Packers 2022 Discussion Thread

[CheezWizHed]

5 hours ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

In Barry's defense, he didn't miss 20 tackles in that game.

In Barry's defense, Barry's defense did miss 20 tackles... (Sorry, couldn't resist that pun). 

If we keep MLF this year (likely), I'm ok with that based on previous seasons, but beyond changing D-coordinator, two major changes are needed:

1. The team needs to come to the game prepared.  Whether it is development of younger talent, or the team working on the same page, it is obvious the team isn't playing hard nor bought into the system.  The D is the most obvious issue, but the offense isn't clean of this either.
2. The team needs to be able to make in-game adjustments better. for all of MM's faults, he was good at adjusting in the game to how the other team was playing us.  Now, it seems like the other teams adjust...we are still playing off the opening snap script...

And @HarveysWBs nailed it above... There is no gain to firing Barry now.  The season is a wash, we still want to attract a quality DC next year, so what we say about the current one publicly has an effect, and these things are better handled inside the locker room instead of the podium.  If he gets another shot in 2023, however... 

[bjkrautk]

26 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

The team needs to be able to make in-game adjustments better. for all of MM's faults, he was good at adjusting in the game to how the other team was playing us.  Now, it seems like the other teams adjust...we are still playing off the opening snap script...

 

To me, that reads as revisionist history.  MM repeatedly refused to comment on what the other team was doing, indicating he would "look at the tape" and "clean things up" between games.  It's one of the things which used to infuriate me about his coaching.  He was every bit as slow to adjust as most other coaches.

 

In the larger context, I do think MLF has a point that the system puts players in a position to make tackles...and it is not the coach's fault when a player fails to make a tackle (unless you believe an NFL player has gotten to that level without being coached on breaking down, wrapping up and the mechanics of tackling a ball-carrier...and I will add in leverage, pursuit angles, and forcing the ball carrier back towards teammates, etc.).  You can have your fastest LB spying on the QB, but if he misses the tackle and Hurts runs for 20+ yards afterwards, it's not a failure of design, but execution.

I don't think Barry has done a good job as DC, in no small part because the soft, zone coverages he seems to prefer fail to align with the strengths of his secondary.  There were news stories earlier in the season about players (starting with Jaire in Week #1) wanting to be more aggressive.  Players not trusting the scheme and the collective lack of confidence, compounded by losing, injuries, and the offense's struggles meaning more time on the field, tracks with the inconsistency we've seen with the defense.  I don't think that gets solved during the season, outside of increasing the reps for the guys who are showing effort (Ford, Enagbare, and Nixon among others).

[CheezWizHed]

20 hours ago, bjkrautk said:

 

To me, that reads as revisionist history.  MM repeatedly refused to comment on what the other team was doing, indicating he would "look at the tape" and "clean things up" between games.  It's one of the things which used to infuriate me about his coaching.  He was every bit as slow to adjust as most other coaches.

Probably because we are talking about two different things.  MM was good at half-time adjustments to how the other team was playing us in-game. Seemed like we had a very high percentage of TDs on the first drive out of halftime. 

He was terrible at game-to-game changes and/or tendencies...especially late in his tenure.  Viking CBs were often quoted as seeing our offense do the same thing so long that they could run the route that the WR was doing. 

  

20 hours ago, bjkrautk said:

In the larger context, I do think MLF has a point that the system puts players in a position to make tackles...and it is not the coach's fault when a player fails to make a tackle (unless you believe an NFL player has gotten to that level without being coached on breaking down, wrapping up and the mechanics of tackling a ball-carrier...and I will add in leverage, pursuit angles, and forcing the ball carrier back towards teammates, etc.).  You can have your fastest LB spying on the QB, but if he misses the tackle and Hurts runs for 20+ yards afterwards, it's not a failure of design, but execution.

I don't think Barry has done a good job as DC, in no small part because the soft, zone coverages he seems to prefer fail to align with the strengths of his secondary.  There were news stories earlier in the season about players (starting with Jaire in Week #1) wanting to be more aggressive.  Players not trusting the scheme and the collective lack of confidence, compounded by losing, injuries, and the offense's struggles meaning more time on the field, tracks with the inconsistency we've seen with the defense.  I don't think that gets solved during the season, outside of increasing the reps for the guys who are showing effort (Ford, Enagbare, and Nixon among others).

I think there are one of two things going on with our tackling:

1. Players have given up on the season and/or the coaches.  I get the feeling that they don't believe in the defensive scheme and their play is reflective of it.
2. The preparation during the week is poor.  This could also be closely tied to #1, but it doesn't seem like the team is actually ready to play.  Technique errors aren't being corrected, don't seem to really communicate well or understand expectations of your own position and others. 

Probably not to the point as "coaching isn't teaching tackling", but the team clearly isn't prepared to play (as much as other teams) and it shows up on the field.

[homer]

Poor tackling is certainly a problem but when you play 15 yards off the outside receiver on 3rd and 15 and he catches a 12 yard hitch, it's asking a lot to stop said receiver from getting three yards.

[Fear The Chorizo]

51 minutes ago, homer said:

Poor tackling is certainly a problem but when you play 15 yards off the outside receiver on 3rd and 15 and he catches a 12 yard hitch, it's asking a lot to stop said receiver from getting three yards.

I just have to wonder how much of the soft zone/soft coverages are called because the safety play this season has been atrocious and there has been limited confidence in MLBers being in the right spot defensively on passing downs.  Overall they're a middle of the road defense in the passing game - not giving up a ton of yards with an average completion percentage against, average sack and INT rates, etc.  But I do think injuries have taken their toll on the defense lately at key spots (Gary, Stokes, Campbell, etc), and overall the defense just seems to pick inopportune times to have in-game lapses.  Also, key veteran players in the front 7 (Clark, P. Smith, Campbell) haven't had good seasons by their standards.

They got steamrolled against the Eagles, but up until that game the knock on the defense for me has been they just weren't dominant enough when the Packer offense has been way below par.

[homer]

Doubs returned to practice today.

[CheezWizHed]

1 hour ago, homer said:

Doubs returned to practice today.

As did Campbell

[LouisEly]

but the offense isn't clean of this either

I give the offense a pass because they've been playing short-staffed at receiver running out a lot of rookies, have had no clue week to week who will be available at tackle, and Rodgers has been playing with a broken thumb.  Once Bakh got back to playing full games and Jenkins was back at guard the line has played much better and the offense as a whole the last couple of weeks has been playing much better. 

[UpandIn]

On 11/29/2022 at 12:43 PM, CheezWizHed said:

And @HarveysWBs nailed it above... There is no gain to firing Barry now.  The season is a wash, we still want to attract a quality DC next year, so what we say about the current one publicly has an effect, and these things are better handled inside the locker room instead of the podium.  If he gets another shot in 2023, however... 

I don't agree with this at all. You know Barry isn't challenging the players and I don't agree they're not playing hard. They're just playing a soft, vanilla defense that basically makes the offense put 10-12 play drives together to score by keeping everything in front of them. 

A new DC could show you a lot about some of your young players. 

I don't think firing a DC in season has any impact on who'll consider taking the job the next off-season. In fact, there's already been rumors from people close to Leonhard that he'd like to be the Packers DC. Nothing official OBVIOUSLY as that'd be tacky on his part and...he's got a job and the job isn't currently open, but teams fire coaches, OCs, DCs all types of coaches in-season and have no trouble attracting top talent. 

On 11/29/2022 at 1:33 PM, bjkrautk said:

Players not trusting the scheme and the collective lack of confidence, compounded by losing, injuries, and the offense's struggles meaning more time on the field, tracks with the inconsistency we've seen with the defense.  I don't think that gets solved during the season, outside of increasing the reps for the guys who are showing effort (Ford, Enagbare, and Nixon among others).

I think this is a huge part of it. Quay Walker has been a little up and down, but when the defense was playing well...but just on the field ALL game(figuratively) and getting worn down, you could see him going sideline to sideline making tackles. One game...Jets maybe, but he ran down an outside zone sifting through the wash, then made play on the other sideline on a little flat route for a loss of a couple yards, then came up and made a really nice, hard tackle on a checkdown. 

Now you see him and he's out of control, he's going for the strip. It's not just him, but as I think he's got as much upside as anyone on the team, it stands out, but he's going for the strip...resulting in the most reliable tackler coming out missing tackles.

Ford is a guy who's looked really good, all thee you mentioned. Wyatt has shown good effort, but we're just banging our head into the wall with this front. Wyatt is a penetrating 3 tech and he's being asked to anchor and he's done that alright, but then Lowry is getting moved off the ball. 

I absolutely think Johnny Grey could give these guys some new life and give you a better idea of what they can do in a different scheme. 

[UpandIn]

Also, in a strange move today, the Packers restructured Dean Lowry's contract.

They converted his base salary to a signing bonus. That clears another 1.5M in cap space this year.

 

There's no reason I can think they'd do this as they've got...what, 7-8M dollars(more than enough for a 4-8 team to get through the season). The money also rolls over. The ONLY reason to do this is to create cap space THIS year to extend a player.

Elgton Jenkins would make the most sense. You could give him a 5 year deal with the usual inflated base in years 3.4.5 but you'd be able to use this year as one of the years for his signing bonus making it more cap friendly. 

Yosh Nijman would make sense. He's going to make probably 4.2M next year though, so less likely it'd be him. 

They'd BEEN talking with Rashan Gary...and while I have little doubt he'll return like Nick or Joey Bosa or most Edge rushers and I KNOW Packers fans would be skeptical of this one given Bakh, It's possible they want to take advantage of the 2 years he has left on his deal. 5 years 100M would make sense for both sides. In a year, an elite edge is going to get 30M easily with the cap likely creeping up to the 265-270 range(And some pass rushers already near 30M AAV). 

You could make the GTD money smaller(I don't see them GTD'ing 80M while he has a torn ACL) so you could give him 30 SB, 45M GTD total spread out over 5 years(which would actually make sense why they'd need the little cap space they added). 

Then kinda like with Rodgers, put in a big '24 roster bonus. That way Gary gets paid NOW and the Packers take a little risk, but they could also get out of it in 2 years if...their bad run of luck with ACLs continues(Bakh obviously and Jenkins has struggled to recover). 

Could also be Lazard or Tonyan.

[UpandIn]

9 hours ago, LouisEly said:

but the offense isn't clean of this either

I give the offense a pass because they've been playing short-staffed at receiver running out a lot of rookies, have had no clue week to week who will be available at tackle, and Rodgers has been playing with a broken thumb.  Once Bakh got back to playing full games and Jenkins was back at guard the line has played much better and the offense as a whole the last couple of weeks has been playing much better. 

It'll take a lot, but nothing too crazy to get this offense back among the best...IMO.

-Healthy Rodgers(or less likely, Jordan Love really is "that dude," and he has a big breakout year. Not ready to buy into that after 9 throws, but man, he made some INCREDIBLE throws. Even if you go that route, you'd probably take a year to let the cap reset. Preston, Aaron Jones, Amos, among others would be gone).

-Bakh to continue to trending in the right direction.
If he's not, then you need to look at Parris Johnson, Skoronski, Broderick Jones(all 1st round picks assume we're not in position to draft a Will Anderson or maybe a Jalen Carter and instead in that ~10 range). If Bakh is healthy and you think Caleb Jones/Walker/Tom can develop, you may not need to use your 1st on an OT or you could trade back to add a 2nd+a 3rdr(which you'd of course combine with your own 3rd to move back into the 2nd as our record with 3rd round picks makes Steven Avery look good. 

-Either re-signing Jenkins(which will have to be done before FA starts or he's going to be a Chicago Bear with former Ole Miss coach Luke Getsy the OC down there and the Bears having 125M in cap space). Zach Tom could replace him. HOPEFULLY Sean Rhyan is up to the job as well.

-The WRers have to develop, AND they have to add to it. Quentin Johnston is almost a ridiculous option. He's so similar to Watson physically. More of a hands catcher. He LOOKS like he's got the same quickness, but he can't. I don't think a team can have two 6'4/6'5 Wrers with RB type quickness. He may be gone by the time we'd pick even if we get the 10th pick.

Addison, the Justin Jefferson like smooth route runner with elite hands might be the best pure WRer in the class. Could also be a top ~10 pick.
If they're gone and we're not going to target an OL, I'd trade back...again, unless there's an edge who's dropping. Boutte(Donald Driver but bigger IMO) should be in the 15-20 range IMO.
Doubs in the intermediate game. Toure as a slippery #3/4 WRer should give us a MUCH better WRing core just with a year under their bets and chemistry with Rodgers. TE would still be a problem, but someone like Arik Gilbert in the 5th...could be a fun option.  
Lazard coming back would basically be like a hybrid TE/WRer even moreso if you have Watson, Johnston, Doubs and Toure 
Cobb...I guess if Rodgers is back. For the vet minimum, but you have to be able to do better. 

-Yosh has to continue to improve, but he has every year. I'd like to see him locked up now. Incredible athlete, seems like a hard worker, the best on the team and one of the better tackles at getting out and screens or pulling(not Lane Johnson, but very good).
-Tom needs to get stronger, but...he's got EVREYTHING else you need. I MIGHT consider moving him to center and then letting Myers, Newman, Rhyan, Walker, Runyan and whoever else we draft...and we will draft someone else. 

RB-For as "replacable" as RBs have become, Aaron Jones may not be...but he's got a 20M+ cap hit, We need to either bring Aaron Jones back on a restructured deal, OR we have to use that 2nd round pick to target a guy like Gibbs, Archane...Tucker from 'Cuse, OR the kid from Michigan is amazing to me. He runs SO low to the ground, he has incredible balance, he actually reminds me of Jones. 

A wild card in the later rounds would be the Darren Sproles clone from KSU, Deuce Vaughn. He's a little back, but he has the quickness, can be a return man, he's a great reciever. But he's more like a 5th/6th round pick and a chance of pace back.

And AJ Dillon HAS to run like he has the past couple weeks. I don't know if he was hurt earlier this year, but he wasn't running with any authority. He is now. 
 

 

So basically;

Figure out who the QB will be. That will re-set expectations.
Rodgers=SB
Love=Re-set the cap and hopefully have a good season while seeing what Love's long term prognosis is, but more like a 6-9 win team.
OL-Healthy and re-sign Jenks.
WRer-Continue to develop Doubs, Watson, Toure and if that Johnston or Addison is BPA with Love, get 'em. If they're there with Rodgers and not BPA...probably get them. 
-Figure out what to do with Lazard(probably re-sign), Tonyan(likely re-sign), Jones(Restructure if #12 is back).

RB-Restructure Jones or look at Gibbs, Tucker, my favorite Corum or maybe someone like Evans or LaBorn from the 2nd(Gibbs) to the 3rd(Corum) to the 5th Evans, LaBorn or Deuce Vaughn.

 

Sounds like a lot, but it's really not that much. It's just getting healthy, getting the young guys some experience and then HOPING with a premium draft pick, we can find a player who can have a big impact next year.

 

Lots of obstacles with the cap...nothing we can't over come. Biggest questions are the QB position, but I'm feeling better about Love at this point. 

[Jopal78]

On 12/1/2022 at 1:51 AM, UpandIn said:

II absolutely think Johnny Grey could give these guys some new life and give you a better idea of what they can do in a different scheme. 

You mean Jerry Gray? https://www.packers.com/team/coaches-roster/jerry-gray

No coach is going to come in and change an entire scheme with 5 games left. Even a new wrinkle or two isn't going to make much difference with the talent they're missing due to injury. 

Don't lose site of the fact that Jerry Gray's unit hasn't really knocked anyone's socks off this year, and the first round picks and high priced veterans he had to coach have been outplayed by the street free-agents like Nixon and Ford. 

 

 

[HarryDoyle]

Bakh had an appendectomy and will be out Sunday.

[UpandIn]

5 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

You mean Jerry Gray? https://www.packers.com/team/coaches-roster/jerry-gray

No coach is going to come in and change an entire scheme with 5 games left. Even a new wrinkle or two isn't going to make much difference with the talent they're missing due to injury. 

Don't lose site of the fact that Jerry Gray's unit hasn't really knocked anyone's socks off this year, and the first round picks and high priced veterans he had to coach have been outplayed by the street free-agents like Nixon and Ford. 

 

 

I'm not talking about switching to a 46 old Bears Defense, I'm talking about some simple schematic difference that are already built in, but not used. A penetrating 3-4 with more man coverage, moving players around. Put Quay on the edge with Campbell back, let him rush the passer a bit more(anything but just a delayed blitz the doesn't stress the OL AT ALL as it' the only blitz the Packers have shown all year from their MLBers). 

I also don't care if it makes a difference this season in their Wins or losses. They're 4-8. They're out of it. It's more about individual players. 

 

Also...I really don't care if Savage got outplayed by Rudy Ford. Who cares if one was a 1st round pick and the other wasn't? I'm not less excited that Aaron Jones became a great back because he was a 5th round pick. I'll take good players where we can find them. 

Nixon hasn't really outplayed any of our 1st round picks or highly paid CBs. He's been healthy. He was great as a returner last game. But on defense he hasn't been as good as Jaire or Douglas(really not that close) and he's been similar to Stokes...but when just with much less pressure on him as a slot CB. Also, take the guy who was #1 per PFF in press man and ask him to start playing a bunch of Cover3 when you get Jaire Alexander back...that's just wasting his talent. Obviously you can't play man on every play, but giving WRers free releases and 10 yard cushions and then wonder why our defense isn't getting home. Shocking. 

Nixon is a smaller but physical slot back. Lets see him coming off the slot, on run blitzes, whatever. Until Gary gets back and if you don't get more from the DL, you need to generate some pass rush or even good corners will look bad. 

Ford has looked great. Put him in a more aggressive style off offense where he's not playing inside shade on the TE in quarters, but make him cover the deep middle and lets see how he does. Maybe not the best fit for him, but it's a lot better than asking Savage to come down from quarters and play the C gaps like Barry has done and we already know Ford can do that.

 

So it has absolutely nothing to do with this season. It has to do with figuring out what you think these young guys can be moving forward. 

 

And no DL should be getting more snaps in sub packages than Wyatt. He's made guys look bad this year as a pass rusher...but on 8 snaps a game, he's not going to have much impact. 

I see no reason to keep Barry around at this point. You know he won't be back next year and the only goal from this point on should be seeing what players you can expect to contribute next year. 

 

Grey has been advocating for a more aggressive playstyle, the players are frustrated. Why prolong the inevitable? Unless it's to move up high enough to get the 2nd pick in the draft...which is sadly, still realistic and I guess at that point, trade back for a bunch more picks so you have multiple 1st rounders...or just stay where you are and add Johnston;

Quote

In nine years of college grading, we have not seen a wide receiver quite like Quentin Johnston. At a rangy 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, he is a terror with the ball in his hands. His broken-tackle rate over his career is unlike anything we’ve graded, with 41 forced missed tackles on 97 career receptions. That’s what you’d expect from a receiver with a running back-esque build like Deebo Samuel, not a pterodactyl like Johnston.

That'd at least make more sense than what we're doing right now. .

[UpandIn]

14 hours ago, HarryDoyle said:

Bakh had an appendectomy and will be out Sunday.

I'm just glad it's not his knee. Of course dude is taking a LOT of **** for this...as though it's his fault. 

Still really curious why they restructured Lowry now. Has to be for some type of extension as they had plenty of cap space available for this year given where they are and it's not like they need money to sign Beckham. 

[DR28]

I hope Doubs will be back after bye... Really want to see Watson and Doubs on the field together.

Also hope we resign Lazard, WR core of Watson/Doubs/Lazard/Toure going forward will be damn good!

[UpandIn]

10 hours ago, DR28 said:

I hope Doubs will be back after bye... Really want to see Watson and Doubs on the field together.

Also hope we resign Lazard, WR core of Watson/Doubs/Lazard/Toure going forward will be damn good!

I think that's the plan. Doubs has a lot of upside...it's just kinda overshadowed by Watson and his explosion. 

I wonder if this team would actually go back to the WRer well in this upcoming draft? Imagine getting another 6'4 4.3 40 WRer who breaks a ton of tackles and is compared to a Deebo Samuel's with the body of a pterodactyl!

Watson/Johnston/Doubs/Toure/Lazard

And then...they trade Rodgers for a 1st round pick to the Titans(the team with lots of talent and a HC who'd be willing to...cut off his manhood to win a SB), draft Broderick Jones, use their 3rd round pick....because...what the hell else are we gonna do with it but waste a roster spot, then trade back into the 1st round again and draft Gervon Dexter. 

 

Detroit is already looking like they're building a powerhouse and they should have a top 5 and top 10 pick(Again). 
They'll have a whole lot of cap room.

Chicago looks like they might have found their QB and they'll have 125M in salary cap space.
Minnesota....well, they're just good right now.

Packers are in danger of swapping spots with Det or Chicago if they're not more proactive this off-season. The SB window has probably passed(though, not definitely based on the massive jumps teams have made in the last few years). 

But we've got a really nice group of young players. It'd be nice to know if Love is one of them. It'd be even nicer to know this year. 

[GAME05]

Boy I could really see Rodgers going any direction at the end of the season. If he wants to play again but he thinks the Packers aren't a SB contender, maybe a trade would be tenable without the fans giving him the Favre treatment. Though my guess is he plays another year with GB. And if so, wouldn't Love's 5th year option be really expensive?

To trade Rodgers to Tennessee you pretty much have to take Tannehill, and that's a pretty awful contract. Though if Rodgers wants a trade, I'd guess he'd be able to choose his new team and GB would just get what they could out of it.

[Sixtolezcano]

On 12/1/2022 at 1:51 AM, UpandIn said:

I don't agree with this at all. You know Barry isn't challenging the players and I don't agree they're not playing hard. They're just playing a soft, vanilla defense that basically makes the offense put 10-12 play drives together to score by keeping everything in front of them. 

A new DC could show you a lot about some of your young players. 

I don't think firing a DC in season has any impact on who'll consider taking the job the next off-season. In fact, there's already been rumors from people close to Leonhard that he'd like to be the Packers DC. Nothing official OBVIOUSLY as that'd be tacky on his part and...he's got a job and the job isn't currently open, but teams fire coaches, OCs, DCs all types of coaches in-season and have no trouble attracting top talent. 

I absolutely think Johnny Grey could give these guys some new life and give you a better idea of what they can do in a different scheme. 

JS Online reported yesterday that Leonard agreed to remain with the   Badgers, most likely in a DC capacity. 

I disagree about your opinion regarding Johnny Gray. The most disappointing group position on the defense this year has been the defensive backfield. They have taken the largest step back this year and as their position coach Gray is primarily responsible for their play. I don’t believe that there is any possibility in this world that Gray is promoted to DC on the Packers and would be a major miscalculation by MLF.

[bjkrautk]

1 minute ago, Sixtolezcano said:

JS Online reported yesterday that Leonard agreed to remain with the   Badgers, most likely in a DC capacity. 

 

After that story came out, the new HC (Fickell) said Leonard was still considering his options, which is why things remain uncertain.

[Sixtolezcano]

12 minutes ago, bjkrautk said:

 

After that story came out, the new HC (Fickell) said Leonard was still considering his options, which is why things remain uncertain.

Not as definitive as the previous report but JS Online updated today that Fickell offered Leonhart the DC job on Sunday and that their sources expected him to be on the Badger’s staff in 2023.

it also appears that B.Allen will remain a Badger in 2023.

[LouisEly]

20 hours ago, UpandIn said:

I wonder if this team would actually go back to the WRer well in this upcoming draft?

 

They're going to have to with Lazard, Watkins, and Cobb all FAs.  They'll need bodies, but it doesn't have to be first round.

Johnston is the one guy I hope they get in the 1st if they don't trade down, otherwise they can wait.  A.T. Perry of Wake Forest likely a 2nd round pick, but I'm looking at Trey Palmer in the 3rd or Charlie Jones in the 4th/5th.  Both have had a tremendous amount of success as a receiver, punt returner, and kick returner and all three were the #1 receiver on their team with no other WR threat and still couldn't be covered.  Nixon is a FA so no guarantee he'll be back and I don't think the Packers are entirely sold on him as a punt returner anyway as Cobb was back there last week.  Either Palmer or Jones would be a great replacement for Cobb and I think could step in right away and contribute.

[UpandIn]

27 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

They're going to have to with Lazard, Watkins, and Cobb all FAs.  They'll need bodies, but it doesn't have to be first round.

Johnston is the one guy I hope they get in the 1st if they don't trade down, otherwise they can wait.  A.T. Perry of Wake Forest likely a 2nd round pick, but I'm looking at Trey Palmer in the 3rd or Charlie Jones in the 4th/5th.  Both have had a tremendous amount of success as a receiver, punt returner, and kick returner and all three were the #1 receiver on their team with no other WR threat and still couldn't be covered.  Nixon is a FA so no guarantee he'll be back and I don't think the Packers are entirely sold on him as a punt returner anyway as Cobb was back there last week.  Either Palmer or Jones would be a great replacement for Cobb and I think could step in right away and contribute.

I completely agree, they definitely don't "need" a 1st...this just might be a case of BPA kinda lining up with a way to combine Watson with...as close to a clone of himself as you can get and give Love an insane young group of WRers. 

I'd prioritize OT, WRer and...if for some fluke reason an impact defensive player like Jalen Carter or Will Anderson falls, grab them(moving back and picking up a future 1st is an even better idea). 

I think it's also clear they're not sold on Nixon and they'd prefer a real return man. Palmer I haven't watched enough of. Jones I'm a big fan of. His 40 will have a big impact on his draft position. 

UGAs Ladd McConkey is another guy who I really like. 

This team is SO up in the air, but based on Gutekunst's comments that effectively say they're going to be picking up Love's option(at least that's how I read them). So what the hell are we doing? Are we doubling back down and keeping Rodgers and trying to get back to the SB, chalk this season up as a fluke with injuries and working the young guys in? If so, will we draft a Rashan Gary type player? That could be Tyree Wilson in this class. Or do we want a more immediate impact player? 

I don't think they trade for Watson last year(at least two 2nds) if Rodgers wasn't at the point in his career he is. We overpaid and I don't think anyone expected him to be this explosive early on. Still, that way of roster building isn't smart over the long haul and I don't think it leads to those types of hits all that often.

If we're just building for Love, then it gets much easier. You take Wilson...if you think he's the BPA or you take Parris Johnson even if you believe Bakh will be back next year and he's getting healthier. 

 

Personally, I could see this team turning it around very quickly...but I still think we're best served moving on from Rodgers and trying to work out an amicable trade. The Titans/Raiders make the most sense...and I THINK you could still get a 1st for him. Rodgers sounds like he's planning on playing for a couple more years at this point. 

[UpandIn]

2 hours ago, Sixtolezcano said:

JS Online reported yesterday that Leonard agreed to remain with the   Badgers, most likely in a DC capacity. 

I disagree about your opinion regarding Johnny Gray. The most disappointing group position on the defense this year has been the defensive backfield. They have taken the largest step back this year and as their position coach Gray is primarily responsible for their play. I don’t believe that there is any possibility in this world that Gray is promoted to DC on the Packers and would be a major miscalculation by MLF.

I don't think that's on Grey. DBs can only cover for so long. They have regressed, but Clark has struggled(he should be a primary NT, not a DE). The lack of a pass rush, particularly post Gary...and the play calling has hurt the secondary more than the coaching. 

Trying to assign blame to a particular coach for a position group is like trying to figure out if it's the hitting coach who's responsible for Yelich struggling. 

Either way, I didn't say make him the DC permanently, just an interim. You'd move on and get a full time DC after this year.

And Leonhard still hasn't made his mind up. The JSO apparently jumped the gun and Fickell is bringing his DC from Cincy with him anyway. 

The point is to get Barry out and put Grey in there and play a more aggressive style. What's the point of keeping Barry when you know you're going to fire him? The DL has also been worse. I don't think that's on Montgomery. I think we just have a terrible DC who doesn't do anything that's the least bit surprising. 

[LouisEly]

@UpandIn Curious as to why you think they need OT.  I think that's one of the few positions they don't need.  Give Tom a full offseason in a pro strength program and he could be Bakh 2.0.  If you're correct and Nijman is a RFA he's around for another year while Jones and Walker develop as backups and see if they make the 2nd year jump.  That's not including Bakh who I think will be back for one more year. 

I'm never opposed to a great OT if one is available, but they're going to have lots of other roster spots to fill.

WR - Lazard, Watkins, Cobb are all FAs.  Will need to spend minimum one pick, likely two here.
TE - Lewis and Tonyan are FAs, likely one pick here
DT - Lowry and Reed are FAs, at least one pick here, maybe two
S - Amos, Ford, and Leavitt are all FAs and Savage might be full-time nickel, at least one pick here, probably two
Edge - Gary out most of the year, little to no depth, Hollins is a FA, at least one pick here
K - Crosby is a FA, isn't getting kickoffs deep enough

They have one pick in each of rounds 1-5 which covers the first five positions above, then three in round seven which will likely be another WR and then two of S/DT/Edge/TE depending on who is back and BPA.  I'd love Michigan's Jake Moody in round 7 but don't think he'll still be around.