Green Bay Packers News 2023

[BSA]

Right now, our top 7 would be (in no particular order) Bakh, Jenkins, Nijman, Tom, Myers, Runyan... Newman? Hansen? Rhyan? Looks like a draft pick comin'

Sounds about right
Might get lucky with one of Caleb Jones or Rasheed Walker at OT. Newman-Hanson-Rhyan is kinda... not great.

[YoHoChecko]

Might get lucky with one of Caleb Jones or Rasheed Walker at OT.

Definitely hoping for that; And Rhyan shouldn't be ruled out yet, either. We really don't know what's there. Would love to see one of those guys pop. Would also love to safeguard against it with more options. I think the line will be a relatively successful turnaround from last year to this year, honestly.

[APB]

I just…I mean…what is it about replacing Crosby that’s got this FO so scared out of their wits?

[YoHoChecko]

Huh. I dunno what Gutey said to the local guys that he didn't say at the combine, but he talked about Crosby in glowing terms without any indication as to whether or not he'd return, basically indicating that wasn't super known; he's a free agent, right? His contract voided? Maybe he'll be back, maybe not, but I'm not gonna write Aaron Nagler's interpretation in stone.

For Bakh, sure. I think we could move on and save money and we have his replacement in stock, but I never really thought the team would. I think the fact that Bakh is Rodgers' best friend and at least a couple of the teams interested in Rodgers are in need of OL help felt convenient. But again, never seemed realistic.

[BSA]

I just…I mean…what is it about replacing Crosby that’s got this FO so scared out of their wits?

Kinda crazy isn't it.
Someday you'll be free of the torment (Crosby extended his record for consecutive regular-season games played to 258)

Gute talked about Mason's back injury and the plan was to use another kicker on kickoffs to buy some time to heal ( in late December)
This was the 2nd game vs the vikings. Then the guy they brought in, Ramiz Ahmed pulled a groin in warmups and they had to go with Crosby on kickoffs and FGs

The Packers kicked the crap out of the purple frauds, so Crosby had to kickoff 8 times that afternoon. He also hit a FG from 56 yds

https://www.packersnews.com/story/sport ... 770437007/

[BSA]

For Bakh, sure. I think we could move on and save money and we have his replacement in stock, but I never really thought the team would.

Packers are gonna "save" money on Bak's deal and keep him around. ( sort of)
Re-structure means money moved forward... and a rising cap eases the hit a little bit.

Also gives Tom and others at least a year to develop

[YoHoChecko]

In the past three years, Bakhtiari has earned $69 million in cash while playing in 24 games, winding up on IR in parts or all of all three seasons, is turning 32 in September, and regardless of any restructure will be paid another $17.5 million in cash this year.

His contract called for annual roster bonuses making for a very simple restructure, so the idea that they are "working on" a restructure is annoying, meaning that they may be intending on doing more than spreading $9.5 mil over the remaining two years but adding those void years to ensure that we are paying multi-millions of dollars for Bakhtiari after as he turns 35 and is retired or elsewhere.

I'm sick of it. Stick to the deal and let it play out if you want to keep him. If he's too expensive, move on. We're moving past the era of our team where maxing out void year contracts makes sense. We want to be cleaning the cap up for the next era, not saddling ourselves with the price of our failed championship runs with Rodgers all the way into Love's second contract.

[APB]

I'm sick of it. Stick to the deal and let it play out if you want to keep him. If he's too expensive, move on. We're moving past the era of our team where maxing out void year contracts makes sense. We want to be cleaning the cap up for the next era, not saddling ourselves with the price of our failed championship runs with Rodgers all the way into Love's second contract.

[APB]

I just…I mean…what is it about replacing Crosby that’s got this FO so scared out of their wits?

Kinda crazy isn't it.
Someday you'll be free of the torment (Crosby extended his record for consecutive regular-season games played to 258)

Gute talked about Mason's back injury and the plan was to use another kicker on kickoffs to buy some time to heal ( in late December)
This was the 2nd game vs the vikings. Then the guy they brought in, Ramiz Ahmed pulled a groin in warmups and they had to go with Crosby on kickoffs and FGs

The Packers kicked the crap out of the purple frauds, so Crosby had to kickoff 8 times that afternoon. He also hit a FG from 56 yds

https://www.packersnews.com/story/sport ... 770437007/

That 56 yarder was the only 50+ yd FG he made all year (1 of only 4 attempts). His FG% ranked 19th league-wide. Great value for the 6th highest kicker cap charge.

I suppose I should be happy. His 86.2% FG conversion rate was nearly 13% better than 2021 and roughly 5% better than his career average. A career average that puts him in the roughly eleventy-billionth percentile group among NFL kickers.

The Packers are only hurting themselves by retaining the soon-to-be 39 year old. He doesn't have the leg anymore and the Packers know it. They clearly don't trust him on kickoffs or beyond 50 yds, based on his usage, and they're also using up another roster spot that could be used elsewhere with this gameday "kickoff specialist" nonsense.

Just move on already.

[lupedafiasco]

Kenny Clark just got some money moved around too.

[Pckfn23]

[Pckfn23]

More than enough space to move on from Rodgers now.

[BSA]

I'm sick of it.

Sorry to hear. That's not a healthy way to live my main man.

I know you know, but I'm gonna gently remind you anyways: The Packers will continue to make many decisions and there's 100 % chance that some of those decisions are different than what you would choose - but you can't ever let that make you "sick" figuratively or literally.

More unsolicited advice: Stop worrying about the cap. Complete waste of brain power.
Its out of your control. Talk about it all you like, jut don't get mad,sick, upset about it

Same message to all of the rabid Packerfans: You need to learn how to let go - The Packers are not your job.

When you finally embrace that reality - Its the most liberating realization ever.
My only job; the only one I am qualified for... is to watch and enjoy the Green Bay Packers. That's it

What a relief.

[BSA]

I suppose I should be happy.

Yes you should.
It takes just as much energy to make yourself miserable as it does to choose happiness.

[BSA]

We want to be cleaning the cap up for the next era, not saddling ourselves with the price of our failed championship runs with Rodgers all the way into Love's second contract.

Baks deal was always going to get re-done. The Packers and Bak knew it at the time, that's how every team manages the cap. If you're genuinely interested in helping Love succeed - then giving him an elite LT is super important for a variety of reasons. One of which is needing to chip and help a not-elite LT; that limits the playbook, limits the weapons you can deploy and hamstrings the play caller in certain situations.

Andy Reid is one of the best coaches in NFL history and his famous comment in the job interview was:
"Gimme a QB, 2 OTs, 2 corners,2 edges and I'll figure the rest out."

Elite LT play is something every top coach wants and GB already has one in- house who knows the offense and plays at an elite level.
Zach Tom is 2 years away from that level of play IF he's even capable, which is not certain by any means. Same for Nijman

[Crazylegs Starks]

Same message to all of the rabid Packerfans: You need to learn how to let go - The Packers are not your job.

Then why do I have this certificate naming me an owner?

/sarcasm

[YoHoChecko]

Baks deal was always going to get re-done. The Packers and Bak knew it at the time, that's how every team manages the cap. If you're genuinely interested in helping Love succeed - then giving him an elite LT is super important for a variety of reasons. One of which is needing to chip and help a not-elite LT; that limits the playbook, limits the weapons you can deploy and hamstrings the play caller in certain situations.

Andy Reid is one of the best coaches in NFL history and his famous comment in the job interview was:
"Gimme a QB, 2 OTs, 2 corners,2 edges and I'll figure the rest out."

Elite LT play is something every top coach wants and GB already has one in- house who knows the offense and plays at an elite level.
Zach Tom is 2 years away from that level of play IF he's even capable, which is not certain by any means. Same for Nijman

First of all, thanks for the well-wishes on being sick of it; it was a turn of phrase, but I actually did write it in the midst of a stomach flu.

But yes, Bakh's deal was always going to be re-done to a degree on an annual basis. It was structured that way. But what irritates me is that when you see a guy like Aaron Jones (and I totally get the positional value difference) say "I'll take a pay cut to make this work" and a guy like Bakhtiari who has renegotiation conversations each year as a result of his contract structure, he can do nothing for us for a 2-year period and continue to take simple renegotiations, give nothing back, and back us into a cap corner in the coming years.

And I do worry about the cap--not in that I think it's a huge restraint that we can't get around, but that bad contracts = dead money = limited flexibility into the future. I know some have expressed the opinion that dead money doesn't matter anymore because of cap rollover, but that's just not true. Dead cap money is, explicitly, money paid to a player on the presumption of that player lasting longer on the team than he did, or contributing more to the team than he did. Dead cap money is money spent that is not earned. It's no different than buying out a coach's contract.

David Bakhtiari, if we never pay him another dime, has $23 million left on our cap. We've pushed the accounting back for his cash input each year. And now we owe him more than his position's franchise tag number in dead money, alone. The only way to mitigate that cost is if he sticks around longer. What doesn't have an impact, to me, is pushing it back from 2023 to 2025, which is essentially what we're doing by renegotiating.

When you utilize void years and cut contracts short, you create dead money. At some point, you have to pay the piper, or else you are permanently operating on a lower functional salary cap number than teams who are not still paying dead money for contracts that did not pan out. You're not still paying off the accounting for bonuses that were not fully earned.

When you are trying to win a championship in a set window of time, you have incentive to move that money around or back a little. I don't love the strategy; for every Tampa Bay Super Bowl there's a decade of Saints or Packers close calls to point to as a result of these types of maneuvers. But I understood trying to make sure, from 2020-2021 that we had that best chance. And I really thought 2022 would go better.

But if we move on from Rodgers to Love, I am far less concerned about 2023 (current) salary cap space than I am with 2024 and 2025 salary cap space. We did a lot of kicking the can, and prudent team management--the way our team ran itself for years--says you eat your losses and open up opportunities to utilize the full cap quickly, rather than continuing to push those numbers out and increase the dead space.

If it's for a player you plan to keep around, like Kenny Clark, so be it. But Bakhtiari is turning 32 and has 2 years on his deal. Pushing money past the end of that deal is not a reasonable or wise use of 2023 cap. It just isn't. And as someone who got a degree in Sports Business with the intent of working in cap management, I enjoy caring about the cap, and understanding the mechanisms and monitoring the outcomes and consequences of various approaches. It's a fun activity for me, and something I don't know as well as I used to, but I still know better than the average fan. And I think that pushing $9 million more dollars in dead money into a deal that already has $23 million in dead money for a 32 year old player that has struggled mightily with staying healthy is a poor choice.

[YoHoChecko]

Elite LT play is something every top coach wants and GB already has one in- house who knows the offense and plays at an elite level.
Zach Tom is 2 years away from that level of play IF he's even capable, which is not certain by any means. Same for Nijman

Further, I disagree STRONGLY that Zach Tom is "2 years away" from anything. Tom was already a starting-caliber NFL player last year, based on his play. He has elite--and I mean ELITE movement skills. His technique is fairly refined. He needs some strength and experience. He can add the strength in an offseason, easy. The experience he gets while playing. I know the value of elite LT play. But I can't count on Bakhtiari providing that for a season, let alone 2 or 3 seasons. Bakhtiari's health is the type of situation that would make any fan scoff at him if he was a new free agent signing. Yet we're sticking to our guns and giving him guarantees at this stage.

Also, while I totally agree that some people can take a step back in terms of the seeming urgency of Packers issues, telling the whole fan base to let go and remember this isn't their job is a weird thing to post on a message board dedicated entirely to talking about the team. You're here for the same reasons we are. To enjoy Packers community, express our opinions, and digest the opinions of others.

[Madcity_matt]

I'm sick of it.

Sorry to hear. That's not a healthy way to live my main man.

I know you know, but I'm gonna gently remind you anyways: The Packers will continue to make many decisions and there's 100 % chance that some of those decisions are different than what you would choose - but you can't ever let that make you "sick" figuratively or literally.

More unsolicited advice: Stop worrying about the cap. Complete waste of brain power.
Its out of your control. Talk about it all you like, jut don't get mad,sick, upset about it

Same message to all of the rabid Packerfans: You need to learn how to let go - The Packers are not your job.

When you finally embrace that reality - Its the most liberating realization ever.
My only job; the only one I am qualified for... is to watch and enjoy the Green Bay Packers. That's it

What a relief.

Sounds like a fellow Vic Ketchum disciple

[APB]

I'm sick of it.

Sorry to hear. That's not a healthy way to live my main man.

I know you know, but I'm gonna gently remind you anyways: The Packers will continue to make many decisions and there's 100 % chance that some of those decisions are different than what you would choose - but you can't ever let that make you "sick" figuratively or literally.

More unsolicited advice: Stop worrying about the cap. Complete waste of brain power.
Its out of your control. Talk about it all you like, jut don't get mad,sick, upset about it

Same message to all of the rabid Packerfans: You need to learn how to let go - The Packers are not your job.

When you finally embrace that reality - Its the most liberating realization ever.
My only job; the only one I am qualified for... is to watch and enjoy the Green Bay Packers. That's it

What a relief.

Sounds like a fellow Vic Ketchum disciple

THAT'S IT!

I truly appreciate [mention]BSA[/mention]'s contributions and always take the time to read through his posts. There was always a feeling of familiarity to them, though, that I just couldn't put my finger on. I think you nailed it.

Me? I'm more of the Paul Allen type when it comes to fanhood. I take this &%$@ personal...