2018 Green Bay Packers Training Camp: Rodgers Extension Reportedly Done

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Draft and develop only works if you draft good players. They haven't.

 

Perry - a good player but inconsistent player who can't stay on the field

Jones - Bust

Haha - Average

Randall - Bust

Clark - Hit

No 1st rounder

 

Maybe the problem is Capers, since many of their homegrown players have gone on to perform elsewhere. I tend to believe the truth is somewhere in between, Capers scheme was dated and the Packers did not have the edge rushing presence of San Diego (Heyward) or Buffalo (Hyde).

 

The Packers should have been way more active in recent seasons bringing in veteran defensive players to fill gaps. Wilkerson is the perfect example. Thompson's roster-building technique was dated and narrow and it hurt the Packers. Year after year, there were cheap veterans that I would have loved to see brought in, instead the Packers kept trotting out rookies as starters or veterans who were proven not very good players. It's been maddening. They could have been more aggressive in FA had they also not tied up dollars in players like Randall Cobb. Rodgers doesn't need major investments in skill players. You can get $3 and $4mm skill players to produce enough with him.

 

What was most frustrating is that when Ted Thompson would show a pulse it typically worked. Julius Peppers was wonderful for them. Bennett was the only time it really blew up, but that wasn't really that surprising to anybody that's followed his career.

[LouisEly]

Maybe the problem is Capers, since many of their homegrown players have gone on to perform elsewhere. I tend to believe the truth is somewhere in between, Capers scheme was dated and the Packers did not have the edge rushing presence of San Diego (Heyward) or Buffalo (Hyde).

 

The Packers should have been way more active in recent seasons bringing in veteran defensive players to fill gaps. Wilkerson is the perfect example. Thompson's roster-building technique was dated and narrow and it hurt the Packers.

I don't know if those were THE problems, but I think they were big problems and I'm inclined not to double up on positions with recent high draft picks (namely safety) on the assumption that the problem was the personnel.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

 

If they cut Matthews, I think it would take him about 27 seconds to find a new team on a multi-year, multimillion dollar deal.

 

And it was me who used the term "Excellent". Sorry I'm not buying into PFF's terminology and ranking structure.

 

 

You can not buy it all you want, but you said they "graded" as excellent. Who graded them that way if you weren't referring to PFF? You? Mike McCarthy?

 

Sorry but I trust PFF a bit more.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

What gets me about Pack fans more than anything: Everyone on the roster is good. There will be a random player everyone hates but for the most part, everyone is a “solid starter.” Burnett, Jake Ryan, Randall, Lowry. So many solid guys. Yet the defense is almost always a cupcake. It’s just odd, you’d think with so many stars and solid starters they’d be really good.

 

It’s almost as if the fans have a delusional gauge on the talent. And yeah, I understand that’s the job of the fans, but people seem to be a lot more rational about the Brewers and Bucks. They can see where their flaws are and address them all the time. But it’s never that way with Green Bay, just something I’ve always noticed. Maybe because it’s harder for most people to identify individual failure in football than the other two sports.

[PeaveyFury]

What gets me about Pack fans more than anything: Everyone on the roster is good. There will be a random player everyone hates but for the most part, everyone is a “solid starter.” Burnett, Jake Ryan, Randall, Lowry. So many solid guys. Yet the defense is almost always a cupcake. It’s just odd, you’d think with so many stars and solid starters they’d be really good.

 

Or the coaching has been poor and they're not living up to their potential? A reasonable possibility, IMO.

 

It’s almost as if the fans have a delusional gauge on the talent. And yeah, I understand that’s the job of the fans, but people seem to be a lot more rational about the Brewers and Bucks. They can see where their flaws are and address them all the time. But it’s never that way with Green Bay, just something I’ve always noticed. Maybe because it’s harder for most people to identify individual failure in football than the other two sports.

 

I've noticed that negative, detractor 'fans' generally think that everyone is terrible, so that seems to work both ways if your assumption is correct.

[pacopete4]

What gets me about Pack fans more than anything: Everyone on the roster is good.

 

Holy hell, stop trying to stereotype every fan from the fan base. All fan bases have these guys. Packers fans are no different. You just lose credibility with this type of crap. It's fluff and it definetely doesn't help you make your point.

[PeaveyFury]

Draft and develop only works if you draft good players. They haven't.

 

Not unfair. But the point that he's making is directly addressing this comment of yours:

 

The Packers should have been investing in defense for the last decade, not paying Cobbs and Nelsons $10mm

 

Well, they chose to keep the quality offensive players that they DID have immense success drafting, while as noted, then focused their draft efforts on building the defense. Yes, many of those players failed to improve the team. Is that Dom's fault for pushing for guys to fit his scheme rather than BPA? Failure of the coaches to develop those players? Failure of the scouts to correctly identify their flaws? Failure of Ted to pick the right guy? Probably some combo of all of the above. But saying they didn't try to fix the defense when their early draft picks have been heavily slanted toward that side of the ball during the past 10 years is a bit unfair.

[adambr2]

I had to skim through this since it was a lot to digest. But I feel like OSS is the guy who doesn't really pay attention to the players during the game and angrily calls into the post-game show with a hot take that causes the host to eye-roll so hard that you can hear it on the radio. Dean Lowry is a guy most teams would have given up on by now? Rodgers & Adams are the only stars? Rebuild while having the best QB in football? My goodness.

 

Yeah, whatever. Or I'm the guy who's simply watched this team fail to play average defense for 8 years.

 

It's such BS the way you guys are framing my opinions, like I'm some whackadoodle with no basis for saying this stuff.

 

Seriously, who is a star on the Packers, besides Rodgers and probably Adams? There is not a single guy on the roster who qualifies as a "star."

 

The closest one is probably Kenny Clark at this point, honestly, if we're excluding Jimmy Graham. It's like nobody watched what happened when Rodgers got hurt last year. The roster was exposed for the mediocrity that it is.

 

The Packers should have been investing in defense for the last decade, not paying Cobbs and Nelsons $10mm when Rodgers could have had adequate success with league minimum type veterans. The difference between the Packers and Patriots? They do the latter and invest money at impact positions, or get the last ounce of football from other team's throwaways. Ted's "I'm keeping my guys even if it means overpaying" has hurt the Packers dearly.

 

Before someone says it, no I don't expect Patriot-type dominance, but I definitely feel justified saying they should have played in more than one Super Bowl by now.

 

What's really bugging me about the attitude towards what I've said is that I don't think any of it has been that unreasonable. I literally just said Clark and Daniels are championship caliber guys and that Blake Martinez is a keeper as well. But you can keep on being a jerk about it.

 

My personal feeling is that you're letting the Packers' lack of championship success in the Rodgers' era sway your opinion about the roster quality, and if that's the case I think that's understandable to an extent.

 

Here's how I look at it. The Packers went, I believe, 3-7 under Hundley, which would extrapolate to about a 5-11 season. Bad, but not Cleveland Browns bad. But still definitely bad.

 

The missing part of this equation is how much of a disaster we had at QB. Hundley was one of the worst in the NFL. If he had performed as we hoped, it may have not been as bad. A league average QB probably goes 5-5 or so in that stretch. QB play is enormously important, and ours was a disaster. Look at the Texans after Watson went down -- their QB play was as bad as ours, and they went 1-8 without Watson. And the Texans roster besides Watson is not what most would see as a terrible roster.

 

So do I think this roster in the 52 guys besides starting QB is as good as the Vikings or Patriots or Eagles, no I don't. But I don't see them as the disaster you do, either. I'd probably put them right around league average, which obviously goes up tremendously when you add in Rodgers.

 

I also agree that there have been some bad investments. Dropping 8 figures a year on 3 different receivers is just silly, and Bennett was a disaster from the get-go. I also think having over a 5M cap number for a kicker is completely ridiculous.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

What gets me about Pack fans more than anything: Everyone on the roster is good.

 

Holy hell, stop trying to stereotype every fan from the fan base. All fan bases have these guys. Packers fans are no different. You just lose credibility with this type of crap. It's fluff and it definetely doesn't help you make your point.

 

Nope, nope, and nope.

 

I consider this site the voice of reason but even this place isn't immune to Packerosis. You can find the best discussion on the Brewers here, very levelheaded and rational, but it's damn near impossible to do that with the Packers due to their status in the state.

 

Also, I'm not replying to you here, but I haven't said everyone on the roster is terrible. I've pointed out a bunch of guys I think are good so I don't know that keeps getting brought up.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Come to think of it, the Green Bay fan base really is a lot like the STL Cards.

[CheezWizHed]

Come to think of it, the Green Bay fan base really is a lot like the STL Cards.

 

Are you trying to troll?

 

Yes, most of us have G&G googles, but that is common with many fans.

[adambr2]

What gets me about Pack fans more than anything: Everyone on the roster is good. There will be a random player everyone hates but for the most part, everyone is a “solid starter.” Burnett, Jake Ryan, Randall, Lowry. So many solid guys. Yet the defense is almost always a cupcake. It’s just odd, you’d think with so many stars and solid starters they’d be really good.

 

It’s almost as if the fans have a delusional gauge on the talent. And yeah, I understand that’s the job of the fans, but people seem to be a lot more rational about the Brewers and Bucks. They can see where their flaws are and address them all the time. But it’s never that way with Green Bay, just something I’ve always noticed. Maybe because it’s harder for most people to identify individual failure in football than the other two sports.

 

Has literally one person here referred to any of Burnett, Ryan, Randall, or Lowry as "solid starters"? One guy said Lowry was solid depth which isn't nearly the same thing.

 

Has anyone said the defense is full of stars? Or that everyone on the roster is good? I think you're embellishing quite a bit here. I see mostly reasonable responses.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Come to think of it, the Green Bay fan base really is a lot like the STL Cards.

 

Are you trying to troll?

 

Yes, most of us have G&G googles, but that is common with many fans.

 

No. I think there are quite a few similarities. Historically successful franchises, the envy of the other clubs in their division and a baloney pedestal of morality from the front office that trickles through the fan base. The Packers love toting "Packer people" and character guys and about 75% of the fans buy into this. Yet they keep a woman-beating drug dealer like Letroy Guion on the roster as long as his performance justifies it.

 

I mean, you aren't seriously going to deny that are you? There isn't an article about the Packers without a comment about how classy the organization is or how there's no place like GB. Which may be true on some level but there is absolutely a certain self righteousness about the GBP. Not at all unlike STLC.

[homer]

So you're basically saying that people on this board that root for GB are like Cardinal fans.

 

Also, there are a TON of Packer fans that agree with you. Just go to any message board and you'll see people whine all the time about Thompson's aversion to signing free agents.

 

And as to your assertion that draft and develop only works if you draft good players.....well no kidding. If you only use the draft and you miss on the draft you won't have good players.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

So you're basically saying that people on this board that root for GB are like Cardinal fans.

 

Also, there are a TON of Packer fans that agree with you. Just go to any message board and you'll see people whine all the time about Thompson's aversion to signing free agents.

 

And as to your assertion that draft and develop only works if you draft good players.....well no kidding. If you only use the draft and you miss on the draft you won't have good players.

 

I'm saying that people who struggle to criticize the Packers even when it is completely justified and who also subscribe to the idea that Green Bay has some moral code it uses to dictate personnel are a lot like the Cardinals fans that do the same. Then the Cardinals manager gets busted drunk driving and the Packers sign guys with some pretty terrible transgressions on their record, indicating this moral high horse is a bunch of nonsense.

 

That attitude receives disdain on this board when it is STL but people don't really acknowledge that a lot of Packers fan are the exact same way. You really don't see any parallels between the two? They're both sort of the "holier than thou" franchises of each league. When former players are saying this stuff about Green Bay I don't think it's something that can just be dismissed.

 

You say "no kidding" but that point was sort of lost on Thompson. If you're going to use the draft for 95% of roster development you better hit on the picks. He was doing that really well until a few seasons ago. Above I listed the Packers Rd 1 picks of the last handful of seasons. You have to hit way better than that if you're going to ignore FA completely.

[pacopete4]

What is wrong with having standards? The Cardinals have it. The Packers have it. And plenty of other successful franchises do as well. Are their outliers that go against this, of course. But the quality franchises in any sport that maintain success over the course of a longer period of time get stereotyped into this type of stuff.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I agree with you on the "Packer People" nonsense. That narrative has always been stupid and annoying, and the fans that adhere to it come off as very "holier than thou". I think a lot of it has come from Bob McGinn blasting the team whenever they acquire any player with any sort of character concern or risk. I see it all over on Packer Twitter any time someone brings up the idea of acquiring Dez Bryant. "We don't need that type of diva attitude on this team, he's not Packer People. Jordy, Jordy, Jordy!" That type of attitude screams of naivety and, really, closeted racism.

 

As far as I'm concerned, any player that can come in and help this team get back to the Super Bowl is "Packer People". I'd love to sign Eric Reid if the Packers don't come out of the draft with a solid safety prospect. Anyone that gets mad about "oh, he kneeled" can go pound sand.

[xisxisxis]

You say "no kidding" but that point was sort of lost on Thompson. If you're going to use the draft for 95% of roster development you better hit on the picks. He was doing that really well until a few seasons ago.

 

Ted Thompson became a victim of the 2010 Super Bowl win. He became a victim of the defensive success that year when it seemed no matter whom they put into a position they could perform. He came to believe he just needed to draft enough players because no matter whom you put into the role, the schemes were more important than the talent. I believe that lead him to ignore FA vets because he could just pick cheap replacements in the draft. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that it was the quality of the other talent that made it easier for the fill-ins to succeed and when the talent level started to drop due to FA departures, injuries, and retirements, the just-any-body's that he was drafting didn't add to the team talent and bam it all fell apart last year (at least the record finally reflected the drop in talent - Rodgers wasn't around to mask the deficiencies).

 

I am encouraged by what Gute has done so far, except that we need a lot more bodies in the defensive backfield to see whom we have for long-term. Can't go another year throwing crap on the field and not expecting the players to step in it.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

What is wrong with having standards? The Cardinals have it. The Packers have it. And plenty of other successful franchises do as well. Are their outliers that go against this, of course. But the quality franchises in any sport that maintain success over the course of a longer period of time get stereotyped into this type of stuff.

 

They don't have a standard, is my point. If that standard existed there's not a chance in hell Letroy Guion is ever on the roster. I suggest reading about what he did to the mother of his child, which the Packers were aware of before he ever put on their uniform.

 

It's easy to cut Mark Chmura when his back is failing him anyway. But Guion was a cheap, productive DL value signing so they looked the other way. And looked the other way again because he played well for them.

 

They're run the same as most franchises. We employ "Packer people" unless they're really good, then they get a few mulligans.

 

McGinn gets cantankerous at times but writing those articles is what he should be doing. I think it's very odd when people come to the defense of the Packers when they sign guys like that. I personally don't concern myself with the character of pro athletes, but when you tote your "values" and sign guys like that it deserves to be put on blast.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I truly believe the "Packer People" crap led the team to back out of acquiring Randy Moss more than a decade ago. Harlan is on record saying he received a lot of calls from fans concerned Moss wouldn't be a "fit". Screw those fans. 2007 Favre with Moss would have had that team in the Super Bowl.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Favre had a real tendency to lock in on one WR. I was clamoring for Moss then and it could have been fun but I also think it may have hindered the growth that team went through that season. If nothing else I suppose it would have kept Moss off the Patriots.

 

Less publicized was that the Packers went after Moss again the next season. It's one of those fun "what ifs" but I've never felt certain the Packers were worse off in the end for missing on him.

 

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/randys-rant-was-almost-a-packer-twice/

[SeaBass]

I truly believe the "Packer People" crap led the team to back out of acquiring Randy Moss more than a decade ago. Harlan is on record saying he received a lot of calls from fans concerned Moss wouldn't be a "fit". Screw those fans. 2007 Favre with Moss would have had that team in the Super Bowl.

I don't want to say it started back then, but I think a lot of this "Packer People" thinking goes back to when James Lofton was traded away after he was accused of sexual assault in the 80s. He was later acquitted but by then was gone. There have been many guys with less than desirable off-field issues that played for the team since. Randy Moss, if he hadn't played for the Vikings with an antagonistic persona in some Packers fans minds, wouldn't have even been a blip compared to others.

[CheezWizHed]

I was thinking more of the Chmura era, but I do remember a lot of backlash around Lofton too.

 

To say it has anything to do with racism is ridiculous, but certainly about attitude and culture. Donald Driver, Bart Starr, Reggie White, Gilbert Brown were all fan favorites. Yes, they all played well, but they were leaders, helped in the community and built up their teammates. Its the typical midwest ethics expectations. Come in with focus on self, big mouth, and self interest and we typically push that away.

 

For the criminal/moral portion, there certainly is an expectation there too. Yes, we have had some bad guys, but they rarely stay long. Especially if they don't clean up their act. Normally, there has to be some effort on the player's side to show remorse and improvement if he is going to stay. Remember it was in the 80s and 90s (and probably earlier) that people turned a blind eye towards football players that were stars and did horrible things off the field. So being a "Packer people" was taking a stance against that.

 

Mark Chmura pretty much cemented it in my mind to be a Packer fan and not a Packer player fan. My Jersey has 00 on it with my name instead of a players name. When Rodgers retires or leaves, I will remain a Packer fan. If Bakhtiari becomes a wife beater, he can go. I stay.

[homer]

Guys, let's stop with the posts on racism please. It's getting a little too political.

[FVBrewerFan]

My Jersey has 00 on it with my name instead of a players name.

 

Sorry, but I need to throw a flag. Please don't be "that guy" you're better than that ; ) You can wear a regular Packers jersey, otherwise wear a sweatshirt or something. But it is against fan rules to make up your own jersey, look it up.