Rookie Spotlight: B.J. Coleman

As you can probably tell from the posts the last couple days, all of us writers here have brainstormed up some story series ideas to keep us busy throughout the dread offseason lull. Today is the first of a series focusing on the current Packer rookie class and what can be expected of each one. The spotlight first falls on B.J. Coleman.

How acquired: Drafted in the 7th round (243rd pick overall)

Chance of making the team: Slim

Reasonable expectations for 2012: The most reasonable expectation here is making the Practice Squad and then spends this year learning the offense. It's a complicated offense, especially for the QB, and so taking a year to sit back and learn is just what he needs.

How he can exceed expectations: Making the team. Coleman will have to play his way on to the 53 man roster. If he can do this then Packer fans should be very excited about this kid's future. After all, the Packers staff have had an uncanny ability to gauge the value of their back up QB's as of late. They knew Aaron Rodgers was ready to take over for Brett Favre without missing a beat. They quickly picked up that Matt Flynn was going to be better than Brian Brohm. They also knew that Flynn's value would not be worth a high round draft pick and decided not to trade him. Finally they also have had a pretty good gauge of Graham Harrell's value through the beginning of the year last year to get him to pass through waivers and on to the PS, but then to pull him on to the 53 man roster later in the year when teams started expressing interest.

Why Packer fans should keep an eye on him: Coleman seems to be a bit different from many of the previous backups to Aaron Rodgers. He has a higher ceiling than Graham Harrell. He has a stronger arm than Harrell or Flynn. He also has an interesting mix of QB personalities. He made a similar promise as Tom Brady made once upon a time. He has tried to emulate Peyton Manning's work ethic and film study. He even got a jump start on studying the Packer's WCO by doing some training with Brett Favre (though this was before the draft so he didn't know he was going to be a Packer then). Heck, he even started studying Packer history once he was drafted just to try and get an head start on fitting in around here. Put all this together and he could be an interesting prospect to develop and possibly the best backup QB the Packers have had since Aaron Rodgers himself.

Summary: Coleman is going to have a tough time beating out Harrell for the number two spot this year, but this isn't the only way he can make the team. As Kevin pointed out, the Packers are probably only going to keep two QB's this year. This could change of Coleman lights up the preseason enough to make a few teams interested. Despite his uphill battle to make the roster this year this is a guy to keep your eye on and he should be making some headlines in a year or two once he gets the coaching that has made McCarthy and crew a name for themselves in the NFL.