Cheese Curds: Green Bay Packers Updates

[Leader]

1 hour ago, Krauser said:

Well, if it were up to me, I’d build an offense around Rodgers’ strengths, instead of trying to fit a superstar shaped peg into a square hole. 

They could have added weapons to give Rodgers more options when he extends plays, instead of using almost all of their top picks on DBs (many of whom have been disappointing) and a top 12 pick on a project edge rusher like Rashan Gary.

GB hasn’t added a good receiver since Adams in 2014, and Jenkins last year was the first good OL they’ve added over a similar time frame. The WR2 is either Funchess or Lazard, neither of whom would likely start for 20 teams in the league. 

And the OL is getting worse. Bulaga is gone, and Linsley is probably in his last year. The right side of the line will be Turner/Wagner. Bakh is great but he’s 29 this year and needs a new contract, which is probably worth around $20M per year.

Rodgers has been the glue that keeps the offense at least respectable. He makes the OL look better because he’s so good at manipulating angles in the pocket. He makes the run game better because he checks out of run calls against heavy boxes. He adds value with hard counts and quick snaps to get defensive penalties and free plays.  He knows how to sell a roughing the passer call. He makes smart decisions when to scramble. He’s accurate and can make difficult throws off platform. And he’s amazing when the chips are down: 3rd and long, red zone, late game situations.

And sure, he’s worse than he used to be and he isn’t perfect and he isn’t running the golden boy LaFleur’s scheme perfectly, which is basically the same scheme that half a dozen teams with better supporting casts than the Packers are running. 

But the net result of Rodgers being Rodgers is a massive, massive plus for GB. They’ve won a lot of games because of him. 

And now, yes, he is being kicked to the curb. Trading up to take a QB in the 1st round is an unmistakeable signal that the team has decided to move on. The only thing to work out is the timing and the price for making the change. But the writing’s on the wall.

Maybe you won’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.

Okay. You're traveling familiar trails. Been there/traveled them all before and no need to do so again.
We won 13 games last year. The wheels havent fallen off. See you (if there is a season).

[Ozzy]

They are becoming a run based team based on how much their HC wants to copy Sean McVay.  Run first and play action off it and play D getting after the passer.  Dillon is a tank and a impressive physical RB.  How that does not help jerk boy at QB I have no idea.  And the OL picks are all solid and Runyan could be a damn good player same with Hanson.  Deguara is a physically strong TE who can stretch the field and is very athletic.  Garvin is a steal and could be a problem in that defense if he can develop, same with Martin who might become a ILB for them.

Was not a super splashy draft but was solid.

 

The receivers they currently have are good enough.  Lazard is a big strong body and Adams is outstanding in the slot or as a deep threat.  St. Brown has potential, Valdes-Scantling is not horrible and is another big body they like.  Darrell Stewart the UDFA this year I would not be surprised to see him do quite well honestly, he is long and athletic and has big play potential.  Not to mention Jace Sternberger who is a fine pass catching TE who could really come on strong next year.  

 

Still got Aaron Jones who had his best season last year at RB and Williams who is not bad either.  If they get anything out of Gary this year that D should be really good again.  Doubt Z. Smith plays as crazy good as he did last year but maybe he will.  Alexander is one of the better young corners in the NFL and Savage based off that rookie season is a great young safety.  Jenkins was really good at OG last year and Yosh Nijman I think has a ton of potential as a OL down the road could play OG or OT.  

 

So yeah wish the Packers were this crap show F ranked drafting team but that is just simply not true.  They had to give a F to someone.  Having them draft a QB 1st round or 2nd is not that shocking at all, especially when the Patriots did not take Love, how can they not?  Too good to pass up and I feel they have no issue sitting him for 2-3 seasons either.  

 

[vike daddy]

It’s become a given, given the decision to draft quarterback Jordan Love and to not draft any receivers, that Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers may have only two years left with the team. What if it’s only one year?

The salary cap consequences seem to prevent a divorce through 2021, since the cap hit after this year would become $31.556 million ($23 million from his original signing bonus, plus $8.556 million from the partial conversion of a 2019 roster bonus). But here’s the thing: Keeping Rodgers in 2021 will result in a $36.352 million cap charge. Thus, the Packers would actually create $4.796 million in cap space — and save $22 million in cash — by trading Rodgers before a $6.8 million roster bonus becomes due on the third day of the 2021 league year.

With Love operating under a wage-scale deal, it will be easy to justify eating $31.556 million in cap space when the number would be higher to keep Rodgers, and when he likely wouldn’t be willing to agree to another restructuring that would kick the cap can down the road.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/05/03/will-2020-be-aaron-rodgers-last-season-with-the-packers/

 

@Outpost31
 

@Krauser

Edited May 4, 2020 by vike daddy

[MacReady]

Sooner the better.

[vike daddy]

19 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

Sooner the better.

i recognize your now long standing opinion of Rodgers, but do you have one of Love yet?

[MacReady]

Just now, vike daddy said:

i recognize your now long standing opinion of Rodgers, but do you have one of Love yet?

Nope.  All I know about Love is he needs at least one full "redshirt" year, maybe two.  I'm hoping the Packers pull a Redskins and draft their Kirk Cousins in the 4th round of this coming draft or even second round the way the Packers did with Brian Brohm.  I'd like insurance for Love just in case, but I don't think someone as talented and smart as him can sit for one or two years and get all that practice in, all that knowledge in, all that preseason action in and outright suck. 

 

[vike daddy]

2 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

I don't think someone as talented and smart as him can sit for one or two years and get all that practice in, all that knowledge in, all that preseason action in and outright suck. 

regardless of Rodgers' hurt feelings and the very shock of the draft move, what are some of the opinions being expressed of Love just by himself by Packer fans?

[MacReady]

22 minutes ago, vike daddy said:

regardless of Rodgers' hurt feelings and the very shock of the draft move, what are some of the opinions being expressed of Love just by himself by Packer fans?

Seems to be the consensus.  Needs time.  Hype is suggesting Mahomes Favre baby.  @Packerraymond went through all his tape and did a much appreciated breakdown of what to expect from him.  I would say 30% are pissed off at the Packers and hate Love and think he’s a bust, 30% are timid and quietly optimistic, 30% think he’s the next Mahomes and the remaining 30% are bad at math.

I am absolutely not a tape person.  I have never been the armchair scout type, and I don’t even like that part of the game.  The only thing about football I like other than watching it is broad strokes.  Team building and positional value.  Trends in draft capital and cap space allotment as it translates to team building success.  In that respect, I love the Love pick.  Other than that aspect, I wouldn’t feel right in offering an assessment.  I would, however, recommend reading through the Love thread in the Packer sub forum.  It’s good for a laugh at least.  Excuse my hostilities in there.  

[vike daddy]

32 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

 Excuse my hostilities in there.  

yet you're so polite when you visit our Purple Lounge.

[MacReady]

Just now, vike daddy said:

yet you're so polite when you visit our Purple Lounge.

It's kinda like a family thing.  Sitting at a Thanksgiving dinner table, you can tell your cousin her political opinion is the dumbest thing ever and that you knew that time she fell and hit her head when you were playing Monsters in your grandparents basement would have lasting effects, but if you were eating at someone else's house, you have to be respectful to your host.  At the same time, if someone outside of the family calls that same cousin you think is stupid stupid, you defend the hell out of them.  Only I can call that cousin stupid as hell. 

[Krauser]

3 hours ago, vike daddy said:

the Packers would actually create $4.796 million in cap space — and save $22 million in cash — by trading Rodgers before a $6.8 million roster bonus becomes due on the third day of the 2021 league year.

Yeah, I think there’s a very strong chance that this year goes badly between Rodgers and the team, and he forces his way out next year.

Can’t imagine Rodgers is OK with the situation. AFAIK he hasn’t said anything publicly supportive of the Packers since the draft.

The numbers aren’t great to move on next year but we’ve seen how motivated teams can be when an expensive veteran isn’t meshing well with where the team wants to go (OBJ and Antonio Brown).

3 hours ago, Outpost31 said:

Sooner the better.

Vikings fans would say the same.

Packers would have had one of the worst records in the NFL over the last 5 years if it weren’t for Rodgers, instead of a couple of division titles and several playoff wins.

I can’t think of a QB who’s made as many mistakes reading defenses as Love did in college last year who improved enough in the NFL to become a high level starter. There’s no way the Packers will be as good at QB going forward with Love as they were the last few years with Rodgers. 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Krauser

[MacReady]

Just now, Krauser said:

Vikings fans would say the same.

Of course the fitting response to this is that Vikings fans said the exact same things from Favre to Rodgers.  The fact was, is and will remain... The only way to win Super Bowls in this era is to pay your QB less than they are worth (typically by having them on a rookie contract), and that the QB position is overrated.  How overrated depends entirely on how much the QB is getting paid. 

If you want past experiments to prove this rule, look at the Packers before and after they paid Rodgers.
The Seahawks before and after they paid Wilson.
The Steelers before and after they paid Roethlisberger.

If you want future examples of this, look at the Chiefs now and examine them again the moment they extend Mahomes. 

Love might bust.  Love might boom.  If he busts, the Packers will have Rodgers under contract for the duration. 
If Love hits, the Packers will have a top QB on a rookie contract plus whatever draft capital comes from trading Rodgers. 

Quote

Packers would have had one of the worst records in the NFL over the last 5 years if it weren’t for Rodgers, instead of a couple of division titles and several playoff wins.

Yes and no.  Without Rodgers and putting only Tim Boyle, Brett Hundley, D. Kizer at QB and yes.  But if Rodgers had retired or left or been traded, this is discounting the draft capital and cap space the Packers would have had to replace him.  Not only replace him, but add talent.  The Packers got Jaire Alexander and an extra first round pick the following year due to Aaron's injury.

With good teams and teams that draft well and understand positional value, having a bad season is the quickest way to have a good season.  It's no coincidence that out of the past 5 years happened to come after the worst season Rodgers has had over the past five years. 

In football, empires rise and empires fall.  You can't have the former without first the latter.  No good team was ever built by remaining mediocre every single year except for the Patriots, but the Patriots also happen to have the best head coach in football history and a QB who had consistently taken less money than he was worth thanks to a billionaire wife. 

[vike daddy]

1 hour ago, Krauser said:

AFAIK he hasn’t said anything publicly supportive of the Packers since the draft.

i believe that is correct, yes. he has been complimentary of Love himself, but has not mentioned management.

[Krauser]

13 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

The only way to win Super Bowls in this era is to pay your QB less than they are worth (typically by having them on a rookie contract), and that the QB position is overrated.

That analysis only works if you count Super Bowl wins as the only outcome, which is too small a sample size to draw conclusions from.

If you just look at winning and losing football games, the QB position is not overrated. It’s worth paying great QBs. The Seahawks are in the playoffs every year because of Wilson, not in spite of him. The Packers similarly with Rodgers. Peyton elevated the Broncos. There’s an argument for not overpaying for competent but unexceptional QBs (like Cousins), but Rodgers is on a different level.

22 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

But if Rodgers had retired or left or been traded, this is discounting the draft capital and cap space the Packers would have had to replace him.  Not only replace him, but add talent.  The Packers got Jaire Alexander and an extra first round pick the following year due to Aaron's injury.

Packers fans who’ve been spoiled for 25 years are about to learn what the rest of the league already knows. Great QBs are hard to find. Without them, average to poor teams don’t win.

23 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

With good teams and teams that draft well and understand positional value, having a bad season is the quickest way to have a good season.

The Packers haven’t shown they have the first clue how to build a strong roster since Ted Thompson lost his fastball. Rodgers is the one and only reason they have a winning record since 2015.

They have not drafted well under Gute.

His entire first class is a bust except for Alexander, who was an idiot proof pick at that point in the draft.

Last year, he spent 2 first round picks, a high second and 2 fourths (trading up for Savage) on a project edge rusher, a guard and an athletic safety who doesn’t tackle well. Jenkins was a good pick and a Savage may eventually be good but that’s a weak haul from that kind of investment unless Gary turns into a star, which doesn’t seem at all likely right now.

This year, he went all in by trading up for a toolsy QB who’s prone to mental errors, then ignored more important holes on the team (WR2 and 3, CB3, RT, DL) in favor of taking a big RB and a mediocre H-back. And in the process he likely alienated a great QB who might have had 3-5 more years of high quality play left.

Genius is often misunderstood in its time, but so far the Gutekunst era looks more like an incoherent mess than a brilliant master plan.

[vike daddy]

Favre:  “If I could go back and do things differently, I certainly would.  When I made the decision to tell Mike McCarthy that I would retire, I was probably a month, month-and-a-half removed from the season. It was before the draft. I always make this comparison — and maybe it makes sense to me and not to others — but if you think back to when you were in grade school, you couldn’t wait to get out of school for the summer. But by the end of the summer, you were kind of ready to go back to school. And that is kind of the way it was with football. And the older I got, the tougher it got to get re-invigorated and excited about it.

“I would much rather have not said anything and just bought a little time. Of course, everyone knew by that time I couldn’t make up my mind two months removed from the season anyway. We had been down that road before. But I knew, and I have no ill feelings about this, but I knew they were sort of ready to go in a different direction. And at some point you’ve got to make that transition, and Ted felt like that was probably the best time. It turned out to be a great move. And I’d tell Ted that to his face right now.

“It was a great move drafting Aaron Rodgers, and it was a great time to make that transition. And it’s worked out well for them. The jury is out whether or not the same will happen with Jordan and his transition. We will see.”

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/05/13/brett-favre-wishes-hed-have-handled-green-bay-departure-differently/