Don’t miss out on all the fun tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday! It is the 2010 NFL Draft, and the fine folks at Cheesehead TV and Railbird Central (along with many other awesome guests) are hosting a virtual draft party – and you’re all invited! Come talk Packers and football and get your full fix of the draft! You can check out the live blog below.

Also, Brian from Railbird will be hosting a live call-in show on BlogTalkRadio from 10 to 11PM CST – that is also embedded in this post, so be sure to check them both out!

I was at Lambeau Field on April 25th, 2009. Well, more like in the Lambeau Field Atrium – but same thing really. This was the first day of the 2009 NFL Draft – and they were having a draft party. It was a pretty huge event for something just as huge. 256 players would begin their NFL careers that day, and we were all there in the Atrium to see what new players we might be cheering on in the green and gold. The Packers held the 9th overall pick, and a raucous ovation went up when defensive tackle B.J. Raji was selected. We figured we had a good amount of time before the 2nd round pick game up, so we went around the different booths and areas they had set up for the event. In a few of the upstairs meeting areas in the Atrium, they even had former Packer players signing autographs (everyone got a ticket for 2 guys) So I went upstairs, around the 20th pick of the first round, to get in line to get some autographs. The line was fairly long (everyone seemed to have the same idea as well) but they had TVs everywhere, so I wasn’t missing a second of the draft action. The picks ticked by, the line got smaller. As I was getting closer to the table (Will Blackmon and Jordy Nelson were awaiting my arrival!), I heard the sound of a pick being turned in on the TV. But it wasn’t a pick, it was a trade – and suddenly a cheer went up around me. I turned to the TV – and suddenly the Packers were on the clock. So much for having a lot of time…

The rest, as they say, is history. The Packers selected outside linebacker Clay Matthews III from USC with that pick. I hadn’t read much about CM3 (as he would affectionately become to be known), only that he was one of 4 great linebackers out of Southern Cal and although he was probably rated behind Cushing and Maualuga, he had quite a bit of talent. With a new defensive coordinator and a new defensive scheme, some fresh blood might not be a bad thing. Little did we know what we were actually getting.

Clay Matthews joined one of the better linebacking corps in the league. Now I know maybe people out there in the Packer Blogosphere have berated A.J. Hawk for “not living up to his draft status”, but Hawk, Barnett, and now Kampman are three crazy good football players. Now add in Matthews, and role-players like Desmond Bishop, Brandon Chillar (congrats, BTW, Brandon), and Brad Jones and you see my point.  Active and talented linebackers are a huge part of the 3-4 defense and the fact Thompson moved up in the 1st round to select Matthews showed his commitment to the new defense.

While Matthews may have started off a little slowly, as most rookies will, he has come into his own recently and has started to enter the discussion for defensive rookie of the year consideration.  He just seems to play with a little extra umph and he has a great nose for the ball.  I definitely look forward to seeing him prowl the middle of that field for years to come – long blonde locks and all.

Tomorrow we get to relive one of the best rivalries in sports once again. If you talk to most Packer fans these days, the Vikings/Packers rivalry has started to become a little more heated than usual over the last few years (even aside from the “Purple Judas” drama of this year), but nothing will ever be able to compare with the Packers and Bears. Since their first meeting in 1921 to their last meeting in Week 1 of this season, the Packers and Bears rivalry has always run red-hot, and it is always in the debate of “best sports rivalries”, up there with Yankees/Red Sox and Ohio State/Michigan. Both teams this year are going in different directions at this point, but the records truly never matter when these two teams meet (forgive the cliche). I just want to throw out a few thoughts before the game tomorrow…

Don’t look ahead
The Packers control their destiny when it comes to the playoffs. They have been playing some very strong football and they can’t let their foot off the gas now. They need to (again, pardon the cliche) continue to focus on one game at a time and not worry about what the other teams in the race are doing. Plus, we all know this game is about a lot more than just the playoff race (especially since Chicago isn’t really in it) It is about bragging rights. Since Lovie Smith took over as Chicago’s head coach, he has never been swept by Green Bay in a season. That could change tomorrow.

Keep the pressure on Cutler
The defense picked off Cutler 4 times in their first meeting, and he hasn’t really gotten much better the rest of the season. The Packers D is the best at forcing turnovers and taking control of games and they will need to continue doing that.

Give me more Ahman Green!
Green has seemed to do a lot more with his limited opportunities than Grant has with his abundant ones, and I would love to see an established running game for once this year, so I really hope that McCarthy’s starts using Green (and even Jackson) a little bit more if Grant struggles.

You never know what Chicago team will show up, but you always know it will be a tough matchup. I think the Packers will be able to handle the Bears, and it should be fun to see Cutler struggle again.

Prediction: Packers 31, Bears 16