Trade Down Scenarios

[DonHutson]

Nobody thought we needed Nelson either, but I was happy to have him when Jones couldn't stay on the field.

You never know what you're going to need next, but I don't think there's a chance in hell he falls to #9.

The more interesting question is what would Detroit do if Crabtree was far and away the top player on their board? If the new GM has balls, they'd take him, but can you imagine another WR...

[red]

i would be surprised if the lions drafted a wr

they just traded roy williams because they didn't want to very high priced wr's, right?

if they draft crabtree, then once again they would have two very young and very expensive wr's. and crab might even cost more then williams did

[packers11]

https://www.rotoworld.com

There is reportedly a rumor "making the rounds in league circles" that the

Lions are focusing on Mark Sanchez rather than Matthew Stafford.
Sanchez's 2008 numbers were a whole lot better than Stafford's and USC arguably played a tougher schedule than Georgia. Sanchez is also a more consistently accurate passer. His only above average arm strength would be less of a problem in Detroit's dome. It sure looks like the Lions are prepping to draft a QB, and it shouldn't come as a surprise if it's Sanchez.

Source: Profootballtalk.com



This would shake up whole 'mock draft' people had out...

[wist43]

Nobody thought we needed Nelson either, but I was happy to have him when Jones couldn't stay on the field.

You never know what you're going to need next, but I don't think there's a chance in hell he falls to #9.

The more interesting question is what would Detroit do if Crabtree was far and away the top player on their board? If the new GM has balls, they'd take him, but can you imagine another WR...

Then doesn't that mean that the 3rd used to take Jones was wasted??? Harrell's a bust, Nelson was redundant... at some point you've got to hit on positions of need at the top of the draft.

[Fritz]

There was this one dude, Aaron Rodgers, that Thompson took in the first round. He kind of fit a need in 2008. An important need.

[DonHutson]

Nobody thought we needed Nelson either, but I was happy to have him when Jones couldn't stay on the field.

You never know what you're going to need next, but I don't think there's a chance in hell he falls to #9.

Then doesn't that mean that the 3rd used to take Jones was wasted??? Harrell's a bust, Nelson was redundant... at some point you've got to hit on positions of need at the top of the draft.

I wouldn't consider Jones a waste. Driver won't play forever. Jones could be in the mix with Jennings and Nelson for a long time yet.

As for your other points, whether by coincidence or design, Thompson has spread his top picks around pretty well. In the first two rounds, in his four drafts he has taken:

2 QB
1 RB
2 WR (lost 1 due to injury)
1 OL
1 DL
1 LB
2 DB

Whether some position is 'need' or not in any given year, he hasn't really stockpiled any one position at the top of the draft.

[Gunakor]

Nobody thought we needed Nelson either, but I was happy to have him when Jones couldn't stay on the field.

You never know what you're going to need next, but I don't think there's a chance in hell he falls to #9.

The more interesting question is what would Detroit do if Crabtree was far and away the top player on their board? If the new GM has balls, they'd take him, but can you imagine another WR...

Then doesn't that mean that the 3rd used to take Jones was wasted??? Harrell's a bust, Nelson was redundant... at some point you've got to hit on positions of need at the top of the draft.

Isn't it possible that players drafted in the early rounds ARE players drafted at positions of FUTURE need? You know, like Aaron Rodgers being drafted in the first round in 2005 because QB was going to be a position of need in 2008. That meant we didn't have to declare a state of emergency in Green Bay when Favre retired/unretired/was traded. Aaron Rodgers WAS a need pick. Given Driver's age, you could make the same argument for Nelson and Jones. Sooner rather than later, those guys are going to be needs on this offense. I'm glad we took care of those needs before the shit hit the fan. Harrell? While that pick hasn't panned out like Thompson thought it would, DT was absolutely a position of need last season. We might need to look at someone else to fill that need, but it's not because TT didn't do anything at all to address that need. Hawk was the only first round pick TT selected that filled an immediate need, but to say that the other guys TT selected at the top of his drafts weren't selected to fill needs at all is ludicrous. Colledge and Jennings both filled immediate needs being drafted in the second round too, don't forget. TT has made many more need picks at the top of his drafts than you give him credit for.

[wist43]

I'm not arguing to draft for need all the time... If Crabtree fell, I wouldn't bitch - assuming he checks out medically.

That said, you can make the arguement that every player is a need pick if you look 3 years out... it's a 4 year cycle league - rookies can walk after 4 years.

So you finally get production out of Rodgers in 2008... that's 3 years of nothing from a 1st round pick; you let Williams walk with the idea that Harrell will finally offer something in 3 years??? He created a hole on the DL, AND drafted a bust to boot.

Yes, the Colledge pick was at a position of need, but would the team have been better served by having a solid vet in that position???

I have no problem looking to the future... but as I, and many others have been saying, if you are going to contend, eventually you have to fill "that hole" this year; or you have to take a chance and take a bigger swing at a guy who has more upside... TT will likely never do either.

The way TT has things working, he will always be looking to the future... but the future will never be now. You can cite the 13-3 season, but 1) I consider that a fluke, and 2) it was accomplished primarly with Sherman's guys.

As should be pointed out... and it would seem everyone on this board conveniently forgets - to date, TT is a sub .500 GM; and, has certainly drafted his fair share of busts and JAGs. Tough to defend that.

[RashanGary]

As should be pointed out... and it would seem everyone on this board conveniently forgets - to date, TT is a sub .500 GM; and, has certainly drafted his fair share of busts and JAGs. Tough to defend that.

And so has every other GM in the league so it's tough to find merit in this entire paragraph.

As far as his sub .500 record; I love how you use Sherman's guys as a means of minimizing 13-3, but fail to recognize "Sherman's guys" in your main criticism of Thompson (the sub .500 record)

Could it be that you don't like the way Thompson works, don't understand how it is all going to come together and rather than observing, you set out to prove your view, disregarding all contrary evidence and propping up all supporting evidence?

[packers11]

I don't think Crabtree falls past #8 (Jacksonville)

The Jags' current starters are Dennis Northcutt and Mike Walker.

[Fritz]

Okay, Wist. Let me take your challenge.

Here are draft lists for Wolf's first four drafts and Thompson's first four:

Green Bay Packers Draft Choices
2008
Round Pick Overall Name Position School
2 5 36 Jordy Nelson WR Kansas State
2 25 56 Brian Brohm QB Louisville
2 29 60 Patrick Lee CB Auburn
3 28 91 Jermichael Finley TE Texas
4 3 102 Jeremy Thompson DE Wake Forest
4 36 135 Josh Sitton OT Auburn
5 15 150 Breno Giacomini OT Louisville
7 2 209 Matt Flynn QB Louisiana State
7 10 217 Brett Swain WR San Diego State

2007
Round Pick Overall Name Position School
1 16 16 Justin Harrell DT Tennessee
2 31 63 Brandon Jackson RB Nebraska
3 14 78 James Jones WR San Jose State
3 26 89 Aaron Rouse S Virginia Tech
5 20 157 David Clowney WR Virginia Tech
6 17 191 Korey Hall LB Boise State
6 18 192 Desmond Bishop LB California
6 19 193 Mason Crosby K Colorado
7 18 228 Deshawn Wynn RB Florida
7 33 243 Clark Harris TE Rutgers

2006
Round Pick Overall Name Position School
1 5 5 A.J. Hawk LB Ohio State
2 15 47 Daryn Colledge OLB Boise State
2 20 52 Greg Jennings WR Western Michigan
3 3 67 Adul Hodge LB Iowa
3 11 75 Jason Spitz C Louisville
4 7 104 Cory Rodgers WR Texas Christian
4 18 115 Will Blackmon WR Boston College
5 15 148 Ingle Martin QB Furman
5 33 165 Tony Moll OT Nevada
6 14 183 Johnny Jolley DT Texas A&M
6 16 185 Tyrone Culver DB Fresno State
7 45 253 Dave Tollefson DE Northwestern State

2005
Round Pick Overall Name Position School
1 24 24 Aaron Rodgers QB California
2 19 51 Nick Collins S Bethune-Coookman
2 26 58 Terrence Murphy WR Texas A&M
4 14 115 Marviel Underwood S San Diego State
4 24 125 Brady Poppinga LB Brigham Young
5 7 143 Junius Coston C North Carolina A&T
5 31 167 Michael Hawkins CB Oklahoma
6 6 180 Mike Montgomery DT Texas A&M
6 21 195 Craig Bragg WR UCLA
7 31 245 Kurt Campbell CB Albany (N.Y.)
7 32 246 William Whitticker OG Michigan State


1995
Round Pick Overall Name Position School
1 32 32 Craig Newsome DB Arizona State
3 1 65 Darius Holland DT Colorado
3 2 66 William Henderson RB North Carolina
3 9 73 Brian Williams LB USC
3 26 90 Antonio Freeman WR Virginia Tech
4 19 117 Jeff Miller OT Mississippi
5 26 160 Jay Barker QB Alabama
5 36 170 Travis Jervey RB Citadel
6 2 173 Charlie Simmons WR Georgia Tech
7 22 230 Adam Timmerman OG South Dakota State

1994
Round Pick Overall Name Position School
1 16 16 Aaron Taylor OT Notre Dame
3 19 84 LeShon Johnson RB Northern Illinois
4 23 126 Gabe Wilkins DE Gardner-Webb
5 15 146 Terry Mickens WR Florida A&M
5 18 149 Dorsey Levens RB Georgia Tech
6 8 169 Jay Kearney WR West Virginia
6 14 175 Ruffin Hamilton LB Tulane
6 20 181 Bill Schroeder WR Wisconsin-LaCrosse
6 29 190 Paul Duckworth LB Connecticut

1993
Round Pick Overall Name Position School
1 15 15 Wayne Simmons LB Clemson
1 29 29 George Teague DB Alabama
3 25 81 Earl Dotson OT Texas A&I
5 6 118 Mark Brunell QB Washington
5 7 119 James Willis LB Auburn
6 1 141 Doug Evans DB Louisiana Tech
6 12 152 Paul Hutchins OT Western Michigan
6 16 156 Tim Watson DB Howard
7 15 183 Robert Kuberski DE Navy

1992
Round Pick Overall Name Position School
1 5 5 Terrell Buckley DB Florida State
2 6 34 Mark D'Onofrio LB Penn State
3 6 62 Robert Brooks WR South Carolina State
4 19 103 Edgar Bennett RB Florida State
5 7 119 Dexter McNabb RB Florida
5 18 130 Orlando McKay WR Washington
6 17 157 Mark Chmura TE Boston College
7 22 190 Chris Holder WR Tuskegee
9 6 230 Ty Detmer QB Brigham Young
9 16 240 Shazzon Bradley DT Tennessee
10 5 257 Andrew Oberg OT North Carolina
11 7 287 Gabe Mokwuah LB American
12 6 314 Brett Collins LB Washington

Okay. Looks like Wolf drafted some JAGS, too. It also seems to me he did well pretty often - better than he did later in his tenure.

Wolf's record was 38-26, with a playoff record of 4-3 with no Super Bowl appearances. Thompson's is 31-33, with a 1-1 playoff record and no Super Bowl appearances.

[sharpe1027]

As should be pointed out... and it would seem everyone on this board conveniently forgets - to date, TT is a sub .500 GM; and, has certainly drafted his fair share of busts and JAGs. Tough to defend that.

And so has every other GM in the league so it's tough to find merit in this entire paragraph.

As far as his sub .500 record; I love how you use Sherman's guys as a means of minimizing 13-3, but fail to recognize "Sherman's guys" in your main criticism of Thompson (the sub .500 record)

Could it be that you don't like the way Thompson works, don't understand how it is all going to come together and rather than observing, you set out to prove your view, disregarding all contrary evidence and propping up all supporting evidence?

Wist, we've been through this before and yet you still don't get it. When you are proven wrong on one point, you just switch gears and come at it from another angle. I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but all signs point to after-the-fact reasoning to support your conclusion. You won't change your conclusion, instead you'll adjust your reasoning, so it is not really worth discussing any further. Just my opinion.

[Gunakor]

I'm not arguing to draft for need all the time... If Crabtree fell, I wouldn't bitch - assuming he checks out medically.

That said, you can make the arguement that every player is a need pick if you look 3 years out... it's a 4 year cycle league - rookies can walk after 4 years.

So you finally get production out of Rodgers in 2008... that's 3 years of nothing from a 1st round pick; you let Williams walk with the idea that Harrell will finally offer something in 3 years??? He created a hole on the DL, AND drafted a bust to boot.

Yes, the Colledge pick was at a position of need, but would the team have been better served by having a solid vet in that position???

I have no problem looking to the future... but as I, and many others have been saying, if you are going to contend, eventually you have to fill "that hole" this year; or you have to take a chance and take a bigger swing at a guy who has more upside... TT will likely never do either.

The way TT has things working, he will always be looking to the future... but the future will never be now. You can cite the 13-3 season, but 1) I consider that a fluke, and 2) it was accomplished primarly with Sherman's guys.

As should be pointed out... and it would seem everyone on this board conveniently forgets - to date, TT is a sub .500 GM; and, has certainly drafted his fair share of busts and JAGs. Tough to defend that.

Again though, if we had waited until Favre retired to find his replacement, we likely would have ended up with an Alex Smith type QB in the draft or a Trent Dilfer type journeyman FA. The way we did it, drafting a QB well in advance of when we'd actually need him, grants us valuable time to groom him to be a successful football player. It meant that we didn't have scramble for a QB when the need actually arose, because we already had the next guy on our roster and already had time to groom him properly. That's the old school way of doing things, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Harrell and Williams: What did Williams do in 2008 that would convince anyone he'd be any better on our team than Jolly or Cole were? Williams sucks when asked to be a starter. He sucked for Green Bay when he became a starter too. His value was as a backup, and when Cleveland offered him starters money, it's time to cut the cord. Or would you actually have payed that lazy ass the salary he was tagged at, or the money Cleveland ended up paying him? That has to be considered too when evaluating Williams - it wasn't just Harrell being on the roster that influenced that trade.

It was also a 2nd round pick we got in return, which by itself has more value than Williams would have given us.

Colledge: Yes, perhaps in the very short term the team would have been better served by a vet FA rather than a rookie. But, looking twoard the future, Colledge has had time to develop as a starter and has the potential to be a very good lineman for us for a much longer time than any vet FA would have. Your vet FA would be nearing the end of his contract at this time, if not already off the roster. Right now Colledge isn't a whole lot worse than any vet FA would have been at the time he was drafted, but he's yet to hit his prime and he'll be a long time Packer during it. If we'd have just signed a vet FA back when Colledge was drafted, we'd be needing to sign another vet FA soon to replace the old one, and then another in a few years to replace that one. With that kind of inconsistency on the line, how much better do you think our chances at winning a SB would have been?

Keep in mind too that TT did sign a vet FA to play that very position the year before, and look how that turned out.

Give me a name of one GM who hasn't drafted his share of busts. There was a post on here about all of the first round busts from the 2005 draft - that's quite a few GM's that gaffed on that one. Oddly enough, TT isn't one of them on that list. You have to look at this one realistically, and you'll find that nobody's perfect (or even close to perfect) in the draft. You grade it on an average, and compared to the average TT is well above par. If you grade it on perfection, there isn't one quality GM in the leage. Nobody's going to hit on all of their picks, even and especially in the first round.

As far as him being a sub .500 GM, remember that his first season as GM was an injury riddled team that finished 4-12 with guys like Taco Wallace and Carlyle Holiday catching Favre's passes. Guys like Noah Herron lining up in the backfield. Again I ask, who was TT supposed to sign to be our #5 HB that would have made us better than .500 that season? That season was not TT's fault. If Ahman Green and Javon Walker are healthy that whole season (meaning their backups likely would be as well), we are probably 10-6 and in the playoffs. But, gosh, TT has done a remarkable job restocking the depth at those skill positions, hasn't he? Rest assured that what we saw in 2005 will never happen again under TT's watch.

[cheesner]

I'm not arguing to draft for need all the time... If Crabtree fell, I wouldn't bitch - assuming he checks out medically.

That said, you can make the arguement that every player is a need pick if you look 3 years out... it's a 4 year cycle league - rookies can walk after 4 years.

So you finally get production out of Rodgers in 2008... that's 3 years of nothing from a 1st round pick; you let Williams walk with the idea that Harrell will finally offer something in 3 years??? He created a hole on the DL, AND drafted a bust to boot.

Yes, the Colledge pick was at a position of need, but would the team have been better served by having a solid vet in that position???

I have no problem looking to the future... but as I, and many others have been saying, if you are going to contend, eventually you have to fill "that hole" this year; or you have to take a chance and take a bigger swing at a guy who has more upside... TT will likely never do either.

The way TT has things working, he will always be looking to the future... but the future will never be now. You can cite the 13-3 season, but 1) I consider that a fluke, and 2) it was accomplished primarly with Sherman's guys.

As should be pointed out... and it would seem everyone on this board conveniently forgets - to date, TT is a sub .500 GM; and, has certainly drafted his fair share of busts and JAGs. Tough to defend that.

You won't bitch about something TT does? I will believe it when I see it.

How can you possibly pan the Rodgers pick at this point? At the time it was a need because BF did not say if he was coming back until after the draft. That he ended up staying on was not something TT knew for sure. Also, waiting on the bench for 3 years could be the reason (I think it is) that AR has succeeded when 75% of QBs drafted in the first fail.

TT seems to draft the guys with more potential than the player who is more NFL ready. He drafts guys like jennings who have lots of upside, but are a bit raw and will need some time to develop. Using this strategy, you will generally get better players, but you won't see their impact for a few years, but it should be more significant when it comes.

[Lurker64]

Personally I think that the idea that there are two schools of draft philosophy "Best Player Available" and "Draft for need" is really sort of specious. Everybody pretty much agrees on everything but minor details.

The BPA guys will tell you that the reason you don't just draft a QB every pick is that you don't measure "best" so much by the guy's tape or his upside, you measure "best" in terms of "the guy who will help your team the most." But the guy who will help your team the most probably fills a need, doesn't he?

The "Draft for need" guys will tell you that the way you identify "needs" on a team is really by looking at which positions are most upgradeable. As in "what position could you replace a guy with another guy in such a way that it improves the team the most." If you upgrade a position and it doesn't really help the team, you're not really fulfilling any sort of "need". In other words, you're drafting the best player available.

Since every team needs "the best players they can get" and the players that help you the most are generally the best available (by the only useful standards for best), there really isn't a huge difference between the two "camps."

Really, we just like to argue about whether you should "reach" for guy x at position A because we need better players at position A, defined as a "reach" because we don't think that teams drafting after us will take guy x for many picks; or whether we should take "value" in a guy that, though not a position we think is lacking, would be a guy who teams after us would jump for joy if he "slipped" to them.

The fact of the matter though, is that as NFL fans who are varying degrees of casual about it, we don't know our own rosters or the players in the draft well enough to really know what our "needs" are or who the "best players available" are. We guess, and sometimes we're right, but sometimes we're very much not right. Remember, the year we took Harrell, many people were claiming that our biggest need was a WR to be "A weapon for Favre" and we argued about whether we should take Bowe or Meachem." Well, turns out we got no weapon for Favre with that pick (and really no value from our #1 at all), but we still had one of the best offenses in the NFL. Most everybody who argues about football on the internet doesn't know half as much as they think they do. The guys who know really, really know personnel tend to be employed by teams, and the guys who are a couple steps below those guys tend to be employed by the media. The rest of us just have to argue football on the internet for something to do.

All picks are need picks. All picks are BPA picks.