Green Bay Packers’ 53-man roster prediction

For the Green Bay Packers and the team’s fans It has been a long and eventful offseason.

We’ve seen new talents added, longtime favorites slowly reemerge from lost years, Hall of Fame inductions for longtime idols, training camps, political statements, injuries, suspensions, preseason games (and a bizarre cancellation), and all-round shake-ups both expected and not.

We are (finally, thankfully) nearing the official beginning of the season, but there is still one final important step: the final roster cuts.

This past Tuesday we saw the roster churn begin with the drop from 90 to 75 players, with some notable names dropping along the way (including the surprising move to get rid of the much-maligned-&-oft-despised Tim Masthay).

The drop to 53 is looming fast too – 4 p.m. ET on Saturday, Sept. 3, to be exact – so now is a good time to look at who could make the final roster.

A couple sidenotes:

1. the final numbers on my list will be 56 due to suspensions to Mike Pennel (4 games) and Demetri Goodson (4 games), plus the likely PUP status of Corey Linsley to start the year (due to his twice-torn hamstring); I will be making notations on these players in their respective sections.
2. The defensive starters will be set up in a 3-3-5 nickel package instead of the usual 3-4 base. Teams have slowly turned to using the nickel-type subpackage on the majority of downs. Per Pro Football Focus, through Peter King of the MMQB, here are the percentages for the downs where the nickel package was used since 2011: 52.5%, 54.4% (2012), 58.3% (2013), 60.3% (2014), 63.4% (2015).

Now let’s begin, with the quarterbacks.