Green Signs With Texans

[BallHawk]

Some people really need to stop playing the "Green deserved better" card. He's earning more than most people ever make, he's guaranteed to start, and he's reunited with Sherman, etc. It's not like the Packers refused to sign Green for the vet. minimum and now poor Ahman's out of a job and can't feed the family. What about William Henderson? He's as loyal as anyone but since he doesn't perform at the level of Ahman he's forgotten about. It goes both ways...

[The Shadow]

It's better to think with the head - not the heart - when you are trying to win a Super Bowl.
Green won't need a tag day, he'll be fine.

[VegasPackFan]

Even his reputation as a fumbler was more fiction than fact.

That is just simply a bad piece of writing, downplaying a major flaw of Green's. More fact than fiction? Green was traded from Seatlle for exactly that reason - Holmgren tired of the fumbles.

So I am going to miss him too, but it is retarded to say Green didnt have a fumble problem - he flat out did.

[Green Bud Packer]

the green bay packers owed nothing to green and he owed nothing to the pack. he was paid a fair days wage for a full days work. green and the texans thought he was worth more than mr thompson and the packers felt he was worth. once again a sherman affiliated team has overpaid for a free agent. i keep my memories of green and wish him health but i don't beleive he's worth the money houston shelled out for him.great rbs are hard to come by but good backs are a dollar a dozen and at this stage in his career green is just an average back.

[Patler]

From Packersnews.com:

But Green deserved better from the Green Bay Packers.

Deserved better? How did the Packers mistreat him? Green was a victim of timing more than anything else. I think the Packers were very fair with him.

In 2001 he signed a 5 year $18 million contract, which included a 5 million signing bonus. Very good at the time, as the salary cap was only $67 million. However, the real inflationary period for runningbacks came the next several years, so Green was well-paid, but within a year or so was not up with the truely elite RB contracts. Bad timing.

Then, of course, the injury in 2005 really hurt his bargaining power. Even so, I thought the Packers were very fair in the contract they gave him for 2006. Guaranteeing $2 million to a guy coming back from a leg injury that had ended careers of linemen was pretty generous, I thought, Plus, through incentives they gave him the chance to earn even more. They committed to him, and let him prove he could still play. How much would any other team have put on the line for him last year?

All in all he made over $21 million in his 7 years in GB. I thought the Packers were very fair in the two contracts they did sign with him. However, if his timing had been better, he may have made even more.

But to say he deserved better, I think is unfair.

[the_idle_threat]

Even his reputation as a fumbler was more fiction than fact.

That is just simply a bad piece of writing, downplaying a major flaw of Green's. More fact than fiction? Green was traded from Seatlle for exactly that reason - Holmgren tired of the fumbles.

So I am going to miss him too, but it is retarded to say Green didnt have a fumble problem - he flat out did.

Green fumbled a little more than other top backs in his career, but not that much more. If you look at his career stats as compared to other top backs in the last ten years, almost all of them fumble about 4 times a season on average, and many fumble 5 or 6 times in an occasional season. Green fumbled roughly 6 times a season in his prime, and 4 times last season. This puts him a little above the average, but it doesn't necesarily rise to the level of being a major flaw. He just got a reputation because Holmgren was notoriuosly intolerant of fumbling, and so the label was applied when he was traded, and it stuck because the fumbles seemed to come in streaks early in the season.

For some perspective, think about it in comparison to interceptions. Green fumbled an average of 6 times, losing an average of 4, in the 5 seasons from 2000 to 2004. Brett, who I am not picking on here, threw an average of 17 interceptions in that stretch, and all of those were changes of possession. The focus on Green as a "fumbler" is overblown.

[HarveyWallbangers]

That is just simply a bad piece of writing, downplaying a major flaw of Green's. More fact than fiction? Green was traded from Seatlle for exactly that reason - Holmgren tired of the fumbles.

So I am going to miss him too, but it is retarded to say Green didnt have a fumble problem - he flat out did.

His fumble rate was average for the the top RBs. It was better than Jim Taylor. Cold hard facts. It was more fiction than fact. Usually, he fumbled a lot the first 5-6 games in a season and then rarely fumbled the rest of the year. We've already ran the numbers on this several times.

[MJZiggy]

You said what I was thinking Harv. His fumbles came in groups and then he'd get over it for a while.

[VegasPackFan]

He fumbled 7 times two years straight too.

I just think that the fumbles that he lost were at very critrical times in some of those games. So I do remember saying he was a great back, but would cough it up at least 2 or 3 times a season at the very worst time possible and cost a game or two.

[Patler]

On a "per touches" basis, Jamal Lewis fumbles more than Green.
So did Tiki Barber.
Travis Henry fumbles much more frequently than Green.

[HarveyWallbangers]

He averaged 5.4 fumbles/year in his 7 years here. True that he missed more than 1/2 of one season, but he also had several years where he was near the NFL lead in touches. His fumble rate was about average. I compared him to the top 20 RBs in a thread this last offseason, and that's the way it shookdown. Out of the top 20 RBs, I believe he was right around 10th in fumble rate.