Do we have a bad, good, or great roster in 2023?

[Crazylegs Starks]

Best WR combination was arguably Dowler, Dale and McGee. The Driver, Jordy and Jennings combo was likely 2nd best.

John Jefferson and James Lofton.

Don Hutson and the ball boy.

Driver, Robert Ferguson, Andre Thurman, and Antonio Chatman. The great Taco Wallace couldn't even crack that excellent lineup! /s

[Yoop]

Love is inheriting a better receiver situation then Rodgers has had in 6 years

I mean, I hate to be rude, but this is such a stupid thing to say. And I know you really really want this to be true, but……

We had debatably the best WR in football. And according to NFL GMs, a pair of 10M+ a year #2 caliber WRs.

And what happened as a result? Aaron won 2 MVPs.

We lose 1 or them and Davante. Aaron has a middling year.

We’ve seen him with awesome WRs, he wins MVPs, we’ve seen him with bad WRs, we miss the playoffs.

Isn’t a ton more complicated than that.

We did not have bad WRs in 20/21.

And I’m in the camp that we win the SB in 21 if we add OBJ to that roster.

You might be oversimplifying when you say it “isn’t a ton more complicated than that.”

Aside from any real or perceived dip in the WR talent, the 2022 Rodgers was at a point where his physical talent may finally be slipping. And his mental investment might have possibly been sub-par, at least by his own standards. Add that this QB takes control of the offense on the field possibly more often than anybody admits and the young WRs would’ve naturally struggled with that.

2023 brings a year where the HC must demand that his new QB and the still young WRs/TEs must keep on schedule with the play calling. If they do, there isn’t any reason that they should not do well enough for us to contend for the NFC Nordic title. That is especially since da Bears still suck, the Vikes are sliding downhill, and the Lions still have something to prove.

Funny how we've seen how Rodgers is thought to be all washed up, then for some reason miraculously recovers and becomes a MVP again, and he'll do it again this year with the Jets, last years issues where a supporting cast problem.

[Scott4Pack]

I didn’t say that Rodgers is washed up. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

[Yoop]

I didn’t say that Rodgers is washed up. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

Sorry

[RingoCStarrQB]

Perry Kemp was not bad.

You're right. Perry Kemp was not "bad", he was able to get open and catch passes as a #2 receiver.

[BSA]

Funny how we've seen how Rodgers is thought to be all washed up, then for some reason miraculously recovers and becomes a MVP again, and he'll do it again this year with the Jets, last years issues where a supporting cast problem.

For the older QBs: Father Time takes his toll. A little bit more each year. Then, after an offseason of rehab and recovery, they're minty fresh and back to putting up top performances. As the calendar turns to December/January - the slog of the long season, the lower temperatures and all of the bangs & bruises they've absorbed over 15 + years come calling.

So they're both MVP-level AND diminishing. Just at different points in the long-ass season. Carson Palmer talked about it after he retired, made a lot of sense. Carson said early in a top QBs career, the QB makes the WRs successful. Later in their career and late in a season especially, he said the WRs make the QB look good. Palmer said he would have retired sooner if he didn't have Fitzgerald to lean on.

[Yoop]

I need to post this again, simply because so much of the perceived decline of Rodgers involves the supporting cast, same with the average ranking he received, these stats expose that

Stats show Packers’ receivers let Aaron Rodgers down this season
by Josh Wilson5 months ago
The final stats are in, and they prove the narrative right: Aaron Rodgers didn’t have much help in the receivers department.

When the Green Bay Packers traded Davante Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders last offseason, the primary question left to answer was: Who will Aaron Rodgers throw the ball to? The answer, apparently: No one.

Adams had tallied 900 or more receiving yards for the Packers in four of the past six seasons and was definitively Rodgers’ WR1.

Advanced passing stats for the year, per Pro Football Reference, show just how much Rodgers and the Packers struggled on the passing front, but they help show exactly who was at fault, and it’s not Rodgers. Zach Kruse Tweeted some of the stats. Rodgers was second in on-target percentage (first: Daniel Jones) and second in passes dropped percentage (first: Lamar Jackson; and his 40 total drops were at the top of the leaderboard).


It paints a very bleak picture of the weapons Rodgers had and explains why 2022 was his worst raw passing yards year since 2017 when he played just seven games.



Packers receivers didn’t help Aaron Rodgers, but neither did play-calling
The Packers receiving corps and the talent placed around him did him no favors, but the play-calling didn’t either. Despite the lack of talent, the Packers didn’t lean on their run game much, even though it was working.

Rodgers ranked 10th in the NFL in passes attempted and were middle of the league in run plays. Aaron Jones’s rushing attempts increased slightly compared to 2021, but were not close to his 14+ attempts per game in 2019 and 2020.

Early in the season, they refused to deploy Jones in situations where a few easy yards would be important, instead opting to pass despite limited resources on that front.

One thing is for certain, if the Packers hope to move forward with Rodgers, it’s key that they fix the unsolved issue of the receiving talent around Rodgers. Clearly, the playbook isn’t up for changing.

[Yoop]

Funny how we've seen how Rodgers is thought to be all washed up, then for some reason miraculously recovers and becomes a MVP again, and he'll do it again this year with the Jets, last years issues where a supporting cast problem.

For the older QBs: Father Time takes his toll. A little bit more each year. Then, after an offseason of rehab and recovery, they're minty fresh and back to putting up top performances. As the calendar turns to December/January - the slog of the long season, the lower temperatures and all of the bangs & bruises they've absorbed over 15 + years come calling.

So they're both MVP-level AND diminishing. Just at different points in the long-ass season. Carson Palmer talked about it after he retired, made a lot of sense. Carson said early in a top QBs career, the QB makes the WRs successful. Later in their career and late in a season especially, he said the WRs make the QB look good. Palmer said he would have retired sooner if he didn't have Fitzgerald to lean on.

good points, I believe that, we saw though how quickly Rodgers was able to build some chemistry with Watson, and Doubs, obviously Adams became to Rodgers what Fitz was to Palmer, imho though, replace those receivers with near like talent and that chemistry can build back pretty quickly, I think the talent level of the receivers determines the success of all QB's.

my last post shows just how on target Rodgers actually was last year and all the concentration drops from the receivers, imo that is what I saw last year, I know there's a lot written to the contrary

[BSA]

a lot written to the contrary

Of course. That's why you gotta be ruthless when curating what you read.
As far as supporting casts - one thing to consider is how/why this offense was built and the underlying philosophy behind it.

The entire genesis of this shift was to create an offense that was soooooo QB- friendly, that you could still win with an aging John Elway or even a fledgling Brock Purdy. They simply looked at the supply/demand curve for franchise QBs and said: the way to win long term is to design an offense that doesn't require you to have one of the Dynamic Dozen elite QBs in the league at any given moment.

Given that, I'd say:
There was plenty of talent at the skill positions for the 2022 offense to function at a high level last year. And at times it did
When any offense doesn't perform, there's at least a dozen reasons why. Its never one or the other. Its both + more.
There's plenty of talent at the skills to play winning offense in 2023 as well.

And if they don't perform, we'll all be in here talking about the many reasons why - and none of them will have anything to do with Aaron Rodgers.

How cool is that ?

[TheSkeptic]

I don't think any of us can blame the play calling on MLF. We have no idea how often AR changed the called run play and threw it out of bounds or where the receiver could not reliably catch it.

[BSA]

Found this one today- from Sharp Football

" Last season, Green Bay led the league in the rate of plays in 12 personnel (29.8% !), but the top two tight ends, Marcedes Lewis and Robert Tonyan, are no longer on the roster.

Enter Musgrave and Kraft

MLF wants to put a heavy offense on the field in hopes the defense matches with base or heavy personnel.
They also drafted AJ Dillon to force defenses to play heavy personnel. Sometimes that chases the DC out of Cover 2 calls, pushing him to walk a Safety into the box- either to cover a TE or to stymie the run. All of those tactics make it easier to throw the football on early downs and stay ahead of the chains.

[Yoop]

Found this one today- from Sharp Football

" Last season, Green Bay led the league in the rate of plays in 12 personnel (29.8% !), but the top two tight ends, Marcedes Lewis and Robert Tonyan, are no longer on the roster.

Enter Musgrave and Kraft

MLF wants to put a heavy offense on the field in hopes the defense matches with base or heavy personnel.
They also drafted AJ Dillon to force defenses to play heavy personnel. Sometimes that chases the DC out of Cover 2 calls, pushing him to walk a Safety into the box- either to cover a TE or to stymie the run. All of those tactics make it easier to throw the football on early downs and stay ahead of the chains.

to me Musgrave is a Mercedes Lewis clone, with young legs, gotta Love the thought of 2 young athletic TE's in Lafleurs offense, the ability to run with 2 blocking able TE's that can also be a factor in PA passing will add a new dimension to it, course those blocking skills might take a year or two to develop fully.

[RingoCStarrQB]

Found this one today- from Sharp Football

" Last season, Green Bay led the league in the rate of plays in 12 personnel (29.8% !), but the top two tight ends, Marcedes Lewis and Robert Tonyan, are no longer on the roster.

Enter Musgrave and Kraft

MLF wants to put a heavy offense on the field in hopes the defense matches with base or heavy personnel.
They also drafted AJ Dillon to force defenses to play heavy personnel. Sometimes that chases the DC out of Cover 2 calls, pushing him to walk a Safety into the box- either to cover a TE or to stymie the run. All of those tactics make it easier to throw the football on early downs and stay ahead of the chains.

All of this intellectual scheming should yield no less than 12 wins against this wimpy schedule. Does LaCoach even have the words SMASH MOUTH or POUND THE ROCK in his vocabulary? I doubt it.

[Yoop]

Found this one today- from Sharp Football

" Last season, Green Bay led the league in the rate of plays in 12 personnel (29.8% !), but the top two tight ends, Marcedes Lewis and Robert Tonyan, are no longer on the roster.

Enter Musgrave and Kraft

MLF wants to put a heavy offense on the field in hopes the defense matches with base or heavy personnel.
They also drafted AJ Dillon to force defenses to play heavy personnel. Sometimes that chases the DC out of Cover 2 calls, pushing him to walk a Safety into the box- either to cover a TE or to stymie the run. All of those tactics make it easier to throw the football on early downs and stay ahead of the chains.

All of this intellectual scheming should yield no less than 12 wins against this wimpy schedule. Does LaCoach even have the words SMASH MOUTH or POUND THE ROCK in his vocabulary? I doubt it.

Doubt seems to be main stream belief these days concerning almost everything, doubt has now replaced what use to be optimistic America and that leads to a decline in expectations, which leads to a acceptance of mediocrity, geesh it's like the Packers of the 70's and 80's revisited

maybe reservation concerning outcomes with Lafleur is less demeaning, why so many think that Rodgers was running this offense baffles me, what we've seen is so different then when McCarthy was coach, and to think Rodgers audibled out of more run plays then in the 3 prior seasons is debatable, heck prior to Lafleur and Rodgers complained plenty that we where not running enough, just doesn't jive.

[APB]

A survey of ~1100 Packer fans about the expectations for this year, their opponents, and other team/individual player expectations. Seems pretty much on par with what we've discussed here. Some high on Packers, some low, but most expect an 8-10 win season while competing for a division/wild card spot in the playoffs.

https://cheeseheadtv.com/blog/survey-re ... um=twitter

(More results and analysis at the linked address)

[Labrev]

Hope's spring is internal.

[CWIMM]

A survey of ~1100 Packer fans about the expectations for this year, their opponents, and other team/individual player expectations. Seems pretty much on par with what we've discussed here. Some high on Packers, some low, but most expect an 8-10 win season while competing for a division/wild card spot in the playoffs.

It's interesting there's that much optimism about the Packers entering this season. I believe they will end up being closer to drafting first overall than making the playoffs.

[Pugger]

A survey of ~1100 Packer fans about the expectations for this year, their opponents, and other team/individual player expectations. Seems pretty much on par with what we've discussed here. Some high on Packers, some low, but most expect an 8-10 win season while competing for a division/wild card spot in the playoffs.

https://cheeseheadtv.com/blog/survey-re ... um=twitter

(More results and analysis at the linked address)

I'll be pleasantly shocked if we win more than 7 games this year. I have a feeling it will be up and down. IMO if we see steady improvement week with Love to week this season will be a success. Remember, in Rodgers' first season starting we went 6-10.

[Cdragon]

A survey of ~1100 Packer fans about the expectations for this year, their opponents, and other team/individual player expectations. Seems pretty much on par with what we've discussed here. Some high on Packers, some low, but most expect an 8-10 win season while competing for a division/wild card spot in the playoffs.

https://cheeseheadtv.com/blog/survey-re ... um=twitter

(More results and analysis at the linked address)

I'll be pleasantly shocked if we win more than 7 games this year. I have a feeling it will be up and down. IMO if we see steady improvement week with Love to week this season will be a success. Remember, in Rodgers' first season starting we went 6-10.

This isn't exactly the spot for these posts. Some mod should slide them over to the expectations thread.

[Pugger]

A survey of ~1100 Packer fans about the expectations for this year, their opponents, and other team/individual player expectations. Seems pretty much on par with what we've discussed here. Some high on Packers, some low, but most expect an 8-10 win season while competing for a division/wild card spot in the playoffs.

https://cheeseheadtv.com/blog/survey-re ... um=twitter

(More results and analysis at the linked address)

I'll be pleasantly shocked if we win more than 7 games this year. I have a feeling it will be up and down. IMO if we see steady improvement week with Love to week this season will be a success. Remember, in Rodgers' first season starting we went 6-10.

This isn't exactly the spot for these posts. Some mod should slide them over to the expectations thread.