GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Remember last week when Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Mike Daniels said it was time for the defense to get mean?

Count quarterback Aaron Rodgers among those who think they have the personnel to do so.

In our continuing series based on Rodgers' lengthy interview with ESPN.com last week, I asked what he liked about this year's team that perhaps he has not seen from other recent Packers' squads.

His answer seemed to fit perfectly with what Daniels was talking about.

"I think we're a bigger, more physically intimidating team," Rodgers said. "We haven't had the kind of physical talent as far as size here in a while. I think there's been times -- I think back to playing Jacksonville in '08 in Jacksonville [a 20-16 Packers' loss], some of the battles we've had with our division teams at times -- where you walk on the field and feel like you're kind of a JV team."

"We've still won a lot of games looking like that, but it's fun when you walk around the locker room and you've got guys like [Julius] Peppers, [Adrian] Hubbard, Datone Jones and then with Derek [Sherrod] back with his size, adding size at receiver, tight end with Richard Rodgers. We just haven't had guys in some of these positions with those body types, and that's exciting."

Rodgers said he believes building a team with bigger players was by design.

"It's natural when teams win the Super Bowl, everybody takes a hard look at what makes their team a championship-caliber team," Rodgers said. "With Seattle, you've got large players in positions you haven't quite seen that size player in a while.

"Both of their corners, [Brandon] Browner and [Richard] Sherman -- I know Browner didn't play a whole lot because of his suspension and injury -- are bigger corners. You're seeing bigger wide receivers. You're seeing larger guys up front in size and length. That's kind of the trend to combat some of the athleticism on the defensive size. On the flip side, it's to have big tight ends and big wide receivers and big offensive linemen to combat them, whereas a few years ago you saw kind of a mix of the zone blocking scheme, smaller quicker offensive linemen. Now you're going back to bigger guys on the offensive line."

Coming tomorrow: Rodgers on the Packers' offense circa 2011.