Green Bay’s ability to draft and develop quarterbacks deserves all the praise it gets. I do think it overshadows their ability to churn out offensive linemen, an essential piece in the process of developing quarterbacks. They always seem to have quality tackles. Injuries on the OL never seem to tank their offense or their seasons. A quick google search says they are passing more than just the eyeball test-Since 2018, the Packers’ line has ranked seventh, sixth, second, 14th and third according to Pro Football Focus for an average finish of sixth.
I really love what Brian Gutekunst has built in Green Bay, and they just missed the cut in terms of my rankings of the top-5 front offices who have thrived despite adversity.
The young core around Jordan Love that is going to grow around their franchise quarterback feels like the blueprint that organizations should always follow. And, they’re winning as he and they are developing. The Xavier McKinney and Josh Jacobs signings are major wins for Gutekunst and that front office. This team kind of reminds me of early-stage Dan Campbell’s Lions. Look. Out.
Yeah, I thought the meme was that GB never put any resources into the offense when they had Rodgers, particularly their 1st round pick. It was only after Rodgers left that they used a 1st rounder on offense. They used that draft capital on defense, to middling results.
Off the top of my head, the starters/sometime-starters that were GB first round picks are
Gary, Clark, Wyatt, Van Ness, Walker, Alexander, and Stokes. They also have second rounders as preferred starters in Bullard and Cooper. McKinney was also a second rounder, though drafted by the Giants.
As a Packers fan I was very excited for this article, and it didn't disappoint. It feels like MLF will never get his Coach of the Year, which is a minor tragedy.
Enjoyed this. But I was surprised that you did not mention that in the aftermath of drafting Love, Rodgers went over Gutekunst's head and petitioned Packers president Mark Murphy to fire Gutekunst. Which didn't happen. Packers leadership made of sterner/smarter stuff than Jets ownership.
"The Packers are publicly owned and therefore lack an impetuous, imperious dimwit who runs the team like a vanity project from his luxury battleship. Somehow, they get by."
This is why I've always wanted to like the Packers -- and now that Favre AND Rodgers are gone, I think I finally can!
How does the organization actually work? Is there a board that hires and fires the CEO? Who actually owns the stock? There's probably an article somewhere I could look up.
I'm pretty sure the average Green Bay resident owns one share per household, and the board is just the 7 wealthiest shareholders, who probably control far more than 50% of the stock...... so it's (*likely*) more a microcosm of Corporate America, than it is a power-to-the-people feel-good story some people (me) like/want to pretend it is.
I still think LaFleur or (especially) KOC should be CotY over Campbell, because of what they got out of what the pieces they were working with. But these are the same voters who scoffed at Shanahan taking Mr Irrelevant to overtime in the Super Bowl.
Do you think they're more deserving than Mike Tomlin this year?
That's a joke, of course. Mike Tomlin wouldn't win coach of the year even among most Pittsburgh fans (or at least, most vocal on the internet PIT fans). The Steelers success this year is a result of inherent Pittsburgh football-ness and/or Russell Wilson and TJ Watt's awesomeness. Tomlin is, like he is most years, just along for the ride.
Twice Green Bay have taken a 1st Round QB while the HoFer is still there, then developed him on the bench for years (2 for Love, 3 for Rodgers).
There's realism, bravery and patience in this approach. Its not how every franchise does it. Maybe the lack of an impetuous, imperious dimwit who runs the team like a vanity project from his luxury battleship helps.
I'm not sure its a good strategy for the current NFL.
(a) with the way rookie contracts are structured, losing 2-3 years while the draft pick sits on the bench is a big sunk cost
(b) with the way practice time is now controlled, the ability of a QB sitting on the bench to actually develop, as opposed to stagnate, is questionable
A lot of Packers fans are happy with the way Love has turned out, and I'm happy for them. But I think its turned out about as well as they could have hoped for and I still think it was a dumb approach. In the more realistic scenario where Love is middle-of-the-road, the whole thing looks more like the confused schmozle it actually was.
Bottom-line: bad process, good result. Any other team that wants to spend 1st round picks on someone who won't see the field for years is welcome to do so (I see and love you Atlanta), but shouldn't expect to find Love at the end of the tunnel.
PS It's a bit amusing to hear a public corporation lauded for long-term thinking, when one of the common (and valid) criticisms of public corporations is that they are dominated by short-term thinking and hyper-focused on current results to the detriment of long-term performance. Private companies are generally held up to be better at long-term thinking, although that's mostly because they can't be analyzed as well to discover that most of them are run by the same sort of people who own most NFL teams.
Public companies are at the mercy of ignorant, impatient shareholders whereas private companies are more likely to be owned by (checks notes) impetuous dimwits. Yeah, I might not have a coherent thesis here. But I do like the romance of imagining the Pack’s ownership structure confers some sort of advantage.
Also “Love at the end of the tunnel” is a nice line :)
I was less proud of my public/private argument that boils down to "all people are idiots, some are just more obviously idiots due to public scrutiny". I'm comfortable with its accuracy, just not with its implications.
While the Packers are a public entity, I believe the organization is also a non-profit. The Board of Directors is a whose who of all the top business people in the area. That's winnowed down to an executive committee that makes the calls. Unlike a for-profit public company, none of the board members or executive committee members stand to make financial gains from the Packers. The status payoff is huge for being involved with the team. This allows for longterm thinking.
That is an excellent point, although being a non-profit, there's also no "reason" (in modern economic thinking) for anyone in a leadership position to care about the success of the organization. Without a profit motivation, personal pride and professionalism do not exist (or so I'm told - I work in the finance industry).
As a result, I think we should view any success by the Packers as a direct refutation of capitalism. If Dan Campbell and the Lions weren't motivated to crush them before now, they should certainly be now.
Can you name somewhere where it didn't work out? Honest rather than a snarky question, like all such things this is a research question.
Worked great with Mahomes. (if just one team had the foggiest notion that Mahomes would turn out great, he wouldn't have lasted in the draft anywhere near as long as he did) I think we have enough games in the bank to call Love a 'win'.
So how many reasonably recent 'trials' do we have where an already-good team with an established, big-contract QB used their 1st Rounder on a young QB? How have those worked out?
Those are good questions and point out that this is, indeed, a data question and there's not much data and likely not much agreement on what counts as a data point.
For example, I don't count Mahomes, because he started year two and I see Alex Smith as the placeholder guy while they waited for Mahomes, not a star QB like Rodgers. If Smith hadn't played as well as he did that year, Mahomes likely starts earlier, but regardless he was never going to sit on the bench as long as Love was going to sit.
To me the criteria are (a) you have an established "win because of" QB and (b) you spend a 1st round pick on a QB with no plans to start him for at least 2 years. And also, it needs to be in the current era of rookie salary caps and strict practice time limits.
Kind of makes the data pool shrink up and leave us with "QB was smart" / "GB was lucky" unwinnable debates.
I don’t think it’s about planning not to start the draftee for 2-3 years. Rather it’s about recognising your guy is an a decline curve, acquiring a guy on a growth curve and giving yourself the freedom to make the switch at the right time. Even if that’s a couple years.
If we widen the criteria to 2nd rounders I’d add Jalen Hurts to Big Richie’s list. Wentz wasn’t obviously toast after 2019.
If we're counting second round, Jimmy Garoppolo leaps out to me. Brady wasn't obviously toast in 2014, either, although presumably Belichick thought he was going to be and invested in Garoppolo to eventually take over for him. That one didn't work out as well as Hurts-Wentz.
I looked it up. Last 20 drafts, anyway. Criteria being 'good team with good QB'. Yes, not much data.
As to what there is:
Jordan Love. Result, yup we're glad we drafted him. Leastwise given how low in that 1st Round he went.
Trey Lance. One heckuva big 'oops'. Forgotten because of lucking into Purdy, but really. Isn't it likely that it cost them last year's Super Bowl? Add just one good player onto a team that took the game into overtime ...
Mahomes. Uh, yeah.
DeShaun Watson. They were certainly glad at the time.
Jay Cutler. Similar to DeShaun, actually. Tho' maybe kinda like your friendly neighborhood Timber Rattler is similar to a King Cobra.
Aaron Rodgers.
Seems to me I may be leaving somebody out. If I did, the guy was a 'loss'.
I will say one thing, Ti-Cats. If you think Alex Smith doesn't count, I don't see an argument that Cousins then does.
I agree with you re Smith and Cousins objectively speaking, but Atlanta gave Cousins a big contract like he was "their guy" and then drafted "their next guy" with a 1st round pick right afterwards. So to me that's the closest to GB's situation where they had a clear No. 1 QB (and a top 3 guy in the league at that) and still put a 1st round draft into another QB who wasn't likely to see the field for years, rather than someone who could help their current guy win immediately.
Then again, I don't really know what Atlanta's plan is.
First Order of Business: Sign ourselves a quarterback, dammit! No more Mariota or Ridder. Just no more! Fine, Cousins.
Second Order of Business: OK, where's our draft list? Scratch 7 players off, we should still get someone good. Hopefully better than Pitts. Wait, Penix is still available?? We like him better than anybody! Too bad we didn't know this ahead of time, but of course we figured 'No Way!' So because we just signed a pretty old Kirk Cousins to a contract we can jettison in 2 years, we're supposed to turn down a quarterback we just love?
Most of the public companies you are referring to are for profit and the shareholders are expecting a financial return on their investment each and every quarter. That's not the case (as I just learned reading Wikipedia) for GBP shareholders. So, the typical criticism doesn't seem to apply here.
I will admit that this process works when a team drafts a QB highly, wins a Super Bowl with him on the bench, and then starts the youngster and goes on to enjoy a decade or so of success.
Jordan Love was drafted in the first round in 2020. The Packers went on to lose the next two NFC Championship Games, by a combined total of eight points, as Love collected dust on the sidelines. Maybe the Packers win those games, and even a Super Bowl, if they had drafted Tee Higgins or Jonathan Taylor or even Xavier McKinney instead of Love.
The Trey Lance trade by San Francisco is an even better example, and a more egregious mistake because of all they gave up to acquire him. Some of the picks the 49ers surrendered for Lance eventually turned into Micah Parsons (dominant edge rusher), Cole Strange (good starting lineman ruined by injury -- he would have fit right in with San Francisco), and Bryan Bresee (starting d-lineman/kick-blocker for the Saints). The 49ers went to lose two straight CCGs, then lose a Super Bowl. Maybe if they had teamed Parsons with Nick Bosa to terrify the Mahomeses and Bradys of the world, they would have won a Lombardi Trophy too.
My point is that both these teams had Super Bowl windows open, and opted to plan for the future rather than striking while the iron was hot. And as a result, they missed out on Super Bowl championships they likely could have won.
Well let’s put Trey Lance to one side. He’s a bust and no team building strategy protects you against terrible player evaluation.
I’m not arguing for drafting the new qb at the peak of a team’s championship window. I don’t think the Ravens should trade up for Cam Ward.
You’re obviously right that it played like that for Green Bay
I think the Packers overestimated Rodgers’ decline and so underestimated their immediate SB chances. Rodgers missed 9 games in 2017, went 6-9-1 in 2018 and while 2019 was a bounce back year he was 36. And maybe there was some wishful thinking because Aaron Rodgers.
I don’t think it was generally expected he was going to throw 85 tds to 9 picks and win 2 MVPs the next two years. Even without Tee Higgins :)
And I don’t think the Pack were strategically wrong to develop a solution before they were desperate enough to over draft Bryce Young or Anthony Richardson and then throw them out there whatever the consequences.
Your Jordan Love argument, heck no, Vincent. You cherry pick 3 guys taken sometime after Love. You ignore the 6 taken right after Love. You don't do the obviously logical thing, see what DVOA (or use something else if you prefer) 26th-ish picks have typically returned in their first 2 seasons. Then compare that to what the Packer starter at such-and-such position produced. Of course, even then you can't assume the Packers would've drafted for just that position.
It seems like conventional wisdom is that doing so will destroy the fragile psyche of the established starter. And there are plenty of examples of established starters reacting poorly when it happens.
It seems like very sound advice. The Steelers definitely should have drafted a R1 QB while Roethlisberger was still playing.
Yeah, I've heard this argument a lot. And my feeling is if your QB is so fragile that he's intimidated by competition then you weren't going to win anything with him anyway.
Neither Favre or Rodgers stopped playing well bc there was a young QB on the bench.
Yeah, I've heard that quip before and I call bullpuppy on it.
KC does not need a QB right now, they have Mahomes. I disagree fervently with anybody who says that KC should therefore have used their 1st round pick this year on drafting their QB for the future. What were they thinking not doing that?!
Also, using a 2nd round pick now so that you can get a 2nd round pick three years from now misses the time value of draft picks. I mean, maybe you could convince Carolina to give you all of their 2025 draft picks in return for the equivalent draft picks in 2027, but no competent front office is going to do that.
The only part about stashing a good QB on the roster is for insurance in case your starting QB goes down. Most clubs do this with either a late round QB or a failed veteran. Once upon a time, having two quality starters on the roster was good planning, but in the salary cap era its better to field as many quality starters as you can and keep your fingers crossed your QB1 stays healthy.
I believe there's 7 rounds in the NFL draft. And I believe nowhere did I say we're talking only about 1st and 2nd round picks.
If you draft a guy in the 4th or 5th round who can
1) be a competent backup during his rookie contract
2) be flipped for an asset later
You've won. See guys like Jimmy Garappalo, Matt Cassel, Matt Cassel, Matt Flynn.
Day 3 picks...and even 3rd round picks....flame out at very high rate in the NFL. Picking a QB who can do the things I outlined above has more potential upside than an OL.
What I really object to is you think you're right and there's no chance you're wrong. There is no simply answer. There's varying degrees of success / failure. But I'm going to pay more attention go guys like Belichick and Brandt than the rando internet guy who's 100% sure he knows best.
The post-Rodgers rebuild took nine games. After starting last season 3-6, the Packers are 16-7 while making the playoffs last year and very likely to this year.
Love hasn't quite put it all together this year as he did the end of last year. Two weeks ago Love finally moved quicker to check down passes, with one resulting in a 40 yard pickup by Jacobs. Last week Love broke the pocket a couple of times with nice scrambles, indicating he might have recovered the confidence in his recovered knee and groin injuries. If Love can move quicker in his reads from 20 yard chucks to productive check downs and scramble judiciously to move the chains, the offense might find it's 2023 late season groove. The Packers have topped 30 points the past three weeks.
The sixth seed might be the best result for the Packers. Should the Packers defeat the South or West division winners and the Eagles handle the seventh seed, the Packers would take on Detroit indoors, which could be preferable to the Eagles outdoors. I don't think the Packers catch the Vikings for the 5th seed. The 5th seed Vikings might end up with a better record than the 2nd seed Eagles.
I heard recently that the Lions, Vikings and Packers are a combined 29-3 against non-division opponents this year. The North will be compelling the next few years. The Packers are a year behind the Lions developmentally. The Vikings will have to choose between paying and playing Darnell or moving on to McCarthy. Great football left this year and the next few years look tremendous. Happy Holidays to everyone!
Green Bay’s ability to draft and develop quarterbacks deserves all the praise it gets. I do think it overshadows their ability to churn out offensive linemen, an essential piece in the process of developing quarterbacks. They always seem to have quality tackles. Injuries on the OL never seem to tank their offense or their seasons. A quick google search says they are passing more than just the eyeball test-Since 2018, the Packers’ line has ranked seventh, sixth, second, 14th and third according to Pro Football Focus for an average finish of sixth.
I really love what Brian Gutekunst has built in Green Bay, and they just missed the cut in terms of my rankings of the top-5 front offices who have thrived despite adversity.
The young core around Jordan Love that is going to grow around their franchise quarterback feels like the blueprint that organizations should always follow. And, they’re winning as he and they are developing. The Xavier McKinney and Josh Jacobs signings are major wins for Gutekunst and that front office. This team kind of reminds me of early-stage Dan Campbell’s Lions. Look. Out.
“ The Packers never had many excess resources to spend on defense with Rodgers (or in the post-Rodgers salary cap shadow)”
I believe they were starting ten first round draft picks on defense. Maybe their drafting was bad, but that is a lot of resources.
Yeah, I thought the meme was that GB never put any resources into the offense when they had Rodgers, particularly their 1st round pick. It was only after Rodgers left that they used a 1st rounder on offense. They used that draft capital on defense, to middling results.
They had some tantric yearly ritual where they would deny him WRs in the draft -- and then he would win another MVP throwing to "nobody".
Were those all picked by Green Bay?
Wikipedia says their last 19 first round picks were a quarterback, three tackles, and 15 defensive players.
Off the top of my head, the starters/sometime-starters that were GB first round picks are
Gary, Clark, Wyatt, Van Ness, Walker, Alexander, and Stokes. They also have second rounders as preferred starters in Bullard and Cooper. McKinney was also a second rounder, though drafted by the Giants.
Quay Walker & Devonte Wyatt... yeah, their drafting was bad...
I have to admit, I really enjoy all the digs at Aaron Rogers. I’d read the whole column anyway, but those make it fun :)
As a Packers fan I was very excited for this article, and it didn't disappoint. It feels like MLF will never get his Coach of the Year, which is a minor tragedy.
As a fan I would appreciate having MLF as my coach and not GAF about any awards he does or doesn't receive.
Recognized the name from the Bleacher Report golden era...suffice to say, happy to be here!
Enjoyed this. But I was surprised that you did not mention that in the aftermath of drafting Love, Rodgers went over Gutekunst's head and petitioned Packers president Mark Murphy to fire Gutekunst. Which didn't happen. Packers leadership made of sterner/smarter stuff than Jets ownership.
I do believe this, and sure want to believe this. But can you cite the specific source, Dwight?
"The Packers are publicly owned and therefore lack an impetuous, imperious dimwit who runs the team like a vanity project from his luxury battleship. Somehow, they get by."
This is why I've always wanted to like the Packers -- and now that Favre AND Rodgers are gone, I think I finally can!
How does the organization actually work? Is there a board that hires and fires the CEO? Who actually owns the stock? There's probably an article somewhere I could look up.
Wikipedia answered most of my questions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc.#:~:text=The%20Packers%20have%20been%20a,sixth%20stock%20sale%20in%202021.
Now I'm wondering what sort of things to the shareholders get to vote on.
I'm pretty sure the average Green Bay resident owns one share per household, and the board is just the 7 wealthiest shareholders, who probably control far more than 50% of the stock...... so it's (*likely*) more a microcosm of Corporate America, than it is a power-to-the-people feel-good story some people (me) like/want to pretend it is.
I still think LaFleur or (especially) KOC should be CotY over Campbell, because of what they got out of what the pieces they were working with. But these are the same voters who scoffed at Shanahan taking Mr Irrelevant to overtime in the Super Bowl.
Do you think they're more deserving than Mike Tomlin this year?
That's a joke, of course. Mike Tomlin wouldn't win coach of the year even among most Pittsburgh fans (or at least, most vocal on the internet PIT fans). The Steelers success this year is a result of inherent Pittsburgh football-ness and/or Russell Wilson and TJ Watt's awesomeness. Tomlin is, like he is most years, just along for the ride.
What are Tomlin's CotY odds? Figure there's less homer $$$ affecting his.
I know a bunch of Packers fans and love the passion. Not just for their team, but the game in general.
Brutally cold games at Lambeau must be tough to endure.
But at least they haven't had to endure the equally brutal "lack of a franchise QB" wilderness for a long, long time.
Being snuggled up against Lake Michigan means it's often not as cold as you might expect. Minneapolis back in the day was usually worse.
Twice Green Bay have taken a 1st Round QB while the HoFer is still there, then developed him on the bench for years (2 for Love, 3 for Rodgers).
There's realism, bravery and patience in this approach. Its not how every franchise does it. Maybe the lack of an impetuous, imperious dimwit who runs the team like a vanity project from his luxury battleship helps.
I'm not sure its a good strategy for the current NFL.
(a) with the way rookie contracts are structured, losing 2-3 years while the draft pick sits on the bench is a big sunk cost
(b) with the way practice time is now controlled, the ability of a QB sitting on the bench to actually develop, as opposed to stagnate, is questionable
A lot of Packers fans are happy with the way Love has turned out, and I'm happy for them. But I think its turned out about as well as they could have hoped for and I still think it was a dumb approach. In the more realistic scenario where Love is middle-of-the-road, the whole thing looks more like the confused schmozle it actually was.
Bottom-line: bad process, good result. Any other team that wants to spend 1st round picks on someone who won't see the field for years is welcome to do so (I see and love you Atlanta), but shouldn't expect to find Love at the end of the tunnel.
PS It's a bit amusing to hear a public corporation lauded for long-term thinking, when one of the common (and valid) criticisms of public corporations is that they are dominated by short-term thinking and hyper-focused on current results to the detriment of long-term performance. Private companies are generally held up to be better at long-term thinking, although that's mostly because they can't be analyzed as well to discover that most of them are run by the same sort of people who own most NFL teams.
Public companies are at the mercy of ignorant, impatient shareholders whereas private companies are more likely to be owned by (checks notes) impetuous dimwits. Yeah, I might not have a coherent thesis here. But I do like the romance of imagining the Pack’s ownership structure confers some sort of advantage.
Also “Love at the end of the tunnel” is a nice line :)
Thanks, I was proud of that line, too!
I was less proud of my public/private argument that boils down to "all people are idiots, some are just more obviously idiots due to public scrutiny". I'm comfortable with its accuracy, just not with its implications.
While the Packers are a public entity, I believe the organization is also a non-profit. The Board of Directors is a whose who of all the top business people in the area. That's winnowed down to an executive committee that makes the calls. Unlike a for-profit public company, none of the board members or executive committee members stand to make financial gains from the Packers. The status payoff is huge for being involved with the team. This allows for longterm thinking.
That is an excellent point, although being a non-profit, there's also no "reason" (in modern economic thinking) for anyone in a leadership position to care about the success of the organization. Without a profit motivation, personal pride and professionalism do not exist (or so I'm told - I work in the finance industry).
As a result, I think we should view any success by the Packers as a direct refutation of capitalism. If Dan Campbell and the Lions weren't motivated to crush them before now, they should certainly be now.
Can you name somewhere where it didn't work out? Honest rather than a snarky question, like all such things this is a research question.
Worked great with Mahomes. (if just one team had the foggiest notion that Mahomes would turn out great, he wouldn't have lasted in the draft anywhere near as long as he did) I think we have enough games in the bank to call Love a 'win'.
So how many reasonably recent 'trials' do we have where an already-good team with an established, big-contract QB used their 1st Rounder on a young QB? How have those worked out?
Those are good questions and point out that this is, indeed, a data question and there's not much data and likely not much agreement on what counts as a data point.
For example, I don't count Mahomes, because he started year two and I see Alex Smith as the placeholder guy while they waited for Mahomes, not a star QB like Rodgers. If Smith hadn't played as well as he did that year, Mahomes likely starts earlier, but regardless he was never going to sit on the bench as long as Love was going to sit.
To me the criteria are (a) you have an established "win because of" QB and (b) you spend a 1st round pick on a QB with no plans to start him for at least 2 years. And also, it needs to be in the current era of rookie salary caps and strict practice time limits.
Kind of makes the data pool shrink up and leave us with "QB was smart" / "GB was lucky" unwinnable debates.
I don’t think it’s about planning not to start the draftee for 2-3 years. Rather it’s about recognising your guy is an a decline curve, acquiring a guy on a growth curve and giving yourself the freedom to make the switch at the right time. Even if that’s a couple years.
If we widen the criteria to 2nd rounders I’d add Jalen Hurts to Big Richie’s list. Wentz wasn’t obviously toast after 2019.
If we're counting second round, Jimmy Garoppolo leaps out to me. Brady wasn't obviously toast in 2014, either, although presumably Belichick thought he was going to be and invested in Garoppolo to eventually take over for him. That one didn't work out as well as Hurts-Wentz.
I looked it up. Last 20 drafts, anyway. Criteria being 'good team with good QB'. Yes, not much data.
As to what there is:
Jordan Love. Result, yup we're glad we drafted him. Leastwise given how low in that 1st Round he went.
Trey Lance. One heckuva big 'oops'. Forgotten because of lucking into Purdy, but really. Isn't it likely that it cost them last year's Super Bowl? Add just one good player onto a team that took the game into overtime ...
Mahomes. Uh, yeah.
DeShaun Watson. They were certainly glad at the time.
Jay Cutler. Similar to DeShaun, actually. Tho' maybe kinda like your friendly neighborhood Timber Rattler is similar to a King Cobra.
Aaron Rodgers.
Seems to me I may be leaving somebody out. If I did, the guy was a 'loss'.
I will say one thing, Ti-Cats. If you think Alex Smith doesn't count, I don't see an argument that Cousins then does.
I agree with you re Smith and Cousins objectively speaking, but Atlanta gave Cousins a big contract like he was "their guy" and then drafted "their next guy" with a 1st round pick right afterwards. So to me that's the closest to GB's situation where they had a clear No. 1 QB (and a top 3 guy in the league at that) and still put a 1st round draft into another QB who wasn't likely to see the field for years, rather than someone who could help their current guy win immediately.
Then again, I don't really know what Atlanta's plan is.
Myself, I do take Atlanta at their word here.
First Order of Business: Sign ourselves a quarterback, dammit! No more Mariota or Ridder. Just no more! Fine, Cousins.
Second Order of Business: OK, where's our draft list? Scratch 7 players off, we should still get someone good. Hopefully better than Pitts. Wait, Penix is still available?? We like him better than anybody! Too bad we didn't know this ahead of time, but of course we figured 'No Way!' So because we just signed a pretty old Kirk Cousins to a contract we can jettison in 2 years, we're supposed to turn down a quarterback we just love?
Most of the public companies you are referring to are for profit and the shareholders are expecting a financial return on their investment each and every quarter. That's not the case (as I just learned reading Wikipedia) for GBP shareholders. So, the typical criticism doesn't seem to apply here.
I will admit that this process works when a team drafts a QB highly, wins a Super Bowl with him on the bench, and then starts the youngster and goes on to enjoy a decade or so of success.
Jordan Love was drafted in the first round in 2020. The Packers went on to lose the next two NFC Championship Games, by a combined total of eight points, as Love collected dust on the sidelines. Maybe the Packers win those games, and even a Super Bowl, if they had drafted Tee Higgins or Jonathan Taylor or even Xavier McKinney instead of Love.
The Trey Lance trade by San Francisco is an even better example, and a more egregious mistake because of all they gave up to acquire him. Some of the picks the 49ers surrendered for Lance eventually turned into Micah Parsons (dominant edge rusher), Cole Strange (good starting lineman ruined by injury -- he would have fit right in with San Francisco), and Bryan Bresee (starting d-lineman/kick-blocker for the Saints). The 49ers went to lose two straight CCGs, then lose a Super Bowl. Maybe if they had teamed Parsons with Nick Bosa to terrify the Mahomeses and Bradys of the world, they would have won a Lombardi Trophy too.
My point is that both these teams had Super Bowl windows open, and opted to plan for the future rather than striking while the iron was hot. And as a result, they missed out on Super Bowl championships they likely could have won.
Well let’s put Trey Lance to one side. He’s a bust and no team building strategy protects you against terrible player evaluation.
I’m not arguing for drafting the new qb at the peak of a team’s championship window. I don’t think the Ravens should trade up for Cam Ward.
You’re obviously right that it played like that for Green Bay
I think the Packers overestimated Rodgers’ decline and so underestimated their immediate SB chances. Rodgers missed 9 games in 2017, went 6-9-1 in 2018 and while 2019 was a bounce back year he was 36. And maybe there was some wishful thinking because Aaron Rodgers.
I don’t think it was generally expected he was going to throw 85 tds to 9 picks and win 2 MVPs the next two years. Even without Tee Higgins :)
And I don’t think the Pack were strategically wrong to develop a solution before they were desperate enough to over draft Bryce Young or Anthony Richardson and then throw them out there whatever the consequences.
Trey Lance, absolutely, uh-huh.
Your Jordan Love argument, heck no, Vincent. You cherry pick 3 guys taken sometime after Love. You ignore the 6 taken right after Love. You don't do the obviously logical thing, see what DVOA (or use something else if you prefer) 26th-ish picks have typically returned in their first 2 seasons. Then compare that to what the Packer starter at such-and-such position produced. Of course, even then you can't assume the Packers would've drafted for just that position.
Their former exec and sport law professor Andrew Brandt says the time to draft a QB is when you don't need one.
Even if he doesn't end up your starter you can often flip him later for the same draft capital.
It seems like conventional wisdom is that doing so will destroy the fragile psyche of the established starter. And there are plenty of examples of established starters reacting poorly when it happens.
It seems like very sound advice. The Steelers definitely should have drafted a R1 QB while Roethlisberger was still playing.
Yeah, I've heard this argument a lot. And my feeling is if your QB is so fragile that he's intimidated by competition then you weren't going to win anything with him anyway.
Neither Favre or Rodgers stopped playing well bc there was a young QB on the bench.
Yeah, I've heard that quip before and I call bullpuppy on it.
KC does not need a QB right now, they have Mahomes. I disagree fervently with anybody who says that KC should therefore have used their 1st round pick this year on drafting their QB for the future. What were they thinking not doing that?!
Also, using a 2nd round pick now so that you can get a 2nd round pick three years from now misses the time value of draft picks. I mean, maybe you could convince Carolina to give you all of their 2025 draft picks in return for the equivalent draft picks in 2027, but no competent front office is going to do that.
The only part about stashing a good QB on the roster is for insurance in case your starting QB goes down. Most clubs do this with either a late round QB or a failed veteran. Once upon a time, having two quality starters on the roster was good planning, but in the salary cap era its better to field as many quality starters as you can and keep your fingers crossed your QB1 stays healthy.
I believe there's 7 rounds in the NFL draft. And I believe nowhere did I say we're talking only about 1st and 2nd round picks.
If you draft a guy in the 4th or 5th round who can
1) be a competent backup during his rookie contract
2) be flipped for an asset later
You've won. See guys like Jimmy Garappalo, Matt Cassel, Matt Cassel, Matt Flynn.
Day 3 picks...and even 3rd round picks....flame out at very high rate in the NFL. Picking a QB who can do the things I outlined above has more potential upside than an OL.
What I really object to is you think you're right and there's no chance you're wrong. There is no simply answer. There's varying degrees of success / failure. But I'm going to pay more attention go guys like Belichick and Brandt than the rando internet guy who's 100% sure he knows best.
The post-Rodgers rebuild took nine games. After starting last season 3-6, the Packers are 16-7 while making the playoffs last year and very likely to this year.
Love hasn't quite put it all together this year as he did the end of last year. Two weeks ago Love finally moved quicker to check down passes, with one resulting in a 40 yard pickup by Jacobs. Last week Love broke the pocket a couple of times with nice scrambles, indicating he might have recovered the confidence in his recovered knee and groin injuries. If Love can move quicker in his reads from 20 yard chucks to productive check downs and scramble judiciously to move the chains, the offense might find it's 2023 late season groove. The Packers have topped 30 points the past three weeks.
The sixth seed might be the best result for the Packers. Should the Packers defeat the South or West division winners and the Eagles handle the seventh seed, the Packers would take on Detroit indoors, which could be preferable to the Eagles outdoors. I don't think the Packers catch the Vikings for the 5th seed. The 5th seed Vikings might end up with a better record than the 2nd seed Eagles.
I heard recently that the Lions, Vikings and Packers are a combined 29-3 against non-division opponents this year. The North will be compelling the next few years. The Packers are a year behind the Lions developmentally. The Vikings will have to choose between paying and playing Darnell or moving on to McCarthy. Great football left this year and the next few years look tremendous. Happy Holidays to everyone!