Packers Huddle

Yoop wrote: ↑

12 Nov 2021 08:32

TheSkeptic wrote: ↑

12 Nov 2021 08:08

The plain fact is that the Packers got outbid because they don't have the cap room to do something like this. They simply could not match this.

Whether the Packers make the playoffs and how far they go in the playoffs is up to the players they now have and the injury situation and coaching and motivation. There will be no player coming into the team unless it is someone no other team wants.

we first offered the minimum, no one knows whether we upped it or not, but we have 5 mil in the coffers, so I'd expect we might have.

when people use money as a reason for us not signing Beckham it's to defend this FO for not getting it done, but then imo his signing with LA had really nothing to do with chump change money that he was given.

Spot on. We are assuming because he took that deal that it was ONLY because the money was more. It still could have been a list of things. GB could have offered a 500k bonus and maybe some more, maybe they did or maybe they didnt.

Lafleur could have gone over ways he would have been involved, Like McVay allegedly did, and it appears he did not.

This is all to say that the Rams obviously showed they really wanted him...both in word and in deed with the conversations and the money offered. It could have been a top dollar thing for Odell, or it very well could have not been. No one knows, not even the people pretending they know.

To me it seems like this, The Rams showed Odell they really wanted him. They backed that up with a decent monetary offer. We did not seem to put that same full court press on him, and he chose to sign with the team who did.

I might be upset about this if we were talking about a legendary player, but as I have said...I think its 50/50 whether Odell is even available come playoff time. So the Packers Org very well may have made a good decision. We will see come January.

But like you, I dont buy its as simple as "oh he signed with the Rams, they offered more, it must have been all about the money and we had no chance". Thats spin in my opinion.

I think OBJ (and his dad) may feel some more frustration with this choice. Its clear Kupp, Woods, and Higbee are the passing game focus. I doubt that changes significantly. If it does, that is likely to the benefit of the opposing defense. I'd much rather see the Ram focus on getting the ball to OBJ over those other three. I just don't think OBJ is as talented as them from a production standpoint.

That said, I also think OBJ would have been a much better fit in GB's offense. He offers a talent upgrade over our #3 option and arguably our #2.

[mention]Drj820[/mention] I think everyone is in agreement with you.

The monetary contract appears to be a lot of fake numbers. Now it is important to note that Packer legit couldn't compete with that fake number contract as we don't have the available cap to do it, but yes, the Rams and Odell likely had a stronger preference to work with each other than GB and Odell.

Now is that on Beckham's side or GB's side? Who knows.

I don't find it unreasonable if MLF is like, "yeah I'm not changing my offense to spotlight Odell more". The Packers have a lot of mouths to feed as it is.

I think what I am surprised about is how the Rams think they can feed Odell and how Odell is "buying it" based on recent history of Desean Jackson and the Rams having plenty of guys to give the ball in their own right.

That's what surprises me most.

Seeing the Rams contract, I still feel like absolutely no one here understands the offset language that was apparently present in his Browns deal. Regardless, I am fine that this worked out the way it did. As I said from beginning of this thread, I am not even convinced he would have made our WR group better. I certainly would have been excited to give it a shot, but I feel like a minimum deal was warranted for that level of conviction. We'll see what he does in LA, but don't be surprised if it's modest production.

Drj820 wrote: ↑

12 Nov 2021 08:41

Yoop wrote: ↑

12 Nov 2021 08:32

TheSkeptic wrote: ↑

12 Nov 2021 08:08

The plain fact is that the Packers got outbid because they don't have the cap room to do something like this. They simply could not match this.

Whether the Packers make the playoffs and how far they go in the playoffs is up to the players they now have and the injury situation and coaching and motivation. There will be no player coming into the team unless it is someone no other team wants.

we first offered the minimum, no one knows whether we upped it or not, but we have 5 mil in the coffers, so I'd expect we might have.

when people use money as a reason for us not signing Beckham it's to defend this FO for not getting it done, but then imo his signing with LA had really nothing to do with chump change money that he was given.

Spot on. We are assuming because he took that deal that it was ONLY because the money was more. It still could have been a list of things. GB could have offered a 500k bonus and maybe some more, maybe they did or maybe they didnt.

Lafleur could have gone over ways he would have been involved, Like McVay allegedly did, and it appears he did not.

This is all to say that the Rams obviously showed they really wanted him...both in word and in deed with the conversations and the money offered. It could have been a top dollar thing for Odell, or it very well could have not been. No one knows, not even the people pretending they know.

To me it seems like this, The Rams showed Odell they really wanted him. They backed that up with a decent monetary offer. We did not seem to put that same full court press on him, and he chose to sign with the team who did.

I might be upset about this if we were talking about a legendary player, but as I have said...I think its 50/50 whether Odell is even available come playoff time. So the Packers Org very well may have made a good decision. We will see come January.

But like you, I dont buy its as simple as "oh he signed with the Rams, they offered more, it must have been all about the money and we had no chance". Thats spin in my opinion.

the media doesn't know everything, first they said we where his top choice, then the Saints, etc. etc. when as it appears now his first choice went basically un reported, all they had to do was convince him they where serious.

I just get tired of posters here defending our FO no matter what, let there actions defend themselves, we wanted Beckham on our terms, just as we did with Moss and every other quality FA we missed on, just maybe our terms are unrealistic, obviously that should be considered since we've sucked hind boob and lost out deals for what amounts to very little, we missed on march Lynch for a stinking draft pick when he was exactly what we needed

Yoop wrote: ↑

12 Nov 2021 08:53

I just get tired of posters here defending our FO no matter what,

This isn't happening. You are once again creating fake conflict.

NCF wrote: ↑

12 Nov 2021 08:50

Seeing the Rams contract, I still feel like absolutely no one here understands the offset language that was apparently present in his Browns deal. Regardless, I am fine that this worked out the way it did. As I said from beginning of this thread, I am not even convinced he would have made our WR group better. I certainly would have been excited to give it a shot, but I feel like a minimum deal was warranted for that level of conviction. We'll see what he does in LA, but don't be surprised if it's modest production.

And the thing is we never will. I guess it will become apparrent maybe once Spotrac or something does their final 2021 adjustments?

But so much of these contracts are just so unknown. Are contract details given out in full display by the NFL or does the media rely on the agents to divulge this sort of stuff?

It definitely seems like an imperfect practice because the various databases (Spotrac, OTC, Ingalls) always seem to have different accounting and reports of teams cap.

Per Glazer, this was all BS. Odell wanted to go to the Rams even when he was traded to Cleveland. Rams have always been where he was trying to get to. Still, whatever.

paco wrote: ↑

17 Nov 2021 12:14

Per Glazer, this was all BS. Odell wanted to go to the Rams even when he was traded to Cleveland. Rams have always been where he was trying to get to. Still, whatever.

What I always figured.

paco wrote: ↑

17 Nov 2021 12:14

Per Glazer, this was all BS. Odell wanted to go to the Rams even when he was traded to Cleveland. Rams have always been where he was trying to get to. Still, whatever.

Jay Glazer is just clearly a Brian Gutekunst boot licker.

Adam Schefter with yet another insider piece out today claiming OBJ had legitimate interest in going to Green Bay but the Packers refused to budge from their vet minimum offer (plus incentives) for him, according to unnamed sources. The Rams ultimately offered $1.25 mil guaranteed which apparently sealed the deal for OBJ.

Vet minimum is $660,000.

So if I understand Schefter's reporting correctly, OBJ - who has earned over $75 mil career wise thus far and was earning $15.5 mil from the Browns already this season - spurned the Packers for the Rams over a salary differential of ~$600k.



Seems to me either a) Schefter is desperate for click bait on the day the Rams and Packers meet and using the Packers past frugal tendencies employed under a former and now deceased GM to spur those clicks or b) OBJ really is that hyper-sensitive to saving financial face and accepted the highest offer available to satisfy an obviously insatiable appetite for more, more, more.

Well, that or he just wanted to play in LA all along and used the Packers interest to squeeze LA for an additional $600k.

In any case, I am of the opinion that a) Schefter is becoming more and more irrelevant and b) OBJ didn't really want to come to GB at all. You can't tell me $600k was a deal breaker to a guy who has already made over 125x that amount.

JS online has a pay wall so I brought this article, it's a bit long but points out why the Rams are attractive to vet players like OBJ. there has to be a middle ground approach between Thompson and Snead, hopefully we have that guy with Brian Gutekunst

Dougherty: Packers vs. Rams showdown looms as a clash of NFL cultures
Pete Dougherty
Packers News
GREEN BAY - Les Snead is the anti-Ted Thompson.

Thompson took NFL roster building to the farthest end of the NFL’s draft-and-develop spectrum in his 13 years (2005 through 2017) as Green Bay Packers general manger. He rarely saw a trade or free agent he liked.

Snead, the Los Angeles Rams’ GM since 2012, has lived at the other end of that spectrum the last five years. He brings a title-contending team into Lambeau Field this weekend built with an all-in-every-year approach that includes trading away future high draft picks for quarterbacks and star veterans at other positions.

The Packers’ GM, Brian Gutekunst, has proven more open than Thompson to avenues other than the draft – his free-agent haul of Za’Darius Smith, Preston Smith, Adrian Amos and Billy Turner in 2019 has played a huge role in getting the Packers to the NFC championship game the last two years. But it’s almost impossible to imagine Gutekunst, or for that matter any other GM in the league, doing what Snead has in trading away first-round draft picks the last five years.


Unless Snead somehow acquires a first-round pick for either of the next two drafts, he’ll have gone seven years, from 2017 through ’23, without selecting a player in the first round. All but one of those first-rounders was traded for a player, most often a quarterback (Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford) but also a receiver (Brandin Cooks) and the game’s premier cornerback (Jalen Ramsey).

Snead’s recent trade for pass rusher Von Miller was only the latest exercise in the Rams’ philosophy. They acquired a 32-year-old star for a steep price (second- and third-round picks next year) in their push to win a Super Bowl this year with no guarantee he’ll re-sign them in the offseason.

Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford enters the field before a home game Oct. 3 against Arizona.
The Rams are thinking way outside the box, and the rest of the NFL is watching with great interest.

“It’s unique and I applaud them for trying to go about it this way,” said a high-ranking scout for one NFL team. “… I just don’t know if it’s sustainable to do it this way. I guess we’ll find out, they’re going to continue to do it this way it looks like. They’re not slowing down at all. But it’s worked for them.”

Sustainability is the question. The Rams think they’ve found an inefficiency in the NFL player market. Snead will trade prized but unproven assets – high draft picks – for players he’s already seen perform at a high level in the NFL. The Rams always will have future first-round picks, so theoretically they can keep trading them year after year after year.

So Snead last offseason spent two future first-rounders (and a third) to upgrade with Stafford at quarterback, and two first-rounders on Ramsey the year before. The two picks he spent on Miller weren’t first-rounders, but they’re top 100s, which generally are considered premium picks.

“The neat thing about doing it this way is that you’re not guessing,” Snead was quoted saying in the New York Times after the Miller trade. “The player has lived up to his draft status.”

Snead’s approach seems short-sighted at first blush to anyone who has observed the NFL closely for a long time. But the more you think about it, it’s at least coherent and so far has been viable. The Rams went to the Super Bowl in the 2018 season and over the past five years have the fourth-best winning percentage in the league (.676). The Packers have been to two NFC title games and own the seventh-best winning percentage (.633) over that same time. Both teams enter Sunday’s game as title contenders and have three losses each.


Rams wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. strongly considered joining the Packers.
Although the Rams have traded many of their highest picks, they’ve also used compensatory picks and draft-day trades to make sure they have young, cheap, later-round talent to fill out their roster. They’ve averaged nine picks in the last five drafts, or two more picks than they were originally allotted each year. After the Miller trade they have only four selections for 2022 (one third, one fifth and two sevenths) but expect to get four compensatory picks too.

Snead’s approach in part likely comes from his early years as the Rams' GM, when he accumulated draft assets but got nowhere because he couldn’t find a good enough quarterback. The Miami Dolphins could be on a similar path now. The Dolphins had five first-round picks and four second-rounders in the last two drafts combined, but unless one of those first-rounders, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, turns around an unpromising start to his career, the losing and trading of good veterans to accumulate those picks will all have been for naught.

“I don’t know if it will work,” the aforementioned scout said of the Rams, “but at least they have a plan and they’re sticking to it.”

The approach of building around star playmakers also fits a Rams team trying to lure talent to the world’s entertainment capital. Along with Stafford, the Rams have the game’s best defensive player (Aaron Donald), best cornerback (Ramsey), and big-name attractions in Miller and recently signed Odell Beckham Jr., though whether the latter two were shrewd in-season moves is an open question.

“A lot of NFL football players and I'm sure other players from other sports, they really would like to be a part of a team in this city, right?” Snead told ESPN after the Miller deal.

Really, Sunday’s matchup at Lambeau Field features perhaps the most polar-opposite franchises in the league. The Rams, using a bold new future-be-damned approach in roster building among the palm trees and celebrities of Southern California. And the Packers, who skew to the more traditional avenue of draft and develop in the NFL’s smallest city and cold-climate of the upper Midwest, even if Gutekunst has pushed them closer to the mainstream.

“If this eventually ends up with a Super Bowl win, that strategy was good,” another scout in the league said of the Rams. “I don’t think it will. I don’t think you’ll see other teams try to copy this.”

Yes, there’s plenty of skepticism in the NFL about the viability of Snead’s approach, along with admiration and curiosity. This weekend we’ll see it play out head to head with his 7-3 team against the 8-3 Packers.

But in the end, the proof will be where it always is, in where the next Lombardi Trophy resides.

APB wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2021 06:33

Adam Schefter with yet another insider piece out today claiming OBJ had legitimate interest in going to Green Bay but the Packers refused to budge from their vet minimum offer (plus incentives) for him, according to unnamed sources. The Rams ultimately offered $1.25 mil guaranteed which apparently sealed the deal for OBJ.

Vet minimum is $660,000.

So if I understand Schefter's reporting correctly, OBJ - who has earned over $75 mil career wise thus far and was earning $15.5 mil from the Browns already this season - spurned the Packers for the Rams over a salary differential of ~$600k.



Seems to me either a) Schefter is desperate for click bait on the day the Rams and Packers meet and using the Packers past frugal tendencies employed under a former and now deceased GM to spur those clicks or b) OBJ really is that hyper-sensitive to saving financial face and accepted the highest offer available to satisfy an obviously insatiable appetite for more, more, more.

Well, that or he just wanted to play in LA all along and used the Packers interest to squeeze LA for an additional $600k.

In any case, I am of the opinion that a) Schefter is becoming more and more irrelevant and b) OBJ didn't really want to come to GB at all. You can't tell me $600k was a deal breaker to a guy who has already made over 125x that amount.

Yeah that just doesn't make sense to me either.

Figure also that LA Rams probably costs another $100k in local taxes and another significant bump in cost of living....it's a very small jump from GB to LA in terms of actual money in your pocket.

APB wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2021 06:33

Adam Schefter with yet another insider piece out today claiming OBJ had legitimate interest in going to Green Bay but the Packers refused to budge from their vet minimum offer (plus incentives) for him, according to unnamed sources. The Rams ultimately offered $1.25 mil guaranteed which apparently sealed the deal for OBJ.

Vet minimum is $660,000.

So if I understand Schefter's reporting correctly, OBJ - who has earned over $75 mil career wise thus far and was earning $15.5 mil from the Browns already this season - spurned the Packers for the Rams over a salary differential of ~$600k.



Seems to me either a) Schefter is desperate for click bait on the day the Rams and Packers meet and using the Packers past frugal tendencies employed under a former and now deceased GM to spur those clicks or b) OBJ really is that hyper-sensitive to saving financial face and accepted the highest offer available to satisfy an obviously insatiable appetite for more, more, more.

Well, that or he just wanted to play in LA all along and used the Packers interest to squeeze LA for an additional $600k.

In any case, I am of the opinion that a) Schefter is becoming more and more irrelevant and b) OBJ didn't really want to come to GB at all. You can't tell me $600k was a deal breaker to a guy who has already made over 125x that amount.

Was actually just thinking a while back, that I was expecting Schefter would drop some more ‘knowledge’ on this story this weekend from ‘sources’. Guy is becoming kind of a dick.

Yeah. National media is becoming less influential with so many more local "in the knows" people having a solid platform to reach their local fans that can then get spread by Twitter.

Add to that, Schefty isn't getting maybe the same level of information since he left the NFLN. Ian Rappaport seems to be seen as the more credible source which is making Schefty more desperate.

Disney as a company has done awesome things. But Disney didn't really figure out its ESPN platform in this new era of sports.

"He wasn't going to take the same or less money to go to Green Bay [over Los Angeles]," one source familiar with the contract talks told ESPN.

Tells me all I need to know.

Sometimes the money issue isn't about money, but pride. Being offered the minimum--even if you're already banking money from another team--may just FEEL bad. And you'd rather go somewhere who says "hey, you're better than the minimum," even if the dollars don't make much difference.

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2021 15:10

Sometimes the money issue isn't about money, but pride. Being offered the minimum--even if you're already banking money from another team--may just FEEL bad. And you'd rather go somewhere who says "hey, you're better than the minimum," even if the dollars don't make much difference.

I agree. And sometimes playes have such big egos than they can't bear to take less money than they were offered. (Not all, but some.)

There was a Patriots player a few years back, when Brady was winning the Superbowl every year rather than just 1 in 3. He was offered $7m per year by the Patriots, but the Jaguars offered him $8m. He took the money. Perhaps he felt he had enough rings! (Sorry, can't remember who he was.)

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

28 Nov 2021 15:10

Sometimes the money issue isn't about money, but pride. Being offered the minimum--even if you're already banking money from another team--may just FEEL bad. And you'd rather go somewhere who says "hey, you're better than the minimum," even if the dollars don't make much difference.

If you NEED that extra boost to make you FEEL better about yourself…?

I mean, if your self-esteem is such that a half-season $660k vet minimum offer - no, offer isn’t the right word - invite to a new team and successful locker room isn’t enough for you…then perhaps there is some substance to the chatter being offered up as to why you were available in the first place.