1) Introduction: Free agency didn’t treat BJ Raji all that well, then again he was terrible during his contract year so what can you expect. So Raji came back on a 1 year deal “prove it” deal, but did he prove anything in the end?
2) Profile:
Busari J Raji Jr.
- Age: 28
- Born: July 11, 1986 in New York, NY
- Height: 6’2″
- Weight: 337
- College: Boston College
- Rookie Year: 2009
- NFL Experience: 6
3) Expectations coming into the season: Try to get back to his 2010 form where he was one of the premier defensive linemen in the league or at the very least start as the Packers’ nose tackle and play the good soldier and hope for a long term contract. Unfortunately, Raji tore his bicep during a preseason game and was sent to IR without playing a snap in the regular season.
4) Player’s highlights/low-lights: Incomplete. As Raji was on IR with a torn bicep for the entire season, he has no highlights nor lowlights to speak of.
5) Player’s contribution to the overall team success: Again incomplete. While Raji didn’t help his cause by being on the sideline, the Packers might have made the situation worse for him by shifting away from big gap stuffers (Ryan Pickett, Johnny Jolly) and instead going for smaller and lighter defensive linemen (Mike Daniels, Letroy Guion). It would be interesting to see exactly what Raji’s role would have been if he had been healthy.
6) Player’s contributions in the playoffs: Finally incomplete. Raji’s run stuffing ability would have been an asset against the run heavy Cowboys and Seahawks, but alas not much you can do with a bad arm.
7) Intangibles: Well, we’ll always have the “Raji” dance right?
Season Report Card (Player Grades):
(INC) Level of expectations met during the season
(INC) Contributions to team’s overall success.
(INC) Contributions to team during the playoffs
Overall Grade: INC
——————Thomas Hobbes is a staff writer for Jersey Al’s AllGreenBayPackers.com.
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Confused as to why you have done mainly the ungradable portion of the team, seeing as how they had no impact on the season whatsoever. That is unless you are saving the crem de la crem for the latter of the off season.
Huh? We’ve done the entire defense, every player, by position group. Next up will be specialists and the offense. What’s confusing about that?
Can not wait to see the specialist grades. That should be really good,meaning the comments that is.
There’s no particular reason we are going with defense first, but we are doing each position group together so everyone will be able to compare grades. It would be pretty hard to jump from Aaron Rodgers to Micah Hyde to TJ Lang and try to make sense of the grades.
Huh?
I am not a Raji fan. Give credit where it is due. He stayed in GB and was on the sidelines for the games. Many players on IR are no where to be found on game day. May have mentored Guion and Pennel.
Raji has had his good years and then some pretty terrible ones. His contention is that they were using him wrong when he played poorly, which might be the case since he was best as a nose tackle and not as good as a defensive end. Unfortunately, Ryan Pickett was decent as a nose tackle but never could have made it as a defensive end so they had to force Raji into a “square peg into a round hole” position. Perhaps now that they are better stocked at defensive end and weak at nose tackle Raji will have a better season.
Surprising grade ~~~ 😀
Well I’m not going to fail him for being injured, though I know alot of fans probably have that sentiment.
I was joking. You are right and I’m glad that you didn’t fail him. At least he played for Packers last season, in pre-season…