All Packed Up

He may not be playing for his second straight Super Bowl title, but Aaron Rodgers has added some more hardware to his trophy case.

The Green Bay Packer quarterback was named the 2011 AP NFL Most Valuable Player Saturday, receiving 48 of the possibly 50 votes, and continuing to carve his legacy. Fellow NFL quarterback, Drew Brees, claimed the remaining two, in large part to his record-breaking campaign.

Brees shattered Dan Marino's 27-year-old mark for the most passing yards in a single-season with 5,476 -- a record he flirted with in 2008.

Rodgers, 28, is the first Packers quarterback to be name the league's MVP since the recently retired Brett Favre won his final of three consecutive MVP awards in 1997. He shared that honor with Detriot's Barry Sanders. That season, Favre and Co. played in their second straight Super Bowl, but lost to the John Elway-led Denver Broncos.

This season, Rodgers threw for 4,643 yards, averaged 9.5 yards per completion, found the end zone 45 times, completed 68.3 percent of his passes and posted a 122.5 passer rating -- all career-highs. His 122.5 passer rating also led the NFL.

After narrowly missing perfection, leading Green Bay to a 15-1 regular season record and an NFC North Division title, Rodgers' dream of winning his second career Super Bowl were crashed.

He would be let down by his usually sure-handed receivers as six different players combined for eight drop passes in their Divisional Round game against the New York Giants, where they upended, 37-20. A bitter end to a once promising season.

Now, Rodgers joins Paul Hornung (1961), Jim Taylor (1962), Bart Starr (1966) and Favre (1995-97) as the only other player to capture an MVP while playing their home games at Lambeau Field. It's the fifth consecutive season the MVP has be given to a quarterback, but he is only the third player to win the award during that time before. New England's Tom Brady (2007, 2010) and Indianapolis' Peyton Manning (2008, 2009) had combined to win the previous four.

While many believed Brees, who has yet to win a MVP, would have got more consideration, he was named the league's Offensive Player of the Year

As for the MVP, Rodgers was drafted in the first-round of the 2005 NFL Draft out of California, but sat and lived in the shadow of Favre for the first three years of his career.

But now with just as many rings as Favre, excelling every season and rapidly ascending to the top of his position, Rodgers no longer lives in anyone's shadow, but his own.

Keeping The Ball Rolling

NCAA defenses never found an answer to the
lethal legs of Montee Ball in 2011.

After being told by many draft experts that he was a third-round grade, Wisconsin Badgers' running back Montee Ball has decide to return for his senior season and forgo the 2012 NFL Draft.

Coming off the best season of his collegiate career, Ball was named the Big Ten's Offensive Player of the Year and a Heisman Trophy finalist. As a junior, Ball led the nation in rushing yards with 1,923, the seventh-highest total in Big Ten history, and tied Barry Sanders, who set 24 other NCCA records in 1988, for the most touchdowns (39) in FBS history for a single season.

Despite Ball playing in three more games than Sanders did while attending Oklahoma State, he touched the ball sixty-one fewer times than the 2004 Hall of Fame inductee, making a case that his recording-tying season was as impressive as Sanders' '88 Heisman campaign.

Ball finished the year with 2,229 all-purpose yards, the second in team history. Playing for then-Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez, running back Ron Dayne set the Badgers' team record in 1996 when he accumulated 2,242 yards, putting Ball's name in the same sentence with yet another Heisman Trophy winner.

Dayne captured college football's most prestigious award in 1999.

Scoring 57 total touchdowns the last two seasons, many attribute Ball's recent success to his commitment of losing weight. Shedding more than 25 pounds prior to the start of the season, the 5' 11", 210-pounder was in great shape, but plans to put on weight his offseason in hopes of getting stronger, something NFL scouts believe he must do to raise his draft stock.

A consensus All-American, Ball helped lead the No. 10 ranked Badgers to a Conference title and earned them their second consecutive Rose Bowl bid.

Facing the Michigan State Spartans, a team that beaten Ball and Co. earlier in the year, in the inaugural Big Ten title game on Dec. 3, Ball got his revenge. He scored a season-high 4 TDs, with his last coming with 3:45 remaining in the fourth quarter, sealing the win, 42-39.

And while Ball was on the losing end of the highest scoring Rose Bowl in history, 45-38, he enjoyed another fantastic game to close out his season, rushing for 164 and a score while catching 4 passes for 51 yards.

Showing once again why Madison will be happy to keep the ball rolling and hit the ground running in 2012.