Wednesday Walkthroughs: What former player should coach the Packers?

The Indianapolis Colts made the unusual decision to hire Jeff Saturday as their head coach, replacing Frank Reich with a former franchise cornerstone that has never held an NFL coaching job. The reaction (and reaction to the reaction) was intense and funny to see from afar, but only because we haven’t had to go through it ourselves.

That got us thinking: who would be the funniest former player the Packers could hire as their next head coach? Here’s what our writers came up with.

Rcon14: Tom Crabtree

Tom Crabtree generally seems like a funny guy, first of all. But also, his only major career highlight is scoring on a fake field goal. I can only imagine the Packers would amp up the trick play usage in a hilarious way as Crabtree attempts to live vicariously through his players.

Paul Noonan: John Kuhn

It’s not that John Kuhn doesn’t know anything about football, but this would be the perfect storm of Colts-esque incompetent hilarity. People love John Kuhn mostly for…well, let’s call it the same reason Ron Johnson just won a senate seat. And they love him despite the fact that he wasn’t really a great player or terribly useful, sort of like Senator Ron Johnson isn’t a good or useful senator.

And Kuhn is now a media member, but he’s like a fluffy sideline media member with no gravitas, and more of a mascot than a journalist. Plus he’s not above randomly picking fights with bloggers. He’s completely unqualified, yet a huge segment of the population would love it and be all on board.

Is that funny? I don’t know, I’d say yes from a sort of Vonnegutian perspective.

Tex Western: Samkon Gado

After playing college football at Liberty before it became an FBS program, Gado famously played eight games for the Packers in the disastrous 2005 season, starting five and becoming a cult hero with a trio of 100-yard games. Green Bay then traded him to Houston after Week 1 in 2006, but his legend was written into Packers lore forever.

That’s not the funniest part of this idea though – it’s the fact that Gado went to medical school and is now Samkon Gado, MD. Having an actual medical doctor take over as a coach would be genuinely hilarious and amazing.

Jon Meerdink: Bob Kuberski

For a while it was fashionable to bring back Lombardi-era Packers players as head coaches, hoping that they’d help restore the franchise to its glory days since they’d been witness to greatness firsthand. It failed, but at least Bart Starr and Forrest Gregg were interesting names.

My idea is this: what if they were too interesting? What if the Packers could capture the spirit of that idea, but with somebody nobody knows anything about?

With that in mind, I went looking for a member of the 1996 Packers who contributed in the smallest measurable way. That’s where I found Bob Kuberski, who recorded exactly one tackle for your Super Bowl XXXI Champion Green Bay Packers.

Kuberski is a Navy veteran who now works in wealth management, so he actually does have some leadership bona fides. As a former All-East defensive tackle, maybe he can help the Packers shore up their defense!

Justis Mosqueda: Greg Jennings (with Jermichael Finley as offensive coordinator)

If we’re gonna get weird, let’s put Aaron Rodgers’ mindfulness training to the test.