Jump to content

Is "Extreme" Draft & Develop Over in GB?


TheOnlyThing

Recommended Posts

Today's signing of Ahmad Brooks seems like a good time for this topic.

A substantial portion of every NFL roster is made up of players drafted (and then hopefully) developed by that team. However, between 2011-2016, the Packers relied more on their own, homegrown talent and less on veterans who had previously been on other NFL rosters than any other NFL franchise. GB was the extreme outlier in this regard and no other NFL team was even close.

During this period, the Pack signed very few veteran free agents, completed just one trade for a veteran NFL player (a trade that was later rescinded), and made it clear the team’s philosophy was to rely almost exclusively upon its own draftees (and undrafted free agents). A corollary was that youth was valued over experience.

However, since the end of the 2016 campaign, the Packers have (so far) added veteran unrestricted and street free agents (1) Martellus Bennett (TE age 30), (2) Lance Kendricks (TE-29), (3) Jahri Evans (G-34), (4) Ricky-Jean Francois (DL-30), (5) Davon House (CB-28), and (6) Ahmad Brooks (OLB-33).

The sheer number of veteran additions marks a major deviation from the Pack’s established mode of operation. Moreover, while these veterans were added, recent draftees like Datone Jones, Eddie Lacy, and JC Tretter were allowed to walk for relatively modest deals elsewhere. In addition, these new signees will undoubtedly take playing time away from at least some of the Pack’s recent premium draft picks, which in the past was often cited by some fans as a reason in favor of not adding veterans to the roster.

Do folks believe this adding of veteran talent from around the NFL represents a one-year aberration or is it possible that GB has fundamentally shifted away from its near-exclusive reliance on players who have never played for another NFL team?

[MOD EDIT]

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, TheOnlyThing said:

some have speculated that a primary reason the Packers’ have not gone outside the organization very often to add talent is because African-American players do not want to play in Green Bay.

Find one person in the world that's said that.  :lol:

Players period don't often want to sign in Green Bay.  It's no wonder that everybody we signed this offseason either:

1. Wants a ring
2. Is no longer a 25-28 year old kid who wants more than what Green Bay has to offer
3. Has played here before
4. Has a close workout and offseason rapport with Aaron Rodgers
5. Signed short contracts, not five year commitments to live in Green Bay. 

More free agents than you will ever acknowledge don't want to sign here when they're young and dumb with money.  It's no wonder that everybody we've signed so far this offseason is a grown man at this point in their career.

As far as the question of whether or not the Packers are no longer an Extreme Draft and Develop team, they're not.  They're now closer to a strong (not extreme) draft and develop team.

Thompson's stubbornness has led to this, it's the only explanation I can see.  I feel like players (Rodgers in particular) and the staff were starting to get fed up with Thompson as early as last year, and once Shields was out of commission for the year last year and Thompson did literally nothing, I feel like tempers boiled over and our staff refused to take it anymore.  There was no excuse whatsoever for Thompson to not bring somebody, anybody, in after Shields got hurt that wasn't undrafted, and there was less of an excuse once we had an abundance of injuries there throughout the year and leading into the playoffs. 

We're still not going to be a team that brings in and signs the top tier of free agents.  Mostly because that rarely works out in today's NFL, also because Green Bay still isn't where players want to spend the next five years of their lives. 

Additionally, we're still going to rightly value draft picks.  The Patriots last season had 4 draft picks.  We had 10.  The Patriots have only 5 draft picks in 2018 already.  That's never going to be us because, eventually, that's going to catch up to the Patriots, and it won't for us. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, HorizontoZenith said:

Find one person in the world that's said that.  :lol:

Players period don't often want to sign in Green Bay.  It's no wonder that everybody we signed this offseason either:

1. Wants a ring
2. Is no longer a 25-28 year old kid who wants more than what Green Bay has to offer
3. Has played here before
4. Has a close workout and offseason rapport with Aaron Rodgers
5. Signed short contracts, not five year commitments to live in Green Bay. 

More free agents than you will ever acknowledge don't want to sign here when they're young and dumb with money.  It's no wonder that everybody we've signed so far this offseason is a grown man at this point in their career.

As far as the question of whether or not the Packers are no longer an Extreme Draft and Develop team, they're not.  They're now closer to a strong (not extreme) draft and develop team.

Thompson's stubbornness has led to this, it's the only explanation I can see.  I feel like players (Rodgers in particular) and the staff were starting to get fed up with Thompson as early as last year, and once Shields was out of commission for the year last year and Thompson did literally nothing, I feel like tempers boiled over and our staff refused to take it anymore.  There was no excuse whatsoever for Thompson to not bring somebody, anybody, in after Shields got hurt that wasn't undrafted, and there was less of an excuse once we had an abundance of injuries there throughout the year and leading into the playoffs. 

We're still not going to be a team that brings in and signs the top tier of free agents.  Mostly because that rarely works out in today's NFL, also because Green Bay still isn't where players want to spend the next five years of their lives. 

Additionally, we're still going to rightly value draft picks.  The Patriots last season had 4 draft picks.  We had 10.  The Patriots have only 5 draft picks in 2018 already.  That's never going to be us because, eventually, that's going to catch up to the Patriots, and it won't for us. 

I wholeheartedly agree that all other things being equal (salary, opportunity, etc.) if a player had his choice of NFL destinations, GB would not typically be at the top of the list.

However, as you point out there is a subset of veteran NLF players who would presumably have been attracted to play for the Packers over the past 7 years given that the team has (a) had the best or at least 2nd best QB in the game and (b) been extremely competitive and a threat to win the Super Bowl.

As you also correctly point out, the Pack's six veteran additions this offseason fit this niche as they are indeed all "veterans" who have played a lot of football.

My question was, is GB now more open to adding these types of veterans given that they have mostly not added them the past six seasons?

Finally, I also agree with your explanation as to why such veterans were not added the past six seasons. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was a time when it seemed as if Ted Thompson wanted to win the title of 'youngest team in the league' every season.  I think it's clear to say that no longer seems to be a priority in GB.  I love the the mix of what he's done this season .. no real bank busting deals, but added some good solid veteran talent at position where we needed a boost.  We also continued to maximize the draft process.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see things a lot differently than most here. If we wish to discuss "extreme draft and develop", we'd have to look back at 2008 and 2009 when the team was razor thin at most decisions. Ted literally had to rebuild the entire roster, which took at least 4 seasons to do starting in 2005. After the Super Bowl season, you're then talking about a high powered offense that's set at virtually every position and a defense that fell off a cliff after 2010. Injuries piled up as well, but we've been able to recover, find veteran players to stop-gap while we have developed some younger talent, and now we're in a position to add pieces to the equation without worrying about our future. It's obvious that our drafts from 2011-2013 were incredible failures overall, but I can't think of too many early picks since that time that have been complete failures like Jerel Worthy or Khyri Thornton

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/30/2017 at 3:08 PM, TheOnlyThing said:

 

Do folks believe this adding of veteran talent from around the NFL represents a one-year aberration or is it possible that GB has fundamentally shifted away from its near-exclusive reliance on players who have never played for another NFL team?

[MOD EDIT]

 

Wasn't surprising really, especially for those of us that pay some attention to the salary cap. There's this myth in certain Packer fan communities that TT avoids free agency because of arbitrary stinginess. But when you look at the numbers I believe as of last yr, he basically spends the max that cap allows while rolling over the same $5-7m since the beginning of rollovers to use as a margin for emergencies/talent-transients. The main reason there is more cap space this year is because they had to cut Shields for medical reasons. Once that happened, I knew the money saved with that cut (plus the Starks & Sitton cuts) would be spent in other ways. 

There is also plenty of precedent for TT bringing in vets that are cut by other teams so it won't affect his compensatory picks. Also, the fact that he drafted well in 2013 meant that more of those players would be coveted by (& thus overpaid by) other teams when the time came for them to sign 2nd-contracts, and thus putting the team in a rare position where they were maxed out on compensatory picks and could sign guys without affecting that. There is precedent for him letting an FA walk if there is young cheap talent on the team that can step in. Hayward was a good SCB while in GB but when his time came, they had Hyde, Randall, and Rollins as possible fill-ins there. So no real surprise when Hyde walks in a similar manner since they still had Randall & Rollins. Same for Tretter since they still had Linsley. & Lacy since they had Monty. I'm sure if RRod had shown alot of promise, Bennett might not have been brought in after Cook left. 

I guess at the end of the day, I am not surprised because I never believed TT was as inflexible as some fans pretend. Just have to look at the whole picture on all these decisions and situations. The vast majority of the time, you can see the reasoning for things when you keep the salary cap in mind. The only thing he has done that I can say surprised me was the Sitton cut and, to a lesser extent, letting DJones walk for relatively little money. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nothing has changed.  We are still draft and develop.  The cost of picking up a premium player who is testing free agency for the first time rarely makes sense for any team, but when you have a star QB commanding a huge portion of your cap, you can't keep handing out other contracts that guarantee large percentages of salaries.  TT hasn't ever shied away from picking up a free agent, but it should be obvious why he doesn't grab the hot picks during the early free agency periods every year.  There just isn't any value, and draft n' develop depends strongly on maximizing value.

I know some people like to argue that the Patriots, even with a Brady contract on the books, are able to snag top dollar corners for a year or two, etc.  Well, it's true.  The Pats do it very well, and I don't foresee any other team under the current free agency rules ever being able to manage their cap as well as the Pats have during the Belichick/Brady era.  That doesn't invalidate how well TT has managed our cap.  Drafting every year at the bottom of every round usually means that the players you get to fill the premium positions won't be immediate stars during the great value years of rookie contracts.  So it goes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Pugger said:

If you look at all of the FA veterans we signed this summer all of them have had success in this league but more importantly they aren't gonna cost us draft picks going forward so we can still D & D like we always do.

This is basically what I forgot to put in my earlier response. We lost so many players to FA that we could afford to patch holes with veterans without sacrificing the comp picks we will get this year....which are now tradable I might add...

One note on Shields: He wasn't exactly playing up to his contract numbers before the unfortunate injury IIRC. Consistency was an issue in particular.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, StinkySauce said:

Nothing has changed.  We are still draft and develop.  The cost of picking up a premium player who is testing free agency for the first time rarely makes sense for any team

Agreed.  That said, it is nice to see TT filling some of the cracks in the roster with veterans at a reasonable cost.  This oversight has been harmful in the past at safety, ILB, and TE.  Not everyone can be a star, but you can't have even one massive hole on the team and expect to win a championship.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, LacyIsGood said:

Agreed.  That said, it is nice to see TT filling some of the cracks in the roster with veterans at a reasonable cost.  This oversight has been harmful in the past at safety, ILB, and TE.  Not everyone can be a star, but you can't have even one massive hole on the team and expect to win a championship.

Yep .. nice to see urgency to fill a hole at a position that could sink us if injury strikes.  Need to see some more urgency in landing a backup LT as well.  An injury to Bak and we're probably having to move Bulaga to LT.  Spriggs isn't ready, and nobody else on the roster can fill that void.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...