nfl 2021-2022

[Gromnir]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

(e): Unrelated: if Rodgers actually does end up leaving the Packers, then I'll temporarily be a fan for whatever team(s) he's with for the rest of his career. He was probably the biggest component that got me into liking football, much like Favre was for many others. I just hope it's not for the Bears, Lions, Vikings, Cowboys, 49ers, Steelers, Seahawks, or Patriots. Only the 49ers look like an option that make sense right now, and they're probably the lowest on that totem pole of teams I'd least like to see him on.

if rodgers wants out of gb 'cause o' jordan love being drafted last year, which we still find difficult to believe, then am suspecting the 49ers just got a lot less likely as an option for rodgers.

talent is important insofar as team success is concerned. the draft represents the single most significant opportunity for a team to improve talent during a given year. is understandable people fixate.

'course is no way to know for certain if a draft were a success until a few years removed from the draft, and is kinda common for drafts which look fantastic the day after the draft is over to end up being busts down the line. and is not as if the patriots were geniuses when they passed over tom brady, like every other nfl team, for the first five rounds and 198 picks o' the 2000 draft.  converse, we guarantee almost every qb starved team in the league would have drafted mac jones, tre lance, justin fields, trevor lawrence or zach wilson if those guys had somehow slipped into the second round, but is also an extreme high probability more than one o' those guys will be a bust in the nfl.  good moves v. bad moves by gms in choosing players is rare as simple as is made to seem.

*shrug*

that said, one reason we tend to focus on character is 'cause unlike the speed o' the nfl and injuries and chemistry with players and coaches, character from college to pros is kinda predictable. sure, some rare guys do mature, but if you got busted outside strip joints multiple times in college, convince an nfl coaching staff you has sudden become a model citizen who will always make curfews and will be first in line for community outreach efforts is gonna require the nfl coaches be willful obtuse.

aside, the chiefs got one o' our favorite players.

https://www.nfl.com/prospects/nick-bolton/3200424f-4c67-8301-cd66-2b7e4543922a

reminds us o' zach thomas. a bit slow (relative) and undersized, but plays with great instincts and anticipation. can't help rooting for this guy even if he is on the chiefs.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Bartimaeus]

21 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

talent is important insofar as team success is concerned. the draft represents the single most significant opportunity for a team to improve talent during a given year. is understandable people fixate.

It is pretty amazing how so many completely overlook this. Endlessly Packers fans whine and complain about not getting enough help for Aaron Rodgers, that we never sign free agents like other teams do, and why don't we ever just trade away assets for known great players like other franchises do...like Julio Jones? Julio Jones is available, we'd be mad to not go after him! He might cost a first round pick or two to trade for, he may already be 32 years old, he may have been already pretty injury prone the last few years, and he'll cost tens of millions of dollars we literally don't have...but sure, let's trade for Julio Jones with the only assets we have that give us a potential way to get better. Seems smart, my fellow Packers fans! Now if you can trade for a guy who still has a couple of years on his rookie deal, that's an different entirely subject...but starting-calibre players still on their rookie deals being on the trading block is quite rare, doubly so for Pro Bowl-quality-plus players.

21 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

good moves v. bad moves by gms in choosing players is rare as simple as is made to seem.

Another problem with this is that sports, and therefore the NFL, is super results-driven, even when it makes no sense to do so. I guess it's the result of the age-old mantra that "winning is the only thing" becoming the ultimate imperative. Sometimes you make all the right trades that would theoretically say you got fantastic value, and then picked what seemed like all the right players for your teams' needs without ever reaching...and then none of those guys are on the team three years later because one of them broke their necks and had to retire, another tore their ACL and never got back to what they should've been, a few guys never were able to put it together, and the rest were just JAGs. That kind of result happens quite often for teams, and people will clown on the GM for making what were good value trades to pick players that didn't work out. Did the GM actually do a bad job, or was it just bad luck that the players didn't work out? Or heck, maybe it was coaching and fits that made it not work out... Either way, nobody ever really cares, results are the only thing that matter - kick the GM out the door and let the new one try their luck.

21 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

that said, one reason we tend to focus on character is 'cause unlike the speed o' the nfl and injuries and chemistry with players and coaches, character from college to pros is kinda predictable. sure, some rare guys do mature, but if you got busted outside strip joints multiple times in college, convince an nfl coaching staff you has sudden become a model citizen who will always make curfews and will be first in line for community outreach efforts is gonna require the nfl coaches be willful obtuse.

Maybe I'm crazy, but it tends to seem like a few certain teams have pretty consistently picked lower quality character players over the last decade-plus that some other teams shy away from. I guess "winning is the only thing" hits a little harder for some teams more than others.

(e): Initially forgot to finish my first paragraph - not sure what happened.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

Muh Boys got DT Osa Odighizuwa in the 3rd round. He has a super fun to pronounce name and was a 3 time state wrestling champion, so there's that. I'll be pulling for the guy to have a long career just so that announcers have to keep saying his name.

[Gromnir]

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

Maybe I'm crazy, but it tends to seem like a few certain teams have pretty consistently picked lower quality character players over the last decade-plus that some other teams shy away from. I guess "winning is the only thing" hits a little harder for some teams more than others.

(e): Initially forgot to finish my first paragraph - not sure what happened.

agreed on the rogues gallery o' teams willing to ignore character problems.

aside, broncos grabbed another o' our favorite players. 

belly of the beast, a division 3 player, didn't just hold his own at the senior bowl. dominated... and with a broken hand. get picked in first three rounds means the broncos will keep him around for at least a couple years in the hope he develops. am gonna be rooting for "the gut."

quinn had impressive pro day film.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Keyrock]

Muh Boys have been ignoring character problems for decades, they're trail blazers. 

[Gromnir]

9 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Muh Boys have been ignoring character problems for decades, they're trail blazers. 

the dl from ucla had arguably the best senior bowl week of any defender this last year. a fantastic senior bowl performance don't necessarily translate to greatness in the nfl, but it does minimize the potential bust factor. the lb from lsu were not at a position o' need, but he were far and away the consensus best player available earlyish in the 4th round, and am doubting many woulda' criticized if cox had been drafted by a team late in the second round. 

am suspecting the cowboy organization and cowboy fans are satisfied with their draft this year, and other than the character issues already mentioned, am finding it difficult to complain. after round three, most picks have terrible long odds o' becoming a long-term solution for a position o' need, so taking a few gambles makes sense.

nashon wright may have been a bit o' a head scratcher in round 3, but the cowboys had two other round three picks, so perhaps they found the proverbial diamond in the rough and weren't willing to risk he might be gone by the time they picked in round four. whatever.

heck, three years from now perhaps the big wr from stanford is the perennial pro bowl player from this year's boyz draft. wouldn't shock us at all. 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited May 2, 2021 by Gromnir

[Keyrock]

6 hours ago, Gromnir said:

am suspecting the cowboy organization and cowboy fans are satisfied with their draft this year

I'm pretty happy with what muh Boys did. I'm still disappointed we didn't get Surtan or Horn, but that's not the Boys' fault, they went #8 and #9 right ahead of us, what are you gonna do? Neither guy is expected to be the next coming of Deion Sanders, so mortgaging the farm to move up 3 or 4 spots to make sure we got 1 of them when most people expected 1 or the other to still be there at #10 wouldn't have made sense. Given the situation, trading back to #12 and getting Micah Parsons was the best we could do, he's probably the best LB in the draft. Kelvin Joseph is the big roll of the dice. Muh Boys have serious need at DB and I'm conflicted whether taking a guy who might be a perennial All-Pro if he outgrows the stupid stuff he did as a kid and dedicates himself to learning the game, or he might be working at Home Depot in 2 years was wise. After that, we did pretty well addressing needs and getting the best overall "value" on the board. 

Who knows how these picks pan out? The NFL draft is such a crapshoot, more so than the NBA draft. I'm just hoping that one of the two rolls of the dice at CB (Kelvin Joseph and Nashon Wright) hits, our secondary was pathetic last year.

[Bartimaeus]

Speaking of people living vicariously through their teams...who the HELL cares about the draft guys, I'M IN A FULL-BLOWN FOOTBALL-EXISTENTIAL CRISIS HERE: is Rodgers going to my QB or NOT? literally nothing else matters

[Gfted1]

Report: Aaron Rodgers Won't Return to Packers Unless GM Brian Gutekunst Is Fired.

Well theres the solution. 

[Keyrock]

18 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Speaking of people living vicariously through their teams...who the HELL cares about the draft guys, I'M IN A FULL-BLOWN FOOTBALL-EXISTENTIAL CRISIS HERE: is Rodgers going to my QB or NOT? literally nothing else matters

Who even is your #2 QB, on the off chance that Mr. Shailene Woodley is seriously going through with this and isn't just using his leverage to get some kind of concessions?

[Bartimaeus]

 

11 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Who even is your #2 QB, on the off chance that Mr. Shailene Woodley is seriously going through with this and isn't just using his leverage to get some kind of concessions?

Uh...Jordan Love, the guy that the Packers drafted in the first round last year that set off all of this? From videos we saw of him in camp last year, he couldn't even hit a net the was standing still from like 20 feet away, so I don't even know what Rodgers is worried about! Presumably, it's more to do with what drafting a first round QB signifies than the actual kid himself.

13 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Report: Aaron Rodgers Won't Return to Packers Unless GM Brian Gutekunst Is Fired.

Well theres the solution. 

Uh...that's totally going to happen. For sure. Definitely. Okay, here's the thing: if that's actually what he's demanding, then that's patently absurd, . The media has so frequently gotten Rodgers wrong in years past that I'm still holding out hope that they've gotten much of this wrong even if there is some kind of schism between Rodgers and the front office, but...you know, it'd be a lot easier to have hope if he just came out and said "I still want to be the Packers QB, all of this has gotten completely blown out of proportion and most likely we're going to work this out".

[Gromnir]

pundit draft grades

https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2021-nfl-draft-grades-all-32-teams

from our pov, the only purpose in doing draft grades is so that three years from now people may look back at all the experts and marvel at just how wrong they were.

HA! Good Fun! 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Gromnir

[Bartimaeus]

PFF has liked Green Bay's drafts under our new-ish GM, but I kind of figured they wouldn't this time around because while we didn't have any *insane* reaches by way of consensus, all of our major picks were at least mild head-scratchers in terms of "value". They all but gave us a D, and I kind of wish they had - if you're going to say all our picks were bad, then your grade should reflect that, you spineless, fence-walking worms, .

In 2018, they said the Packers "won" the draft because we traded down in the first round to get an extra first round pick from the Saints the next year (who turned out to be safety Savage, who has been quite good so far), picked a "good" CB with our first round pick (All-Pro Alexander) but then also took their absolute top CB that had "fallen", Josh Jackson, with our second round pick...who, again, has done absolutely nothing his entire career. He hasn't even been injured, he just has screwed up every single chance we've given him to play, and so he basically never plays.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[the_dog_days]

My Jets had a good draft. The two 'safeties' are going to be linebackers in this defense. Joe Douglas might've outsmarted himself with the trade up to 14. True, he really only gave up a 3rd but Minnesota took two really good offensive linemen with 23 and the first 3rd they got from the Jets. They've had a really good offseason which is weird 'cause I'm so used to ripping them for making too many splash moves for players who can't contribute.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure Aaron Rodgers will at least temporarily retire. I get the impression that he was sufficiently unimpressed with Love in practice last year that he feels comfortable holding the team hostage like this. Side note: 16 seasons is the magic number for GB quarterbacks. Bart Star, Bret Favre, and now it looks like Aaron Rodgers all left after their 16th season with the team.

[Bartimaeus]

Schefter admits Rodgers and his camp not the source of any of the leaks, was not even breaking news but an "accumulation of information" he'd heard over the off-season that he decided to call breaking news on the day of the draft. Hmm. ESPN and football/sports media in general, folks. It's almost like Rodgers would not want a giant dramastorm to happen right as he was going to be out in public with his teammates on day one of the NFL Draft. It's almost like Rodgers says the mainstream media is garbage and he prefers to kill them with indifference by refusing to engage for a reason.

Not saying there isn't any tension/conflict - there is certain to be...but holy crap, the amount of character assassination that was going on this past week. I was pretty skeptic that if half of what was reported true that Rodgers was going to not be on the team this coming September...feeling a little more optimistic now.

[Gromnir]

HA! Good Fun!

[Bartimaeus]

Rodgers hold-out officially started today. Will be interesting to see how this ends, because it seems like everyone is genuinely unsure (...except for a few absolute clown fiestas like Florio from Pro Football Trash). Given that an entire month has since gone by since the last update on this without a word being spoken publicly, I'm gonna downgrade my feelings to being 50/50 on whether Rodgers plays this year or not - either it happens or it doesn't, .

There's a lot of people waaay too invested on this, though - seen a lot of posts about the subject that are basically "I can't take this, I can't be a fan of the Packers/Rodgers until this is resolved!". Quit obsessing on something that's not even happening right now - go outside and enjoy your summer, folks.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

^ Is there a spiffy name for Wisconsin's potential tragedy up in cheese country? Rodgersgate? The Great Green Bay Betrayal? Packer Crisis 21?

[Bartimaeus]

5 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

^ Is there a spiffy name for Wisconsin's potential tragedy up in cheese country? Rodgersgate? The Great Green Bay Betrayal? Packer Crisis 21?

Not that I've heard/seen, but I'll let you know if they come up with something, . Mostly, people have either lamely compared it to the Favre situation or said it's nothing at all like the Favre situation. The main similarity I'm seeing in them is that both QBs are/were mad as hell at the front office and their decision-making...

[Gromnir]

unvaccinated players on the first night of training camp may look at private pyle with envy.

HA! Good Fun!

[Gromnir]

 

edit: there is minor profanity in the following tweet. warning for those sensitive to such.

Spoiler

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited July 23, 2021 by Gromnir

[Bartimaeus]

Dak Prescott refuses to disclose vaccination status, claiming it would be a HIPAA violation for him to do so. That's a double oof there - almost definitely not vaccinated, and...yeah, that is not how HIPAA works. Some people's children, .

Edited July 24, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

Would Dak even play this season? The injury he suffered historically has a looooooooong recovery time.

[Gfted1]

 

[Bartimaeus]

On 7/24/2021 at 7:46 AM, Keyrock said:

Would Dak even play this season? The injury he suffered historically has a looooooooong recovery time.

He's already practicing, although he apparently just hurt his shoulder, so I would expect so.

So...the Rodgers drama comes to a truce for the time being. Based on what both the Packers' front office and what Rodgers has said, I would think this is about 99% the last year Rodgers plays in Green Bay. Rodgers had like an hour long press conference yesterday where he really allowed answers to fly in a calm but honest fashion, and boy did he sound a sort of understated sad when he talked about the issues that lead to all of this (refusing to allow even the slightest amount of input or discussion about decisions that directly affect him and his play personally, insulting long-time veterans on their way out the door, never ever communicating what they were doing or trying to do to anybody outside of their FO circle in advance, and generally just treating all their players like completely disposable employees instead of, you know, a team), and he seemed pretty resigned about the whole thing and very skeptical about his future in Green Bay. I almost always fall on labor's side, and this is no different - looking forward to following whatever team Rodgers ends up on next year...hopefully it's not the Patriots - my expectation right now is either the Broncos, Panthers, maaaybe Steelers? I don't know, but I'm pretty confident it's not going to be the Packers.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Bartimaeus