BrewerFan

I'm talking about how they have ONE kid in the top 20 next year and you're telling me how long it takes to recruit. It really just doesn't take a long time. You don't need a deep relationship to go around and talk to the top recruits in the state... you just need... as I said, guys who can sell the program and who make the effort. Well... it does for the top 20 recruits in the next class of '26. This is the ONE D1 School in this State. This is a B1G program. A lot of the "recruiting" is just showing up. Not with a top 100-200 recruit. We don't get a whole lot of those, but it doesn't take years to be able to recruit. It's 2025... in the B1G. You don't need to wait an entire cycle and we've gotten progressively worse as this roster has gone from "some castoff from PC," vs his guys. Plus... do we not remember how he was coming to Cincy with SO many of his guys? He was bringing a whole class of recruits with him! It shouldn't take more than... 2 years in the current landscape to get your guys in there, backfill with the portal. He did it at Cincy. We've seen plenty of guys doing it at other schools Indiana... took them a year and they were starting from a worse position than the Badgers were. He also should have come to Wisconsin with relationships in place. That was a MAJOR selling point, remember? We had a pipeline into Ohio now with Fickell?

How did the previous staff do it? They sold the program, the vision and made it a place walk-on's or guys who weren't highly rated recruits wanted to go. You can do it with Football players. You have a lot of talented guys who end up without a home in the portal.

They still just didn't block on that FG. Then on top of that, there was an off-side on the final FG. A 56 yard attempt... which you just cannot be off-sides on. Imagine if they miss that. They are not good there. I hope Jenkins can get more comfortable at Center as he's not playing at a high level, but this OL is just bad when your strength is Rasheed Walker and you have to slide to help the RT. When you have Tom in there... he's pretty good vs just about anyone on his own. There's only a few players he needs help with... and we played one of them today. I'm also perfectly fine with throwing the ball there up 10-3. You should be trying to close it out with your offense. I would expect the QB to be smarter than that. You know their DBs will be aggressive as they know their pass rush is going to get home. It's just like our DL/DBs. It's still just one game, it's one of the "best" games to lose and I don't feel any differently as a whole after this game than I did before it. We'll get better as the season goes on provided with have reasonable health. Not having Watson and Reed in a game like this hurt.

It is. It definitely doesn't take 5 years to recruit a kid. It takes an emphasis on TRYING to recruit that kid. The idea that you have to start talking to these guys when they're Freshmen in HS is... WILDLY inaccurate. You just have to talk to them. Wisconsin Football had a whole lot of momentum with the Fickell hiring, there was a lot of excitement.

The pick was absolutely trash. That's indisputable. I'm fine with the coach covering or downplaying it. We all saw it. Him trashing him publicly doesn't do much. We saw his reaction on the sideline. He was pissed. I am still absolutely confident that Love is the guy but I'll accept that others aren't confident. He ain't Josh Allen or Mahomes, but even Mahomes has been the QB of a bad offense the past... 4 games now. Look at Joe Burrow vs this Browns team. It's hard to say with Lamar as... again they punted a lot that game, but they got the ball deep on several occasions and converted.

I don't know if they did or didn't. I actually don't think they "underestimated" them, I just think the Browns have a really good DL and they were coming off two games... and they played poorly. Losing Tom(who shouldn't have even played... one snap and he was out) just made blocking that much worse. Very disappointed in Morgan's game(snap reaction... maybe he wasn't as bad as I thought) but the OL didn't play well. That said, look at the Ravens-Browns game. The Browns Defense was outstanding. They were pretty much shutting the Ravens down. The Ravens got a Fumble, blocked punt, interception, turnover own downs all deep in Browns territory... that was how they scored most of their points. The Bengals, they locked up them pretty well also. That doesn't make this "ok" but it also doesn't make it as dire as I think it'll feel in here next week. I thought this would be an ugly game. I expected we'd win(now I expect some HUGE overreactions to this loss... like we have the dumbest coach in the NFL). We didn't. The offense is most certainly to blame. The defense did it's job. Things like this happen. I remember one of the SB teams lost to a 0-9 or 0-10 Colts team(a really bad Colts team anyway). I don't think anything changed. Love threw a terrible pick. He pre-determined where the ball was going. We've seen this with the QBs we've played, we've seen it in the past with Rodgers, Favre... pretty much any QB. You speed up their internal clock, they make bad decisions. That's why Myles Garrett got paid 40.5M and that's why I thought Graham was a great pick(as well as Kris Jenkins). I don't know who their other edges were, but they were good. I think they'll come out and... as the kids say, go belt to ass on the Cowboys next week in a game they'll... DEFINITELY be fired up for and a game in which they're not going to have to deal with a great pass rush(if they had ONE guy like Garrett... I might be concerned). So... they lost a game vs an AFC team. They beat two teams they SHOULD be battling HFA for and this game was bad. They still should have won, but... like Forrest Gump said, "it happens." LOL... now all the FANS who were saying, "lets just take a beat and take it one week at a time," as if we had anything to do with how they actually played... they'll feel vindicated.

Fine. The 2025 team is not. THAT is on Luke Fickell and the staff they have now. THAT is the point I'm making... and they're not exactly doing much better with the 2026 recruiting class...

Ok... we're going to be 4 years out from Chryst this next year and we have I believe 1 of the top 20 in-state recruits going to Wisconsin. There's only so much you can blame on Chryst at this point. And yes, I'm aware of the story... but Fickell took over a better team than he has now, so... at what point is it NOT on Chryst? 5 years? A RS Sr's entire tenure?

OK, but when would that excuse ever cut it? We had the top QB recruit we ever brought into Wisconsin(minus Wilson in the portal... if you count that) and when he didn't pan out, that was pretty much the end of Chryst. Every year his QB gets hurt? In which of those cases did it appear even WITH that QB, they were going to be a top 10-20 team? When have they looked like they were... really competitive? Mordecai was here for 10 games. Van Dyke got hurt Week 3 and we had two ugly wins over a 6-7 MAC team and then South Dakota last year. What about Beau Pribula? Would we be better with him? I don't even know the answer to that because... obviously it's NOT just picking up 5th year QBs(or 4th year) it's picking the right guys. They clearly haven't done that. The players they've got have been substantially worse coming to Wisconsin and the guys they've passed on have had quite a bit of success. The MOST success he's had is when he took over what was largely PC's players. He went 7-5. We appear headed to a 2-10, 3-9 type season(right now the "easy" games are... what, Iowa, Minnesota and Washington? And you're right, I don't know EXACTLY how much guys have gotten, but I have an idea. Billy Edwards was the guy Fickell wanted and it'd cost them 750K. The Varsity Collective is the group I at least have some communication with a couple members. But this is the same program that used to build with 2-3 star recruits. They can't do THAT anymore? They need to be able to spend like OU? They've NEVER had the resources of the top tier programs, but they've been a perennial 9-10 win program. It's Football. College, B1G, NFL, you need depth. You can't just fold up when you lose players. They spent a couple DECADES as a top ~15 program with recruiting classes that were in the 40-50 range fairly regularly. There's not enough lipstick to put on this pig, there's no excuses. Fickell was a big swing and a big miss. I KNOW there are at least some people close to the program who believe Leonhard's interview about changing less and continuing on the same path... in hindsight may have been a better decision. Now I don't think what they think or say really matters(other than one who is in the ADs office and in that case it's a Brother of someone close to McIntosh, so this could be his opinion passed off as his Brothers) and they didn't feel that way at the time, but with NIL money being regulated, at least for the time being, maybe it's time to get back to trying to go back to just recruiting, developing LONG term relationships with these kids and rely a bit less on the portal. They have 1 of the top 20 players in '26 They got 3 of the top 10 in '25 I think they got 3-4 top 10 from the '24 class, but lost the top 3. '26 class has some talent on the top of it. It's looking better with regard to the skill positions... but they've definitely moved away from building a wall around the state and keeping guys home. The problem is definitely deeper than they just have REAL bad luck with injuries every year.

I think there's a little re-writing history here. 1-I'm not going to mock people who thought Fickell was the best hire. If you're doing "off-season grades," it seemed like a no-brainer. He took Cincy and recruited incredibly well, he took them to the CFB Playoffs and they were competitive. Seemed like he and Longo could be the guys to take us into this NIL era. Maybe the "Cap" will help, but... I doubt it. 2-I see comments about the "hole left them in," and... that also doesn't make sense to me. He was fired 4 seasons ago. We played most of '22 without him, Fickel has had 3 full recruiting classes and we appear to be going the wrong way. But this isn't the NFL. You're bringing in 5th year starters at QB. You have the transfer portal. You don't need 4-5 years to turn a College program around and even if you did... they're going the wrong way. There's nothing this team does that's impressive. They're being passed up by the former mid-tier B1G teams like IU, Maryland, Illinois?

LOL... for a while, I thought I was his biggest fan! Trea Turner! I'm going to keep saying it. I thought he was a Trea Turner type player... but if I'm honest, I thought he was going to be about 80% of the offense and a better defender. He may end up just... as good of a player across the board!

It's a good list, but... I'd have Turang in there over Peralta. Freddy's been an established starter for 5 years now(arguably his best year). The jumps Turang and Frelick made were enormous. Turang went from a slap hitting 2B to a ~800 OPS 2B with his OPS jumping ~130 points. Frelick... kinda the same. I'm guessing this is leaning pretty heavily on bWar, so in that sense, it's maybe not a huge jump, but the defense is more prone to larger statistical fluctuation, but he's cemented his status as a top 3 2B in the NL while Frelick has been the sparkplug this team needed. Those two change the outlook for this offense in the playoffs. That, a healthy Yelich, a 1B like Vaughn, really changes the offensive outlook.

I don't think they need 4. It's just going to be the 3 obvious ones. How deep they go... that's going to decide the series IMO. You get 5 out of Peralta and Woody and I think 6 out of Priester most likely. Trust him or not(and I'm inclined to agree with you, despite the fact that he's done virtutally everything... short of hitting a HR in the last month to earth that faith) he's the guy. I don't see a scenario where a healthy Hoskins is starting over a healthy Vaughn. I think Hoskins gets some starts if we have a couple games after clinching the #1 seed(which I think is important as Philly is a tough place to play). I do hate seeing Buehler come in out of the pen. I wish the Brewers could have added him as I think he's still got good enough stuff to throw out of the pen... but that ship has sailed. We desperately need Megill back to go toe to toe with these teams... IMO. Without him... it's going to be a tough job for Murphy to navigate the the backend of games, but what the hell, jump on 'em early and Uribe can throw 15 innings a round if need be.

The point I was making is the Packers are more conservative, but... they've had several guys listed as questionable going into the game not play this year. Just 3 last week out of... 5 or 6 on the report, Tom, Banks, and Anderson. Hobbs the week before and it looks likely Tom sits out another week. Hawk in particular has spoken of how conservative the Packers have been along with Rodgers with the no Toradol shots. But outside that, their medical staff is generally considered among the most conservative in the league. But maybe you're right. Maybe it's just high profile players we're waiting on to get back...

For the Packers? I'd actually be curious how many "questionable" designations have not played for us the last 3-4 years... For everyone else... for sure. For Kraft, I think it's closer to playing. Maybe it was just week after week with Bahk and Jaire.

Yeah, I was thinking on the 31st, the last day someone would be eligible for the post-season roster, it'd make sense, but the Phillies picked him up before we could.

True... don't mean to be unfair to META... they're all awful.

On that, Jason Wilde says they're close to a contract extension. They've had an offer on the table for the last week and per Wilde, Elgton Jenkins, telegraphing what may be an extension, asked Wilde... out of nowhere "you looking for Quay?" And then proceeded to call Quay over. Wilde said the contract SOUNDS like it's close, but... that's it. I don't think you can trade Walker away. Doubs, Walker, Rhyan... I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but they're gone and in 2027, we'll likely get a 3rd, 4th and a 5th I'm just guessing, plus perhaps a couple of 6th or 7th rd picks. I think everything right now is about the next 3 years before Parson's cap hit jumps to 60M and Love's takes a big jump as well. Love will be restructured and I'm sure Parson's will as well short of anything... unfortunate happening, but his cap hits are very low the next 3 years relative to his contract, so.... it's 3 all in years. So that's the difference between Thompson and Gutekunst. Gutekunst is willing to POSSIBLY be bad in 4 years to go for it right now... and Thompson just wanted to give the Packers a chance every year and never get in cap trouble. The cap is so much larger you can navigate it more easily now. But how good the Packers are in 4 years will depend soo much on picking the right players to extend and then really drafting well with the picks we do have the next 2 years. We've seen teams(the Rams) who managed to stay competitive without 1st Rd picks because they kept hitting on their later picks. Facebook is just a cess pool is entirely made up News across the board on everything. Every topic...

Also rumor that a couple teams inquired about Quay Walker... but the Packers are working on an extension. Saints and Dolphins both inquired and offered a 4th and 5th respectively. Turning down a 4th from a bad team tells you a lot of their feelings on Quay. I'd say higher than the average fan, but it feels like right now the average fan loves every player on this defense...

I haven't heard it addressed... but him going 7 innings 2 starts ago was a bit surprising. I think if he were throwing like Skenes, they'd push it and he'd be starting through the post-season. I also was still under the probably antiquated idea that you didn't want to increase by more than 25-30 innings a year but the base could be 120. So you wouldn't want Mis to throw more than 120. Even 10 years ago I think you'd push that with a World Series at play, but today I'm just guessing, they're still worried about IP but more focused on pitches, high stress pitches. They can probably measure fatigue better. I don't know, I'm guessing at the last part. We seem like we've been pretty good about limiting injuries to pitchers, but we've kinda been hit all at once the last few weeks.

I don't spend much time on IGTs... the swings are too much, BUT... I was always a little surprised looking at Williams numbers and then correlating them with the feeling I got watching him. I mean, he got the outs and saves. I just didn't feel great about a guy who didn't have that big Fastball anymore and he blew up pretty badly 3 post-seasons. But... he was pretty damn good otherwise.

I'd really like to see Woodruff re-signed... and short of that an attempt. If we can't... I don't think there's anything else that makes a whole lot of sense. At least nothing obvious. They could make a big move for a guy under team control... but who would that be? Doesn't seem like it'd be Jose Ramirez and I'd rather not trade Made or Pena for him at this point anyway.

Yeah... he's definitely not worth giving up for a 6. With this defense, the run game, I'm pretty confident he could keep us in just about any game in the regular season and win games vs teams like the Browns or Cowboys.

They did. They offered a 6th apparently.

No, probably not... though, he can move and I don't know how mobile Browning is(I don't think I can remember one Browning game since Washington played Alabama).