motife
03-05-2007, 04:56 PM
Packers need a fresh spark at running back anyway
Had Ahman Green not recovered from his thigh surgery and contributed more than 1,000 yards of rushing to the Green Bay Packers' cause this past season, they never would have doubled their victory total from 2005.
In fact, as Green went, so did the Packers to a degree. He rushed for 110 yards in the opener against Chicago, but most of it came after halftime or after the Bears had essentially sealed their victory.
Over the next four games, Green missed two with a hamstring injury related to his surgery and averaged 52 yards and 2.8 yards per carry in the other two, as the Packers fell to 1-4. Green surpassed 100 yards in each of the next three games and the Packers won all three. He had only one more 100-yard game over the final half of the season; again in a lopsided loss, this time to the New York Jets, where he gained most of his yards after the Packers fell hopelessly behind in the second quarter. But his next best games were against San Francisco, Detroit and Chicago, and the Packers won all three.
But losing Green today is no big deal. And paying him what the Houston Texans paid him - $23 million over four years, including a reported $6.5 million of guaranteed money - would have been insane.
Why is this year different than last year?
Because the Packers will have fewer glaring needs in terms of positions that will need to be addressed in the draft and are in better position to select a running back early.
In other words, time is on their side. And there's no skill position easier to fill than running back.
As general manager Ted Thompson rebuilds or reshapes the Packers, there are two givens.
One is that until he replaces the franchise's special players of the 1990s - Brett Favre, Reggie White and LeRoy Butler - with new faces who can have a similar impact, the Packers aren't going to win or even seriously challenge for the Super Bowl. And, two, as long as the Packers' best players are their oldest players, they're not even going to improve.
The Packers don't have a true playmaker or impact player on their roster at this point. In Pro Football Weekly's post-season poll of NFL executives and scouts, the Packers didn't have one of the top 40 players in the game.
They managed to finish 8-8 last season largely because they had a collection of mostly aging, second- and third-tier playmakers who were still good enough to produce against lesser teams, but not on a consistent basis.
Green, who turned 30 last month, was one of those players. Quarterback Brett Favre, who will turn 38 in October, was another. Donald Driver, 32, and Charles Woodson, 30, were two others.
A change of scenery or recovery from injury or some other factor sometimes allows players in that age range to resurrect their careers for maybe a season or a part of one. But those players are all in decline. For example, even if Woodson had his best season in five years, he's still not the player he was at 24 or 25.
So to become a better team, the Packers have to start replacing those players if not all at once, at least one at a time. And they might as well start now because they're not going to win any Super Bowls next year. And the longer they wait, the better chance there is that the bottom will fall out, although it might anyway when Favre retires.
There was a time when rushing for 1,000 yards in a season was a meritorious achievement. There used to be a 1,000-Yard Club that started in Appleton in 1964 and honored the new 1,000-yard rushers with a gala dinner after each season. In 1977, in the National Football League's 57th season and the year before it expanded to a 16-game schedule, there were a total of 40 inductees in the club.
In 2006, 22 running backs surpassed 1,000 yards. Green ranked 19th.
Of those 22 backs, only three were 30 or older: Tiki Barber and Warrick Dunn were each 31; and Fred Taylor was 30. Thirteen of the 22 were 27 or younger.
Running backs probably have a shorter shelf life than players at any other position in the NFL. By age 28, they've usually started to slide.
Green was a good example. He had his best season in 2003 when he rushed for 1,883 yards at age 26. In 2004, his rushing total plummeted to 1,163 and his average dropped from 5.3 to 4.5 per carry. In 2005, he suffered the first major injury of his career and missed 11 games. In the five he played, he averaged 3.3 per carry and his longest run was 13 yards.
Green recovered from his injury in 2006, but he wasn't the back he was in his prime. Prior to 2005, what made Green one of the best backs in the game was that he could get the tough yards, but also go the distance on any given play. Last year, he broke two runs of more than 20 yards.
Also, let's not lose sight of the team that signed Green. The Houston Texans are a desperate franchise. They haven't had a winning record in five years and have lost credibility with many of their fans after passing on hometown product Vince Young and Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush to draft Mario Williams with the No. 1 pick a year ago. They need to have a winning season just to become relevant.
The smart franchises don't give over-the-hill running backs four-year contracts with $8 million coming in the first year.
The Indianapolis Colts let Edgerrin James walk last year after back-to-back 1,500-yard seasons, replaced him with a late first-round draft pick - Joseph Addai was selected 30th - and won a Super Bowl. The New England Patriots drafted Laurence Maroney 21st last year, got a boost they didn't have with 32-year old Corey Dillon and have since dumped Dillon.
Although Taylor was one of the 30-year old backs to gain 1,000 yards last year, the Jacksonville Jaguars' best runner and most explosive player was rookie Maurice Jones-Drew, who rushed for 941 yards and a 5.7 average after being drafted 60th.
If the Packers don't find in this spring's draft another Addai or Maroney or Jones-Drew, a back who can give them more than Green did last season, they're probably going to finish with a worse record than 8-8. And if they draft a back early and miss completely, they could plummet to another four-win season or worse.
Even if they replace Green with a Jamal Lewis or one of the other stopgaps available in free agency, it's probably not going to make the Packers a better team.
But regardless of the risk, it was time to dump Green and move on if the only way to keep him was to award him a contract that didn't make any sense. And if Thompson drafts a back in either the first or second round this year and that back doesn't pan out, it won't be the end of the world, either.
Thompson allowed two starting guards to get away before the 2005 season, struck out trying to replace them the first time and then hit on two promising prospects a year ago. And, now, the Packers appear to be better off than they would be if they still had Mike Wahle, who tore his labrum last season and underwent major shoulder surgery; and Marco Rivera, who is washed up at 34.
The same thing might happen at running back. Thompson might miss on this year's pick and hit the jackpot next year. Either way, it's a position where the Packers needed a fresh spark to make another jump in the standings or create any hope for the future.
Had Ahman Green not recovered from his thigh surgery and contributed more than 1,000 yards of rushing to the Green Bay Packers' cause this past season, they never would have doubled their victory total from 2005.
In fact, as Green went, so did the Packers to a degree. He rushed for 110 yards in the opener against Chicago, but most of it came after halftime or after the Bears had essentially sealed their victory.
Over the next four games, Green missed two with a hamstring injury related to his surgery and averaged 52 yards and 2.8 yards per carry in the other two, as the Packers fell to 1-4. Green surpassed 100 yards in each of the next three games and the Packers won all three. He had only one more 100-yard game over the final half of the season; again in a lopsided loss, this time to the New York Jets, where he gained most of his yards after the Packers fell hopelessly behind in the second quarter. But his next best games were against San Francisco, Detroit and Chicago, and the Packers won all three.
But losing Green today is no big deal. And paying him what the Houston Texans paid him - $23 million over four years, including a reported $6.5 million of guaranteed money - would have been insane.
Why is this year different than last year?
Because the Packers will have fewer glaring needs in terms of positions that will need to be addressed in the draft and are in better position to select a running back early.
In other words, time is on their side. And there's no skill position easier to fill than running back.
As general manager Ted Thompson rebuilds or reshapes the Packers, there are two givens.
One is that until he replaces the franchise's special players of the 1990s - Brett Favre, Reggie White and LeRoy Butler - with new faces who can have a similar impact, the Packers aren't going to win or even seriously challenge for the Super Bowl. And, two, as long as the Packers' best players are their oldest players, they're not even going to improve.
The Packers don't have a true playmaker or impact player on their roster at this point. In Pro Football Weekly's post-season poll of NFL executives and scouts, the Packers didn't have one of the top 40 players in the game.
They managed to finish 8-8 last season largely because they had a collection of mostly aging, second- and third-tier playmakers who were still good enough to produce against lesser teams, but not on a consistent basis.
Green, who turned 30 last month, was one of those players. Quarterback Brett Favre, who will turn 38 in October, was another. Donald Driver, 32, and Charles Woodson, 30, were two others.
A change of scenery or recovery from injury or some other factor sometimes allows players in that age range to resurrect their careers for maybe a season or a part of one. But those players are all in decline. For example, even if Woodson had his best season in five years, he's still not the player he was at 24 or 25.
So to become a better team, the Packers have to start replacing those players if not all at once, at least one at a time. And they might as well start now because they're not going to win any Super Bowls next year. And the longer they wait, the better chance there is that the bottom will fall out, although it might anyway when Favre retires.
There was a time when rushing for 1,000 yards in a season was a meritorious achievement. There used to be a 1,000-Yard Club that started in Appleton in 1964 and honored the new 1,000-yard rushers with a gala dinner after each season. In 1977, in the National Football League's 57th season and the year before it expanded to a 16-game schedule, there were a total of 40 inductees in the club.
In 2006, 22 running backs surpassed 1,000 yards. Green ranked 19th.
Of those 22 backs, only three were 30 or older: Tiki Barber and Warrick Dunn were each 31; and Fred Taylor was 30. Thirteen of the 22 were 27 or younger.
Running backs probably have a shorter shelf life than players at any other position in the NFL. By age 28, they've usually started to slide.
Green was a good example. He had his best season in 2003 when he rushed for 1,883 yards at age 26. In 2004, his rushing total plummeted to 1,163 and his average dropped from 5.3 to 4.5 per carry. In 2005, he suffered the first major injury of his career and missed 11 games. In the five he played, he averaged 3.3 per carry and his longest run was 13 yards.
Green recovered from his injury in 2006, but he wasn't the back he was in his prime. Prior to 2005, what made Green one of the best backs in the game was that he could get the tough yards, but also go the distance on any given play. Last year, he broke two runs of more than 20 yards.
Also, let's not lose sight of the team that signed Green. The Houston Texans are a desperate franchise. They haven't had a winning record in five years and have lost credibility with many of their fans after passing on hometown product Vince Young and Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush to draft Mario Williams with the No. 1 pick a year ago. They need to have a winning season just to become relevant.
The smart franchises don't give over-the-hill running backs four-year contracts with $8 million coming in the first year.
The Indianapolis Colts let Edgerrin James walk last year after back-to-back 1,500-yard seasons, replaced him with a late first-round draft pick - Joseph Addai was selected 30th - and won a Super Bowl. The New England Patriots drafted Laurence Maroney 21st last year, got a boost they didn't have with 32-year old Corey Dillon and have since dumped Dillon.
Although Taylor was one of the 30-year old backs to gain 1,000 yards last year, the Jacksonville Jaguars' best runner and most explosive player was rookie Maurice Jones-Drew, who rushed for 941 yards and a 5.7 average after being drafted 60th.
If the Packers don't find in this spring's draft another Addai or Maroney or Jones-Drew, a back who can give them more than Green did last season, they're probably going to finish with a worse record than 8-8. And if they draft a back early and miss completely, they could plummet to another four-win season or worse.
Even if they replace Green with a Jamal Lewis or one of the other stopgaps available in free agency, it's probably not going to make the Packers a better team.
But regardless of the risk, it was time to dump Green and move on if the only way to keep him was to award him a contract that didn't make any sense. And if Thompson drafts a back in either the first or second round this year and that back doesn't pan out, it won't be the end of the world, either.
Thompson allowed two starting guards to get away before the 2005 season, struck out trying to replace them the first time and then hit on two promising prospects a year ago. And, now, the Packers appear to be better off than they would be if they still had Mike Wahle, who tore his labrum last season and underwent major shoulder surgery; and Marco Rivera, who is washed up at 34.
The same thing might happen at running back. Thompson might miss on this year's pick and hit the jackpot next year. Either way, it's a position where the Packers needed a fresh spark to make another jump in the standings or create any hope for the future.