Packers Confirm Aaron Kampman Will Play OLB in New Defense

It wasn't a terribly shocking day Tuesday in Green Bay. At last, head coach Mike McCarthy introduced his overhauled defensive coaching staff to the media. As expected, former Carolina defensive coordinator Mike Trgovac and former Pittsburgh defensive starters Kevin Greene and Darren Perry are key members of the group.

With the 3-4 defense coming under new coordinator Dom Capers, McCarthy also made official what we talked about here a couple weeks ago. Star defensive end Aaron Kampman is going to move to outside linebacker.

McCarthy is excited about the changes.

"Change creates excitement," McCarthy said. "There's definitely a ton of energy (in the Packers' offices) right now. Today's exciting, we're finally all back, everybody's here. Our staff is complete and you can just tell from the response of the players and the people close to the football team that everyone's excited about our new direction."

Kampman has been very quiet, but that's not out of the ordinary for him. He's typically not the kind of player who runs to the microphones, especially during the off-season. So far, he has said nothing about the changes. Jason Wilde of the Wisconsin State Journal says Kampman didn't respond to a text message about the change Tuesday. For his part, McCarthy says Kampman is a great fit and will be just fine.

"Aaron Kampman knows how to rush the passer and the first responsibility for the outside linebacker position in the base personnel is to rush the passer. ... Aaron Kampman is going to be an excellent fit for what we're going to try to do as we move forward with this new scheme."

Naturally, Packer fans will be much happier about this once Kampman speaks publicly. However, there's no reason to believe there's any long-term angst over this decision. Kampman has made a career out of his work ethic and desire, and not out of freakish athletic ability. That's not to say he isn't athletic enough to make the transition, only that he will likely overcome any athletic limitations and make this work.