool, England (see photographs). For a moment, I thought it could be Paul and Ringo, but then thought again – I’m sure they don’t still live in their hometown, now could they?

I’m not being flippant, because I know that all of our readers are friends and fans who love the Green Bay Packers – well, at least most of our readers are. So, I’m sure the two folks in Liverpool are just that and are clicking on our website because they want to see and read about what’s up with the Packers.

With that said, I’ve also got to provide you a piece that was recently posted on our parent site, fansided.com. It’s a piece spotlighting Lombardiave because of the great growth we’ve had over the past year – again due to our readers and our great staff. As an aside, I also ask that you visit all of the NFL-related sites that are a part of fansided.com. You talk about an awesome network of football sites – good gosh, you won’t find a better group of people and sites on the planet – and I really mean that.

Though I feel we have much work to do to continue to improve our site here, and this piece is provided to show how far we’ve come, I feel that the future for more growth is just around the corner – with your help, of course.

I must also add that a great extension of our home site is the addition of our social media sites on Facebook and Twitter. We’ve been able to connect with many of you through these sites and have extended our reach by leaps and bounds by sharing content with people across the globe. It’s truly an amazing connection. If you haven’t already liked us on Facebook and followed us on Twitter, please do so. We will follow back and correspond in a timely and respectful manner.

Anyway, here’s what was posted at fansided.com. I blush a bit at the self-promotion, but know that our success is because of you.

FanSided Spotlight: Lombardi Ave

Today on FanSided Spotlight, we take a look at our Green Bay Packers site, Lombardi Ave. This post shows how the site’s editor, Ray Rivard, took the site from one of FanSided NFL’s least visited sites to one of its most popular. This comes from NFL Editorial Director, Zac Snyder, complete with some words from Ray, himself. Enjoy.

-Patrick Allen (He’s the Vice President of Content for the FanSided Network).

One of the great FanSided NFL success stories of the 2012 season was Lombardi Ave, our Green Bay Packers site. It might be easy to think the site’s success is simply due to the fact that it is devoted to one of the NFL’s most popular teams. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Covering a good/popular team guarantees you nothing and covering a bad/unpopular team doesn’t keep a site from being one of the network’s best. Lombardi Ave is a testament to that fact.

Ray Rivard has been leading that site for us for a little over a year and a half but at first he was just meeting the minimum posting requirements and didn’t have much of a staff to help strengthen the site. While even a minimum level of consistent content was an improvement over what the site had received, the site was a mediocre to poor performer within FanSided NFL and it wasn’t ever going to get Lombardi Ave to the 90,000 visit mark the site hit last month.

As editors, I think it is easy to focus on our individual posting requirements while pushing other responsibilities of the editor position to the back burner. Ray’s work at Lombardi Ave is a perfect example of what can happen when an editor embraces the totality of his or her role. Perseverance in staffing has paid off as Lombardi Ave now has a great group of writers (shout out!) that are nearing 100 posts per month and a commitment to using facebook and twitter as an active way to interact with fans is paying off in a big way.

We talk a lot about how being on top of hot news stories can pay off with big traffic numbers. One of the big changes at Lombardi Ave has been taking that message to heart but extending the concept beyond just posting on the site and applying it to social media as well. I told Ray earlier this week that I would be working on a spotlight post on him and the site and asked him for a few thoughts and this is one of the things he touched on:

Much of the growth of the site has been accomplished by being on top of huge stories. There are three recent events that really helped us. The first was 12-12-12, better known last year as Aaron Rodgers Day. We posted like crazy on that day and were also closely connected to Jennifer Brilowski – the woman who started the Aaron Rodgers Day movement and had a Facebook page with literally thousands of followers. Because she was so impressed with lombardiave.com and our Facebook page, she gave us plugs continually and many of our followers came from her connection.

The second was Donald Driver’s retirement celebration. The event was broadcast live and I posted on Facebook and Twitter pictures and comments live as they were happening. Readers loved it. As a staff, we also prepared several posts about Donald Driver that we planned and put up at various times throughout the day. The fanbase’s love of Donald Driver was incredible and our efforts really paid off.

The last was just this past week when Charles Woodson was released by the Packers. I caught wind of it within minutes of Woodson tweeting about it. I quickly put a post together about it and the hits on the site went through the roof. From there, we put together posts about Woodson, his future, his past, pictures, videos, the whole works and it REALLY paid off.

Getting connected with other fan facebook pages and an active approach there has allowed Lombardi Ave’s facebook page to explode to over 1,800 likes. Facebook accounted for nearly 6,300 visits to the site last month. Overall, the site has posted five consecutive months of increasing visit counts.

Ray closed his email of thoughts to me with what I believe to be the best advice any site editor can take to heart:

In addition, know that it doesn’t come all at once. It takes hard work, it takes passion and the belief that you can have the best team fan site out there. Fansided provides the base from which to start, but it’s up to you to make it happen.

Take the ride … it’s a blast.

Great words, Ray. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

With apologies to Aaron Rodgers, this Brewers fan has had it

Raymond Rivard — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 03:02:01 +0000

Ugh!

I had to post this tonight after watching the Milwaukee Brewers implode for the second straight night in Philadelphia – these most recent failures coming off a sweep at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds.

It’s clear why the Reds are in first place and the past week of Brewers baseball has made it clear as to why the team is free-falling into an abyss from which they may never reappear.

Doug Melvin made moves to win games two years ago and now the team is paying for it. They lead the league in one-run losses – inexcusable for a Major League team that has suffered many of those losses while leading going into the final inning or two.

So, why do I bring this up on a Packers website? Well, because I’m a Wisconsin sports fan and second because it pains me to say that I was hoping the Brewers and Packers could be playing on the same Sundays again this late September and early October.

That won’t be happening and I just had to get this off my chest – just be prepared for harsh language – I never do this in print, but my anger got the best of me.

To: The Milwaukee Brewers,

I didn’t think things could get any worse for you guys. When you lost that game at home against the Cardinals last week and then went on to win the next two against St. Louis

If only this guy could play football and baseball.

- taking Axford out of the closer’s role – I thought things could be turned around. Lots of baseball to play, you know?

Then you can’t figure out how to win in Cincy, losing one-run games left and right – a disturbing trend throughout the season that seems to continue.

Nothing can top that, right?

Wrong.

You go to Philly and lose two straight, the first by giving up a boatload of runs in the ninth and following that with an implosion tonight in the eighth.

Thanks, guys. You’re professional players who get paid millions to do your job and then pull this shit.

Disgusting.

You are toast … no, you’re burned toast. Not just burned, but blackened well beyond recognition.

Trade Greinke. Trade Ramirez. Fuck, trade the bat boy and Bernie – Hell trade the Italian sausage. It doesn’t matter. You guys SUCK.

I’m done with baseball.

Thank God for the Packers.

From: a former Brewers fan.

Wisconsin sports weekend – Packers, Badgers and Brewers, oh my!

Raymond Rivard — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:56:26 +0000

Aaron Rodgers threw for more than 400 yards, four touchdowns, while running for two touchdowns Sunday against the Broncos ... the first time that's been done in team history. Raymond T. Rivard photograph

Oh, to be a Packers, Brewers, and Wisconsin Badgers fan this past weekend!

Can things get any better?

We all know they could get worse, but for the time being we won’t dwell on that point.

Let’s recap: The Badgers dominate another top 10 college football team in the Nebraska Cornhuskers … maybe dominate is too kind. It was more like obliteration; The Brewers continue their roll off of their last 165 games and continue to pound the baseball into oblivion in the first two games against the Arizona Diamondbacks; and of course the Packers pummel the Denver Broncos into submission yesterday by putting up a near 50-burger, embarrassing the Mile High City’s NFL team and the entire AFC West in one fell swoop.

(more…)

A year to remember … with more to come

Raymond Rivard — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:35:52 +0000

Prince Fielder has led the Brewers so far to a season to remember ... our hope is that the fun continues well into October and beyond here in Wisconsin. Tom Lynn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel photograph.

What an awesome year it’s been for sports fans in the state of Wisconsin.
With the disappointing Milwaukee Bucks as the exception, this has been a year of tremendous successes …
With the Brewers taking over first place in the National League’s Central Division this week, Wisconsin fans could put aside the disappointment that the lack of an NFL collective bargaining agreement has brought. (more…)