Packers 2025 offseason

[Sixtolezcano]

4 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Last season the Packers were 5th in total defense, 5th in yards/play given up, 13th in passing yards given up, 9th in QB rating given up.  They did this with JA playing only 1/3rd of the defensive snaps.  They bring back Nixon (94% of defensive snaps), Bullard (nickel, 72% of snaps), and Valentine (50%), while adding Hobbs.  Hobbs replaces Stokes, Robinson will likely replace Rochell/Ballentine, and they bring back two guys who were late round picks last year in Hadden and King. 

I said before the draft that one of the big factors in the draft was how the Packers felt about the development of Hadden and King, and given that the Packers didn't draft a CB until the 7th round and given that they released JA, the tea leaves suggest that the Packers feel good about Hadden and King as backups.

I sure hope you’re right.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

2 hours ago, adambr2 said:

Yes, I think it’s highly likely that once again, the Packers will beat those inferior opponents, get a 6th or 7th seed, and be one and done in January.

Here is my issue — at the end of the 2023 season, when the Packers came within a hair of the NFC Championship, they looked like a team on the drastic rise. The improvement from the first half of 2023 was extreme. The “rebuild” was clearly coming to an end, and expectations were high coming into 2024. 

Stagnation, and even decline, certainly weren’t expected. “They’re young, they’ll improve even more!” was the cliche line repeated.

Fact is, Gute hasn’t done a good job at all of complementing the young talent on this team with any experience. When the expectations were non-existent, that was fine. Now, not so much. The goal isn’t to have the youngest team in the NFL every year. It’s to win a Super Bowl.

I think we can all agree that, a year and a half later after the 49er playoff exit, not even being among the top 5 teams in the conference as far as who should realistically have expectations of achieving that goal this season., is certainly disappointing.

You should probably just quit the site if you can't be positive! They were seriously so, so close to beating Philadelphia! /s

[CheezWizHed]

3 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

You should probably just quit the site if you can't be positive! 

I find this post highly ironic.  😂

[OldSchoolSnapper]

7 hours ago, CheezWizHed said:

I find this post highly ironic.  😂

 

11 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

 /s

 

[homer]

19 hours ago, patrickgpe said:

that they won't use....

They will re-sign their own guys to extensions.

[JosephC]

Over the last two years, the Packers have a 10-4 record when Alexander plays, and a 10-10 record when he does not play.  Completion percentage against is 64% with him, 68% without him.  Passer rating allowed is 85.5 with him, 95.4 without him.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/packers-release-jaire-alexander-how-green-bay-will-replace-all-pro-cornerback-why-secondary-should-be-fine/

[homer]

20 minutes ago, JosephC said:

Over the last two years, the Packers have a 10-4 record when Alexander plays, and a 10-10 record when he does not play.  Completion percentage against is 64% with him, 68% without him.  Passer rating allowed is 85.5 with him, 95.4 without him.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/packers-release-jaire-alexander-how-green-bay-will-replace-all-pro-cornerback-why-secondary-should-be-fine/

I wish he played more often. Philly is probably a good fit for him. He won't have to play very many snaps.

[Jopal78]

15 hours ago, adambr2 said:

As an aside, the fact that Gute just cut literally his 1st or 2nd best 1st round pick of all time is a pretty good illustration of how brutal his track record is in the 1st.

I don’t know what you’re upset about. I would’ve simply kept Alexander at his current price too, BUT at 28 and having missed most of the season 3 of the last four year, what are the odds he stays healthy? They played the percentages and made the move, plus they demonstrated a lot of patience trying to work something out with Alexander first to keep him. 

It’s the NFL, maybe 10% of the time a second contract works out for the team handing it out. That Alexander is hurt all the time as he gets older and had no guaranteed money left on his contract, has no relationship to whether or not the GM is good at drafting players.

As to Gutekunst, he takes a lot of flak because Packer fans are spoiled by success. That his teams have gone to the playoffs 5 of his 7 seasons (more than the 49ers, Rams, Cowboys, Vikings, Steelers during that time), and won a playoff game in  3 of those 5 seasons with 2 different starting QBs no less, is lost on most Packer fans who only wonder why they haven’t won even more and blame the GM. 

 

[adambr2]

1 hour ago, Jopal78 said:

I don’t know what you’re upset about. I would’ve simply kept Alexander at his current price too, BUT at 28 and having missed most of the season 3 of the last four year, what are the odds he stays healthy? They played the percentages and made the move, plus they demonstrated a lot of patience trying to work something out with Alexander first to keep him. 

It’s the NFL, maybe 10% of the time a second contract works out for the team handing it out. That Alexander is hurt all the time as he gets older and had no guaranteed money left on his contract, has no relationship to whether or not the GM is good at drafting players.

As to Gutekunst, he takes a lot of flak because Packer fans are spoiled by success. That his teams have gone to the playoffs 5 of his 7 seasons (more than the 49ers, Rams, Cowboys, Vikings, Steelers during that time), and won a playoff game in  3 of those 5 seasons with 2 different starting QBs no less, is lost on most Packer fans who only wonder why they haven’t won even more and blame the GM. 

 

This is a genuine question, I’m honestly just asking — do you have any statistical/data backing on that “maybe 10%” number or is it just totally out of thin air? 

Also related to that, I’d like to point out that I was quoting his 1st round track record specifically, which is unrelated to his success on Day 2 and 3, where I think he has done rather well relative to most of his peers.

[HarryDoyle]

2 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

I don’t know what you’re upset about. I would’ve simply kept Alexander at his current price too, BUT at 28 and having missed most of the season 3 of the last four year, what are the odds he stays healthy? They played the percentages and made the move, plus they demonstrated a lot of patience trying to work something out with Alexander first to keep him. 

It’s the NFL, maybe 10% of the time a second contract works out for the team handing it out. That Alexander is hurt all the time as he gets older and had no guaranteed money left on his contract, has no relationship to whether or not the GM is good at drafting players.

As to Gutekunst, he takes a lot of flak because Packer fans are spoiled by success. That his teams have gone to the playoffs 5 of his 7 seasons (more than the 49ers, Rams, Cowboys, Vikings, Steelers during that time), and won a playoff game in  3 of those 5 seasons with 2 different starting QBs no less, is lost on most Packer fans who only wonder why they haven’t won even more and blame the GM. 

 

The standard in Green Bay has always been Super Bowl or bust. Maybe times have changed and Packers brass along with the fans are now content with just making the playoffs, much like the Brewers, but as far as I’m concerned, anything short of a championship is a failure.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

It isn't success when your QB wins MVP 4 times and in that span you don't appear in a single Super Bowl. That's bad. It isn't success when your defense fails to rank in the top 10 in that timeframe. That's bad.

The Packers had an other-worldly, all-time great playing QB at an insane level as late as the guy was like 38 or something. It's not like they had someone who was "good." They had one of the top 5 to ever do it.

Those days are long gone and not worth fretting over at this point. The current team is in a healthy state, but I roll my eyes at the Packers being some crazy successful team lately. If you have a QB like that you have to try to win fewer than 10 games. They underachieved tremendously.

 

 

[OldHeidelberg]

7 minutes ago, HarryDoyle said:

The standard in Green Bay has always been Super Bowl or bust. Maybe times have changed and Packers brass along with the fans are now content with just making the playoffs, much like the Brewers, but as far as I’m concerned, anything short of a championship is a failure.

The Packers have been playing the perennial long game at least going back to the beginning of the TT era. Yes. sort of the multiple bites of the apple thing we debate with the Brewers approach. Things seem to be changing a bit in the last few years with more FA acquisitions, but I wonder if this just because of revenue/cap growth. It used to just be the bad teams with the cap room to splurge on the big name FA's. Now after the sense of urgency talk they just dumped a guy who is maybe down for down the best player on the team to save a few cap bucks for future years. While I do get the business calculation with this move, our SB chances in 25 are less than they were 2 days ago in my opinion.   

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, adambr2 said:

This is a genuine question, I’m honestly just asking — do you have any statistical/data backing on that “maybe 10%” number or is it just totally out of thin air? 

Also related to that, I’d like to point out that I was quoting his 1st round track record specifically, which is unrelated to his success on Day 2 and 3, where I think he has done rather well relative to most of his peers.

Let's take a look at the 2018 draft:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2018/draft.htm

• Three players are out of the league
• JA is 24th in games played but was the 18th overall pick, so has played in fewer than average games
• JA is 20th in wAV, or estimated total value career to date, so slightly below expected in total value among 1st round picks that year
• JA is 16th in DrAV - the approximate value only for the team who drafted him.  So, he has provided a slightly above average value for the team who drafted him (GB) than the average player picked in the first round that year.  This says that a number of picks have moved on to other teams and are no longer with the team who drafted them, suggesting that they never got to a second contract with the team who drafted them or the 2nd contract didn't work out and they had already been released.

From a productivity standpoint, JA was above-average in terms of production compared to other 1st round picks that year, but his value was reduced by playing in a below-average number of games due to injuries.  In other words, he was a good pick who had some back luck with injuries.

The notion that he was a bad pick is patently false.  If you can predict injuries, then give the GB front office a call.

[Jopal78]

2 hours ago, adambr2 said:

This is a genuine question, I’m honestly just asking — do you have any statistical/data backing on that “maybe 10%” number or is it just totally out of thin air? 

Also related to that, I’d like to point out that I was quoting his 1st round track record specifically, which is unrelated to his success on Day 2 and 3, where I think he has done rather well relative to most of his peers.

I wouldn’t say it’s out of thin air, but I don’t think there’s official statistics published because defining whether a contract “worked out” is somewhat subjective.
 

 We do know every year there is a wave of free agent players who are released from second contracts due to performance vs pay issues. 
 

With the Packers in the last decade or so, I think it’s safe to say the second contracts they gave out to  Jaire Alexander, Aaron Jones, Nick Perry, Morgan Burnett, Dean Lowry, Randall Cobb didnt work out as they all were released (maybe Cobb’s deal simply expired … don’t recall) at this moment Rashan Gary’s deal isn’t looking too hot either.

As for Gutekunst’s first round picks, who cares? Finding college players who can perform in the NFL is the objective of the draft, and the measure of success is how many you can find each year not the round where they picked them. Viewed through your lens emphasizing first round picks you’d have to say the Patriots 2000 draft was a bust because they missed on every until the 6th round. 

 

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, HarryDoyle said:

The standard in Green Bay has always been Super Bowl or bust. Maybe times have changed and Packers brass along with the fans are now content with just making the playoffs, much like the Brewers, but as far as I’m concerned, anything short of a championship is a failure.

 

1 hour ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

It isn't success when your QB wins MVP 4 times and in that span you don't appear in a single Super Bowl. That's bad. It isn't success when your defense fails to rank in the top 10 in that timeframe. That's bad.

The Packers had an other-worldly, all-time great playing QB at an insane level as late as the guy was like 38 or something. It's not like they had someone who was "good." They had one of the top 5 to ever do it.

Those days are long gone and not worth fretting over at this point. The current team is in a healthy state, but I roll my eyes at the Packers being some crazy successful team lately. If you have a QB like that you have to try to win fewer than 10 games. They underachieved tremendously.

 

 

How many Super Bowls have Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen been to? Prescott? How many has Burrow won? Their goals every year weren’t to win the Super Bowl? Some how those teams aren’t successful because they haven’t racked up multiple Super Bowls wins? Give me a break. 
 

Sheesh, if the Packers went three years without a winning season, you guys would probably be the first ones off the bus

[OldSchoolSnapper]

7 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

 

How many Super Bowls have Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen been to? Prescott? How many has Burrow won? Their goals every year weren’t to win the Super Bowl? Some how those teams aren’t successful because they haven’t racked up multiple Super Bowls wins? Give me a break. 
 

Sheesh, if the Packers went three years without a winning season, you guys would probably be the first ones off the bus

Three of four guys you mention are all under 30 years old. And together, have played in one more Super Bowl than the Packers have in 15 years.

Much more importantly, none are in the zip code of Aaron Rodgers. We can play this game all day. Four seasons of literal MVP QB play and not a single SB appearance to show for it, is bad.

Two things can be true at the same time. The Packers can be an overall well-managed franchise with a history of winning regular season games, and they can also be one that has underachieved. You should be asking what teams did with Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or Pat Mahomes and wondering why the Packers couldn't do that. Not comparing them to Dak Prescott.

[Jopal78]

9 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Three of four guys you mention are all under 30 years old. And together, have played in one more Super Bowl than the Packers have in 15 years.

Much more importantly, none are in the zip code of Aaron Rodgers. We can play this game all day. Four seasons of literal MVP QB play and not a single SB appearance to show for it, is bad.

Two things can be true at the same time. The Packers can be an overall well-managed franchise with a history of winning regular season games, and they can also be one that has underachieved. You should be asking what teams did with Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or Pat Mahomes and wondering why the Packers couldn't do that. Not comparing them to Dak Prescott.

Stop you’re going to make me pee myself. As if AP awards based on regular season numbers mean a thing in relation to who wins the Super Bowl! Rodgers would drop 15 TDs a year on just Detroit and Chicago. Think those games are a good barometer of who’s achieving or underachieving? 
 

They lost how many title games with Rodgers? 4-5? Teams don’t get to the NFC Title game with a roster of underachievers. 

Stop being a spoiled Packer fan. Spoiled being in the playoffs anlmost every year for 30 years, There are fans in about 25 NFL cities that would switch with you in less than a heartbeat. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Oh so now it's because Rodgers wasn't actually that good? LOL. My god, the delusion of this fanbase to explain away it's failures. It is truly a mental disease.

We get to take stats away from certain opponents I guess. By the way, Rodgers never did that a single time, throw 15 TDs against DET/CHI. Detroit was a playoff team a couple of times he won MVP too.

Again: Two things can be true at once. The Packers can be better than the Browns, Jets and Raiders of the league, and also guilty of doing less with more.

This spoiled fan thing is such an old tripe. Who is spoiled? They've won a lot of games. They've also choked a ton and consistently had bad defenses. They've underachieved.

 

[OldHeidelberg]

Packers move Bo Melton to CB, so there WAS a plan all along! 🙂

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Just now, OldHeidelberg said:

Packers move Bo Melton to CB, so there WAS a plan all along! 🙂

That is actually pretty damn interesting. He has the speed and is the prototypical size.

[OldHeidelberg]

2 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

That is actually pretty damn interesting. He has the speed and is the prototypical size.

It sounds like he is just a guy they like and are trying to figure out a way to keep him from falling off the roster. I think we tried this with another WR one offseason in the last few years and it didn't amount to much. But who knows, his brother is a starting CB.

[adambr2]

4 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Let's take a look at the 2018 draft:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2018/draft.htm

• Three players are out of the league
• JA is 24th in games played but was the 18th overall pick, so has played in fewer than average games
• JA is 20th in wAV, or estimated total value career to date, so slightly below expected in total value among 1st round picks that year
• JA is 16th in DrAV - the approximate value only for the team who drafted him.  So, he has provided a slightly above average value for the team who drafted him (GB) than the average player picked in the first round that year.  This says that a number of picks have moved on to other teams and are no longer with the team who drafted them, suggesting that they never got to a second contract with the team who drafted them or the 2nd contract didn't work out and they had already been released.

From a productivity standpoint, JA was above-average in terms of production compared to other 1st round picks that year, but his value was reduced by playing in a below-average number of games due to injuries.  In other words, he was a good pick who had some back luck with injuries.

The notion that he was a bad pick is patently false.  If you can predict injuries, then give the GB front office a call.

I never said Jaire was a bad pick. I literally said he was either the best 1st round pick, or 2nd best 1st round pick, in the Gute era.

[LouisEly]

2 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

They've won a lot of games. They've also choked a ton and consistently had bad defenses. They've underachieved.

You're missing one other reason.

Go back to the last time they had a quarterback who was MVP.  Who were the starters on their offensive line by the time they got to the playoffs, and who else missed, was limited, or was knocked out of the playoffs?  (Please list them.)

[OldSchoolSnapper]

19 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

You're missing one other reason.

Go back to the last time they had a quarterback who was MVP.  Who were the starters on their offensive line by the time they got to the playoffs, and who else missed, was limited, or was knocked out of the playoffs?  (Please list them.)

Reaching the bottom of the Mariana Trench with our excuses at this point. Every team gets hurt. It's an excuse once. 15 years doesn't work. You're the one who said they lost to the 49ers in 2021 because they were too hurt right? Please. 

It's just insanity. If ANY other team in the NFL had a 4x MVP during which they never made a Super Bowl, that team would be criticized and rightfully so. I truly don't understand why that's so difficult to do. It doesn't make you less of a fan. No, it doesn't make you "negative." It makes you honest and realistic. 

The Packers underachieved in the playoffs consistently. It should be very easy for anyone to admit that. 

[LouisEly]

10 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

You're the one who said they lost to the 49ers in 2021 because they were too hurt right? Please. 

Since you're not willing to do the research to list them, that proves my point.

Missed or limited:

• David Bakhtiari (5x All-Pro LT)
• Elgton Jenkins (Pro Bowl LG)
• Robert Tonyan (starting TE)
• MV-S (3rd in receiving yards during the regular season)
• Jaire Alexander (All-Pro CB, played 8 snaps)
• Kevin King (played 8 snaps)

SFO wasn't missing their All-Pro LT.  SFO wasn't missing their Pro Bowl LG.  SFO wasn't missing their starting TE.  SFO wasn't missing their #3 WR.  SFO wasn't missing an All-Pro CB.  I can't find one starter for SFO who missed the game.  And it took a blocked punt for SFO to beat them.

Yeah, missing their top two OL - an All-Pro and a Pro Bowl - against the team that was 5th in the NFL in sacks and SFO had five sacks that game.  To pretend that didn't affect the outcome of a 13-10 game is just plain ignorant.