Are the Packers Experiencing 2010 Deja Vu?

The 2010 Green Bay Packers season will be remembered as one for the ages.

A team picked by many prognosticators as a favorite  to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl that year, they went from 8-6 and on the brink of elimination to ride a six game winning streak and became champions in the process.

One of the key factors that season was their ability to overcome injuries and never missing a beat.

Players such as Bryan Bulaga, Howard Green, Andrew Quarless, Charlie Peprah and Erik Walden are examples of players who began the season as reserves, but all played a key role during the championship run.

The 2013 Packers are starting to feel a bit like the 2010 team in the way backups are stepping up to the call of duty as starters fall to the wayside due to injuries.

It began in Training Camp, when Bryan Bulaga was lost for the season. The newly appointed left tackle to protect Aaron Rodgers’ blindside suddenly erased from the 2013 plans. This could have been an outright disaster for the offense. Enter David Bakhtiari, who has stepped in for Bulaga and performed more than capably as a rookie.

But it isn’t just this one example that is reminiscent of 2010.

No Brad Jones? No problem. Jamari Lattimore has more than adequately filled his role.

When Randall Cobb broke his leg, it spelled doom to the Packers offense, right? Wrong. Jarrett Boykin has stepped in and had back to back solid games.

The impact of not having Clay Matthews on the field should have been an immense loss to the defense. But somehow Mike Neal and Andy Mulumba are making the defense work.

Although bothered by his own injuries, a revitalized James Starks has been a solid backup to Eddie Lacy, something that was most likely not in the plans when the Packers named DuJuan Harris the starter before the season. Starks looked to be the odd man out when Lacy and Jonathan Franklin were drafted this past April. Yet when Harris himself was lost for the season and the lineup had to be shuffled, it was Starks who would see himself emerge as the primary backup to Lacy.

These examples of this year’s Packers team are why they could be experiencing 2010 deja vu. As starters go down due to injury, backups have stepped in and the team has not missed a beat. This is exactly what made the 2010 team a special team. The ability of Ted Thompson to find the players and Mike McCarthy to plug them in when needed. And at the end of the season, they were champions.

While there are no guarantees this is the same path the 2013 season will take, the similarities are there. Deja vu is not necessarily a bad thing if it leads to a Lombardi Trophy at the end of the path.

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John Rehor is a writer at PackersTalk.com.

He can also be heard as one of the Co-Hosts of Cheesehead Radio.