Desmond Bishop Setting His Sights High

Green Bay Packers linebacker Desmond Bishop missed all of 2012 with a hamstring injury, but he’s setting his sights high in 2013.

Bishop, who says his injury is 100 percent healed, writes his goals down in a notebook. His goal for 2013 is simple — defensive MVP.

“Seriously,” Bishop says, “why not? I know I’m capable.”

We’d call that goal lofty. Is it attainable? Maybe. Bishop was on his way to becoming one of the best inside linebackers in the league before the injury. In 2011, Bishop had 115 tackles, five sacks and two forced fumbles in 13 games.

That shows the kind of play-making ability A.J. Hawk dreams about at night.

At the same time, the Packers were ready to discard Bishop a month ago. There were reports the team put him on the trading block during the second day of the draft, which we considered a completely idiotic idea. Let’s go trade our best inside linebacker for a low-round draft pick. Good idea, Ted.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen, but the Packers made one thing clear in the process. They think there’s a chance Bishop won’t return to his pre-injury form. They paid Brad Jones starter’s money in the offseason and also renegotiated Hawk’s deal, which means Bishop will be expected to beat out one of those guys for a starting spot.

We don’t anticipate he’ll have much of a problem doing so and Bishop knows fans have high expectations for him.

“I embrace it,” Bishop said. “I embrace everything. I embraced the injury. I embraced having to be patient before I got my opportunity. I embrace when I got my opportunity.

“Bring it on.”

Sounds like he’s more than up for the challenge.