Brett Favre tarnished the beloved reputation he earned during 16 seasons with the Packers with multiple retirements and comebacks, including runs with the Jets and Vikings. It doesn't appear that he can ever fully return to the status he had during the height of his career, but the quarterback may be trying to get back in Green Bay's good graces. Michael Hunt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that Favre has departed from his past stance of saying little about his successor, Aaron Rodgers. In a recent interview on NFL Network, Favre had nothing but praise for Rodgers. "Aaron Rodgers, I knew when I left, this guy has all the tools," Favre said. "He can beat you with his feet. He's got a great arm, extremely accurate, handles the cast around him perfect."

Entering the 2012 season, second-year linebacker D.J. Smith could challenge A.J. Hawk for playing time. Paul Imig of Fox Sports points out that Smith is unlikely to outright replace Hawk because they don't really play the same position. Even though they are both inside linebackers. "You can say it's kind of minor, but it's kind of a big difference," Smith said. "It's still a middle linebacker, but one position (Hawk's) has more responsibility than the other. When it comes to A.J.'s spot, he's the signal caller. He's the guy that runs the show. He's the quarterback of the whole thing. He gets guys lined up, ready to go and makes all the checks when things switch around."

The Packers have a deep group of wide receivers, leading James Jones to often find his name in trade rumors. According to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Browns are not one of the teams involved in any such conversation.

Brett Favre hasn't given much thought to being targeted as quarterback of the Vikings in the 2010 NFC Championship Game against New Orleans. "People ask me about it at home, because everyone back home was Saints fans," Favre told Deion Sanders of The NFL Network. "I grew up a Saints fan, an hour from the Superdome. "My feeling, and I mean this wholeheartedly, is that I really don't care. What bothers me is we didn't win the game. And they didn't take me out of the game. They came close, but a lot of people have come close. I'm too stubborn to come out. Plus, that was kind of a big game. I'm not going to sit the last three minutes. I'm going to go out there with bones sticking out of the skin, I'm going to finish it."

Johnny Jolly, who hasn't played in the NFL since 2009 due to an indefinite suspension for drug charges, told a website that he has applied to commissioner Roger Goodell for reinstatement. Jolly was granted 10 years of "shock probation" in May by a Houston judge, just six months after he was sentenced to prison for violating terms of his probation for a drug conviction. "I know that the NFL doesn't need me," Jolly told the National Football Post. "I need it way more than it needs me. I really want to be a part of it and I am hoping to go back and show that I am a good reliable citizen that the league and others can depend on and trust."

Mike McCarthy is still struggling to deal with Green Bay's playoff loss to the Giants this past winter. "It'll always bother me," McCarthy said, before talking about the respect he has for Tom Coughlin: "I think he's one of the top coaches in the league. I just really like the way he goes about it, always have." But then it was right back to describing how he felt, and still feels, about the 37-20 beatdown on the Packers' home turf. "I felt in '07, we were beaten in the overtime game, they made one more big play than we did," McCarthy said, referencing that season's Packers-Giants NFC title game. "And for them to go on the road, I don't want this to come out the wrong way, because that win is special, that's a great win for their football team. The margin of victory they won with, too, is definitely to their credit. But I feel like we beat ourselves in this playoff game. Or better yet, we didn't give ourselves a chance to win the game. "The '07 game was a heck of a football game and they made one more play than we did. We didn't give ourselves a chance to win this one. You'd rather someone beat you."

The NFL has turned over some evidence to the four players suspended for the Saints bounty program, but lawyers for the players are seeking more information. Current Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma and defensive end Will Smith, Packers DE Anthony Hargrove and Browns LB Scott Fujita will have their appeals heard Monday by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Aaron Rodgers is pleased with the progress he's making in building a relationship with Green Bay's new quarterbacks coach. The Packers overhauled their offensive coaching staff significantly this offseason. When Joe Philbin left to take over the Dolphins, Mike McCarthy promoted Tom Clements to offensive coordinator and moved Ben McAdoo to quarterbacks coach. "I enjoy a new face in the room with some new ideas to motivate me and challenge me," Rodgers said. "Because it's a different voice in the room, there's going to be times when he brings things up that you probably haven't heard before. I think it's going to be a great room come regular season. Ben's done a good job so far."

Some teams are confused as to what constitutes a violation of the league-wide ban on live contact during offseason workouts. The Seahawks were docked their final two organized team activity sessions and a workout day for holding an overly boisterous practice and Packers coach Mike McCarthy acknowledged that he still isn't sure what a violation is. "Frankly, I don't know what the line is," McCarthy said. The league's management council and the NFLPA are responsible for policing the contact. Packers center Jeff Saturday, a member of the NFL Players Association's executive committee, is confused too. "I think it's been difficult for all of us," he said. "When it's written in legalese, it's totally different than what you do on the field. It's very hard to know what is crossing the line, what's too much, what's too little. I think you kind of put coaches out in an area where it's very uncomfortable for those guys, and for a guy like me it's very uncomfortable, because I have guys coming to me, asking me, you don't really know a definitive answer. So we're trying to figure it out."

A 12-year-old boy that lost a Donald Driver cleat to a woman who ripped it away, has been rewarded by the Packers wide receiver. Driver tossed his cleats into the crowd after a charity softball game in Grand Chute. He said he was trying to toss a cleat to Stephen Wagner, but a woman wrestled it from the boy. So Driver turned to Twitter to find Stephen, arranged to meet him and greeted the boy with some autographed Packers gear, including a pair of cleats.