Jon Meerdink
Jon Meerdink covers the Green Bay Packers for Acme Packing Company with a focus on explaining how the team is built and why specific football decisions matter, not just what happened on game day. He blends news, roster and scheme analysis, and fan-facing context so that day-to-day developments fit into a longer story about the franchise’s direction. His work often reads less like a traditional game story and more like an ongoing guide to understanding the modern Packers.
Cheese Curds and day-to-day Packers news
A core part of Meerdink’s work is the recurring “Cheese Curds” column, a regular roundup of Packers news and analysis built around a single timely question or theme. Pieces like “Wednesday Cheese Curds: What do the Packers do at running back?” use the news hook of the day to frame broader issues, such as positional depth, upcoming roster decisions, or how injuries and contracts shape the depth chart.
Rather than simply listing links, he uses short, direct paragraphs to frame why each storyline matters and what fans should watch next.
Across these roundups he tracks injuries, depth chart moves, coaching staff comments, and league-wide developments that affect the Packers’ schedule or playoff picture.
The structure is consistent, which makes it easy to follow, but the angle changes with the week: sometimes the focus is on a single position group, sometimes on a recent loss or win, and sometimes on off-field developments like rule changes or front-office news. The tone stays even and explanatory, favoring clear context over reaction, which distinguishes the series from more opinion-driven daily columns.
Roster building, positional value and team direction
Beyond the daily rhythm of news, Meerdink spends much of his coverage on how the Packers assemble and manage their roster. He writes about contract decisions, draft classes, and free agency as connected parts of a long-term roster-building plan rather than isolated transactions. In pieces that focus on specific position groups - running back, wide receiver, offensive line or the secondary - he often explains how age, cost, and skill sets interact, and what that means for future seasons.
His analysis returns frequently to positional value: why the team invests premium picks at certain spots, how they balance stars and role players, and what happens when a key veteran leaves or declines. Rather than projecting splashy moves, he typically outlines a range of realistic scenarios, grounded in the Packers’ recent history and the league’s broader market for similar players.
That approach gives his work a front-office feel, useful for understanding how one decision at a single position ripples across the rest of the roster.
Meerdink’s writing on roster construction often doubles as an explainer of the Packers’ overall direction.
When he looks at a specific move, he links it back to scheme changes, coaching preferences, or the timeline of the current competitive window. This makes his pieces valuable reference points during key periods like free agency, the draft, and training camp cuts, when short-term news can obscure the team’s longer-term plan.
Scheme, quarterback play and explaining the modern Packers
Meerdink also devotes significant attention to how the Packers actually play, especially on offense. His coverage of scheme and quarterback play focuses on what the team is asking its quarterback and skill players to do, and how that reflects the head coach’s broader philosophy. Instead of only recounting big plays, he highlights concepts - route combinations, run-game structure, play-action usage - and ties those to personnel decisions and opponent tendencies.
This approach is particularly evident in his work around the starting quarterback, where he tracks development over time rather than reacting to single-game highs and lows. He writes about decision-making, pocket movement, and timing alongside box-score statistics, giving readers a more complete sense of performance.
When a game goes wrong, he tends to break down whether the issues lie in execution, play design, or matchup problems, making the criticism more analytical than emotional.
Because he consistently links schematic choices with roster construction, Meerdink’s coverage helps explain why the Packers prioritize certain traits in receivers, backs, and linemen and how those choices show up on Sundays. The result is coverage that feels cohesive: a reader who follows his work can trace a line from a draft pick or free-agent signing, through camp and preseason, into the way that player is eventually deployed in the offense or defense.
Podcasting and multi-format Packers analysis
In addition to his written work for Acme Packing Company, Meerdink hosts the Packers podcast “Blue 58,” where he extends the same analytical approach into audio. Episodes commonly mirror the themes of his articles - roster construction, scheme, and quarterback evaluation - while allowing him to go deeper on listener questions and long-term storylines.
The podcast format reinforces his focus on explanation: he often walks through concepts step by step, outlining both what happened and how to think about it.
The combination of regular written columns and a dedicated podcast means he covers the Packers year-round, from regular season and playoffs through free agency, the draft, and the quieter stretches of the offseason. For sources and teams, this multi-format presence is important: he is as engaged with granular in-season questions as he is with big-picture, long-horizon topics like how the roster is evolving or how the offense is changing under current leadership. Across formats, his hallmark is steady, concept-driven coverage that privileges clarity and structure over hot takes.
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