Packers Blog The Journal Sentinel's team of Packers beat writers provide the latest news, notes and analysis SHARE

By of the

Green Bay --- Highlights from Mike McCarthy's Tuesday news conference...

Injuries: Barrington DNP, Boyd DNP, Boykin DNP, Jones limited, Matthews full

On Bridgewater not practicing... Part of the preparation. Not the first time it's happened to us, not the first time it happened to us against the Vikings. I'm sure they have things they want to do with each quarterback.

On planning for Christian Ponder... They're both athletic quarterbacks.

On Zimmer defense/Turner offense... They're definitely different. It's Norv's offense. You see more quick screens and things. You definitely see Mike Zimmer's fingertips on the defense.

On his system that had success vs GB in Cincy... I have a lot of respect for Mike. Enjoyed competing against him as a coordinator. He always challenges you schematically. He's an aggressive coach. You see can his pressure packages carry over from his past places.

On lack of production in run game... We have to get the attempts up. Any time you have a successful run game, you have close to 30 attempts.



On team's offensive identity... It's four games. We have the ability to run the football, the ability to throw the football, to play fast. We have a quarterback who keeps us in clean plays.

On moving receivers around... We always have. This mechanics of how we run our offense, this is how we've been playing. This is our third year with this approach. Every year I've been here, every receiver learns all four positions. Hopefully, we're moving more of them.

On Randall Cobb's recovery from Det... Randall is a tireless worker. He was that way as a young age. Clearly one of the most impressive rookies we've had. He's the same guy every day. I've never seen him need urgency in his approach. He's very consistent.

On Vikings RBs... Good players. Tough. Run downhill. Very, very impressed with their running game. They make an outstanding 1-2 punch.

On James Starks... That was poor management by myself. That shouldn't have happened. James Starks should touch the football every single game.

On the run defense at Chicago/fixing it... We're focused on the things we can improve on and everything from Chicago game. We had a very upbeat practice today.

On great WR's needing great QB's... The quarterback position is the most important position in football. You can definitely make your receiver better. And you can't do it without a receiver. That's the way they've been trained here. It really makes game-planning a lot easier. You need both. A great QB can definitely impact a football game.

On short week helping with offensive momentum... Good point. Got good work in Monday. Pleased with walkthroughs, meetings. Today, a lot of energy. Definitely more positive juice in the air. It's hard to win a game in the league. But Sunday is Sunday. You've got to turn that thing around. Every game is a different adventure, different challenge. National game, national TV.