True Blue Brew Crew

That's easy - look no further than what Tampa Bay is paying 43 year old Tom Brady. Then go one step further and look at what it did for their ticket and merchandise sales. Also, the cap hit for the team acquiring Rodgers won't be near as high a percentage.

Think about it. If Love is starting in his 2nd season, is that really going to be a championship season anyway? Most likely not. So you absorb it all in one season, it's kind of a transition season anyway, and moving forward you have a massive amount of cap freed up, plus whatever massive return you've gotten from trading Rodgers. And going by historic numbers, the Packers would be a severe, record shattering anomaly winning the Super Bowl in 2021 with Rodgers still in Green Bay and taking up an absurd 17.77% of the cap. 2021 is going to be a challenge building a deep roster no matter what. But 2022-2024 looks really, really good if Love is ready to go after one year riding the pine and Rodgers gets moved after this season. It's also when they'd likely get the most in return for him via trade.

San Francisco was about ~8 minutes away from winning the Super Bowl last year with Garoppolo ($26.6M cap hit) taking up 12.87% of their cap. In 2016 Tom Brady signed a contract that was worth an average of over $20M/year when the salary cap was $155M. I don't have the info of exactly what the cap hit was each year, but that average salary was over 13% of their cap. That's not much different than a $30M cap hit on a $200M cap. In 2015, Manning was taking up about 12% of the Bronco's cap. Last year Garoppolo's cap hit represented just 8.65% of SF's cap and Maholmes took up just 2.36% of KC's cap... https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/positional/2019/quarterback/ In the salary cap era, the highest percentage paid to the Super Bowl winning QB came in the first year of the cap, 1994, when Steve Young accounted for 13.1% of the 49ers cap... https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/02/nfl-quarterback-salaries-salary-cap-kirk-cousins-free-agency The article is 2 years old so here are the cap percentages spent on QBs for the past 2 Super Bowl winners... 2018 - NE - Brady - 12.4% 2019 - KC - Mahomes - 2.36% Here's what percentage of the cap Aaron Rodgers will eat up in the coming seasons... 2020 - 11.28% 2021 - 17.77% 2022 - 16.11% Rodgers is under the historic max threshold of Super Bowl winning QBs for 2020 and there's nothing that can be done about 2021's ugly percentage. But if they trade him after this coming season that ugly number in 2022 and the also ugly 2023 number goes away. There's pretty compelling evidence that you're chances of winning a Super Bowl are much better if you're allocating under 10% of your cap to your QB. The average cap percentage by Super Bowl winning QBs is around 7%. It allows you to field a better overall roster. And it definitely shows that the percentage of the cap that Rodgers will consume from 2021 through 2023, will make it very hard for the Packers to put together a deep roster. That goes away and opens a window of low QB cap dollars from 2022-2024 if Love pans out and allows Rodgers to be moved after this coming 2020 season.

So about all that poo-pooing even the suggestion that the Packers could trade Aaron Rodgers as soon as next offseason... https://247sports.com/nfl/green-bay-packers/Article/Why-an-Aaron-Rodgers-trade-could-come-sooner-than-you-think-147055106/ Like I said, the drafting of Love, as long as he is anything other than a complete bust, makes a trade of Aaron Rodgers a very realistic possibility in the next 1-2 year window. Teams just aren't winning Super Bowls with QBs taking up massive percentages of their cap. Trading Rodgers as early as 1 year into Jordan Love's contract, opens up a 3 year window of massive cap space opened from 2022-2024. It barely opens cap room in 2021 but it doesn't cost them space either. No one can guarantee that Love will pan out but the Packers didn't trade up to get him with the idea he'd bomb. They drafted him in anticipation that he will be a franchise QB. And if they're right, they're likely hoping he might be ready after just one year learning behind Rodgers. Because if Love can be ready to play in 2021, that will maximize the benefit of transitioning from Rodgers to Love in every possible way - more cheap productive years of Love, more mega cap room earlier, and more return for Rodgers in a trade. It doesn't mean the Packers need Love to be ready in 2021, it's just an ideal. If he needs until 2022 to be ready, it just delays the cap benefits by one year and likely lessens the return for Rodgers. And no I never said it was the only potential outcome. So let's not ignore that again shall we. Yes Love could bust. Yes Rodgers could have a resurgence that leads to Love being the one traded. But what that article laid out is the absolute ideal scenario. And clearly what the Packers want is that ideal scenario. They get the best return from a Rodgers trade, and they'd get a cheap, franchise QB which allows them to spend elsewhere on the roster as soon as 2022 in a window that runs through 2024.

There's nothing in the rules of being a fan that says you have to convince yourself and others that every pick was a good one. If you need proof that some of them actually are as bad as what people thought they were when the name was called, you need look no further back than the 2018 group. Some massive wasting of draft capital there. The shine wore off those guys real quick. I can still hear the people talking themselves into those guys.

Surprised the coming trade aspect of this hasn't been discussed much. With Rodgers signed for the next four seasons and Love about to sign for four seasons with a 5th year option, it all but assures a Rodgers trade at some point. It's not a question of if, but when. You don't draft a QB in the first round much less trade up for him and then not let him see the field before he's on the cusp of free agency. Before I even contemplated whether Love was any good, my very first thought was when does Rodgers get traded. My guess would be after this coming season. Sure there are unlikely scenarios where Love never plays a meaningful down in a Packers uniform and he's the one who is traded or released. There's also the scenario where Rodgers plays out his contract and Love takes over in his 5th year. Rodgers also could get released after two more seasons without massive cap ramifications. All of these seem like massive waste of resources however. IMO, people should get used to the idea of Rodgers finishing his career elsewhere after being traded.

I don't even understand why people are worried about the tail end of the deal. In future dollars 24 million will even be less of an impediment in 2029 than it is now and it's not an insurmountable dollar figure in 2020. In 2020, 24 million is a Ryan Braun and an Avisail Garcia. Come 2029, 24 million will buy 2-3 bench players. This is an absolute steal.

Christian must really like the new uniforms

What??? Yelich is exactly the type of player and body type that can sustain at a very high level into his mid 30's. The long term deals that have become albatrosses for other teams are the ones where the player has been pushing 40 at the tail end.

Hmmm, but I was told our owner was cheap

Glad that they feel the same way about him as I do. Not surprised they do, but it's always a nice surprise when a player takes this kind of deal.

For a team lacking prospect capital, maybe the Brewers realize that impactful mid season adds will only come via taking on significant contract dollars. This year they will have that ability to absorb much more than last year when they were lacking prospect capital and carried a maxed out budget. The one way to acquire midseason talent without giving up a haul of prospects is to be able to take on salary. That's the kind of deal I'll be anticipating if the Brewers are competitors at the trade deadline.

Reminder that Hiura's OPS as a rookie last year was .938 or in other words, not someone who is anything but an everyday player.

Nice to see a move I was calling for way back on November 3rd come to fruition on the eve of the first full squad workout.

It's always just been a matter of time with Freddy. Hopefully that time is now.

I must be crazy because I love the idea exactly as its proposed. Don't understand the tears shed for the teams playing the road games. For 2 of the 3 of them, they'd be playing zero playoff games under the current format. And for the 3rd, they're currently playing one road game in the wild card round. This system does reward 3 teams in the WC round with two guaranteed home playoff games, with the potential for a 3rd. And no travel days so they can crank this out just like a traditional 3 game series right after the regular season wraps up. It also gives all teams a much fairer chance to recover from one playoff loss. There's no denying that the "pick your opponent" show will make great TV. And finally, the top seed in each league will still take the field around the same time they do now with the big advantage of lining up their rotation on full rest. Perhaps most importantly, more fan bases will be engaged in September. This seems like something everyone will rip on until it's put in play for the first time and everyone ends up loving it.

I have a feeling these GM's know how the market is going to play more than we fans do. I think if anything, Stearns may have had a few trades that he anticipated playing out that didn't work out, and that left him filling holes with guys like Sogard and Gyorko. I could be wrong..... who knows. Stearns is on the record saying he knew their own upcoming free agents were pricing themselves out of the teams' range while the Brewers were still playing regular season games last year. So yes I think he did know how the market was going to play out and no I do not think he wanted any part of the deal Moose got with Cincinnati.

It should be reiterated that the Brewers aren't counting on career years from these low budget signings. They're looking for them to play up to the well established strong side of their splits.

Given the extensive physical exam the Brewers put Gyorko through and the fact they passed him, I'm willing to hold out hope that 2019 was entirely an injury driven aberration. And I don't think it requires a big leap to hold that hope. Oddly it appears many of the same people automatically thinking Shaw will rebound don't give Gyorko the same chance.

Given the extensive physical exam the Brewers put Gyorko through and the fact they passed him, I'm willing to hold out hope that 2019 was entirely an injury driven aberration. And I don't think it requires a big leap to hold that hope. Oddly it appears many of the same people automatically thinking Shaw will rebound don't give Gyorko the same chance.

That situation was a mess 99% because of the player you loved.

That situation was a mess 99% because of the player you loved.

Imagine seeing that speed and elusiveness in practice everyday and not finding a use for him.

Or just not watch ESPN entirely aside from live sporting events. I stopped watching ESPN outside of live sports about 5 years ago and haven't missed it one bit. No SportsCenter, no talk shows, nothing but the occasional game. You make a good point though, even a MNF game featuring the Packers is infinitely better in a loud public place like a bar where you can't hear their terrible announcers.

Players the Brewers non-tendered keep signing elsewhere for less than their projected arby numbers and people keep saying the Brewers made a mistake. I don't follow.