The Green Bay Packers released 2011 1st round pick Derek Sherrod yesterday.  The whole thing just makes me sad.  You’ll see a lot of people just label him a bust and a mistake but we don’t know that it’s true.  The injury that he suffered against Kansas City assured that he would never be the same player.  The fact that we never know what the original potential of Sherrod is is the worst part.

I’m not trying to make excuses for Ted Thompson.  One of the reasons that this team isn’t the elite program that it was in the early 2010’s is the lack of quality players from the 2011 and 2012 drafts.  The ship certainly seems to have been righted in 2013 and 2014.  But the failure of Derek Sherrod to become a useful part of the team has a ripple effect.

I’m a big JC Tretter fan.  I think his versatility is very helpful for the team and he and Don Barclay could have solidified what would be a very good group of backups on the offensive line.  What he is not is a backup left tackle.  The release of Derek Sherrod makes Tretter the backup at almost every position on the line.

It also puts the Packers in a very precarious position.  Let’s say that TJ Lang isn’t ready for the Chicago game on Sunday.  The line from left to right would be Bakhtiari, Sitton, Linsley, Tretter and Bulaga.  What if someone gets hurt?

Lane Taylor can’t play tackle.  Garth Gerhart can’t play tackle.  You could easily be in another “Daryn Colledge getting everyone killed playing tackle” scenario.  I’m not going to stand up here and say that Sherrod was a good player, but the offensive line needs to stay healthy from this point until the end of the season.

From what I can ascertain if Lang plays, Tretter will back up everyone on the line from Sitton on down to Bulaga.  If something were to happen to David Bakhtiari, Bulaga would slide over to the left side and Tretter would play on the right side.  The fact that Lang is already injured throws the whole thing into a dangerous place.

I am usually the last guy to be critical of Ted Thompson and the front office, but does it really make sense to keep a guy like Demtri Goodson or Carl Bradford over Derek Sherrod when the team is already this thin on the offensive line?  Time will tell.

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Ross Uglem is a writer at PackersTalk.com. You can follow Ross on twitter at RossUglem

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