Green Bay— Mike Neal started the 2015 season in a familiar place — the physically unable to perform list
It's a ritual that the Green Bay Packers linebacker hopes is behind him for good.
The cause of Neal's troubles each of the past two years was a bilateral sports hernia, a groin injury different from a normal hernia and common among athletes who make explosive, twisting movements. The injury is most often associated with the oblique muscles in the lower abdomen.
Each of the last two seasons, the Packers would not pass Neal on his physical because his off-season training had caused the injury to flare up and they wanted him to treat it.