By Lori Nickel
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The night before the NFC Championship Game at Seattle, in the team hotel, Green Bay Packers receiver Randall Cobb was in considerable pain. The stabbing sharpness in his core wouldn’t subside. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t drink.
“It was one of those deals where you can’t really move,” Cobb said.
The Packers took him to an area hospital for observation and tests, and when it was determined it was not appendicitis, they brought him back to the hotel, mystified by what was wrong with their star receiver.
With little fuel or fluids that January night - essential for elite athletic performance, especially at the end of a long and gruelling season - Cobb still turned in an impressive performance against the Seahawks the next day, leading all receivers with seven catches, for 62 yards and one touchdown.
In the rain, on the road, Cobb also blocked for other receivers and runners and when a pass that was intended for him was intercepted, Cobb went in first for the tackle to prevent a return. It was a resilient effort that was all but buried under the headlines and reactions of a shocking loss, red-eye flight home, players’ exit interviews and a season’s abrupt end, but the team saw what Cobb did and knew what it meant.
“Guys are cut from different cloth, and Randall is cut from burlap,” receivers coach Alex Van Pelt said.
By now there are so many examples of Cobb’s toughness that they just about define the 5-foot-10, 192-pound, fifth-year receiver - but why?
He got paid in the offseason, signing a four-year deal worth $40 million. He has shed the liabilities of being somewhat undersized by playing smart and creative, and being dedicated and diligent. He has talked about the work ethic he learned from his family growing up in Alcoa, Tenn.
So if there are no debts to pay and little else to prove, why did he go out against the Chicago Bears on Sunday with an injured shoulder that sometimes must feel like it’s being held together by the seams of his green and gold jersey?
“He’s a great player,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said at Soldier Field. “He pushed through an injury and I’m really proud of him for doing that.”
Cobb’s numbers speak to his talent and ability: 3,049 yards in 52 regular-season games with a 13.4 average per catch, and that’s with some of his best competition for the ball coming from his teammates, not the opponent trying to defend him. Most of that production has come out of the slot, the most physical position, but his coach says he plays like a 6-2, 220-pound receiver.
“He’s tenacious and has a never-lose attitude. He makes big catches and takes big hits,” Van Pelt said.
You may not think of Cobb as a good blocker, but he came in that way. In 2011, his rookie year, on Thanksgiving in Detroit, Cobb cracked the safety for a block.
“I caught him off-guard pretty good,” Cobb said.
Even with a solid resume and a contract to play for, he blocked at Seattle, too, locking up the 6-3, 232-pound Kam Chancellor once, according to Van Pelt.
“He’s fearless out there,” Van Pelt said. “He’s a bulldog when it comes to run blocking,”
“This is a physical game and I take pride in being a football player,” Cobb said. “I don’t really consider myself a receiver. I consider myself a football player. When that involves blocking, I’m going to do my job.”
But that loss in Seattle hurt Cobb as much as anyone, if not more. It was the first time Cobb had gotten so close to a Super Bowl. In the previous three seasons, he had played for three straight NFC North title winners, including a 15-1 team, and made three straight playoff appearances. But the Packers never made it to the NFC Championship Game.
“That was definitely tough, not being able to make it there, and give yourself an opportunity,” Cobb said. “That’s one of the reasons I came back (to Green Bay) - because that I want to feel that I am part of something.”
So he spent more time with his trainer, Nate Costa, in the Baltimore area during the offseason. Cobb usually spends the month before training camp with Costa, but this year he was there from February to April and the summer as well.
There was nothing glamorous about it, just the basics of weight training and conditioning, the kind of work that athletes put in when they’re starved for a ring.
That’s what this is for Cobb. He wants one, and is a little bit envious that his friends Rodgers, Jordy Nelson and James Jones all have one. The pursuit of a ring explains Cobb’s concentration in traffic, the bowling-ball blocking, the playing in the season opener with an injured right shoulder and still catching five passes, one for a touchdown.
“Since I was a kid - it’s been city championships. Four state championships in high school. A World Series - the WABC - when I was 10,” said Cobb.
“Winning is what fuels me. I don’t want to lose. I want the greatest achievement there is - and the greatest achievement at this level is a Super Bowl.”
Cobb pulled the large, heavy bags of ice off his shoulder. They hit the floor with a thud. But it’s not the weight of the world he’s carrying when he’s already thinking about the next Super Bowl. That’s his focus, with every catch and every block.
“You don’t have to be big to be a tough guy,” teammate Davante Adams said. “It’s all in here, in the chest, and in your mind.”