General Packers News 2020

[NCF]

Bulaga, Starks, Zombo, Shields

Four back-ups put us over the top? They made amazing contributions that year, especially in January, but I don't think you can say they put us over the top. We still win if we have Tauscher at RT, Grant at RB, Jones at LB, and Al Harris at CB.

[Christo]

Gutey losing Blake (alright I get that) and then thinking that Kirksey would be an answer, was one of the worst decision i Can imagine. If we look back on the Board at summer discussions, many of us knew Kirksey was a disaster decision even before the season started. Almost like we were prophets.

Do you or anybody else believe the Packers record would be any better if Martinez were still the middle linebacker? I personally don't.

Maybe.

Also maybe win a playoff game with Blake that we won’t win with kirksey.

But MY point is more that even though the answer may not have been Blake (I said I get why we didn’t resign him), my complaint is the whiff that was thinking broken kirksey was going to be an adequate answer.

I didn’t then, I don’t now, and I am surprised the coaching staff doesn’t agree with me yet. They obviously don’t seeing Kamal Martin played in 18% of the snaps Sunday.

OK, say the Packers pay to keep Martinez, can they keep Bak? I know Kirksey has been poor, but the team already has the answer in Martin.
The problem with Martin is Pettine. I know he's going to make mistakes. But then again, Kirksey is making them too.
And all of this talk about a middle linebacker is overlooking the point that the D-line is being out played on a weekly basis. The exception being the Eagles game.

[NCF]

It's not even a valid hypothetical. Better or not, we were never going to keep Blake for what he got paid and thank goodness we didn't. I beat the drum that Kirksey would be an upgrade. Guilty. He hasn't been. I don't think the gap is as big as some of you are making it out to be, but it's clear neither guy was the answer. Back to the drawing board and swing again.

[BF004]

So given we agreed to 5.5 and 6.5 million dollars deal annually with Wagner and Kirksey (12 million annually), would we have been better off signing Blake for 10.25 annually?

Our two have a $14 million cap hit next year, 3.75 million in dead cap to release both, Blake would have $10.25 million cap hit next year to be on roster. Would be $9 million in dead cap to release this offseason, but only $2 after 2021.


Blake with a healthy 76.2 grade this year from PFF.

Kirko at 37.4 and Wagner at a decent 77.8.


I guess I am not sure. I don't think we would have expected Blake to be this good on our defense, but I also think we could expect/hope for some bounce back and play better than he did in 2019.


We've got some good snaps from Wagner, but perhaps with total 20/20 hindsight, sign neither, roll that money forward and resign Linsley.

[Pckfn23]

It's not even a valid hypothetical. Better or not, we were never going to keep Blake for what he got paid and thank goodness we didn't. I beat the drum that Kirksey would be an upgrade. Guilty. He hasn't been. I don't think the gap is as big as some of you are making it out to be, but it's clear neither guy was the answer. Back to the drawing board and swing again.

The performance gap is wide, very wide. Martinez is playing very well with the Giants, Kirksey is playing poorly for us. Now, is that worth an extra $5.875 in cap space? Maybe.

[NCF]

We've got some good snaps from Wagner, but perhaps with total 20/20 hindsight, sign neither, roll that money forward and resign Linsley.

That's the thing with these mid-level signings. They may pay off big, they may not. I think each signing was smart but yeah, this team building thing is much easier to do in hindsight.

[NCF]

It's not even a valid hypothetical. Better or not, we were never going to keep Blake for what he got paid and thank goodness we didn't. I beat the drum that Kirksey would be an upgrade. Guilty. He hasn't been. I don't think the gap is as big as some of you are making it out to be, but it's clear neither guy was the answer. Back to the drawing board and swing again.

The performance gap is wide, very wide. Martinez is playing very well with the Giants, Kirksey is playing poorly for us. Now, is that worth an extra $5.875 in cap space? Maybe.

But you also have to ask your self if Martinez would still be playing as well in THIS scheme. That seems to be the issue. And with the swing and the miss on Oren Burks, I'd sure hope if Pettine is still going to be here next year that he can get on the same page with the scouting department about what the hell we actually need at that position to be effective.

[Drj820]

Do you or anybody else believe the Packers record would be any better if Martinez were still the middle linebacker? I personally don't.

Maybe.

Also maybe win a playoff game with Blake that we won’t win with kirksey.

But MY point is more that even though the answer may not have been Blake (I said I get why we didn’t resign him), my complaint is the whiff that was thinking broken kirksey was going to be an adequate answer.

I didn’t then, I don’t now, and I am surprised the coaching staff doesn’t agree with me yet. They obviously don’t seeing Kamal Martin played in 18% of the snaps Sunday.

OK, say the Packers pay to keep Martinez, can they keep Bak? I know Kirksey has been poor, but the team already has the answer in Martin.
The problem with Martin is Pettine. I know he's going to make mistakes. But then again, Kirksey is making them too.
And all of this talk about a middle linebacker is overlooking the point that the D-line is being out played on a weekly basis. The exception being the Eagles game.

I feel you are responding to me as if I’m upset we didn’t keep Blake. Or that im suggesting keeping Blake or signing Kirksey were the only options. I understand not paying Blake, I’m just sending my ammo at kirksey and the decision to keep playing him, and the idea he was ever going to be the answer. Option A for me would have been to draft Queen, at this point the best option I see is to give kamal all of Kirkseys snaps.

[Pckfn23]

It's not even a valid hypothetical. Better or not, we were never going to keep Blake for what he got paid and thank goodness we didn't. I beat the drum that Kirksey would be an upgrade. Guilty. He hasn't been. I don't think the gap is as big as some of you are making it out to be, but it's clear neither guy was the answer. Back to the drawing board and swing again.

The performance gap is wide, very wide. Martinez is playing very well with the Giants, Kirksey is playing poorly for us. Now, is that worth an extra $5.875 in cap space? Maybe.

But you also have to ask your self if Martinez would still be playing as well in THIS scheme. That seems to be the issue. And with the swing and the miss on Oren Burks, I'd sure hope if Pettine is still going to be here next year that he can get on the same page with the scouting department about what the hell we actually need at that position to be effective.

True, 2019 was a down year for him. 2018 was a good year. No idea if he would have bounced back or Pettine would have put him in a better position to bounce back.

[YoHoChecko]

Ok, so here's my assessment of what's going on here (with the LBs on the team, generally). Someone with better Xs and Os knowledge (like 23, but all are welcome), tell me if I'm getting this mostly right.

Pettine got his hands on Z and Preston (and Gary) and was excited about their playmaking ability. He decided to feature those guys and give them a great deal of freedom.

The tradeoff here is that on the plus side, they were getting crazy pressure and our pass defense was greatly benefitted. Both players had career years because Pettine set them up to succeed.

But on the downside is that they weren't given specific responsibilities in the run game often enough, and that was exploited; and that the lack of specific responsibilities meant that the ILB had to react off of them while also reading the defense, and required an athletic LB who has the instincts and natural feel to make those reactions, but also the athletic ability to make up for gaps that arise due to that lack of set responsibilities.

In short, Pettine sought to maximize the greater talents of the Smiths at the expense of the edge running game and the maximization of a lesser talent like Martinez. Martinez could have been used better, but in Pettine's eyes, the cost/benefit analysis was that maxing out the Smiths gained him more than maxing out Martinez.


So now Martinez is in NY with his old position coach who knows exactly what he can/can't do and they are maxing him out there and we're sad, but that wasn't likely to be the case here. But meanwhile, the usage of the Smiths and Gary has not led to the same success as last year. So using the Smiths all willy-nilly and giving them more freedom and less run responsibilities puts extra stress on the ILB and leaves us vulnerable to outside rushing, but we're not seeing the upside of maximized EDGE talent in the same way.

So the key is, either we scale back the Smiths and Gary and give them more standardized responsibilities, or we have to find a hyper-instinctive and hyper-athletic ILB to pair with them.

[Yoop]

Ok, so here's my assessment of what's going on here (with the LBs on the team, generally). Someone with better Xs and Os knowledge (like 23, but all are welcome), tell me if I'm getting this mostly right.

Pettine got his hands on Z and Preston (and Gary) and was excited about their playmaking ability. He decided to feature those guys and give them a great deal of freedom.

The tradeoff here is that on the plus side, they were getting crazy pressure and our pass defense was greatly benefitted. Both players had career years because Pettine set them up to succeed.

But on the downside is that they weren't given specific responsibilities in the run game often enough, and that was exploited; and that the lack of specific responsibilities meant that the ILB had to react off of them while also reading the defense, and required an athletic LB who has the instincts and natural feel to make those reactions, but also the athletic ability to make up for gaps that arise due to that lack of set responsibilities.

In short, Pettine sought to maximize the greater talents of the Smiths at the expense of the edge running game and the maximization of a lesser talent like Martinez. Martinez could have been used better, but in Pettine's eyes, the cost/benefit analysis was that maxing out the Smiths gained him more than maxing out Martinez.


So now Martinez is in NY with his old position coach who knows exactly what he can/can't do and they are maxing him out there and we're sad, but that wasn't likely to be the case here. But meanwhile, the usage of the Smiths and Gary has not led to the same success as last year. So using the Smiths all willy-nilly and giving them more freedom and less run responsibilities puts extra stress on the ILB and leaves us vulnerable to outside rushing, but we're not seeing the upside of maximized EDGE talent in the same way.

So the key is, either we scale back the Smiths and Gary and give them more standardized responsibilities, or we have to find a hyper-instinctive and hyper-athletic ILB to pair with them.

Ya, I think that says it all Yoho, nice explanation.

I just know that if your edge rushers goal is to get pass pressure they will suffer to contain the edge unless all they do is wrap the edge, any inside counter will leave edge contain to someone else, and to me that seems like the issue, Pettine has them dialing it back, or did for most of the year and we now have about 1/3 the pressures of last season at this time, sure we get sacks and hits, but to often we give Qb's far to much time to find a receiver, and obviously eventually someone will get open.

I'am convinced the cure obviously is a excellent ILB, or another Clark type DT that can create inside pass rush and still handle doubles and stop the run, probably much easier to get the lber.

I think about what will provide the best bang for the buck, asking the Smiths to play the edge or rush the QB, that is a easy one for me, so that leaves us with getting the DT, which we need anyway, or hoping one of Martin or Barnes develops the skill needed, I know we've only seen a little of each, so it's hard to evaluate that now.
IMO we need to turn the dogs lose, let the Smiths do what we paid them to do, unless teams are trying to burn clock and we absolutely know it's going to be a run play, and we need to find out how good these two youngsters can be, Kirksey looks so slow, I liked the little I saw of Martin, but he was yanked for Barnes, that young safety hybrid looked good to, it would be nice to know at seasons end if we need to spend a high pick on a LBer.

just to clarify, I considered Gary starter ready last year, he just was not as ready as either Smith, my issues with the Gary pick had less to do with talent as it did position.

to me it's always been harder to build a winning type defense then offense, specially when you already have the QB, thats why a RB or WR can actually get you over the top, I think the top 7 or 8 last year have over 500 yrds, Jefferson just went over a 1000 yrds, now his team isn't helping him gain any recognition, and playing with a RB like Cook obviously will over shadow most players, my point though, the right fit and a rookie can surely help add to the win column.

ranting.....

[Christo]

Maybe.

Also maybe win a playoff game with Blake that we won’t win with kirksey.

But MY point is more that even though the answer may not have been Blake (I said I get why we didn’t resign him), my complaint is the whiff that was thinking broken kirksey was going to be an adequate answer.

I didn’t then, I don’t now, and I am surprised the coaching staff doesn’t agree with me yet. They obviously don’t seeing Kamal Martin played in 18% of the snaps Sunday.

OK, say the Packers pay to keep Martinez, can they keep Bak? I know Kirksey has been poor, but the team already has the answer in Martin.
The problem with Martin is Pettine. I know he's going to make mistakes. But then again, Kirksey is making them too.
And all of this talk about a middle linebacker is overlooking the point that the D-line is being out played on a weekly basis. The exception being the Eagles game.

I feel you are responding to me as if I’m upset we didn’t keep Blake. Or that im suggesting keeping Blake or signing Kirksey were the only options. I understand not paying Blake, I’m just sending my ammo at kirksey and the decision to keep playing him, and the idea he was ever going to be the answer. Option A for me would have been to draft Queen, at this point the best option I see is to give kamal all of Kirkseys snaps.

No, I'm not saying you're on the Martinez bandwagon. But unless people were living under a rock, everybody who was paying attention knew he was not going to be resigned. The same thing is going to happen to King. There is only so much money to go around.
I didn't mind the Kirksey signing at the time. It's not as if was an old player. He's proved me wrong.
I'm all in on Martin, unfortunately Pettine isn't.
As for drafting Queen, drafting a LB in the first round hasn't happened since AJ hawk, it's something the Packers just won't do again.
P.S. I was not in favor of drafting Queen. He may turn out to be a great player. The guy didn't do much until the latter half of the season and he was on a team loaded with stud players.
I'm always suspect of guys like that.

[Labrev]

The defining play of Martinez's career with us is the long TD he gave up to Kelce last year. He was definitely not worth the contract that he got. Bringing him back would have cost us much better players. We would probably have lost *more* games with him starting.

[Pckfn23]

Interesting, can you explain more on why you believe this is the defining play?

[Labrev]

Interesting, can you explain more on why you believe this is the defining play?

What is there to explain? Go watch for yourself, that was all him...

*edit*
As for why I believe it's defining, the guy was just flat-out bad in coverage. It's easy to be a prisoner-of-the-moment seeing Kirksey, who also is not good at it, and feel like anything else would be better (especially something familiar). It's not rational, though, just emotionally-charged thinking.

[Pckfn23]

Interesting, can you explain more on why you believe this is the defining play?

What is there to explain? Go watch for yourself, that was all him...

*edit*
As for why I believe it's defining (please wait)

I don't believe it is all on him at all. He is watching the RB out of the backfield and never once glances at Kelce. I believe that was the CB's fault who should have had deep 1/2 or deep 1/3. It was definitely zone and you would never put an ILB as a deep half or third player. Martinez is the only ILB in the game with a RB in the backfield. His eyes have to be there to defend the run. There is just no way he can have the TE there.

Was he a good coverage linebacker? No, but he was ok. He wasn't necessarily a liability. He was darn good run defender. 2019 was definitely a down year, whether that be scheme or him.

[BSA]

this team building thing is much easier to do in hindsight.

that's just beautiful, thx

[BSA]

We've got some good snaps from Wagner, but perhaps with total 20/20 hindsight, sign neither, roll that money forward and resign Linsley.

Not sure this team is 10-3 without somebody to handle the 461 snaps Wagner has contributed so far. No good options on roster and few in FA, so I think that even with hindsight, Wagner was a worthy signing for the 2020 Packers. At Center, we have Lucas Patrick + Elgton Jenkins along with Hansen in development behind Linsley. The depth chart at OT is abysmal by comparison

[Yoop]

So given we agreed to 5.5 and 6.5 million dollars deal annually with Wagner and Kirksey (12 million annually), would we have been better off signing Blake for 10.25 annually?

Our two have a $14 million cap hit next year, 3.75 million in dead cap to release both, Blake would have $10.25 million cap hit next year to be on roster. Would be $9 million in dead cap to release this offseason, but only $2 after 2021.


Blake with a healthy 76.2 grade this year from PFF.

Kirko at 37.4 and Wagner at a decent 77.8.


I guess I am not sure. I don't think we would have expected Blake to be this good on our defense, but I also think we could expect/hope for some bounce back and play better than he did in 2019.


We've got some good snaps from Wagner, but perhaps with total 20/20 hindsight, sign neither, roll that money forward and resign Linsley.

I don't think Blake was the problem, our scheme seems focused on having our MLBer defend the interior zone while our Hybrid mans up on the TE, thus requiring the MLBer to concentrate on the RB or a pass within his box, I think we allowed Marty to roam more in 018, he has 5 or so Pds so far this year, and 3rd in the league in tackles.

not sure why people are not impressed with Queens rookie year, he's got 90 tackles and 2 PD's, we don't even have a player with over 75 tackles, I think savage is the highest , Queen would be a vast improvement over anyone we have, and he has the range to play on a Island, Marty rarely showed that ability.

[paco]

Lots info. I'm happy about having Price around again.