If the Packers struggle without Rodgers, is it an indictment on Ted Thompson?

[CWood21]

7 minutes ago, th87 said:

Man the Seahawks started moving the ball and scoring at will. This was clearly not by design, and a complete collapse. Just one stop wins the game.

Yes, because the defense clearly forgot how to play defense...

[CWood21]

7 minutes ago, TheOnlyThing said:

Oh, and the Pack’s spending on the D ranked 6th (2016), 9th (2015), 2nd (2014), and 9th (2013) overall among NFL teams despite some folks insistence there just were not enough resources available to field a competitive defense because of Aaron Rodgers' contract.

Are you done misinterpreting what people are saying?  Nobody is saying that having Rodgers' contract prevents you from fielding a capable defense.  What they're arguing is that it hampers your flexibility, which is a fact.  You can't pay $20M to every positional group.  You can't pay your RBs $20M, your TEs $20M, your WRs $20M, and your OL $20M and expect to field a respectable defense.  Right there, you've already spent $100M of your salary cap right, which is nearly 60% of the salary cap.  You can't go and spend an additional $20M on your DL, $20M on your ILB, $20M on your OLB, $20M on your CBs, and $20M on your S.  That would put your salary cap at $200M.  So you have to take money from certain positions that you feel you can get production at a cheaper rate.  That likely comes from RB, TE, and ILB.  So instead of paying $20M to your RBs, TEs, and ILB's, you're spending $5M on those positions.  You just dropped your salary cap to $155M, which is roughly $12M below the salary cap.  Obviously, I'm just using easy numbers to make a point.  But if you spend heavily at one position, you have to save money elsewhere.  If you want Rodgers to have all of his "comfort" weapons, you better believe you're taking money away from other positions.

[TheOnlyThing]

11 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

 Nobody is saying that having Rodgers' contract prevents you from fielding a capable defense.  

Good.

Apparently, we're all agreed that if anyone brings up Rodgers contract as the reason for the Defense's inadequate play, including but not limited to 2016 when the team had the 6th highest payroll dedicated to the D, or 2015 (9th), or 2014 (2nd), or 2013 (9th), then we can just dismiss it as baseless excuse-making. 

[CWood21]

14 minutes ago, TheOnlyThing said:

Good.

Apparently, we're all agreed that if anyone brings up Rodgers contract as the reason for the Defense's inadequate play, including but not limited to 2016 when the team had the 6th highest payroll dedicated to the D, or 2015 (9th), or 2014 (2nd), or 2013 (9th), then we can just dismiss it as baseless excuse-making. 

Again, you're looking at that as a black and white discussion.  That's not the point that was being made.  Right now, the Packers have to pay $20M to their QB position.  Pre-extension, the Seahawks were paying what $5M to the QB position?  That's $15M they can spend elsewhere.  Ignoring that isn't the answer.

[Norm]

1 hour ago, CWood21 said:

Again, you're looking at that as a black and white discussion.  That's not the point that was being made.  Right now, the Packers have to pay $20M to their QB position.  Pre-extension, the Seahawks were paying what $5M to the QB position?  That's $15M they can spend elsewhere.  Ignoring that isn't the answer.

Hell he was a 3rd round pick. Like 1 mil.

[CWood21]

18 minutes ago, NormSizedMidget said:

Hell he was a 3rd round pick. Like 1 mil.

I was talking about their position group as a whole, and using an easy number for calculations.

[TheOnlyThing]

  2 hours ago, CWood21 said:

 Nobody is saying that having Rodgers' contract prevents you from fielding a capable defense.  

  1 hour ago, TheOnlyThing said:

Good.

Apparently, we're all agreed that if anyone brings up Rodgers contract as the reason for the Defense's inadequate play, including but not limited to 2016 when the team had the 6th highest payroll dedicated to the D, or 2015 (9th), or 2014 (2nd), or 2013 (9th), then we can just dismiss it as baseless excuse-making. 

  1 hour ago, CWood21 said:

That's not the point that was being made.  

 

So if I'm understanding you correctly at this point CWood, the fact the Packers paid Rodgers big money between 2013-2106 is back on back on as a legitimate excuse (at least in your mind) for the defense's deficiencies in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, even though (despite paying Rodgers) the Packers spent the 9th, 2nd, 9th, and 6th most money on their defense among NFL teams during those years.

I'm just baffled by how, with all that money devoted to the D between 2013-2016, Rodgers salary somehow prevented the defense from performing better.

[CWood21]

What exactly are you arguing here @TheOnlyThing?  Because at this point, you're making no sense.

[th87]

6 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

What exactly are you arguing here @TheOnlyThing?  Because at this point, you're making no sense.

That paying Rodgers + his comfort position groups did not prevent the defense from being paid far above the league average.

[th87]

2 hours ago, CWood21 said:

Again, you're looking at that as a black and white discussion.  That's not the point that was being made.  Right now, the Packers have to pay $20M to their QB position.  Pre-extension, the Seahawks were paying what $5M to the QB position?  That's $15M they can spend elsewhere.  Ignoring that isn't the answer.

The 2013 Seahawks spent $70M on offense (before RW extension), good for 2nd in the league. Defensive spending was $52M; 17th.

So whatever they were spending elsewhere, it wasn't really for the defense.

The Packers were 9th that year. So the data just doesn't seem to support the idea that paying Rodgers + comfort is preventing spending elsewhere, and so this is the reason for the Packers' defensive struggles.

The data does show that the Packers are devoting above average resources for below average results, and that other teams are doing more with less.

[TheOnlyThing]

18 minutes ago, th87 said:

That paying Rodgers + his comfort position groups did not prevent the defense from being paid far above the league average.

Obviously.

However, those who brook no criticism of you know who will pretend to not understand the message and continue to obfuscate in order to further their agenda.

[CWood21]

3 minutes ago, th87 said:

That paying Rodgers + his comfort position groups did not prevent the defense from being paid far above the league average.

If that's what you got out of my (and others) post, then I guess I need to spell things out for you.  There's only a finite amount of money the Packers can spend.  For the sake of easy numbers, let's use $165M for the salary cap.  For the sake of simplicity, let's assume you have to assign $5M for special teams.  If you go through all the positional groups I mentioned, you'd be "allotted" $16M per position group.  But let's look at that spending by group.  Remember, if you spend more than that $16M in your group, you have to borrow that from another position group.  I'll be using the opening day rosters fwiw.  Also, the numbers at the end of each position will be cumulative.

QB: Rodgers/Hundley - $21M [$5M]
RB: Montgomery/Williams/Jones/Mays/Ripkowski - $3M [$8M]
TE: Bennett/Kendricks/Rodgers - $7.5M [$16.5M]
WR: Nelson/Cobb/Adams/Allison/Janis/Davis - $27.3M [$5.2M]
OL: Bakh/Taylor/Linsley/Evans/Bulaga/Spriggs/Murphy/Patrick/McCray - $25.4M [4.2M]

So after going through the core positions, the Packers "overspent" by a bit over $4M on their offense, which means their defense has $4M less to spend, which means saving money at another position.  Now the point that I (and others) were getting at is IF Rodgers was on a rookie contract (let's assume his cap hit is $5M), you could take that $15M you'd otherwise be spending on Rodgers and spend it elsewhere.  That extra $15M that the Packers are using on Rodgers could be used to spend on ANY free agent last year.  No FA got more than $15M/year.  Do you truly believe that adding a Calais Campbell, or AJ Buoye, or Stephon Gilmore would help our defense?

IF you don't understand the benefit of having your QB on a well-below market value, you have no idea about surplus value.  Or quite frankly anything business related.

[CWood21]

3 minutes ago, th87 said:

The 2013 Seahawks spent $70M on offense (before RW extension), good for 2nd in the league. Defensive spending was $52M; 17th.

So whatever they were spending elsewhere, it wasn't really for the defense.

The Packers were 9th that year. So the data just doesn't seem to support the idea that paying Rodgers + comfort is preventing spending elsewhere, and so this is the reason for the Packers' defensive struggles.

The data does show that the Packers are devoting above average resources for below average results, and that other teams are doing more with less.

Yes, they spent a crap ton on offense.  You want to know why?  They were getting a TON of production out of players that were still on their rookie contracts.  Earl Thomas' cap hit was less than $3M that year, this year he's got a cap hit north of $10M.  Bruce Irvin had a cap hit just under $2M, and now he's $7M.  Bobby Wagner's cap hit was less than $1M, yet today his cap hit is $7.6M.  Richard Sherman had a cap hit just slightly above 600k, and his cap hit now is more than $16M more than it was in 2013.  From 2010-2012, the Seahawks drafted as well as anyone.  You'll point to them making that kind of success out of their picks from that range, but won't acknowledge that their recent draft picks haven't produced at that same level.  It's akin to looking at TT's draft history from 2005-2008, and ignoring everything else.

[skibrett15]

On 11/2/2017 at 11:38 PM, spilltray said:

Nick Perry was a better pick than Harrison Smith and they needed both.

I'd say a flat no to this.  Harrison Smith is one of the top 20 defensive players in the league across all positions whereas Perry is a top 20 Edge.

[CWood21]

4 minutes ago, skibrett15 said:

I'd say a flat no to this.  Harrison Smith is one of the top 20 defensive players in the league across all positions whereas Perry is a top 20 Edge.

I'd still take Perry...how many years did we see a mediocre Vikings secondary look good because of a great Vikings pass rush?  Harrison Smith is the better player, but Nick Perry is more valuable.