Tauscher took pleasure in toiling anonymously as Packers lineman

"The state of Wisconsin should be very proud of him. He was dedicated to the game. He had a great desire to play." - Ron Wolf, former Packers general manager on Mark Tauscher

By Tom Silverstein

August 4, 2011

Green Bay - In a sport in which touchdown spikes, sack dances and camera poses are as common as the endorsements to which they may lead, Mark Tauscher wanted only one thing during his career with the Green Bay Packers.

He wanted to be invisible.

Anchoring the right tackle position for more than a decade, Tauscher's goal every Sunday was to remain as anonymous as possible, at the same time taking great pains to make sure the guy across from him remained so, too.

Last Friday, the former University of Wisconsin player got the news that the Packers, unable to pass him on his physical because of a shoulder injury, were letting him go. Just as quietly as Tauscher entered the NFL in 2000, his association with the Packers ended.

The news came from general manager Ted Thompson, and Tauscher accepted it as the kind of business decision that happens every day in the National Football League. No hard feelings, no tears, no fanfare.

If this is it, Tauscher has few regrets.

"I think what I always wanted was to get the most out of my abilities and you knew when I went out there to play I was going to give everything I had," he said. "I feel like I can say that and sleep pretty well at night."

In this state, Tauscher is as homegrown as dairy cows, cheese curds and tailgate parties. Born in Marshfield and a graduate of Auburndale High School, Tauscher progressed from walk-on to starter at UW before landing with the Packers.

Among Wisconsin natives, only linebacker John Anderson (146) played more regular-season and playoff games for the Packers than Tauscher (134). Of those who played for both Wisconsin and the Packers, Tauscher ranks No. 1 in games played for the Packers.

"The state of Wisconsin should be very proud of him," said former Packers general manager Ron Wolf, who drafted Tauscher in the seventh round in 2000. "He was dedicated to the game. He had a great desire to play. The game was important to him."

Tauscher, 34, isn't completely sure that he's ready to call it quits. He's still working on strengthening the shoulder and hopes to be back to 100% fairly soon.

Whether there's a team out there that wants him or one for which he wants to play will be determined later. Right now, Tauscher is helping tend to his infant son and thinking about whether he should put his master's degree in educational administration to use or even consider a job in coaching.

"I'm just worried about what I can control and that's getting healthy and then trying to figure out what my next step is going to be, whether that's playing or not playing," he said. "I'll have to figure that out.

"It really just comes back to how I'm feeling that's going to be the factor. How that plays out, I don't really know."

Many fans want to know if there's a chance that Tauscher would return to the Packers when he's healthy, but there was no talk of that in his discussion with Thompson. The Packers are loaded with young linemen, and Thompson needs to find out whether they can play.

Tauscher can certainly relate to that. A seventh-round draft choice in 2000, people gave him an ice cube's chance in hot coffee of making it past the first round of cuts. One guy who did give him a chance was Wolf, even though Tauscher had been a starter at Wisconsin for just one season.

"They had all these other top guys, but once you went to a Wisconsin practice and watched the pre-drills you'd see his athletic ability," Wolf said. "They had these foot drills they did with soccer balls and he was phenomenal.

"He had exceptional footwork and balance and strength."

Tauscher lasted until the seventh round because he had a terrible looking body. He was wide and pudgy and poorly defined and that likely turned off a lot of scouts. But Wolf saw through that.

Then the best thing that could have happened to Tauscher did when he arrived at Packers training camp in the summer of 2000. He was the only lineman signed to a contract for the three-day rookie pre-camp workouts.

So while the other rookies worked in groups, Tauscher worked by himself with offensive line coach Larry Beightol. The one-on-one tutoring was perfect for the eager Tauscher, but even better because it allowed Beightol to see how much potential the rookie had.

Tauscher knew he arrived when in a one-on-one blocking drill later in camp, he took enormously strong end Vonnie Holliday and threw him on the ground.

"I laugh at Vonnie about this, that Vonnie helped me get my foot in the door," Tauscher said. "There was a lot of hooting and hollering and everybody was asking what's going on. That's when I thought, 'I can get this thing done.' "

Tauscher took over the right tackle starting job from Earl Dotson in Week 3 of his rookie season and became a fixture on the offensive line. He was so steady and reliable that players used to go up to his teammates after games and say, 'I can't believe I couldn't beat that guy.' "

He was reliable and so technically sound that he did not commit a holding penalty until his seventh season. Among the players he had frustrated over the years were Reggie White, Julius Peppers, Michael Strahan, DeMarcus Ware and Jevon Kearse.

"You try to be as invisible." Tauscher said. "You want to do everything well, but in the grand scheme of things, if you don't give up sacks and pressures and don't get penalized you're going to be a pretty successful player.

"And you show up. I had a (57)-game streak, those are things you take a lot of pride in, not being penalized and being able to be counted on."

If Tauscher doesn't play another snap, he'll have more than made his mark in Green Bay and certainly with the Super Bowl XLV team even though he spent the last 16 games on injured reserve.

Coach Mike McCarthy asked Tauscher to hang around so he could lend his expertise to the offensive line and keep everyone loose as he always had done. Tauscher agreed and attended Friday and Saturday meetings.

"From what I know, the guy hasn't changed from the moment he got here to the moment he left," said Tauscher's successor, first-round pick Bryan Bulaga. "That speaks volumes about him. When the rookies came in my class, he was a great guy to us.

"You just saw the type of person he was. That's how I remember him, how helpful he was and his humor."

Tauscher, who served as the team's union rep, won't be along for the ride when the Packers go to the White House, which is a disappointment given his interest in politics. But he said it's enough to have the big, gaudy Super Bowl ring the club gave out in June to remind him of everything he accomplished.

"I completely understand it and I'm not the least bit upset about it," he said. "You have to be able to roll with the punches, and I think it will be a great time for those guys."

Bradford likes what he sees from Kendricks

Rookie tight end Lance Kendricks is making an early impression on quarterback Sam Bradford.

By Mike Sando

August 2, 2011

The St. Louis Rams are far enough along in training camp to visualize how quarterback Sam Bradford and some of his new weapons might mesh in the future.

They're still too early in the process to claim a strong rapport has developed. There are first impressions, however, and rookie tight end Lance Kendricks is making a favorable one.

"Lance has done some great things," Bradford told reporters in St. Louis. "He has been asked to do a lot as well. I think he’s probably taken more reps than anyone else on our offense."

That last part could be telling. The Rams envision moving Kendricks, a second-round pick, around the formation and keeping him on the field.

"It seems like that every time I look out there, he’s in there," Bradford said. "Whether he is at 'Y', he’s at 'F', he’s playing wide receiver some. I think he’s done a great job, he’s physical. He really stood out to me yesterday when we put the pads on and we had the 'Ram Drill'."

Turn your playbooks to the index for a little review session. The "Y" spot is where traditional tight ends line up. The "F" spot refers more to the slot and allows for more motion/movement. As for the Ram Drill? It's a version of the Oklahoma Drill featuring one-on-one battles between blockers and tacklers.

"(Kendricks) was in my line and the first time he went, he absolutely destroyed his defender," Bradford said. "I think two guys later, we were looking for someone on offense and he came running back up to get some more. It's things like that, that really turn you on to a guy like that."

Tauscher: A Tremendous Performer

By Bob McGinn

July 29, 2011

You'd almost have to go back to Sept. 1, 1986, when coach Forrest Gregg purged quarterback Lynn Dickey and tight end Paul Coffman, to recall a day like Friday in the annals of the Green Bay Packers.

Among the big names terminated was Mark Tauscher.

This isn't meant to be a full-blown analysis of Tauscher's career in Green Bay. This blog really isn't the vehicle for that.

Instead, let's just recall Tauscher by some of the numbers by which offensive linemen are measured.

To do so, it's inevitable that Tauscher has to be compared to Chad Clifton, his friend and fellow tackle. They were drafted together in 2000, they became starters together in 2000 and they were the team's starting tackles until the fourth game last season when Tauscher's season, and presumably career, ended with a torn rotator cuff against Detroit.

We know how really good Clifton has been for a really long time. Finally, he was selected for the Pro Bowl in 2010 after having been an alternate twice before. Tauscher never made the Pro Bowl, and if he ever was chosen as an alternate the club never released it.

Because of injury, Clifton has played more games than Tauscher. Counting playoffs, Clifton has played in 171 games, starting 166, whereas Tauscher played in 142 games, starting 140.

Clifton's margin in starts of 26 is a significant number when you start examining raw totals in various categories, as we shall do.

OK, let's start by looking at sacks allowed during each of their careers. If I've learned anything on this beat, it's that responsibility for sacks is what you think it is maybe 65% of the time. There are all kinds of variables that affect sack responsibility, and over the years I've done my level best to ascertain who truly was responsible for every sack allowed by the Packers.

SACKS ALLOWED: Tauscher 20 1/2, Clifton 37.

OK, let's move to "bad" runs. I started this in the late 1990s in an attempt to measure run blocking. I defined a "bad" run as a gain for 1 yard or less in non-goalline or non-short yardage situations. Why didn't I just say no gain or worse? Just an arbitrary decision.

BAD RUNS: Tauscher 82, Clifton 106 1/2.

OK, let's move to penalties. This total is for penalties that were accepted. Penalties that were declined or offsetting were not counted.

PENALTIES: Tauscher 28, Clifton 77.

The above three categories measure pass blocking, run blocking, poise and discipline. They do not consider that Clifton played LT and Tauscher played RT, and that by and large Clifton played against somewhat better opponents at RDE/ROLB than Tauscher did playing against LDE/LOLB.

But considering how well Clifton has played and continues to play, seeing how those numbers favor Tauscher are rather startling.

Clifton was blessed by better health. His one terrible injury was the separated pelvis that he suffered in Tampa Bay in 2002. Tauscher, on the other hand, suffered three: the torn ACL in New Orleans in 2002, the torn ACL in Houston in 2008 and the torn rotator cuff against Detroit in 2010. Each had other physical problems that kept them out of games.

Each year since the early 1990s, scouts from the division teams have picked an all-NFC Central and then all-NFC North team for the JS. Here's how Tauscher fared on those teams at RT:

2000: T3 behind Korey Stringer.

2001: 2nd behind Big Cat Williams.

2002: Injured.

2003: T1 with Mike Rosenthal.

2004: 2nd behind John Tait.

2005: 1st (unanimous).

2006: 2nd behind Fred Miller.

2007: 1st (unanimous).

2008: 2nd behind Tait.

2009: 3rd behind Phil Loadholt.

2010: Bryan Bulaga was the GB rep at RT.

So, in nine seasons, Tauscher was first three times, second four times and third twice. He was never fourth or fifth.

The point of all this should be rather obvious. Tauscher was one hell of a football player.

Over his 11 seasons, I must have talked to more than 100 scouts and assistant coaches about Tauscher's game. Some guys just could never get over the way he looked in a uniform. Over time, some almost grudingly came to admit that he was a solid player.

It's true. Tauscher didn't look exactly cut on the field. But he possessed remarkable athletic ability, remarkable powers of concentration and remarkable intangibles that made him a worthy successor to Earl Dotson at the position and a proud predecessor for Bulaga.

Tauscher was an acquired taste. One needed to see him play every game over a period of years to appreciate him. A four-game segment of a season or hurried off-season tape work wasn't enough.

When the waiting period is up, Tauscher will have his induction night into the team's Hall of Fame. That will be well-deserved, of course, but it might be a little too slick for No. 65.

Mark Tauscher doesn't need his name on a plaque or the Pro Bowl that now is skewed by fan voting to know what he accomplished. He just wanted to play the game well, and play it well he did.