Packers PASS on Free Agency--JS

[Charles Woodson]

Re: Packers PASS on Free Agency--JS

Packers take a pass
Team adds just one player during free agency
By BOB McGINN


Thompson said. . "But I'm kind of OK with our guys."

Now that's the kind of talk that gets me fired up!

Go Pack Go, OK in '07 or bust! Kind of.

thats my only problem...
If i knew we were better than i wouldnt care if TT signed any one. Its just that taking a deeper look into our season told me that we arent nearly as good as some people think we are. We are far away, and you need to use all your resources to rebuild.

[Partial]

Re: FA

The NFL is no different structurally and financially today than it has been ever since a hard salary cap and free agency in its present form were started. All that changes is the "number". Sometime it goes up a lot, sometimes less.

However, there is one big factor you have ignored. Teams have gotten much better at managing the cap and keeping their best players. The quality of the available FAs has decreased steadily for years. It is important not to overpay the riff-raff, or you will lose your better players when their contracts are due because you won't have available space to pay them. That is how you manage the cap, by assessing the value of a player to YOUR team, and paying no more than that for him. The value of a player to one team is not the same and may be much different than his value to another team.

Yes, but the problem with your way is who's to say what is over-paying? Woodson was over-paid based on his injury history and age was'nt he? According to your point of view, he should not have been signed. Yet, he proved to be a valuable player last season.

What I'm saying is that the NFL is changing when it comes to what monetary value players have. What you claim to be "over-paying" now will seem less in 2 years or may-be even next year.

Managing the salary cap in the NFL is an art. There has to be balance. You claim that I've ignored this fact. Let me say this again- I'm not advocating signing high priced players with no proven track record. I believe that guys like Hamlin, Grant , Griffith and a healthy Johnson have a proven record of producing. Here, let's settle it this way. If you take into account the salaries that Grant, Griffith and Johnson signed for and add them to the present Packer salary cap, show me what "future damage" that would be done?

Even factor in a reasonable Barnett contract and it still improves this team without risking the future. You have to factor in 2 VERY important facts which make your view-point un-realistic. First off the salary cap will continue to escalate. 2nd, The Packers can afford to spend a little more now because they gain a helluva lotta cash when Favre retires. Surely Rodgers will not get $11 mill a year?

Slightly over 6 mil/yr for a corner isn't overpaying for a good starting corner. It wasn't last year, and everyone that thought we were overpaying was greatly underrating woodson and had a misconception about what corners make.

[Partial]

Re: Cap

Even with my bad math skills, it look's like Grant, Johnson and Griffith would count about 8.5 mill against the cap. Add in the db they signed and it's about 10 mill. Let's add another 2 mill in cause obviously we would have had to pay more than what these guys signed for. That leaves us 9 mill in cap space for 2007. Plenty of cash for re-signing Barnett and having some extra room.

That hardly makes me insane in my FA opinions. It would do no damage to the Packers cap and would have made us a better team. Sadly how much better will have to be opinion for now, until we see how these players contribute this up-coming season.

Free agency is indeed a gamble. I do not dispute that fact. However, I'd rather go to the craps table with a "chance" to win, rather than not play at all............

What about Rookies, Randy, etc? That leaves no cash.

[Charles Woodson]

Re: FA

The NFL is no different structurally and financially today than it has been ever since a hard salary cap and free agency in its present form were started. All that changes is the "number". Sometime it goes up a lot, sometimes less.

However, there is one big factor you have ignored. Teams have gotten much better at managing the cap and keeping their best players. The quality of the available FAs has decreased steadily for years. It is important not to overpay the riff-raff, or you will lose your better players when their contracts are due because you won't have available space to pay them. That is how you manage the cap, by assessing the value of a player to YOUR team, and paying no more than that for him. The value of a player to one team is not the same and may be much different than his value to another team.

Yes, but the problem with your way is who's to say what is over-paying? Woodson was over-paid based on his injury history and age was'nt he? According to your point of view, he should not have been signed. Yet, he proved to be a valuable player last season.

What I'm saying is that the NFL is changing when it comes to what monetary value players have. What you claim to be "over-paying" now will seem less in 2 years or may-be even next year.

Managing the salary cap in the NFL is an art. There has to be balance. You claim that I've ignored this fact. Let me say this again- I'm not advocating signing high priced players with no proven track record. I believe that guys like Hamlin, Grant , Griffith and a healthy Johnson have a proven record of producing. Here, let's settle it this way. If you take into account the salaries that Grant, Griffith and Johnson signed for and add them to the present Packer salary cap, show me what "future damage" that would be done?

Even factor in a reasonable Barnett contract and it still improves this team without risking the future. You have to factor in 2 VERY important facts which make your view-point un-realistic. First off the salary cap will continue to escalate. 2nd, The Packers can afford to spend a little more now because they gain a helluva lotta cash when Favre retires. Surely Rodgers will not get $11 mill a year?

Slightly over 6 mil/yr for a corner isn't overpaying for a good starting corner. It wasn't last year, and everyone that thought we were overpaying was greatly underrating woodson and had a misconception about what corners make.

Yes, i liked the woodson signing last year but i see where packnut is coming from with the woodson deal. Partial alot of people didnt say he was good. i mean the guy hadnt played a full seaon in 2 years? or so. He had a past of being injured and he was gettin up in his age. If he had gotten injured this year everyone would be screaming that this was a horrible signing becuase we over paid him.

[Partial]

My thoughts are the big part of the picture that people around here seem to miss is this:

How many of these players are signing huge, 1 year deals? Hell, how many are signing 3 year deals? You can say "use up every resource you have to compete", but is that resource you're paying really what you want to pay for the next 3-4 years? Do you not think we could develop our own who is better? Personally, I feel like we could easily get a player in the next 2-3 years that will be as good as any player we could have signed in free agency, and we'd have them for:

A. Longer
B. Cheaper
C. They'd be home-grown

[Fritz]

This is the point I would make: because this is free agency "season," so to speak, there seems to be a sense that if teh Packers don't spend, spend, spend now, they'll have all kind os money laying around. The fact is, if TT wants to lock up Barnett and Williams, those negotiations may well drag on into the fall. No, they're not getting twenty mil up front, but if you sign a few free agents like the ones suggested by Packnut, then carve out the money for rookies, then take into account the inevitable IR players who will need to be replaced, you may find yourself in October with less cap room than you'd hoped. No problem - don't front load it, right? Well, that's the kind of thinking that gets teams into "dead" cap money problems. Famously, Sherman did that. You end up with a guy that, three years down the road, is injured or old or just ineffective, yet you still owe him millions. That's why fronting the contract for Weoodson was so smart. He started slow but played well - had a good year. And it's paid for. So if, in a year or two, he becomes ineffective or injured or both, you won't have much, if any, dead cap money.

[RashanGary]

If we bring in 10 rookies, rotate in 30 or 40 street FA's and fringe veterans and develop some of our own guys, we'd be just as likely to find a guy as good as 90% of the FA's out there at a very small fraction of the price. Then we can afford to keep Barnett and Collins/Rodgers/Jennings/Spitz/Colledge/name that guy.......

Thompsons goal is to never lose a really good player like Wahle becuase you signed junk like Joe Johnson.

[RashanGary]

And Pater pretty much summed it up. Most of these guys are junk or just a notch above and they won't really help much anyway.

If TT drafts as well as he thinks he can we'll be strapped against the cap with well priced talent and knocking on the door to SB's every year without Brett Favre.

[retailguy]

This article sums up everything I've been thinking since Free Agency began. With Ted's view on free agency, I just knew all we'd get was some backups. NOTHING wrong with backups. All teams need them, however, we need some starters also.

While I don't think fullback is a critical need, what happened with Griffith illustrates my frustrations perfectly. He can't possibly get a starting fullback cheaper. Obviously he wasn't overly "impressed" with Griffith. I can live with that. I don't like Fords. Plenty of people do. Personal choice works for me. But that leaves me with the question - If not Griffith, then WHO?

We have a need. He's better than what we've got. No bad cap consequences in that deal at all. All the "experts" in these rooms kept saying "We don't know what happened". That was true. We didn't. Well now we do. It WAS money. There wasn't enough of it going Griffith's way. So, now what do we do? Rely on a rookie? Miree?

Ok, I can handle that, but how does that situation IMPROVE the team over what Griffith would have provided? In 2008, maybe, maybe even probably. But what about 2007? Couldn't Griffith have provided a fair priced "stopgap" for a season or two at least? Shouldn't we be trying to win now too? Shouldn't that be an important goal? Doesn't a good leader figure out how to win now, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, trying to build for the future?

You look at FB, TE, WR, RB, Safety, and Special Teams, and say, what's changed? How has the team improved? Could it still happen? Sure. But WHERE? The draft? Summer Cuts? A trade? How likely is that? Even the ardent Thompson supporters have to concede that the odds of that don't closely approach a guarantee. Griffith having a successful season probably has less risk than any of the remaining choices. At least from my perspective. Probably from others perspectives too.

I just can't figure out Ted's plan. It only makes sense that he's building for the future. That's good. I agree with everyone who has said that. I still want to know, WHAT ABOUT NOW? What are we doing to win in 2007? There seems to be no urgency, and no commitment to win in 2007.

Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but so many things have to go right to achieve this, I just can't see it. No one has that kind of luck.

I'm not "anti - Ted". I think the guy has great personnel skills. He, by all appearances has a great track record of finding talent. HOWEVER, there is more to a GM job than that. Hopefully he's learning "on the job". But, he's frustrating the HELL out of me in the process.

[Bretsky]

This article sums up everything I've been thinking since Free Agency began. With Ted's view on free agency, I just knew all we'd get was some backups. NOTHING wrong with backups. All teams need them, however, we need some starters also.

While I don't think fullback is a critical need, what happened with Griffith illustrates my frustrations perfectly. He can't possibly get a starting fullback cheaper. Obviously he wasn't overly "impressed" with Griffith. I can live with that. I don't like Fords. Plenty of people do. Personal choice works for me. But that leaves me with the question - If not Griffith, then WHO?

We have a need. He's better than what we've got. No bad cap consequences in that deal at all. All the "experts" in these rooms kept saying "We don't know what happened". That was true. We didn't. Well now we do. It WAS money. There wasn't enough of it going Griffith's way. So, now what do we do? Rely on a rookie? Miree?

Ok, I can handle that, but how does that situation IMPROVE the team over what Griffith would have provided? In 2008, maybe, maybe even probably. But what about 2007? Couldn't Griffith have provided a fair priced "stopgap" for a season or two at least? Shouldn't we be trying to win now too? Shouldn't that be an important goal? Doesn't a good leader figure out how to win now, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, trying to build for the future?

You look at FB, TE, WR, RB, Safety, and Special Teams, and say, what's changed? How has the team improved? Could it still happen? Sure. But WHERE? The draft? Summer Cuts? A trade? How likely is that? Even the ardent Thompson supporters have to concede that the odds of that don't closely approach a guarantee. Griffith having a successful season probably has less risk than any of the remaining choices. At least from my perspective. Probably from others perspectives too.

I just can't figure out Ted's plan. It only makes sense that he's building for the future. That's good. I agree with everyone who has said that. I still want to know, WHAT ABOUT NOW? What are we doing to win in 2007? There seems to be no urgency, and no commitment to win in 2007.

Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but so many things have to go right to achieve this, I just can't see it. No one has that kind of luck.

I'm not "anti - Ted". I think the guy has great personnel skills. He, by all appearances has a great track record of finding talent. HOWEVER, there is more to a GM job than that. Hopefully he's learning "on the job". But, he's frustrating the HELL out of me in the process.

GREAT POST

[red]

that was a great post RG

[retailguy]

that was a great post RG

Thanks Red, and Bretsky too. But, I was probably too negative.

[Charles Woodson]

that was a great post RG

Thanks Red, and Bretsky too. But, I was probably too negative.

na i couldnt have worded it better myself