The coolest Packer since Donald Driver will be wearing purple in the most artificial environment in the NFL with either Sam Darnold or a rookie as his QB. Sigh.
The coolest Packer since Donald Driver will be wearing purple in the most artificial environment in the NFL with either Sam Darnold or a rookie as his QB. Sigh.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
HOFer
Certainly seems like this is Jones trying to stick it to the Packers. It’s not like he’s making a king’s ransom for the Vikings compared to what the Packers were looking for him to accept, and he signed very quickly. This will absolutely impact his legacy as a Packer, no different than Favre. Still a great Packer, but this move will reduce his luster as a former Packer…and how much extra coin did he get for that? Not much.
It's such a GOOD feeling...13 TIME WORLD CHAMPIONS!!
Or he saw a field of FAs (no complete/healthy feature backs, though: Derrick Henry, Joe Mixon, JK Dobbins, D'Onta Forman, Alexander Mattison, CE-H) and draftees, and felt squeamish about what was available for starter money. A one-year deal for a running back is practically a final contract (not even a signing bonus that could get split to next season's cap when the Vikings part ways with him after missing the playoffs).
His 1-for-$7M is better than Ekeler, Zack Moss, Antonio Gibson, or Gus Edwards' got for per-year values. Only Saquon, Josh Jacobs, Pollard, and D'Andre got better so far, and a flipside way of looking at it is those spots are no longer available.
I got nothing against AJ signing quickly once he was told to take less or start packing.
Plus, Jones has four games against common opponents that he can look good against, particularly the Bears.
I believe in God, family, Baylor University, and the Green Bay Packers.
Like I said, everyone has an ego, defined by the layman as “a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance.” And that ego is as fragile and as sensitive as fuck.Originally Posted by King Friday
We all know Bobble’s ego is as big as his net worth. That’s why he refuses to “acknowledge” myself as his “tribal chief,” as “head of the table” and/or as Packerrats’ top capologist. Yeah, yeah - we all would like to see Cody Rhodes finish his damn story at Wrestlemania, what, 40? Ain’t gonna happen. Roman Reigns is too damn good.
Anyways, unlike y’all, I am wishing ole AA-Ron the best in purple, except when he suits up against my beloved Pack.
I'm not going to stop the wheel. I'm going to break the wheel.
Are they not paying this dude either way? They are paying _more_ on the cap for a worse player. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That said that’s looking at one year in isolation knowing new Jones is front loaded. Still, I like old jones and don’t think this was a good choice
Rumors were the Packers wanted Jones to reduce his number by 50% which would have been between 5-7 million in a hometown discount. Crazy that he is reportedly going to sign with Minnesota for the same price. I guess ego and feelings will always play in this game.
I really like Jones and think he is a top 5 or 6 back in the league, unfortunately he missed too much time. Jacobs is fine, obviously he lead the league in rushing two seasons ago and he is only 26. From a a business decision this all made sense.
Oh well. I wish they'd kept Jones, but all things considered, we're better off with Jacobs. I was expecting Jones to soak some team for a really big amount for a fairly long term, but no, just $7 million for one year. If the Packers didn't want to pay him that much, maybe they know something about him, injury-wise.
This Jacobs contract is like something I haven't heard before, 1 year, then 3 more of team options - that's pretty team friendly. If he flounders, the Packers don't owe him anything past the first year. But if he's good, we've got him for four years at today's money. And at age 26, he should be good for that long.
Now let's draft a good 2nd or 3rd rounder to rotate with him - ideally IMO Braelon Allen.
What could be more GOOD and NORMAL and AMERICAN than Packer Football?
I will miss Aaron Jones, a truly exciting player to watch. I suspect the team will miss him too. Players talk about the personality of a team changing from year to year, some years more than others. Last year was a big change with Rodgers leaving and Love taking over. Next year may be as well. I think Jones especially, but Dillon too were strong, positive influences on the team character. It will be different.
I was hoping he would stay, and the draft would supply his eventual replacement. I hoped he would retire a Packer.
Jacobs can be a true workhorse type of back, something Jones never was because the team has always preached the need to manage his workload. If he had a busy series of downs, the next series he was on the bench. Understandable, with as small as Jones is. But, he was a great, great asset to have; and for the most part I think the Packers used him well to get the most out of him for a long time. A back like Jacobs might make it easier to develop a rhythm in the offense, because he will play series after series.
It will seem wrong to watch him on any team other than GB, especially so in a purple jersey. But, realistically, it is doubtful he will be playing in 2026 no matter where he is or could have been.
Andy Herman
@AndyHermanNFL
Who will have the better next 2 seasons in the NFL?
Aaron Jones 9.7%
Josh Jacobs 90.3%
2,611 votes
·
23 hours left
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
What I saw on film was that , similar to Jones, Jacobs looked faster than his 40 time. I also saw some shiftiness although maybe not quite as much as Jones. Jacobs has some power, but Jones had more than a lot of RBs too. In short, they are fairly similar. I'm wondering if Jacobs' downturn last year might have been a bit of dogging it because he got franchised. If so, it could show an attitude problem, but it's more good thing than bad, because it could mean he's still about as good as he was in his two big years.
I also think the Packers should not overuse him - as I've been saying, draft somebody good on the second day to rotate with him.
What could be more GOOD and NORMAL and AMERICAN than Packer Football?
Agreed. They still need Jones’s replacement, and that’s not going to be easy to find.
Man, I was hoping he’d be back for one more year, and the Packers would draft his understudy this April.
"The Devine era is actually worse than you remember if you go back and look at it."
KYPack
They’re still going to be drafting a running back or two in April.
"The Devine era is actually worse than you remember if you go back and look at it."
KYPack
Jacobs may not be flashy, but he's plenty good enough to punish defenses if they don't respect the run. I don't know we need a speedy back, but we need more depth.
HOFer
even better that our best player last year cost to much money to keep, his replacement costs more, and somehow we give nixon 6 million a year
Tundra...Is it possible to grasp everything you said, Love Jones to death, but realize he is going to be one the wrong side of 30 next season?
I'll miss him. If I were GM he would have finished his last season in GB for $9 million instead of Jacobs for even more. But the reality of the NFL is that he had trouble staying on the field. We tried to stick with Bak because of his talent. That didn't work out. This could have gone either way and I would have been fine with it.
I don't hold Grudges. It's counterproductive.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, that's exactly how I feel. Like you, I'm not sure I'd have had the stone-cold balls to move on from him this season but if Gute thinks it's the right call, I support him. He probably knows a few things about the overall situation that you and I don't see. Maybe there's more going on with his knee or overall health that is strictly internal information; maybe the trainers have reported that the hamstring and/or the knee are not recovering as well as we fans can observe. Maybe they're reporting that his recovery from those injuries is not on a pace that they would have expected, that he's reached that point in his career where suddenly the everyday aches and pains of an NFL running back are not responding and bouncing back as quickly and as easily as they did a couple of years ago.
Maybe there are even more soft tissue things that don't rise to the level of mandated reporting, but when added up paint a picture of a player who's aging out more quickly than people outside the organization would see. Because that really is a thing in sports, and something GMs have to account for.
Could be any one of those things, but it could simply be that internally, they see a player who's wearing down more quickly than we reaize.
Or, it could be that this is an example of cutting a player a year too early rather than risk doing it a year too late. Which is a judgment call that I would completely support, because it tells me our GM is not afraid to make ruthless and unpopular decisions if he feels that's in the best interest of the team.
I just keep in mind that in Gute's worldview, this is our window. I think he had a master strategic plan that centered on our Super Bowl window opening in 2025, with 24 being the year that our young team would make a playoff run and get soime postseason experience to prepare them for a serious Lombardi run in 25. But that the second half of 23 essentially became our 2024, and jumped our timetable a full year.
And (if that is true) these 2 FA signings suggest that he gets that, that he's committed to going all in; that he's erring on the side of extreme caution, and unwilling to risk that opportunity by betting our entire stack of chips on the hope that a 30-year old running back who suddenly suffered at east 2 injuries last season is going to stay healthy for 6 solid months in 2024.
Which is why this is a bold move that I completely support, no matter how sad it makes me. For the players and the fans, it's a game, but for the front office it's a cut-throat, coldblooded business. I'm glad we seem to finally have a GM who gets that, and is capable of doing whatever it takes to move the entire team forward. Even when his decisions are very painful to see. I'm glad he's there to make those calls, because it sure as hell wouldn't be something I could do.
Last edited by Frozen Tundra; 03-14-2024 at 01:15 AM.
Frozen - You stayed out in the cold too long and froze your huevos and sense off!!! No fucking way is Jones as good as Ahman. Ahman on this team last season = SB appearance. Shit Jones even spotted Ahman a fumble in SF so you can’t say about Ahman fumbling. And he damn sure isn’t as good as Jim Brown. Jones probably wouldn’t have last one season in that time.
Loved Jones when he was doing his thing but can’t put him in the workhorse category IMO.
Oh, I'm definitely not saying Jones is as "good" as Jim Brown; that man is a legend who literally defined how the position should and would always be played for the rest of the NFL's history.
And I'm sure not going to argue that he was "better" than Ahman Green; declaring someone a "better" back is a broad, comprehensive term that goes beyond mere statistical numbers. I'm not afraid to die on a hill if I truly believe my argument is a good one, but neither one of those two hills even come close.
If you offer me a choice between 7 years of Aaron Jones in his prime, and 7 years of prime Ahman Green, and as much as I love Aaron, I'm taking Green 10 times out of 9. Because it's about so much more than just stats; Green was an absolute force of nature, a gamechanger every time he broke the huddle, not just when he had the ball. When Green was on the field, the entire defense changed their whole look. I'm old enough to have seen Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung play (still have their autographs), and I'd put Green right up there with those two - second only to Taylor.
I'm only saying that in terms of pure statistical productivity, which is one of the important meaures of what makes a back great but not the only one, Aaron Jones has had an amazing run in Green Bay. And we're lucky to have been here to see it, and I just hope that as he moves on to the next phase of his career, we all regard him with the proper appreciation.
I threw together a table comparing his stats to Ahman, but I can't figure out how to get it to display here. Hopefully it's not too hard to work out; Jones is the first "column" of numbers, and Green is the right-hand column.
Obviously, Green's career totals are way ahead of Jones, because he played 12 seasons and Jones only 7. But when you look at the stats in terms of game-by-game and season-by-season, Jones has a clear edge overall. Out of 13 significant statiscal categores, the two are remarkably close in many (if not most), but Ahman only has the edge in 2 of the 13 - yards per game, in which he has just a 1-yard advantage, and carries per game, where he leads 13.9-12.1. And in some of the others, Jones is significantly ahead (yds per carry, yds per season, and several of the receiving categories).
Jones Green
Rushing yds/yr 848 767
YDS per carry 5 4.5
YDS per game 61.2 62.2
ATT per game 12.1 13.9
Rushing TD/year 7 5
Receptions per year 38 31.5
Receptions per game 2.8 2.6
Rec. Yds/year 296.6 240.2
Rec. Yds/game 7.8 7.6
Rec. TD/game 2.6 0.08
Total yards per year 1147.7 1143.5
Total TD per year 9 6.6
Fumbles per carry 1/78.6 1/56.9
(source: statmuse)
And you can't get around the fact that of the hundreds of men who have played running back in the modern era, when one of them puts up a couple of very significant statistics (yards per carry) that have been matched or exceeded only by players like Jim Brown, Mercury Morris, and Joe Perry, that's an extraordinary accomplishment. Hundreds of other players (including a few Packers) have played many years in this league and not even come close to that. I understand that yeah, blocking schemes, coaches, Aaron Rodgers, etc, but is there really anything else about the Packers offense over the last 7 or 8 years that jumps off the page and stands out as so unique and so completely unparalled in NFL history that it would explain a running back who's good (or even really, really good) being one of only 3 players who equalled Jim Brown and Joe Perry in number of seasons with 5.25 yards per carry?
Especially in seasons where they went 7-9. 6-9-1, and 8-9? An argument could be made for 2020 (13-3), but were the 2017, 2018, and 2022 Packers legendary teams who could carry a back to greatness? Every one of those season were years where the Packers basically sucked, Rodgers struggled, and the only thing about the offense that actually worked was handing it to Aaron Jones. He wasn't coasting behind dynamic, powerhouse offenses who dominated the league and opened up numerous opportunities for the RB to exploit imbalances - he was it. He was the the most productive part of the offense all 3 of those years. On RPO plays, every D knew there was a strong likelihood it was going to be Aaron coming out of the backfield, because that was basically all we had to offer. It wasn't the offense carrying Aaron, and Aaron taking advantage of them. It was Aaron carrying the team.
Again, I'm not saying he was one of the greatest backs of all time. The statistics only go so far, and I would have a hard time arguing that it should go anywhere near that far. But I think at some point, when you're looking at Aaron's career, you have to accept that he has rather quietly put in a truly amazing body of work (unmatched in many key ways by any other back in his era) and we have to stand back, look at it, and acknowledge that he was the key factor in all of those seasons. You give the man the ball, and he gets yards. Year in, year out. I really don't believe he gets the respect and appreciation he's earned here in Green Bay.
I'd be interested in the statistics just for Green's time with the Packers. The Seattle and Houston years are going to bring his averages down.
Damn why you gotta chop down Frozen’s big post with little facts like that?
I didn’t even think about the Seattle years. Yep take out the 2 Seattle years and his last three after he left GB and it changes a lot. If we go just by the Packers stats it might get ugly.
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