Brit Pack

Personally, I would get around 6 players through free agency and predominantly on the defensive side of the ball. We got no safeties, we need another MLB, we need two edge guys. Then on offence a RG, maybe a vet WR, and RB, but those two are luxury gets. That leaves the draft to get a DL, TE and RT as a priority in my mind, as those roles i.e. Daniels, Graham Bulaga are ageing and will need replacing soon. The crazy thing is on our defence with the exception of Perry and T.Will, who I reckon both will get cut, there is only one player on a vet deal, Daniels who accounts for 5.44% of the cap and then all we got are guys, some really good ones, who are on rookie deals. Nothing in between. We need some defensive vets otherwise we are expecting our defence to turn around based on rookies coming in and lighting it up. I would go heavy in FA for defence, and heavy in the draft for offence/BPA.

I don't know what the big deal is with Finley is saying. What he says is not doggin' Rodgers. The media though are spinning it as Finley having a dig, what he says makes sense and is very reasonable. What I found interesting with the Undisputed clip, which we take it for what it is, a piece of entertainment, is that Shannon Sharp who is always been a big, big advocate of Rodgers gives his perspective of him as a player and that I find more interesting than anything Skip or Greg say.

It's coming thick and fast. I hope this grows the chip back again on Rodgers shoulder.

I find we have so many holes on defence. Daniels is our only veteran player (apart from Williams who probably should get cut) after Daniels the next player who takes on any significant cap charge is Clark who is still on a rookie contract. This year we have cap space and we have need of veteran defensive players, to simply insert more rookies in and expect our defence to get better is madness. We need desperately some veteran help in there to round out our roster. I really hope they spend that dough on some players. I mean our safeties are non-existent and to think we are going to find two starters in the draft is wishful thinking.

I think WR is a luxury to get from FA not a need. Same with a FA running back. The thing with the WR spot is I just would like some veteran in there and Beasley seemed the best of the 'affordable' bunch, to add with the size and the fact whenever I watched him he seems like a perfect outlet player.

Not looked into the draft yet but I have been spending some time getting into potential free agent signings that I feel we need and could get. I'm not of the school of thought of buying star players in FA, I feel you need to draft, develop and retain those kind of players. FA is about plugging roster holes and not expecting or trying to get rookies to fill those roles. It's more about overall roster depth. The biggest holes we have are on defence. While edge get talked about a lot, I feel the safety position is even worse. With the edge we have Perry and Fackrell. With the safeties who we got, Brice, maybe Williams? By filling the holes on the defence it allows for us to actually go hard on offence for once in a draft. Yes, we probably want to get an edge rusher as the FA picking are pretty slim, and we might want a DL and safety as well. But we can start to address our Oline in the draft, get a good TE to develop, and maybe another stud WR that will mature out in a few seasons. So here goes: Preston Smith, OLB, 265lbs, 26 years old, 4 year player, averages 6 sacks per season, in 2017 had the highest successful pass percentage in the whole NFL, 76.9 PFF Give the man a 3 year $22.5m contract, average per year $7.5m with $10.5m guaranteed, cap hit year 1 = $4.8m. Same contract that was given this past offseason to another former Redskin Trent Murphy who went to the Bills. Benson Mayowa , OLB, 265lbs, 27 years old, been in the league 6 years, had 4 sacks and 4 PDef, 1 FF last season. 73.3 PFF Give the man a 2 year $5.5m contract, average per year $ 2.75m, $2.95m guaranteed, cap hit year 1 = $2,75m. Same contract that was given by the Bears to Sam Acho Jordan Hicks, ILB, 236lbs, 26 years old, had 3 sacks and 5 PDef last year. 80.7 PFF Give the man a 3 year $22.5m contract, average per year $7.5m a year, $16m guaranteed, cap hit year 1 = $6m. Same contract given by the Jets to Avery Williamson last season. Adrian Amos, SS, 215lbs, 25 years old, 4 year player, had a 1 sack and 2 Ints lasts season. 82.7 PFF Give the man a 5 year $30m contract, average per year $6.1m, $14m guaranteed, cap hit year 1 = 4m. Same contract the Bills gave to our very own Micah Hyde Anthony Harris, FS, 202lbs, 27 years old, 4 year player, last year started 9 games, had 3 Ints. 89 PFF Give the man a 5 year $30m contract, average per year $6.1m, $14m guaranteed, cap hit year 1 = 4m. Same contract the Bills gave to our very own Michah Hyde Mike Person, G, 300lbs, 30 years old, been in in the league 8 years, was in Atlanta when MLF was there and played pretty good by all accounts in San Fran last season, so our OL coach will know him well. 67.2 PFF Give the man a 3 year $8m, average $2.6m, $3.5m guaranteed, cap hit year 1 = $1.4m. Same contract the Eagles gave Stefan Wisniewski Cole Beasley, WR, 180lbs, 29 years old, played 9 seasons for the Boys, good little nifty slot receiver, had 672 yards last season. 74.6 PFF Give the man a 3 year $13.5m contract, average per year $4.5m, $6.3m guaranteed, cap hit year 1 = $2.6m. Same contract Jermaine Kearse got. Along with these guys I would cut Perry and T. Williams and look to retain Breeland. The cap cost for this bag of shopping would be $19.95m in 2019

Also he will be hyped up after the SB and some team will overpay for him

For me, out of all the 'gettable' edge guys it has be Smith he had the highest successful pass rush percentage in the NFL in '17. Give him a similar contract to another former Redskin Trent Murphy and I'd be happy

I feel the need for Edge and FS (as well as ILB) has to come from FA not from the draft. If we are expecting rookies to come in straight away and change the fortunes of our defence then I feel we'll be in a for a major let down. More than anything the one thing I really like about the Pats is that they bring a multitude of role players guys like Kyle Van Noy, Danny Shelton or Adrain Clayborn etc. They don't break the bank but they all contribute. I don't want us to get into the draft trying to fill needs. On defence there is such a big void from 5.44% of cap for Daniels and no one (excluding T.Williams who should get cut) until you get to a Kenny Clark who is on 1.51% of cap and on a rookie deal. There are no other players on defence that sit within those cap levels. That means all of our contributors on defence are players with 4 years of experience of less. While we need rookies to constantly develop the roster we badly need veteran players to address this major weakness. We can't rely on a new bunch of rookies to fix this defence from a talent standpoint.

Brady's cap hit in '18 was 12.21% and this coming year will be 14.06%. I think the argument was something around the 13.4% mark though, either which way a ridiculous one.

I’m a firm believer you put your money in what you value. I think it works the same for NFL teams. Having a look at the current 2019 roster of the Packers highlights some key points in terms of money and percentage of cap allocated to individuals and positional groups. Overall I would say this roster might have some promising young players from the last draft and from holdover from TT’s reign but it is severely lacking in veteran players especially on the defensive side of the ball. So we have QB1 accounting for 13.47% of the cap, which is actually less than what Tom Brady will account for the Pats in ‘19, and interestingly enough this season as well Rodgers had a lower cap hit than Brady. Next we got what I would class as solid/good/great performers who will be around for at least the next couple of seasons and who are your core players going forward – Bakh, Adams, Linsley and to a lesser extent Lane Taylor. In 2019 Bhak has the 3rd highest cap number on the current roster at 7.22%, Adams 5th highest cap at 5.51%, Linsley 4.14% of cap and 8th highest paid player, and then finally we got Lane Taylor as our tenth highest paid player in terms of percentage of cap at 2.77%. This group of players is your main boys to build on. Having a look at this these guys they are all offence players only and in reality you want a few more players that account for this solid core who are tied down for the next couple of seasons. The next bunch of guys are solid as well but on the *** ends of their career, or approaching that and/or are coming to the end of their deals. Graham our 4th highest cap player at 6.44%, Daniels and Bulaga account for 5.44% and 4.20% of the cap at 6th and 7th positions respectfully. Then we got Tramon 9th highest cap at 3.24% and Crosby 11th highest cap at 2.77%. These are the positions you want to be drafting now in ’19 in whatever round i.e. primarily RT, TE, DL. So I would look out for those guys getting selected possibly highly for the Packers so that in their rookie years they can contribute and ultimately grow into starters after that. Williams looks like a good cap cut here the others are good to stick around. Going into free agency I would be very surprised if we didn’t spend heavily on defensive talent. Currently we only have Daniels as a veteran who accounts for a decent amount of cap at 5.44% then a big drop to other players who are good but they are all still on their rookie deals: Kenny Clark at 1.51% of cap, Jaire at 1.39%, Fackrell 1.13%, Lowry and Martinez both at 1.09%. Kevin King 0.98. There are no players between Daniels at 5.44% and Kenny Clark at 1.51% who are decent contributors on defence. You want a few players that account for 2% to 5% of cap per se to fill out this part of the roster. This by the numbers is the weakest spot on our team. We might get a couple vets here with Breeland and Mo Wilk if they come back but I feel you need more. For comparison's sake the 2018 Pats roster had 10 defensive players who accounted 2.18% to 1.13% of the cap. We need players like that. For reference those players were Clayborn, Chung, Harmon, Van Noy, Guy, Jason McCourtney, Brown, Ebner, Trey Flowers and Danny Shelton. On top of that the Pats paid for three high priced players on defence Gilmore at 4.93% of cap, Hightower 5.38% and Devin McCourtney 6.62%. Finally, we do have some promising WRs in Allison, ESB and MVS all on very cheap contracts, so maybe a vet signing here would help. Same with RB we have Jones and Williams, on cheap deals so maybe a vet could come in here too. The only other hole that I would say based off the numbers assigned by cap is RG. Look for one of those guys in free agency too. So in summary: Desperate need for more talent through FA for defence, we are so depleted there it ain’t funny. We can draft defensive players but they will be more for the future it would be foolhardy to believe they can plug the holes now. Look to draft TE, RT, DL to groom for the future. On offence FA for RG and possibly WR and RB as veteran help. And we need to cut Perry as June 1st, he will be the second highest paid player on the roster in’19 and accounts for 7.34% of the cap.

Quick question, I'm fan of Arsenal Football Club (but way, way, way bigger fan of the Packers) and Kroenke is highly despised at Arsenal. Reading some comments here and other forums it seems many don't want the Rams to win because of Kroenke, out of interest how come he is just as hated in the US and he is in the UK?

Mike Pearson sounds interesting, played in Atlanta and last season by all accounts played well for the Niners, a grinder they say who can play all the positions on the line. http://www.knbr.com/2018/11/08/mike-person-has-morphed-from-roster-bubble-to-standout/

Rumour has it Tashaun Gipson from the Jags might be cut, 28 years old, worked with Pettine in Cleveland in 2014, that year he had 6 picks and went to the pro bowl. Would like that pick up if he is dumped.

This is going to be either spectacularly good or spectacularly bad. The good comes from these coaches assembled are young, should be able to relate to players and maybe do the whole millennial thing and be open and considerate blah blah. Fundamentally letting Aaron does his thing and let Pet run the defence. The bad is I have never seen such an inexperienced group of coaches assembled, particularly the offence. There is no old head around to bounce things off. No balance. No ying and yang. Look at Arizona, young head coach but experienced DC and looking like Hue Jackson as OC, as well as the rest of the staff being old hands. It is a question of what wins, new young ideas, or is the lack of experience going to be very telling.