Game 1 - Packers @ Vikings - Sunday, Sept. 13th @ 3:25 PM

[JosephC]

16 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Everyone on the planet knows that record is the work of Aaron Rodgers.

And Ted Thompson.

I still find it really hard to separate LeFleur and Gutekunst.  If one has to go, then both of them should be out.

[CheezWizHed]

1 hour ago, JosephC said:

And Ted Thompson.

I still find it really hard to separate LeFleur and Gutekunst.  If one has to go, then both of them should be out.

TT was a boat anchor of a GM the last few years of his tenure... we all know why, but let's not pretend he had a positive impact on MLF's teams. 

I watched the game on recorded delay, so I wasn't in the IGT... but seems like Gute and MLF are getting the blame.  When does Love get the hate? 

• Whether he audibled to the QB sneak or not, why was he flopping on his back like a fish after bouncing off his center?  
• Where are his audibles to hot reads during the last few meaningful drives (I think he finally started on the final drive when everything was academic) instead of 5 and 7 step drops? 
• He is great QB when given time, but I don't see him (still) being able to read a blitz, motion someone, and change the play to something that will succeed. Still looks like a rookie there. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

6 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

TT was a boat anchor of a GM the last few years of his tenure... we all know why, but let's not pretend he had a positive impact on MLF's teams. 

I watched the game on recorded delay, so I wasn't in the IGT... but seems like Gute and MLF are getting the blame.  When does Love get the hate? 

• Whether he audibled to the QB sneak or not, why was he flopping on his back like a fish after bouncing off his center?  
• Where are his audibles to hot reads during the last few meaningful drives (I think he finally started on the final drive when everything was academic) instead of 5 and 7 step drops? 
• He is great QB when given time, but I don't see him (still) being able to read a blitz, motion someone, and change the play to something that will succeed. Still looks like a rookie there. 

Uh, there is no pretending necessary. A boat load of guys from that 2019-2021 window where LaFleur won 39 regular season games and led to him still having a job today, were Ted Thompson picks. 

There's the obvious one in Rodgers, but:

Davante Adams

Aaron Jones 

David Bhkatiari

Corey Linsley

Bryan Bulaga 

Kenny Clark

Jamaal Williams

Kevin King - say what you will, but he was a starter. 

It's incredibly dismissive to say Ted didn't impact LaFleur's success. Hell, he impacted it more positively than Gute has. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Ted's downfall, if you want to call it that, was thinking he ONLY had to use the draft. But if we are comparing his drafting to Gute's, they aren't even in the same dimension. Gute wishes he were half the talent evaluator. 

Thompson built multiple rosters capable of winning titles. Their missteps during that time are NFL films classics for what utter choke jobs they were. That falls squarely on players and coaches. 

[CheezWizHed]

5 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Uh, there is no pretending necessary. A boat load of guys from that 2019-2021 window where LaFleur won 39 regular season games and led to him still having a job today, were Ted Thompson picks. 

There's the obvious one in Rodgers, but:

Davante Adams

Aaron Jones 

David Bhkatiari

Corey Linsley

Bryan Bulaga 

Kenny Clark

Jamaal Williams

Kevin King - say what you will, but he was a starter. 

It's incredibly dismissive to say Ted didn't impact LaFleur's success. Hell, he impacted it more positively than Gute has. 

Specifically, I did mention the last few years of TT's tenure.  Those drafts and (lack of) FA signings eroded the depth massively.  When Gute was hired, he had an immediate impact on the draft and FA signings (especially that first FA group). 

Here are the 2015-2017 players that were on MLF's teams:

2015:

• 8 draft picks.  Zero were with the team in 2019. 
• FA signings - only resigned GB players.  Lost Davon House

2016: 

• 7 draft picks. 
  • Kenny Clark (6 seasons many starts) - multiple probowler
  • Kyler Fackrell (1 season, zero starts) - Mainly backup/special teams
  • Blake Martinez (1 season, 16 starts) - average starter.
  • Dean Lowrey (4 seasons, many starts) - average/below ave starter. 
• FA Signings - Jared Cook (never played with MLF)

2017: 

• 10 draft picks
  • Kevin King (3 years, many starts) below average starting CB. 
  • Montravius Adams (2 years, 3 starts) below average backup DT
  • Jamaal Williams (2 years, 5 starts) above average backup RB.  Probowl dancer
  • Aaron Jones (5 years, many starts) excellent starting RB, single ProBowl
• FA Signings - Martellus Bennett (boy was that one FUN!), Lance Kendricks, Jahari Evans, Justin McCray - House, Kendrick, and McCray played 2 years with GB. None played with MLF. 

Three years of draft picks and acquisitions and TT helped MLF with Clark, Williams, Jones, and Martinez.  The rest were negative or neutral impact as players. 

 

 

[CheezWizHed]

30 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Ted's downfall, if you want to call it that, was thinking he ONLY had to use the draft. But if we are comparing his drafting to Gute's, they aren't even in the same dimension. Gute wishes he were half the talent evaluator. 

Thompson built multiple rosters capable of winning titles. Their missteps during that time are NFL films classics for what utter choke jobs they were. That falls squarely on players and coaches. 

You can't compare initial TT's drafting with his last few years when his disease was clearly impacting things. As I stated above, he had 3 years of really bad player acquisitions.  

[OldSchoolSnapper]

7 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

You can't compare initial TT's drafting with his last few years when his disease was clearly impacting things. As I stated above, he had 3 years of really bad player acquisitions.  

His last few years look like an average Gute draft. And the core of the team that MLF stacked wins with, was with Ted's core players. 

You also don't mention Lane Taylor or Lucas Patrick, who were Thompson UDFAs and still starting on MLF's teams. More than Gute has ever done for the OL, frankly.

This is exactly my point a few posts earlier talking about how they developed OL in the past - with low value assets. They had a system that worked with astonishing success. Gute sucks at it, so has turned to using early picks on OL, who also mostly just suck.

Quite honestly, outside of #12, Ted is probably most responsible for the MLF's record as a HC that has kept him employed.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

TT found OL in his pocket lint. It was probably the thing he did better than anything else. He seemed content forcing Rodgers to throw to guys off the street, and he was mostly right about that, but seemed to take it to an extreme toward the end. It's legitimately incredible how little they invested in finding offensive linemen for the return they got for so many years.

[CheezWizHed]

In Gute's first two years alone he added:

Draft: Jaire Alexander, Rashad Gary, Darnell Savage, Elgton Jenkins. MVS, EQS (and a few decent ST players)

FA: Z Smith, P Smith, Amos, Turner, Marcedes Lewis, and Jimmy Graham, 

[CheezWizHed]

5 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

TT found OL in his pocket lint. It was probably the thing he did better than anything else. He seemed content forcing Rodgers to throw to guys off the street, and he was mostly right about that, but seemed to take it to an extreme toward the end. It's legitimately incredible how little they invested in finding offensive linemen for the return they got for so many years.

That is true.  But that probably has a lot to do with development than drafting... Our OL has sucked since Stenavich moved to OC.  Not coincidentally, our offense has suffered since then too. 

No, I didn't dig into the UDFA archives... just too much work. 😛

And yes, I'll agree that prime TT > Gute.  Just that the last 3 years were horrendous and left the depth bare.   MM probably would've stuck around if someone else had been drafting those 3 years. 

[homer]

16 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Quite honestly, outside of #12, Ted is probably most responsible for the MLF's record as a HC that has kept him employed.

Guys, we can be uber critical of MLF without resorting to hyperbole. He's 29 - 21 the last three years and I doubt there were more than 3 TT draft picks on those teams combined.  I don't feel like looking it up but Kenny Clark and Davante Adams and I don't know who else.

 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

7 minutes ago, homer said:

Guys, we can be uber critical of MLF without resorting to hyperbole. He's 29 - 21 the last three years and I doubt there were more than 3 TT draft picks on those teams combined.  I don't feel like looking it up but Kenny Clark and Davante Adams and I don't know who else.

 

It's not hyperbole. He's 30-24-1 without Aaron Rodgers. If not for expansion of the playoff field, he'd have qualified one time.  That's absolutely fodder for some guys getting canned. 

Any defense of him begins with his joke "record as head coach" which is almost entirely what it is because of Aaron Rodgers. 

He is as big a fraud as you can get. I can't wait to see him hired on in some basement dweller franchise so we can see the guru work his magic. 

[Sixtolezcano]

19 hours ago, LouisEly said:

So, what should he have called with one yard to go?

Ahhh maybe a pass, I would like to know how many 3rd and short yard(age) they failed to get a 1st down.

 

[Sixtolezcano]

19 hours ago, HarveysWBs said:

Going for it was absolutely the right call. QB sneak, however, wasn’t. To LaFleur’s credit, he became much better about when to go for it last year after really backsliding on that for several seasons before that. But you have to have a better call than that. That was completely uninspiring (unless Love checked to that after reading the defense).

4th and 1 is never a good call with this team, and especially this O-Line. They fail almost all the time.

 

 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Packers were 9/13 on 4th and 1 in 2025. One of the failures came against the Ravens when Love didn't play.

Two against the Bears on 12/20

One against the Eagles

[Sixtolezcano]

18 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Policy doesn't care as long as the team is profitable as a business entity. 

But they’re not profitable. They ran into the ‘red’ last year according to the budget numbers they released this summer.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

19 minutes ago, Sixtolezcano said:

But they’re not profitable. They ran into the ‘red’ last year according to the budget numbers they released this summer.

Second time it's been brought up, but that was basically because of what they shelled out for Micah Parsons, which was mostly unplanned and occurred days before the season. They were -$1mm on operating income. As an overall entity, their investments resulted in a net income of $132mm. They're just fine.

[HarryDoyle]

[Jopal78]

20 minutes ago, Sixtolezcano said:

But they’re not profitable. They ran into the ‘red’ last year according to the budget numbers they released this summer.

That number doesn’t mean anything, as it doesn’t represent the entire portfolio. Football operations may have lost $1 million, but their investments certainly made a killing in the market with everybody else. They own all the real estate around the stadium and their leases and title town district generate cash year-round.

It is interesting that all these things are symbiotic. With the cost of attending an NFL game now very expensive, I imagine if the team was ever in the toilet for a half decade or more it would put a huge dent in their season-ticket, waiting list and without a marketable team on the field, all the leases entitled town district around the stadium would also suffer. All of which probably puts incredible stress on Policy ato keep the ship afloat as it has the last 30 years.

[HarryDoyle]

1 hour ago, Sixtolezcano said:

4th and 1 is never a good call with this team, and especially this O-Line. They fail almost all the time.

 

 

Thinking about it now, I wish they had kept the points. Being aggressive is all well and good but not at the expense of three points if the penalty still doesn't net you a first down Also, you're on the road. There was no running play that would've worked there. I'd rather they had gone for it on 4th and three or four so the Vikings wouldn't totally sell out on the run because the offensive line we have now couldn't block a sneeze. They may as well have been a sheet of soaked Kleenex.

[Joseph Zarr]

[thebruce44]

16 hours ago, adambr2 said:

I like to put it in terms of the military. LaFleur is that lieutenant platoon leader that can come up with a good tactical game plan that covers terrain, routes, squad assignments, etc.

Then he will lead you into battle, freeze up, and get you killed. 

[yourout]

36 minutes ago, thebruce44 said:

Sobel!

[adambr2]

13 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Oh are you sure? Because I keep hearing that if MLF is fired he'll be a HC somewhere "in about 10 seconds." I call BS. Nobody is going to hire this loser to be a HC after Green Bay. Nobody. I have no doubt someone will bring him in to be assistant of QB development, but who in the world would take this feeble dope at HC?

I agree, but the other part about this is, who seriously gives a crap? If the New York Jets or Tennessee Titans of the world want to hand MLF a head coaching gig if we fire him, why should I even care? I don’t think any of us are ever bemoaning what a mistake we made letting Mike McCarthy go, just because he went on to coach the Cowboys and Steelers. And he at least won us a Super Bowl.

Its like saying “I’m in a terrible relationship but I’m going to stick it out because she might find somebody else if I end it.”

 

[JosephC]

9 hours ago, CheezWizHed said:

You can't compare initial TT's drafting with his last few years when his disease was clearly impacting things. As I stated above, he had 3 years of really bad player acquisitions.  

I will definitely agree that Thompson's last couple years were bad, but pretty much all of the key players during LaFleur's first three years were Thompson acquisitions.  OldSchoolSnapper threw out a list of names, I don't need to repeat those and add more to it.

The players brought in by Gutekunst's first three years that had a real postive impact are pretty much limited to Jaire Alexander (who was very good), Rashan Gary (who was very good when he wanted to be, which was only about half the time), Elgton Jenkins (who was very good) and then a couple of OK contributors like Marquez Valdes-Scantling and AJ Dillon.  I found a list of trades and I don't see a player they acquired that would be considered any sort of difference-maker (may have missed a name).  In terms of adding UFA or cut players, couldn't find a comprehensive list, but I can't remember anybody.  Seems like the first real big splash that Gutekunst made in free agency was the McKinney/Jacobs adds, but that came well after LaFleur's first three years.  Please point out any names I missed, but in terms of those first three years, it looks like the starters were 85+% Thompson acquisitions and most of the impact came from the Thompson years (but will certainly acknowledge Alexander of being an excellent cornerback and Jenkins being pretty much a rock on the offensive line).