PeaveyFury

He has graded out pretty poorly for most of his career, though he was closer to average in 2019. At some point, his lack of ability to stay on the field plus POSSIBLY average play makes him a lost cause at CB. But, he coupled with a 1st/2nd round pick could be better overall than their other options.

I guess I see a couple too many holes to feel confident of where they're at. They'll fill some legitimately through the draft, but you've got two holes at DE (one literally, as your starter is gone despite being not very good) that seem unfillable in Cleveland in a few weeks. Add in OT/O-line depth, DB depth, and ILB depth, and that starts to become a list.

The Packers quietly restructured Mason Crosby as well.

To RRB's point about the cap hit, it's likely that the cap number will be low, but he'll have incentives to push it to the $6 mil number. I'm betting the base is far closer to what (I at least) thought he'd get on a 1-year contract.

Meh. Basically a prove-it deal, but I'm a little surprised it's for more than I would have thought he'd get on a deal like that. As OSS said, make the secondary better around him and see if it plays better to his strengths. Plus, a new scheme may help. You know, one where the DC knows the situation in front of him, like how many timeouts the opponent has. EDIT: I guess I'd still like a vet option like Poole to TRY and add to the secondary, rather than just add a young piece that may need some time.

I certainly have to agree with the luck point. It really is more that than we'd like to acknowledge. But, I think the point is that a really good team can win and make a average to maybe-above average ish QB like Eli or Big Ben or Foles or whoever look better than they are, and yield better results. If, and it's a bit if, that guy ends up being better than that, as Love COULD be, you're a legit contender over a longer period of time. That's the evaluation task that the Packers have to deal with over the next 11 1/2 months....

I do think we've forgotten how much Rodgers carried those teams early in his starting career. He was torched for his 'close game' record or something like that in his two starting seasons before the title, but there were a BUNCH of games where he had given us a lead late and the defense couldn't hold it on the last drive. Similarly, during the last few Capers seasons there were so many games were we just needed one defensive stop to get the ball back to Rodgers, and they simply couldn't do it, time after time. I think the Packers have made poor coaching decisions on the defensive side of the ball for years now. Hopefully Barry is the right guy to fix that....

As I noted earlier, I think this is a little unfair. They drafted defense early and often throughout this period to try and fix the holes. We'll never know if it was incompetent coaching (Capers) or poor selection of those actual players (or both), but they DID try to fix the defense through the draft.

Sorry, I must disagree. Just since 2000, you've got guys like Dilfer, Brad Johnson, Joe Flacco, and Nick Foles as average guys. and Russell Wilson/Patrick Maholmes on rookie contracts. That's six super Bowls of the last 21 or 30%. There'll be a lot of debate about the level of play out of guys like Eli Manning or Roethlisberger, but they're NOT elite-level QBs, so that's another 4. Basically, 48%, or half of the recent Super Bowls have been won by either young QB's or non-elite level guys. It's all about the team you put around the guy most of the time, and being on a rookie contract gives you a better chance to put a championship-caliber team on the field.

..... or in other words, they build an extremely good team around him? That's literally the point I've been making this whole morning. It's much harder when your QB takes up 10-20% of your salary cap each year. And to the apples-to-bananas Vikings comparison, you'd also be able to use whatever pick assets you acquire from moving Rodgers to try and do just that, in addition to not actually spending tens of millions on average QBs.

If your point is that Manning's sudden, complete dropoff was more predictable due to his health history, that's a fair enough point. But my larger point is that guys like Manning, Brees, even Favre clip along at a high level, then suddenly the wheels fall off. Maybe it won't be as sudden for Rodgers. Or maybe it will be. The point is that the Packers are keeping a second option open in the event that he makes the choice easy for them, as I mentioned several posts ago.

You realize that is LITERALLY the situation the Packers are hedging against right now, right? Have you actually looked back at Wilson's first two years in Seattle when the went to two Super Bowls on his rookie contract? Extraordinarily average. ~3200 yards, 26TDs, 10 INTS. Virtually identical stat lines in both years, and nearly the definition of average. If you can surround that stat line with a team that is very good everywhere else, you can win.

Do you remember the 14 HOF-caliber seasons he had in New Orleans after that surgery? Do you remember the sudden, rapid decline in his play in the 15th year?

Bingo. No, we would have a much worse chance. We'd be the Vikings. You don't just go from an elite QB to an average QB with more money to throw at the rest of the team and still end up in the same situation. What if the elite QB is no longer elite? Or alternately, what if the average QB isn't just average? Also, the Vikings have literally never in the past several season spent cheaply on QB to improve the rest of the team. They've been paying tens of millions to guys like Cousins and Bradford.

Missed time is totally irrelevant to what we are discussing. You physically can't play QB with a broken collarbone, but it heals and doesn't cause pain 6 years later. Rodgers broke bones in season and missed time. You can play crappy football with nerve damage, can have surgery to ease the pain on a herniated disc, but if you go play football again 6 months later it's going to hurt, it's just a matter of time. There's a huge difference between scopes to clean up things that basically pro athletes have done, and having 5 disc surgeries to ease nerve damage, or surgery to address a nagging torn labrum. Those kinds of injuries will almost always shorten a career or eventually lead to a decline in play, because they always come back. Nobody was surprised by Manning falling apart the way he did. His body was in a far worse condition at 35 after multiple nerve surgeries than Rodgers is in today. All QBs are susceptible to one big injury at all times, but Rodgers has avoided the kinds of serious injuries that would most definitely shorten his career or cause him serious discomfort later in life (by ex-football player standards anyway). Manning's effectiveness after serious injury is just a testament to how good he was and how much the non-physical parts of the game were a part of his repertoire. That allowed to still be good well after his physical tools began to erode. Ok, now list all of the major degenerative injuries that Brees had prior to not being able to throw the ball 20 yards downfield this year? You're hyper-focused on one example when there are literally dozens of others that prove contrary to your viewpoint.

Bingo.

Even that's a bit harsh- the 2012 draft was literally all defensive players, save for their two 7th rounders, and that was the first of 8 consecutive years where their first pick was a defender.

Funny thing is, if this board archive went back to 2005, there'd be a solid thread documenting the outrage over the Packers' having to deal with their years of pushing the cap hit out further and further until they couldn't anymore.....

Manning wasn't Manning until Manning was Manning. Not true. Peyton Manning had 4 nerve surgeries by 2011. He'd lost feeling in his fingertips before his play started to decline. The stiff that couldn't turn his neck by the end of his career was not a sudden thing. It was a broken body finally catching up to him. That it took that long is a miracle in itself. Rodgers has nothing close to that level of back, neck and surgical problems. Rodgers has had his leg/calf cleaned up what, 2/3 times now? And missed time due to injury in more seasons overall than Manning did? Rodgers is another broken collarbone away from making the Packers' decision very easy, IMO.

I think the issue is that people are struggling to accept the fact that the team is keeping all options open, including moving on. Which from an organizational standpoint is wise, but from a fanbase standpoint hurts. The writing was on the wall last year, and I think people may have falsely convinced themselves that the outcome would/could be different, but it's probably not going to be. In the end, Rodgers will either make their choice incredibly hard, or incredibly easy, IMO. But this week they chose to keep both paths open, and that's hard to swallow for some.

Manning wasn't Manning until Manning was Manning.

How many of those guys started for teams that were very good overall when they took over, though? Most guys who start within a year or two do so on crappy teams that usually rush them in for PR/jersey sales...

Walgreens availability seems to vary widely by city. Some, as OSS noted, are very open. Others are booked solid. I think there was a brief gap between the 'tiers' that offered some opportunities for supply to exceed demand. Between the hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites that became eligible today for the first time and a widespread reported decrease in this week's supply shipments, I'd think that there'll be a wait again....

The problem is, they basically pushed a cap woe from 2021 to 2022 at this point. Say what you will about the cap in 2022, but it's undeniable that there's uncertainty about what it will be. Will it go up? Yes. But how much? The Packers are at $202 million, I believe, without their best defensive player and arguably best offensive player under contract as of yet. If that cap number only goes up to, say, $215 or $220, they've again got to finagle a mess of contracts. As such, I'm sure the option of going the 'Seattle' route to extending the window is on the table- surround a young, cheap QB with a solid overall team and hope to win a title that way. You use the $23 million you save on Rodgers to avoid a cap disaster, and you use whatever capital you get as a result from moving him as an additional way to solidify the team. It's a viable, potential way to keep their window of contention open. If the cap number goes up more significantly, then they can truly choose between that and keeping Rodgers. But it keeps your hand from being somewhat forced if it doesn't.

Peyton Manning threw for 4800 yards and 39TDs in his age 38 season, and he had won an MVP just the year before at 37. The very next year at age 39 he was decimated by injuries, largely ineffective when on the field, and retired following the season. Drop-offs, even from an MVP-caliber season, can and DO happen quickly in the NFL, even to the other greats. I'm not shocked that the Packers want to keep their options open after 2021.