Packers 2023 Discussion Thread

[adambr2]

12 minutes ago, homer said:

Yeah I was not thrilled with either of those picks when they made them. I thought both were picked at least a round early.

Felt like Love was a Gute pick and the other two were guys that MLF wanted for his offense. In any case, I agree that they were reaches. 

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, adambr2 said:

It was the worst possible outcome in that scenario, and Gutekunst absolutely mismanaged the situation, and that's been the opinion of numerous sportswriters, not just myself.

OK, so they're opinions (of people who don't work for the Packers front office), not facts.  Thanks.

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, HarveysWBs said:

Cynical me says unless one of them is giving his knee to Bakhtiari, it probably doesn’t change anything vis-a-vis a title.

This is exactly it.  Well, one knee to Bakhtiari and one knee to Jenkins.  The injuries to those two are why they didn't go anywhere in the 2021 playoffs.  And no Tonyan.  And Alexander just off of IR and limited to 15% of defensive snaps.  And Z-Smith just coming off of IR and limited to 1/3rd of snaps.  One WR isn't filling all of those holes.

[homer]

Butterfly effect.....you can't say anything with certainty other than their receiver room would have been better.   Maybe Adams sticks around? Rodgers, Adams, Higgins would have been nice last year.

 

[adambr2]

2 hours ago, LouisEly said:

OK, so they're opinions (of people who don't work for the Packers front office), not facts.  Thanks.

Given the really rough state and performance of the Packers post-Rodgers roster, such criticisms of Gutekunst seem like pretty reasonable opinions to me. 

[adambr2]

1 hour ago, homer said:

Butterfly effect.....you can't say anything with certainty other than their receiver room would have been better.   Maybe Adams sticks around? Rodgers, Adams, Higgins would have been nice last year.

 

I think I'm pretty much out on Watson. Dude can't stay healthy and even when he can, there's no consistency. 

Doubs is ok, but he's never going to be your #1. He'll have a long career in the league, though.

I like Reed. 

They probably need one more guy. 

[yourout]

Lions really hit the jackpot with both the coach and the GM.

You really have to have both.

[adambr2]

4 minutes ago, yourout said:

Lions really hit the jackpot with both the coach and the GM.

You really have to have both.

I'm not sure we have either.

[yourout]

2 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

I'm not sure we have either.

I am sure we don"t.

[adambr2]

Jimmy G is like the veteran version of Jordan Love. Terrible offensive line, but also sucks.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, yourout said:

Lions really hit the jackpot with both the coach and the GM.

You really have to have both.

I mean...they are 6-2.  At some point they should have a stretch of seasons where they aren't one of the worst teams in the NFL.  Congrats to them for seeming to figure it out for the first time in just about ever.

[HarryDoyle]

I wonder how Davante is liking being a Raider now. I know he's killing me in two of my fantasy leagues, or Josh McDaniels is. I can't believe some people wanted him to coach the Packers.

[adambr2]

2 hours ago, HarryDoyle said:

I wonder how Davante is liking being a Raider now. I know he's killing me in two of my fantasy leagues, or Josh McDaniels is. I can't believe some people wanted him to coach the Packers.

Same. I hope he gets traded today for no other reason than his next situation can't be any worse.

[CheezWizHed]

12 hours ago, adambr2 said:

I think I'm pretty much out on Watson. Dude can't stay healthy and even when he can, there's no consistency. 

Doubs is ok, but he's never going to be your #1. He'll have a long career in the league, though.

I like Reed. 

They probably need one more guy. 

Agreed.  Doubs looks like a nice #2. Really looks like a smart player, but disappears for long stretches.  He and Love don't seem to click for whatever reason. 

Reed is the one in this group that looks like he could blossom.  He seems very natural out there. Wicks also has great instincts.  At worst, those 3 WRs give you a nice group of #2 and #3 type WRs. 

Watson looks like MVS.  Injury prone and one single button - fast.  Needs a lot of work on his routes.  He could develop, but it is going to take some time; also similar to MVS. 

[adambr2]

19 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Go back and re-read what happened prior to the 2022 season.  The events with Rodgers and Adams are not independent of each other. 

• Rodgers was waffling between playing for the Packers, retiring, or demanding a trade to another team.  That piece had to fall into place first before anything happened with Adams. 
• Rodgers didn't announce until March 8th his intentions to return to the Packers.  March 8th was also the deadline for placing the franchise tag on Adams.  The Packers franchise tagged Adams on March 8th.
• On March 14th, Adams said that he wouldn't play for the franchise tag.
• The Packers tried to extend Adams, and they offered Adams more money than the Raiders did, but Adams wanted to realize a "lifelong dream" to play for the Raiders with his college teammate David Carr.
• The Packers traded Adams on March 18th.

But, yeah, any excuse to purport the narrative that Gute is incompetent...

In addition to what I had already pointed out, Gute's original offer to Adams was under 20M per year before he actually made a reasonable effort to keep him when it was too late. Given his production and the state of the WR market both now and at the time, this is insulting low and it's no wonder that Adams ended up telling the Packers to pound sand. 

 

https://wisportsheroics.com/green-bay-packers-davante-adams-trade/

No matter how you dissect it, Gute dropped the ball big time in the 2022 offseason. 

 

[CheezWizHed]

Back to Gute drafting evaluation...

Obviously, he has a preference for athletic players.  To the point that predicting who he drafts early is often done by looking at RAS numbers.  But that also has led to instances where he drafts people that take time to develop.  Gary and Van Ness being the poster children for that philosophy.  Love could also be included here (i.e. he wasn't NFL ready right away) with extenuating circumstances given Rodgers. 

Watson and MVS are other examples, though less impactful since they are lower draft picks (especially MVS). 

But because of that philosophy, players contribute less and at lower levels early in their careers.  Both MVS and Gary had a few years of minimal impact because of this and really only started coming on a year or two before getting their second contracts. 

So often (not always) when Gute does hit on a pick... the player ultimately has less impact on their rookie deal.  Is there a "WAR" statistic in football? 

I still think Gute is a good drafter, but maybe a knock on his philosophy as I've thought about it more.

[MrTPlush]

Random thought who are all the guys he has traded up for? I can think of Love and Watson…both of which are seriously depressing for guys he was so sure about that he paid up to go get them. I mean he rushed to go get Love and reached in most peoples mind.

 

Christian Watson was basically drafted in the 1st round, yet the dude is seriously disappointing. Two rookies have more receiving yards and another is right behind him. Nearly half his yards are on one pass. Certainly Love being garbage doesn’t help, but should Reed be dominating over him and Wicks being just as good? Wicks is a rookie 5th round draft pick.

Seems like this year proves all Watson is (at least at this point) is a one trick pony. Run fast and catch a deep ball. If the QB can’t hit that, dude is useless.

[adambr2]

20 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Back to Gute drafting evaluation...

Obviously, he has a preference for athletic players.  To the point that predicting who he drafts early is often done by looking at RAS numbers.  But that also has led to instances where he drafts people that take time to develop.  Gary and Van Ness being the poster children for that philosophy.  Love could also be included here (i.e. he wasn't NFL ready right away) with extenuating circumstances given Rodgers. 

Watson and MVS are other examples, though less impactful since they are lower draft picks (especially MVS). 

But because of that philosophy, players contribute less and at lower levels early in their careers.  Both MVS and Gary had a few years of minimal impact because of this and really only started coming on a year or two before getting their second contracts. 

So often (not always) when Gute does hit on a pick... the player ultimately has less impact on their rookie deal.  Is there a "WAR" statistic in football? 

I still think Gute is a good drafter, but maybe a knock on his philosophy as I've thought about it more.

I'll be blunt. I hate his philosophy. No, I loathe his philosophy. I think it's a massive organizational inefficiency. I think it's inconsistent with any good business sense in the NFL. 

To me, with the salary cap in the NFL, it's essentially a game of "Moneyball" between 32 GMs. We all have this same amount to work with. So how can we be most efficient with it?

Well, taking the length of one of your most valuable assets, the rookie contract, and cutting it by 50-75% because that's how long it takes your prospects to get up to speed, is not efficient. It is horribly inefficient. Look, it's no secret how important it is to get production out of rookie contracts. You can't build a good roster solely on the veteran market, it's just too expensive. 

So yes. IMO, "NFL-ready", should be a heavily weighted attribute for any rookie, and Gute not only doesn't value that trait, but he seems to seek out the opposite. So even when you finally start getting production out of your players like Gary, you had years from them where you were getting little to nothing. And I'm not knocking the Gary pick or saying it was bad, and I thought the extension was perfectly reasonable for the market, but that's the reality. You got little out of the rookie deal, now you have to pay market, and you can't build a good roster on all market deals.

I'm not saying that every rookie needs to show up at rookie camp ready to be a big contributor from Day 1, but it sure needs to be valued a lot more than we are doing. And these rookies are out there, and they aren't all just guys you find in the top 10 of the first round. Amon Ra St Brown and Puka Nacua being two recent examples. 

[CheezWizHed]

19 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

I'll be blunt. I hate his philosophy. No, I loathe his philosophy. I think it's a massive organizational inefficiency. I think it's inconsistent with any good business sense in the NFL. 

To me, with the salary cap in the NFL, it's essentially a game of "Moneyball" between 32 GMs. We all have this same amount to work with. So how can we be most efficient with it?

Well, taking the length of one of your most valuable assets, the rookie contract, and cutting it by 50-75% because that's how long it takes your prospects to get up to speed, is not efficient. It is horribly inefficient. Look, it's no secret how important it is to get production out of rookie contracts. You can't build a good roster solely on the veteran market, it's just too expensive. 

So yes. IMO, "NFL-ready", should be a heavily weighted attribute for any rookie, and Gute not only doesn't value that trait, but he seems to seek out the opposite. So even when you finally start getting production out of your players like Gary, you had years from them where you were getting little to nothing. And I'm not knocking the Gary pick or saying it was bad, and I thought the extension was perfectly reasonable for the market, but that's the reality. You got little out of the rookie deal, now you have to pay market, and you can't build a good roster on all market deals.

I'm not saying that every rookie needs to show up at rookie camp ready to be a big contributor from Day 1, but it sure needs to be valued a lot more than we are doing. And these rookies are out there, and they aren't all just guys you find in the top 10 of the first round. Amon Ra St Brown and Puka Nacua being two recent examples. 

I'm still "thinking my way through" an evaluation of Gute as a drafter, so I'm not trying to defend or destroy him at this point.  Just trying to evaluate.  

Having said that, Gute has a large number of players ready to play right away too.  Alexander, Savage, Jenkins, Tom, Myers, Q Walker, Reed, and Doubs were all pretty high performers quickly.  Watson was unique because his skills were raw, but actually contributes because of this athleticism (at least last year). Dillon, Deguara, Newman, and others contributed immediately at about their "max" ability... but were more marginal in their contributions. 

But his approach certainly adds a risk when a high draft pick takes 2-3 years to develop.

[homer]

Packers could easily be 5 - 2 right now. I don't think it makes the problems any less of a thing but I am guessing we wouldn't be looking to fire the entire front office.

[adambr2]

9 minutes ago, homer said:

Packers could easily be 5 - 2 right now. I don't think it makes the problems any less of a thing but I am guessing we wouldn't be looking to fire the entire front office.

They could be 1-6 as well....

But, point taken. They've only had two games where they weren't remotely competitive. 

I'd point out, though, that this is a 2-5 team against cupcakes plus the Lions. The Bears, Raiders, and Broncos are bad football teams. Other than the Lions the rest are average at best. 

I'd say there's probably one more win on the schedule before the two weeks against Detroit/KC which are almost assuredly losses and then probably 1-2 wins the rest of the way after that stretch. 4-13 or 5-12.

[yourout]

32 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

They could be 1-6 as well....

But, point taken. They've only had two games where they weren't remotely competitive. 

I'd point out, though, that this is a 2-5 team against cupcakes plus the Lions. The Bears, Raiders, and Broncos are bad football teams. Other than the Lions the rest are average at best. 

I'd say there's probably one more win on the schedule before the two weeks against Detroit/KC which are almost assuredly losses and then probably 1-2 wins the rest of the way after that stretch. 4-13 or 5-12.

To me this feels like the Badgers Paul Chyrst death spiral all over again only it's not just the coach. It's organizational.

[patrickgpe]

A 3rd for Douglas and a 5th seems like a nice trade. I'm glad they are not trying to add pieces and give up draft capital. 

[adambr2]

The good news is a 5th + Douglas for a 3rd is excellent compensation in theory. 

The bad news is that with our success rate in the 3rd we might as well take that extra pick and light it on fire. 

[OldHeidelberg]

32 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

The good news is a 5th + Douglas for a 3rd is excellent compensation in theory. 

The bad news is that with our success rate in the 3rd we might as well take that extra pick and light it on fire. 

I mean, it's likely top of the 5th round to a lower 3rd round pick not sure what the equivalent value is but probably a 4th rounder? Better than nothing I guess.