Fear The Chorizo

Cobb will be a 3rd and short security blanket for Rodgers for about half the season, and he'll miss the other half the season due to injury - while on the field, he'll excel at taking looks away from other more dynamic receivers because of familiarity with Rodgers and becoming a net negative to their offense. His biggest role will be Rodgers' dinner companion to help find all the best restaurants to hit up in the big Apple...and to stay in close contact as they sort out retirement planning decisions together. Can't blame Rodgers for wanting a few friends/familiar faces in the locker room with him - but he has a knack for wanting guys who can't play anymore.

It really is starting to look like the NL Central is going to be a dog of a division this season, with the winner likely winding up with between 85-90 wins and most of the division under the .500 mark - for as frustrating as watching the Brewers revert to a substandard offense with inconsistent pitching circa 2022, at least we're not off to the start the Cards are. Seems like the NL Central as a whole hasn't won a game in close to a week - bit of an exaggeration but not that much of one.

Not to mention the Packers drafting 13 players in the draft this year and likely wanting to keep most all of them on the roster/practice squad.

I would hate to have traded up to get the 1st overall pick in this year's draft, need a quarterback, and then realize the consensus top overall pick is a 5'10" quarterback. There are exceptions to every rule, and Bryce Young was a great college football player....but man he's small and the list of undersized QB's who draftniks say "play bigger than their stature in the pocket" that wind up busting is alot longer than the list who actually do at the NFL level.

He reminds me alot of Matt Jones

I think the question about that is if Richardson actually profiles as a QB at the NFL level or if a team tells him to get back into the WR room, which was his initial position coming into Florida - because his physical numbers are elite for a wideout, too. Big questions on his short and intermediate passing accuracy, which is something an NFL quarterback needs to be great at in order to be consistently successful.

Since most of this thread dating back to early this year has been a back and forth between 3-4 other posters and not me, I'll take your word for it. Your summary is not how I've seen the NBA playoffs shaping up, because I put next to zero stock in what happens during the regular season anymore. There have also been plenty of takes revolving around how much deeper and more difficult the eastern conference playoff field appeared to be shaping up, primarily because there really wasn't an alpha-dog team that was clearly more talented and deep than the rest - much was made about the race to the top seed, but all that really does is guarantee 1 extra home game in any 7 game playoff series. Not really that significant with more evenly matched teams. Collectively, the conference (and the NBA as a whole) is much more balanced than its been in quite awhile because its prime talent is much more spread out - IMO that's largely because the group of veterans who started the super team roster building approach in the current NBA financial system are all getting old yet still are crazy expensive, so the younger talent in its prime seeking initial max initial extensions aren't teaming up at the rate like the Lebron/Wade/Bosh Heat of the Curry/KD/Klay Warriors rosters, because they're aren't as many teams with enormous amounts of cap space to recruit instant all start teams. With how the NBA game has changed (style of play, load management, etc) and with the play-in format, regular season and postseason basketball are dramatically different. Hoping for a game 5 win in any way/shape/form to see what happens with another trip to Miami.

If Love sucks, this Packers roster gets fun bad for the next two seasons and GB can then draft their next franchise quarterback in the next 1-2 seasons and restock an aging roster quickly - likely under new management/coaching. However, if he's good, this roster is still good enough to build a contending team around and will likely have a pretty team-friendly longterm deal in place with Love to avoid significant salary cap problems to fill holes over the next 4-5 seasons. At this point it's really a no-lose situation, as there were many other ways the Rodgers/Packers saga could have ended that put Green Bay in worse shape (both short and longterm outlooks).

The best player in the league basically didn't play in the 1st 3 games because of injury, and the Bucks' roster is no longer deep enough to cope with that loss against any playoff-caliber team in a playoff series - I don't really have to come up with any other rationalization or combination of variables as to why the Bucks are up against the wall against any team in the playoffs with that being the case. Even with key pieces injured, the Heat are a better 8 seed than typical NBA playoff teams because of what you detailed, but that doesn't also make the Bucks a weak #1 seed in a pretty darn deep conference - in case you haven't noticed, Boston has their hands full against ATL in a round 1 series that could also go 7 games. The 76ers swept a diminished Nets squad post Durant and Kyrie trades, but two of those games could've easily gone the other way, too and made that a dicey series for Philly. Game 3 was a whooping and Game 1's final score looked worse than where that game was in crunch time despite Giannis going down. The Bucks spit the bit when it mattered most in game 4 and let Butler win that game on his own - I think in order for the Heat to win another game this series Butler will have to go crazy again. If Bud can't come up with a defensive game plan to hold Jimmy Buckets below 40 then they don't deserve to even make it to game 6. One of the Bucks' supposed strengths this season was their defense - and it hasn't shown up at all against the Heat. This isn't the NBA from a generation ago, when it was a shock for an 8 seed to even win one game against 1 seeds in a best of 5 series format - there is much more balance across the league, and the wide open style of play also levels the playing field.

I think adding JSN would open up the game for the other receivers. That theory would've been alot easier to know for sure had JSN actually played meaningful snaps last season without Olave and Wilson in the same receiving corps as him and Harrison, Jr., too. I think the counter argument to this is it's tough to tell how much of JSN's 2021 production was a direct result of being the possession receiver in an absolutely loaded receiver room at OSU with top 10 first round talents like Olave/Wilson/Harrison Jr. occupying all sorts of coverage on the outside, and a quarterback with the potential to be a #1 overall pick throwing them the ball.

I've got a ton of hesitancy using a mid-1st rounder on a guy with average measurables who had a monster Rose Bowl game (not a CFP game, so in essence meaningless) in early 2022 because the #1 and #2 receivers on that team opted out of that game to prepare for last season's draft and Stroud just fed him the ball all game long against soft zone coverages by inferior defenders. Then, he plays in just 3 games last season while dealing with a lingering hamstring injury. To me Smith-Njigba profiles as a 2nd round pick that will get overdrafted in a thin year. I'd rather go different position at #13 and then see if a WR like Johnston is available late round 1 or early round 2 and try to use available draft capital to pick him to fill out the WR room.

Couldn't agree more - tactically, Bud's approach works well in the regular season but it's not a good approach to consistently winning playoff series against a specific opponent. yes, the Bucks won a title with him as coach - but they've also found ways to underperform in the playoffs much more frequently, same as what his results were with some very good regular season Hawks teams. I still think the Bucks win this series - it took an all time playoff performance from Jimmy Buckets to eek out a win at home in Game 4, and it's not like the Heat have got key players coming back to take the load off. Wouldn't surprise me in the least for the Bucks to win game 5 at home, blow the doors of Miami in game 6, and cruise to a game 7 series win. I think if the Heat do win this series that Bud is going to get canned, and rightfully so.

between TE and WR, the Packers simply don't have enough bodies at those positions at present - so I think those positions are the priority in rounds 1-2. Throw in Edge and I think their 1st two picks are dedicated to those spots. Going to have another OL drafted mid rounds to maintain depth, but the current roster is thin enough at other positions where OL is an afterthought for this year's draft. If the line sucks/gets decimated by cuts and injuries this season, then you pick a new franchise cornerstone tackle next year.

There's also still a ton of time between now and when that 5th year option kicking in to get Love signed to what would likely be a pretty team-friendly extension and make his 2024 cap hit really reasonable and set the organization up to add significant talent without salary cap concerns...kind of the same thing they did with Rodgers in the middle of his 1st year as a starter after the Favre saga was done and over with. Worst case scenario would be Love stinking up the joint and not deserving an extension - then they just have a $20M quarterback scuffling through a 2023-2024 rebuild phase that likely results in a new Packer front office and a new franchise qb picked in one of the next two drafts.

Not really, but I think Silverstein layed it out informally in an article yesterday pretty well without seeing final/final trade details. Basically, the Packers have enough cap space to get all of their current draft picks signed and not much else. If they want to add anyone in free agency they'd have to get pretty creative with what's left of their roster to make it happen. Realistically, they're not going to be players in free agency, and I'd rather they use 2023 as a retool year with Love to see if he warrants an initial extension, then have a much cleaner cap situation headed into 2024 after all of this season's dead money falls off the books.

I will have my popcorn ready to enjoy watching the train wreck if the Jets' management entertains benching a healthy Rodgers at any point, no matter what their record is in effort to avoid losing their 2024 1st rounder. They don't yet realize they no longer run the show - Rodgers now does. I think if they don't get off to a good start, they're all going to be looking for work elsewhere...this is what happens when you use a 2nd overall pick on a franchise qb you are giving up on after year 2.

They also play in a loaded conference and aren't even the favorites to win their own division, plus their out of division schedule includes NFC East and AFC West opponents this year. They are going to regret this move, but im not feeling sorry for them

I think part of that gap has to do with the fact the Giannis is arguably the most complete and best player in the entire league, so there will always be that gap. The Bucks are a victim of the current NBA climate in terms of building rosters - Milwaukee's not a destination for marquee players to want to come and play, so they've still got to try and build through the draft and their sustained run of success has sapped them of consistent lottery picks to bring in young impact talent.

If Rodgers takes >65% of their snaps, next year's pick the Packers get back is another 1st, plus the 2nd and moving up two slots with to #13 for this year's 1st? This is a pretty solid return I'd think even fans wanting to retroactively deal Rodgers to the 2022 Broncos wanted, and it also clears any longterm cap ramifactions of GB's books after 2023.

It's early, but it's also worth noting that it's quite possible the ~1.5 seasons of historic dominance that Burnes displayed in 2020-2021 that led to him winning a Cy Young probably aren't automatically repeatable. Expecting any pitcher to maintain an all-time level of dominance just because he displayed that over portions of 2 and 3 seasons ago is likely unrealistic. Burnes still profiles as a frontline starter, and if he stays healthy he'll undoubtedly have stretches of great starts - but he simply might not be the caliber of pitcher who's a threat to toss a perfect game every turn he has in the rotation.

People really have a hard time grasping at how teams can have vastly different draft boards and how different GMs factor in team position needs or even rule out picking guys at certain positions if it's a weak class for that spot. Just because all the drafniks' boards wind up looking eerily similar right before the draft starts doesn't mean they're right - frankly if they were more right they'd be in a front office somewhere. Particularly in a draft year that is considered relatively thin, there are going to be a lot of head scratchers throughout this draft with people wondering why "so and so" didn't get picked instead - guys are going to fly up and down boards last minute depending on how teams pick.

Suter wouldn't have been anywhere close to entering the game in the 8th inning today, so what Bush and Guerra did has no bearing on the fact the Raptor is right where he should be - cashing checks for a last place team that doesn't have anyone else better to be their mop up/low leverage innings eater...He'll get all the appearances his 33-yr old noodle arm can handle this season, since most of the relief innings Rockies pitchers log are going to be low leverage given the fact they'll be losing a helluva lot of games. I echo earlier poster sentiment to this thread - take the "Article" title off, because it's not an article...it's a thread. Looking forward to the upcoming "article" on why the Cooper Hummel trade was a franchise-altering move as well right after the next game he gets 2 hits and jumps that batting average way up over 0.100, too.

It's fantastic and long overdue, IMO - particularly with having multiple wildcard teams from each league in the postseason. They had to balance the schedule out in effort to get the best teams in the playoffs regardless of their geographic locations. I don't care if the teams suck, I hated having to watch 9-10 Brewers games played at empty Pirates' or Reds' ballparks - play more games against different teams for fans to see other players more frequently!

This actually makes alot of sense given what happened with Favre retiring/unretiring after just 1 season with the Jets, and leaving Woody with a front office/coaching staff in major flux right after it due to firings. If true, that proposed trade package would be solid compensation headed back to GB knowing the 2nd is in the top 45 picks and with the expectation that GB will probably have a mid to high 1st round pick in 2024 assuming Love isn't instantly a HOF starter in 2023. If the Jets are making the 2024 1st conditional on Rodgers playing more than just 1 more season, the Packers should hold firm on demanding it no matter what and wait as other teams keep kicking the tires on a trade.

It's just an unfortunate play all around that started with a bad decision by Cruz to take off for home on a batted ball right towards him and the 3B - basically the one spot on the field where he shouldn't try to score from.