Jermichael Finley Will Be the Odd Man out for the Green Bay Packers in 2012 on Astini News

Back in 2010, the Packers were preparing to make tight end Jermichael Finley the centerpiece of their passing offense.

Finley tore the meniscus in his right knee three games into that season and went on season-ending injured reserve.

The Packers went on to win the Super Bowl.

While he came back strong last year, Finley was not the same player, dropping too many passes. The Packers expect a better season from him in 2012, but the offense, once centered on him, has moved on.

Finley might be better, but it's too little, too late.

We knew the shift was permanent based on the short-term contract they gave him—just two* years vs the five years he wanted.

The truth is that they simply had to move beyond the tight end. Here's why.

While Finley has freakish talent, he became too inconsistent in 2011. Though he was the third most targeted receiver on the team, his reception percentage was by far the worst on the team for anyone with regular targets.

You can't feature a player who only catches 59 percent of his targets, not when virtually every other player quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw to was hauling in between 65 and 80 percent of their targets.

This was a huge drop-off from Finley's 2009 numbers, where he caught 77 percent of the passes thrown his way.

There is a large gap between the target for both seasons—he was targeted 92 times this past year as opposed to 71 in 2009.

But not so large a gap as to explain an 18-percent drop in targets caught.

Meanwhile, two receivers stepped their game up in a big way.

Of course, Greg Jennings has always been an excellent receiver but when Finley went down, Jennings really turned it on. While he did struggle at times to haul in the ball (his receptions percentage was just 62 percent), he was able to overcome consistent coverage and double teams to become a huge vertical threat.

Jennings was always the No. 1 wide receiver—2010 made him Aaron Rodgers' number one option, period.

Naturally, the Packers will keep doing what works, and throwing the ball to Jennings works. Despite injuries along the offensive line, despite Rodgers springing in the backfield with defenders on his heels, Jennings found his groove and has been dominating since.

So when Finley came back in 2011—well, the targets were going to go down.

The second receiver to eat into Finley's role with the team was Jordy Nelson.

It was clear Nelson had talent, but like James Jones, he could never quite fulfill the potential.

Something clicked for Nelson in 2011, though, and the result almost made Finley superfluous.

Nelson caught an eye-popping 71 percent of his targets, which rose dramatically from 64 to 95. To have that big an increase in passes while actually catching a higher percentage (in 2010 he caught just 70 percent) is incredible.

Meanwhile, Finley was dropping passes—too many of them, and too often important ones.

This year, Finley looks to prove he is still the tight end he was meant to be in 2010, but it's going to be awfully hard to get the chance to prove that.

Beyond Nelson and Jennings are multiple talented receivers who will also be involved. Donald Driver might dance off into the sunset, but the aforementioned James Jones had some good games in 2011, and second-year player Randall Cobb could be the player to watch as a replacement for Driver.

Both of them—even Jones, who at times has hands dipped in cement himself—had a much better time being consistent hauling in the ball.

It's good that Finley is back and looking like his old self. Any coach will tell you that an offense cannot have too many weapons.

The fact is, though, that this offense moved on from him two seasons ago—successfully, I might add—and he's no longer a critical part of its week-to-week function the way he once was.

 

*adjusted contract from three to two years, as has been pointed out, I had that number wrong. Apparently I thought this was 2011.  On the other hand, still not a ringing endorsement.