INSUFFICIENT TIME IN TRAINING CAMP?

The Packers beat the Bears last Sunday, in a game with too many false starts.

At the same time [quarterback Aaron] Rodgers was drawing the Bears offside, he was also causing his own offensive linemen to false start. The Packers had five false-start penalties, and at least three came on plays in which Rodgers used a hard count.

Jerry Kramer confessed in Instant Replay to "jumping offside" a few times in the pre-season, when he heard the footsteps of the man-in-motion, a tactic Vince Lombardi installed for Donny Anderson and Jim Grabowski. Undoubtedly a few mornings of looking at the film (it really was film in those days, and probably black-and-white) repeatedly as the coach wore out the reverse feature on the projector got the jitters out of his system.

"In practice all week we didn't have one false-start penalty," [left guard T. J.] Lang said. "We get in a game and they come out left and right. We just have to do a better job individually."

It's understandable to most that an offensive lineman would be susceptible to Rodgers' sudden rapid-fire snap count but not to offensive line coach James Campen, who hates penalties almost as much as he does missing a practice.

"It really burns my tail that those happen," he said. "That cannot happen and it's upsetting to them, too. To have that many in one game is totally unacceptable. Line up right, make sure you're in a legal formation, and know what the snap count is and get off the ball."

The Packers would never stop using the hard count because what Rodgers did to the Bears is way too valuable.

Perhaps Fuzzy Thurston has offered to help, or perhaps the offensive line coach is mastering the reverse feature on the video machine.