This year is Super Bowl or Bust; no good reason from what I can see to not bring him back for one more year and let him leave in style unless TWT thinks we can win a Super Bowl w/o Josh Sitton
Let the results speak for themselves
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I don't much like Lane Taylor either. About the only thing you can say about him his he is better than Barclay. I don't much like Bakhtiari either - better than his first year, but not up to the standard of a good NFL O Lineman. None of them are remotely close to star-quality, and that includes Sitton.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, almost every time our all world QB drops back, he is running for his life. Fortunately, he does that extremely well and hits his targets like nobody else. No thanks to the O Line, though. Run blocking hasn't IMO been a helluva lot better either, especially when they need to just line up and push people back rather than hitting them by surprise when the D is geared for the passing game. I think THAT scenario had a lot to do with McCarthy saying "some positions are more important than others ....." and the team letting Sitton go instead of negotiating a big contract extension for him.
I guess that still doesn't explain cutting Sitton instead of squeezing one more year out of his old contract. Maybe he hit the team with a hold out threat a week before the season was to start, who knows.
These two statements considered in light of the Packers history dealing with starters and older players nearing the ends of their contracts have me convinced that things we are unaware of or do not fully appreciate caused the release of Sitton in the way it happened.
Yet, it is required. The Packers have spent more than the basic salary cap every year for the last 4 or 5 years. Their "carryover" cap dollars from the previous year has been declining every year.
This is the current state of the NFL generally, not just the Packers. Fewer and fewer contracts are using up increasing proportions of the salary cap, requiring that a substantial part of the roster be filled with salary controlled players on their first contracts. The union might want to reconsider the veteran salary cap if they want more veterans in the league.
Going into 2015 I wouldn't have predicted that Bakhtiari would get an elite LT type of contract. Decent, but not special. Now, I'm not sure. Apparently he was absolutely dominating in one on one drills in camp. I have also read that he has quietly overcome the two limitations he had coming out of college, size and strength. He was under 300 lbs at the combine, and even less than that in college. He is listed at 310 now, but I have read he is actually at closer to 320, with a lot of added muscle since his rookie year. One article mentioned he was ready for a breakout type of year last year, but he fought injuries all year right from training camp. He was even questionable for game one and never was that healthy at anytime in 2015.
This will be an interesting season for Bakhtiari.
Some data and an argument that the League is getting younger, that it might have nothing to do with it being worse or better, and that the culprit looks like the 2007 CBA not the 2011 version.
http://www.footballperspective.com/y...tting-younger/
That's my recollection as well - there was no chance of keeping Wahle, thinking was he was a guard only because of Clifton. Panthers gave him LT money, but I don't think he played there much. Packers thought they could hold onto Riviera, and offered him a good contract, but Jerah threw buckets of money at him. I don't think anyone expected that.
Great read from McGinn on it. Sounds like the Packers just straight up blew it and there hand was forced. This jives with TT's comments earlier this week about Josh being a heck of a football player.
http://www.packersnews.com/story/spo...mbit/90149052/
The article just confirms what most people already understand.
This was an unforced error that cost the Packers the services of one of their better players on the doorstep of a Super Bowl or bust season.
Inexcusable.
There's no putting lipstick on this pig...
Bacteria is a below average LT, now Lane is a well below average LG... what are the odds Rodgers survives the season?? He better have eyes in the back of his head.
And BTW - Sitton's comments about the Packers offense being predictable were entirely accurate.
Did someone who wanted anonymity tell McGinn Ted and Mike screwed up or is Bob speculating along with the rest of us?
He seems to have the fact that Sitton was alerted Saturday morning about trade or cut situation, which apparently was still while trade talks were in early stages.
The Packers, he reasons, expected a frenzy of interest in a good player during a short window. They talked to one team early (week before) and then the Saints were all they had to show for those expectations. But the Packers know the cut market well, they do a good job of both trading during it and getting their preferred players to the PS. Its hard to believe they misjudged this so bad.
So I would estimate he has half the story so far. Still no explanation about why you wait for so long except speculative concern about his attitude if Bach and Tretter each signed deals while he was on team.
Its happened before. Contract years drove Jennings and Finley insane, though somehow the Packers were able to play with them.
The Great Bob McGinn: "The Packers are in the business of winning football games, and whatever they tried to do reeked of incompetence."
Could not agree more.
Source?
Jennings apparently overestimated his worth, as Teddy reportedly offered Jennings $10 M/yr prior to the season of his contract year. But no fucking way Jennings went "insane." Jennings was extremely professional throughout the whole ordeal.
Ditto, J-Mike, who was resigned.
McGinn certainly did a bitch-slap of Pete Dougherty. Dougherty had portrayed the Packer brain trust as cold, calm and cunning, decisively trimming the fat with Vince Lombardi leadership and vision. Dougherty also promoted the "something must have happened" baseless rumor as bonus oral servicing of his bosses, Ted & Mike.
I have come to see that Dougherty was partially right. Probably TT saw Sitton as a declining vet who was near the end in GB. And both McGinn & Dougherty agree that MM might have feared future tension in the locker room.
I think TT miscalculated on all counts. He didn't need to unload Sitton now.
All true, but carry that one step further: Sitton was overrated and pretty mediocre himself - the whole damn O Line was/is. The escapability and passing accuracy of Aaron Rodgers is what camouflages the line's mediocrity, that and the ability to run when defenses are loaded up to stop the pass. How often does the O Line form a decent pocket and keep the QB from having to run for his life? How often does the O Line just push the D back in clear running situations? Virtually never.
I don't know and still haven't heard a plausible explanation for not squeezing one more year of use out of Sitton, but I'm fairly sure life will go on pretty much as usual without him.
Without much evidence (not a criticism), when do you think T2 came to the conclusion that Sitton was declining?
Even McGinn could only find one scout in the last year that said it was obvious from tape.
Reading the commonalities between Dougherty and McGinn, the Packers seem to have decided this very late. Why did they think unloading him would be easy? Did they really think it would be easy?
Can I somehow blame this on Eliot Wolf, who McGinn nods to in the article, but has nothing specific on him?
Ted offered $9mil/year I thought, and Jennings was looking for near Vincent Jackson money. Seeing as how he got $8 mil/year with his FA deal, I agree he did overestimate the market.
But the prior to that deal, Jennings was very demonstrably upset during games even while the offense was humming. His attitude toward reporters also changed, he was no longer the gregarious guy good for a quote. And his sister didn't decide this was all a bad thing on her own.
Patler has a long list of details on the way Jennings made it known he was unhappy.
Finley was even more obvious, during the contract drive he developed the yips trying to catch the ball. He no longer fearlessly tread over the middle and when he contested for the ball, it was with an eye toward finding a safe landing spot rather than securing the ball. The longer the season went on and the longer his results didn't improve, he got worse.
His year was so bad an his market so soft that he did a two year deal in his athletic prime to try to get more money later.
I like Wolf for the fall guy. Young kid, got the world by the balls, full of vim and vigor, the confidence of youth, the self assurance of the millennial, he's a wheeler and dealer. "I got this Mr. Thompson, I got this. We can get a fourth, guaranteed, I got this." Many of us would ask ourselves "Who does he sound like? That sounds familiar." Familiar because he sounds just like Eddie Haskell.
Yup, I'm on board the Eliot Wolf blame train with Ted as the final decision maker ,sitting coach.
That being said, he's a guard, it's survivable.
I also think Sittons back will prevent him from playing out that contract with the Bears.
If they decided Sitton had declined, I suspect it was based on what they saw in practice. Maybe the back is still a problem. Maybe the lighter Sitton was less stout in the running game. I don't think the decision was made from last year's tape or they would have made the trade earlier.
McGinn article was garbage, read like a letter to the editor by the old guy down the road who's pissed off about kids cutting across his lawn. Nothing new/relevant in it, other than expressing the surprise (that many of us have) that there was no trade partner.
Below, from the McGinn article, was a red flag for me:
Why would Packer management do this? Why would any responsible business owner or manager do this...unless you're trying to send a message to the employee in question that he's no longer valued by the organization? If you want to keep the employee and want to keep him performing pending a new contract, you string him along, frankly. Keep talking, but stall. You certainly don't bring other employees into the picture. Very bizarre.Quote:
According to sources, the Packers notified Sitton in mid-August that talks regarding a possible contract extension would be put on the back burner. Sitton, 30, would have to wait while deals were enacted for tackle David Bakhtiari, 25, and center JC Tretter, 25, and possibly guard T.J. Lang, who is to turn 29 on Sept. 20.
Maybe they had already decided they would not be offering Sitton an extension. Maybe they felt it would be somewhat dishonest to "string him along" by making him think they were interested in an extension when they really weren't. As for bringing other players into the picture, those players were already in the picture. Everybody knows Bakhtiari and Tretter will be free agents as well. I think most people understand that the Packers weren't going to be able to keep all of them. Is it really any surprise that Ted Thompson would place a priority on keeping the younger players?
And why NOBODY wanted Sitton enough to trade for him. Even if word got out isn't it damn curious Ted couldn't find a single GM willing to take Josh for a 7th round pick???? You just don't cut a player like Josh for no good reason. IMO this is the real story here.
You miss my point. Yes, we all know the free agent situation and maybe TT had already made the decision not to offer Sitton an extension. But if you want to keep Sitton playing throughout the year, you don't tell him or his agent that you're not going to extend. Honesty is not a factor. Playing your cards close to the vest is. This is a business negotiation not a morality play. And you certainly don't play one employee against another publicly.
It sounds to me like the left hand of management didn't know what the right hand was doing...and/or didn't think this thing through properly.
And why would they do this? It makes no sense. Especially when you're dealing with athletes who have huge egos.
Part of the problem is we don't know exactly what was said to whom. But the version relayed to us by McGinn just strikes me as unusual. As if management's plan was to go in one direction and then emotions took over and an abrupt change of direction led to disaster.