Barnett Contract Done

[Bretsky]

The Packers OL was better than the Bears last year ?

This year they will be. We started 3 rookies..

I truly hope you are right

[Partial]

Trades don't count as UFA pick ups and I count 3 or 4 starters from the UFA market there.

Hillenmeyer was a waiver pickup like you said so that isnt' quite like paying on the UFA market

Regardless, 3 or 4 is more than the usual team. Nice example but most of those guys were backup depth or didn't fit the criteria.

I believe there are eight starters in that group if I'm not mistaken.

New England also had several key, but not expensive free agents when they had their run.

Denver and New England are doing the anti TT this year with free agency and trades; it will be interesting to see if either succeeds.

B

New England will succeed because they had very few holes. Now they are solid and deep. Also, they didn't overpay.

New England paid the market value this year that many use as an excuse for TT not having to sign the key players. If they didn't overpay than there are a lot of teams in free agency that didn't overpay this year.

Adalius Thomas took 3 million less than Clements to play in NE 'cause he wanted to stay on the EC. He could have gotten way more, and I am sure he was offered 9 mil/year by San Fran. He took 7 mil a year for a guaranteed deal.

[Bretsky]

I was thinking of the Donte Stallworth deal; you are right on the Thomas deal

[Partial]

Free agency is good and nice. I have no problems with it. But I think its kind of stupid also, because you are never going to get anything beyond a solid player.

And solid players get you to .500 at best.

I would rather draft guys to fill those spots for less money and hopefully strike gold on a unproven commodity (see Marques Colston) versus paying someone who we already know what they can do(not enough for their team to warrant resigning them)

[HarveyWallbangers]

From JSO:

Because much of Barnett's 2007 money won't be delivered in a signing bonus, the Packers were able to eat up a considerable amount of their $21 million salary-cap surplus. They are now thought to be about $14 million below the cap.

And as a result of sewing up so many starters, they face an off-season in 2008 where defensive tackle Corey Williams is the only player of any significance who will be an unrestricted free agent. The others are players who aren't even guaranteed of making the team this year.

[Bretsky]

From JSO:

Because much of Barnett's 2007 money won't be delivered in a signing bonus, the Packers were able to eat up a considerable amount of their $21 million salary-cap surplus. They are now thought to be about $14 million below the cap.

And as a result of sewing up so many starters, they face an off-season in 2008 where defensive tackle Corey Williams is the only player of any significance who will be an unrestricted free agent. The others are players who aren't even guaranteed of making the team this year.

Sign him now and frontload it to 07 as well

[cpk1994]

Brett will be hard to reproduce. Great QBs don't come along very often. Just look at some of the guys we started over the years. I can understand TT's point in building for the long term but don't know if we will have the QB to get us to the SB.

If Wrecks Grossman can get to a Super Bowl, finding another QB to lead the Pack there isn't as hard as some make it out to be.

[b bulldog]

Not trying to bash Brett at all here but he is an old QB who won't play much longer. I like the fact that TT isn't trying to make moves so Brett can try to make a legit run in the NFC only to get smashed by a AFC team in the Super Bowl. We are farther away than most people think.

[retailguy]

RG,

2001 NE is a bad example, I think. Not one of those guys, even Vrabel, were high profile FAs. Vrabel was a backup for 4 years in Pittsburgh. Obviously, your lists include street or rookie FAs because it includes guys like Adam Vinatieri--who was with NE his whole career, but wasn't drafted.

Disagree. NE signed the type of players that GB should benefit from. Justin Griffith is an example.

NE was not expected to win in 2001. They were just trying to improve and caught lightning in a bottle and got damn lucky.

Free Agents could have helped this team to compete. That's my point.

Everyone thinks I want GB to look like Washington. I don't want that. I just want guys in here who are better than what we have.

[Partial]

RG,

2001 NE is a bad example, I think. Not one of those guys, even Vrabel, were high profile FAs. Vrabel was a backup for 4 years in Pittsburgh. Obviously, your lists include street or rookie FAs because it includes guys like Adam Vinatieri--who was with NE his whole career, but wasn't drafted.

Disagree. NE signed the type of players that GB should benefit from. Justin Griffith is an example.

NE was not expected to win in 2001. They were just trying to improve and caught lightning in a bottle and got damn lucky.

Free Agents could have helped this team to compete. That's my point.

Everyone thinks I want GB to look like Washington. I don't want that. I just want guys in here who are better than what we have.

Yeah, they happened to pull the a hall-of-famer out of the 6th round of the draft who was the best qb in the league even as a rookie.

I'm sorry, but that team with Drew Bledsoe doesn't advance out of the first round of the playoffs if even get that far.

[HarveyWallbangers]

NE was not expected to win in 2001. They were just trying to improve and caught lightning in a bottle and got damn lucky.

Free Agents could have helped this team to compete. That's my point.

Everyone thinks I want GB to look like Washington. I don't want that. I just want guys in here who are better than what we have.

Most of the guys you listed were street or rookie FAs. Name the FAs they signed that got more than $1M/year. Personally, I'd much rather have the team do what Thompson has done. He tried the cheap FA route the last two years and it got him the Matt O'Dwyers and Marquand Manuels. How did that work? It usually doesn't.

[Bretsky]

NE was not expected to win in 2001. They were just trying to improve and caught lightning in a bottle and got damn lucky.

Free Agents could have helped this team to compete. That's my point.

Everyone thinks I want GB to look like Washington. I don't want that. I just want guys in here who are better than what we have.

Most of the guys you listed were street or rookie FAs. Name the FAs they signed that got more than $1M/year. Personally, I'd much rather have the team do what Thompson has done. He tried the cheap FA route the last two years and it got him the Matt O'Dwyers and Marquand Manuels. How did that work? It usually doesn't.

Actually if you look at last year I'd say he signed two free agents for legit money and went the cheap FA route with the other two.

The two that worked were the ones he spent good money on.

[Partial]

I would agree with that Bretsky.

Those were fine signings. However, how many more positions are you satisifed with only being solid? At some point if we expect a championship we need to add someone spectacular. And you do that through the draft, not FA.

[Bretsky]

I would agree with that Bretsky.

Those were fine signings. However, how many more positions are you satisifed with only being solid? At some point if we expect a championship we need to add someone spectacular. And you do that through the draft, not FA.

It's going to be awefully hard to get something spectacular in free agency. I completely agree that you do that through the draft, and last year TT did that well. I don't think it hurts though, to get solid players where we are lacking them via free agency. He might still do some of that if he doesn't frontload another contract since he still has cap room he will eventually use. There are a lot of ways to get there and there is no exact route; I'm just more impatient than most in here and certainly TT.

[Partial]

I would agree with that Bretsky.

Those were fine signings. However, how many more positions are you satisifed with only being solid? At some point if we expect a championship we need to add someone spectacular. And you do that through the draft, not FA.

It's going to be awefully hard to get something spectacular in free agency. I completely agree that you do that through the draft, and last year TT did that well. I don't think it hurts though, to get solid players where we are lacking them via free agency. He might still do some of that if he doesn't frontload another contract since he still has cap room he will eventually use. There are a lot of ways to get there and there is no exact route; I'm just more impatient than most in here and certainly TT.

TT has proved to have incredible patience. That is for sure.