Packers Reacts: 63 percent of fans want Sean Rhyan to start

In his first extended look in the regular season, former top-100 pick Sean Rhyan helped the Packers drive down the field for a touchdown. Now, fans want him to play more.

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NFL. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Green Bay Packers fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

We have another set of results for you, which feature a couple of temperature checks on the Packers’ offensive line. At one position, fans seem to overwhelmingly want to keep things as they have been. At another, they want change. Let’s get into it.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are favorites this week, so it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that the national fans are picking them to come away with the win against the Packers. It should be a low-scoring affair, as both defenses have been doing a good job of keeping opponents out of the end zone as of late. Meanwhile, both offenses — on the season as a whole — have struggled. For perspective, the 3-5 Packers actually have a better point differential than the 5-3 Steelers.

Some, including me, are going to point to last week’s result against the Los Angeles Rams and say to simply throw out the game because Brett Rypien, who has now been released by Los Angeles, was the team’s starting quarterback. That doesn’t seem to be the overwhelming feeling of fans, though, as confidence in the Packers’ direction more than doubled since the win. Hey, I guess a win is a win.

This is about as evenly split of a poll result as I’ve seen in three years running Packers Reacts. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything close to a consensus on how most Green Bay fans feel about the trade of cornerback Rasul Douglas to move up two rounds (one and a half?) in next year’s draft. One silver lining, at least, is that rookie cornerback Carrington Valentine played well as Douglas’ replacement last week.

It looks like fans are done with the Rasheed Walker experiment, and I don’t really blame them. I understand that Walker’s contract has a lot of value, considering he was a late-round pick, if he ends up developing into a starting-caliber player, but Yosh Nijman is simply the more consistent player right now. Sure, Nijman is on a one-year rental, but this team needs to get answers about quarterback Jordan Love in the second half of the season so they can plan accordingly.

The fact that it only took one drive of Sean Rhyan playing right guard to get fans to call for him to start at the position goes to show how much Jon Runyan Jr. has slipped over the last two years. I’m not sure if I would pull the trigger on playing Rhyan over Runyan quite yet, as Rhyan was Royce Newman’s reserve just a few weeks ago, but this will be interesting to monitor moving forward.