Memorial Day is in the books. The temperature still hasn't hit 90 degrees. The Brewers are playing wonderful and exciting baseball and they might even keep it up all year. I even promise to actually write something about the Brewers, sometime.

But, none of that really matters because TODAY IS THE START OF THE PACKERS' SEASON!

That's right. Organized team activities begin with a series of meetings today at Lambeau Field. OTA's are a sure sign that hitting hard for real is right around the corner. And who in the world says that the seasons for sports teams are too long?

The Packers are going to need every single minute of every single hour of every single day to answer the questions facing their team and to get the players ready for what may be a very important year in the history of this storied franchise.

What we need now to get the juices really flowing is for the Brett Favre show to heat up. He's got to tell the Vikings he wants to play and the Vikings have to say they want him. And then the season will truly be underway.

But forget Favre, for a moment. (We'll have more on his later, I promise).

Let's talk about these OTA things.

It's kind of like the first day of class, and that comparison is more apt this year than in most seasons past.

First of all, we've got all these new coaches and this entirely new defensive system. We've still got two outstanding but aging cornerbacks. We wonder a little bit about the other two defensive backs. And we really don't have any sure things at the four spots for linebackers.

And that's the good news.

The real question marks, at least on the defense, get raised when you look at the defensive line.

The Packers have three defensive linemen who don't have lots of questions hanging over their heads: Ryan Pickett, Johnny Jolly and Aaron Kampman. The problem with that, though, is that Kampman is moving to outside linebacker and Jolly may well get suspended. That could leave the team with Pickett, who is a warrior, and then a bunch of guys who have done either nothing or almost nothing in their careers. Hardly likely to warm the heart of any new defensive coordinator.

In this day of computer learning, nobody expects that any of the Packer defenders will be surprised when they get their first look at the 3-4 during the OTA's. We can all rest assured that the defensive playbook and computer video has been in the hands of these players for months. Nobody knows for sure if they did their homework, but we'll see.

The questions on the other side of the ball are no less severe and may, perhaps, be even more perplexing.

The Packers have 16 offensive linemen on their roster. Half of them are slashes, which means they haven't demonstrated enough to establish a position. A slash is a player listed as G/T, someone who may play guard or tackle. One of the non-slash players is Mark Tauscher, the right tackle who will most likely play somewhere else this season.

One thing unique about this group is that the Packers are probably the only team in the league with a player who is both a slash and a hyphen. Evan Dietrich-Smith is a rookie G/C from Idaho.

Unless they get things sorted out along the offensive line it won't really matter much about what's going on elsewhere on offense.

The task for Aaron Rogers is to prove that his solid season last year was not a fluke. He has a talented group of receivers to help him but virtually no consistent running game. Ryan Grant had a good year, an average year and this is the one that is probably make or break for him. His yards per carry dropped by more than one yard last season, which is not a good trend. If he doesn't turn out to be the answer, the cupboard is pretty barren for a replacement.

Another guy who's got his butt on the line this season is Mike McCarthy.

Ever since he arrived in Green Bay, McCarthy has talked about toughness. He looks like a tough guy. He sounds like a tough guy. But his teams haven't played like tough teams. It's obvious that he thinks the path to success in the NFL is with tough players and a tough scheme.

While that approach may be desirable, if you don't have players to pull it off, you look like a foolish leader. One school of thought is that you get players who fit your scheme. The other is you adjust your scheme to fit your players. McCarthy has decided to adjust his defensive scheme to fit his players.

Whether that works or not is why the start of OTA's is an occasion to celebrate.