HarveysWBs

So I didn’t know about the NFLPA report cards for teams until just now, but I find the results slightly surprising. While the Packers are highly regarded overall (ranking 3rd in composite score), I was not expecting players’ opinions of Matt LaFleur to have been as low as they are. I’ve often heard him described as more of a “player’s coach,” but despite a B+ overall grade, he rates 26th overall (out of the 32 head coaches last year) in terms of willingness “to listen to the locker room.” I’m not going to make a big deal out of what seems like a pretty informal survey—the rating for head coaches apparently boils down to two questions, which seems miles away from being statistically significant, among other limitations—but that part still surprised me. Good to see all the facility investments paying off in terms of player satisfaction, at any rate. It makes for a short, but interesting read.

Ha. That’s what losing with your defense on the field feels like. Enjoy

MVS, my guy…

Now we see who Purdy and Shanny really are.

No complaints about Jones’ usage down the stretch. LaFleur grew this year. Or Love didn’t audible out of a bunch of run plays this year.

Good for MVS, who nearly dropped it.

Best halftime show since Bruno Mars. #changemymind

^JJ in high school, probably.

This game kinda sucks. The Chiefs playing so badly makes me low-key mad.

I swear I’ve had this argument before (and it may have been with you, idk, I can’t find the old post and I feel like I’m in the twilight zone already), but your definition of “market” just hurts my brain. When I say or hear “market,” I don’t mean or think two parties deciding what it will take to get a deal done. That is a transaction. A market involves multiple transactions, which indicates current trends, and thus allows for the possibility of overpaying or underpaying. For example, relievers A, B, C, and D are free agents, all with roughly comparable ages, experience levels, stats, and projections. A and B sign deals averaging $5 million per year. Richie Rich the GM decides to ink reliever C at $50 mil per. That is an overpay. Now, on the one hand, if you want to be bleedingly literal about it, yes, that was the rate settled on for reliever C at that particular moment. But that description is of limited analytical utility and you have buried the lede. The important thing is that reliever C got the deal of a lifetime and that Richie Rich should be out of a job. Using your definition of “market rate” obscures that point. Outliers exist, and we should be able to account for them.

Question: how do you define an above- or below-market free agent deal?

Yeah, the timing alone makes that hard to believe. Like we would have offered him the job before he could even get in for an interview? I’m not buying it. I don’t follow the transaction rumors for other teams, but it certainly feels like we’re the subject of more than our fair share of these “oh, the Packers were/are interested in my guy” bs rumors. Seems like agents just constantly throw the Packers out there for any even remotely plausible fit as part of their effort to squeeze a few more points out of negotiations with the real suitors.

Were I the brewers, I’d aim to keep Williams at least until the deadline (only trading if we were out of it), go for major depth in the rotation, and just aim to be a better version of 2018. A team with stellar defense and relief, no holes in the lineup (assuming Chourio doesn’t face plant and we now have ample alternatives to Turang), and enough decent starters to handle inevitable attrition from the most glass-bodied position in sports is a formula that can go places—and on a budget, to boot. Probably the best we can hope for in 2024, anyway.

So do the A’s really like one of these guys, or…isn’t that how this is supposed to work?

If MLF doesn’t get over the hump with Hafley, he won’t get another do-over. I’ve made my position known elsewhere, so I won’t reiterate the depths of my skepticism. Nothing for it now but to hope I’m wrong, but they aren’t making it easy.

Let's just see what happens after Hoskins walks it off in game 7 of the World Series this year.

Assuming Badgley is indeed a coin flip from that distance, I would go every time for that first 4th down. Odds of converting the 1st down can't be much worse than 50/50, I'd imagine, and considering the upshot if you do convert is at worst you've run more time off the clock and slightly better field position, mid outcome of a shorter FG attempt, and best outcome is 21 point lead with just over a quarter left to go? All gas, no brakes, baby. Peppers giving the stop sign lost the 2014 NFC Championship game. I wouldn't ever want to lose that way again (though I'll note that, as a Packers fan, I have no shortage of interesting ways to lose from which to choose from in my memory). Deliver the kill shot when it is available and let the chips fall where they may. Play that game again with the Lions still getting stopped on that 4th down and I bet they win eight or nine times out of ten. It was the right call.

Narrator: they did not.

Catch the balls Purdy throws to you and you blow the Niners out. Don’t, and you give them life. It’s pretty simple.

From an Athletic article that is of course paywalled: That does not discount your other points. You may be right that what LaFleur has been looking for all this time is someone to run Fangio’s system like Vic himself, and not a lesser imitation. But he, and the rest of the Shanahan tree, has apparently viewed the Fangio defense as something of a form of cryptonite, and thus wants it on their team. It is not a coincidence that Staley was his first interview.

What follows is a general response to others’ response to my original post about the Staley rumor, not all directed at @areacodes. Specifically to his points, the Leonhard choice, if reports about it are to be believed, would be encouraging, But when that didn’t work, LaFleur fell back into his old habits. And what worries me about Staley is just this continuation of a trend, which is that LaFleur targets people he knows, which is fine so far as it goes (even understandable), but the problem is he seems to then stick with his guys long after it should be apparent they aren’t making the grade. Staley, based on the connections I listed above, seems to be another one of his guys. If we get even more of a defense ranked in the 20s in the leading metrics, how long is he going to stick with him? How many early postseason exits would it take? And look, I’m not making any grand predictions here. What the heck do I know about any of this? All these guys have forgotten more than I’ll ever know. The Fangio system has been around long enough to gather some pelts for the wall. But how’s it doing lately? Staley couldn’t get it done in LA. Desai got canned in Philly. Barry seemed to do less with more than any DC in recent memory. And the patriarch himself was shown the door in Miami. If the brain trust figures it is best to keep the same system in place, I get the logic. But we say we shouldn’t discount Staley’s only good year coming with otherworldly talent (to @LouisEly’s point)? He had Bosa and Mack and watched helplessly while his unit gave up 63 to the Raiders of all teams. I don’t have any detailed film analysis for you, but yeah, I’m worried. I see I’m in the minority, so I don’t want to belabor the point. All I’m offering here is a personal vibe check. I want to be the first to admit I was way wrong if he delivers a top ten defense in Green Bay. Nothing would make me happier, in fact. I like LaFleur, and I want him to succeed here, and I think finding a great D coordinator would at last shore up what has been probably the gravest weakness of his tenure. But my point is, I’ve seen enough self-sabotage in the last twenty-five seasons to stop expecting good things, especially on defense, and especially when it matters most. For my own sanity, if nothing else, I have to expect present trends to continue. But it slightly heartens me to see so many others see it so differently. May it be so.

Maybe so. But considering what we know about LaFleur, namely, he likes the Fangio system, he likes people he knows, and he likes people who have ties to the Rams when he was there, I’d say Staley looks like the leader in the clubhouse.

This is why I just can no longer be an optimist about the Packers. Is that arrogant to say about a team that is, by multiple measures, one of the most successful in American sports history? Yes, but it’s the truth. This team demonstrates incredible competence in key areas that keeps it constantly competitive. Namely, they have a stable organization that is not at the whims of geriatric owners with bond-villain egos, they handle salaries well, generally find excellent value players and manage contracts well, have a preternatural knack for identifying QB talent, and subsequently attract generally bright offensive minds to the organization. The above gets us anywhere between 70-90% of the way to the title nearly every year. But I have to stop hoping and wishing they will ever consistently figure out the rest. I’ve seen too many years end one of two ways: either our “better-than-you’d-think!” value guys can’t compete with elite talent on the other side, OR weaknesses on special teams, defense, or both torpedo games that we have absolutely no business losing. Staley, in my opinion, would be yet another example of scenario B. His only claim to fame was a single year as DC of the Rams (2020) when he had peak cheat-code Donald and Ramsey headlining a defense that was so deep in the front that he never had to blitz and looked like a genius. That ain’t going to be the 2024 Packers, so I would expect another Fangio/Barry retread performance. I like LaFleur. I think he’s a very good coach. But if we just do more of the same on defense (and he doesn’t figure out how to call stinking timeouts in end of half scenarios) we aren’t going to get there under this regime. I can’t keep hoping anymore. So I won’t.

This is the kind of news I needed after Saturday. Hecking yeah. Let’s go beat some Cubs.

Indeed, the one time I remember Love under center in this game was when Myers stepped on him, picked up a holding call, and Jones fumbled the pitch all in one play. I’d have probably been scared into the gun after that, too.