DOUGHERTY....."HOW COULD THE PACKERS LET HYDE AND HAYWARD GET AWAY "

[Carolina_Packer]

Typical benefit of hindsight article. Honestly, I expect better than this from the JS.

Literally nobody was upset over losing Hyde this year. He is what he is...a jack of all trades who was consistently a step slow in coverage. We all pretty much laughed at Buffalo for paying him as much as they did. The idea that we should have re-signed him to play full time safety instead of Burnett or HHCD is asinine.

As far as Hayward, he was coming off 3 straight disappointing years. After his rookie year, I figured he'd be one of the best corners in the league for years to come. He had the injury in 2013 and we spent all of 2014 and 2015 waiting for the old Hayward to come back. The beat writers consistently wrote how he was a step slow even in practice. For a guy who who was never that quick, but was instead what I would call smooth, the thought was the injury had robbed him of the speed he needed. You don't pay those kind of guys 5-6M when you already have Shields and a pair of 1st and 2nd rounders waiting in the wings. Also, it's not as if Hayward was some no doubt free agent who had multiple teams chasing him. His market was pretty cool. Hayward is certainly playing lights out, no doubt about that. He's also playing with Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram on one of the best pass rushes in the league. And just to bring this thing full circle, Bosa was the 3rd overall pick in 2016. Ingram was the 18th overall pick in 2012. The Packers didn't have a shot at either one of them.

It's also easy to say all these things when the Packers have suffered another unfortunate rash of injuries in the secondary. If they were not out for the season already, they were hobbled. The Packers were down to starting Josh Hawkins at CB last week. Sure, we would have loved to have started someone better, as in the guys we are already paying who got hurt, which is unfortunate.

As for letting them go, that's a tricky business. Logically, what does TT do with the young talent that he drafted to shore up the under-manned secondary, which at one point included both Hyde and Hayward. If they had been able to perform at a high enough level to begin with, perhaps they wouldn't have drafted Randall and Rollins back to back in 2015, but they did, so unless you're going to pay everyone back there, someone's gotta go. It just sucks that the Packers haven't been able to keep some of the replacements healthy enough to keep developing.

[Bretsky]

If they had been able to perform at a high enough level to begin with, perhaps they wouldn't have drafted Randall and Rollins back to back in 2015, but they did, so unless you're going to pay everyone back there, someone's gotta go[/B]. It just sucks that the Packers haven't been able to keep some of the replacements healthy enough to keep developing.

It's kind of their job to forecast who is going to be players and who is not. I don't know what happened with Hayward but they DESERVE criticism there.
Had they made the right call mayb we draft a pass rusher or two

[Carolina_Packer]

It's kind of their job to forecast who is going to be players and who is not. I don't know what happened with Hayward but they DESERVE criticism there.
Had they made the right call mayb we draft a pass rusher or two

A reasonable point. If TT signs Hayward in 2016, and stays put in the first round last year, that pick could have become T.J. Watt. Obviously, at this point, the Packers need a young pass rusher with his arrow pointing up. No disrespect to Biegel, who could be something, or Fackrell, who may have a higher ceiling, but so far has had modest returns, T.J. Watt was lined up to be the obvious choice, had Green Bay either signed Hayward the year before or signed a free agent CB last off-season and not had to wait out the development cycle of King, who got hurt anyway, which unfortunately seems to be a Packer thing.

[mraynrand]

A reasonable point. If TT signs Hayward in 2016, and stays put in the first round last year, that pick could have become T.J. Watt. Obviously, at this point, the Packers need a young pass rusher with his arrow pointing up. No disrespect to Biegel, who could be something, or Fackrell, who may have a higher ceiling, but so far has had modest returns, T.J. Watt was lined up to be the obvious choice, had Green Bay either signed Hayward the year before or signed a free agent CB last off-season and not had to wait out the development cycle of King, who got hurt anyway, which unfortunately seems to be a Packer thing.

Sure, but Hayward could have blown out his hammy again. Plus they sign him and then they don't have cash for Bennett. Where would they be then?

[Bretsky]

Sure, but Hayward could have blown out his hammy again. Plus they sign him and then they don't have cash for Bennett. Where would they be then?

Green Bay would have still had funds for Bennett ...........who .....fwiw.....I was happy about.....but I was wrong.

[Pugger]

Sure, but Hayward could have blown out his hammy again. Plus they sign him and then they don't have cash for Bennett. Where would they be then?

We would have kept Cook instead of Bennett?

When we let Hayward go we had a safety who was just voted 2nd team All-Pro, Randall and Rollins looked promising and Sam Shields hadn't had that concussion yet so losing Casey didn't seem like a huge deal at the time.

[Bretsky]

A reasonable point. If TT signs Hayward in 2016, and stays put in the first round last year, that pick could have become T.J. Watt. Obviously, at this point, the Packers need a young pass rusher with his arrow pointing up. No disrespect to Biegel, who could be something, or Fackrell, who may have a higher ceiling, but so far has had modest returns, T.J. Watt was lined up to be the obvious choice, had Green Bay either signed Hayward the year before or signed a free agent CB last off-season and not had to wait out the development cycle of King, who got hurt anyway, which unfortunately seems to be a Packer thing.