Packers Huddle

NCF wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:41

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:36

Rodgers will be worth 2 first round picks any year where he is still playing. Any downfall in his play this year will be blamed by optimistic coaches and insatiable owners as a result of circumstances and displeasure. We learned clearly this offseason that there will always be those around the league who believe Rodgers is great and only fails as the result of others, and never because of himself.

Don't kvetch about it now. We got what we wanted/needed. Another year with him at the helm. The original plan can go back in place, only now it IS path-dependent and locked in; whereas before it was a set of options annually.

We need multiple teams to be calling. With reports that Aaron has, at least some, say in his next destination, that team isn't going to be bidding against itself. That actually could get really ugly, too. I think the Packers need to be prepared to accept some kind of discount compared to his true value. If like Denver, Washington, LV, and others are all in pushing strong, I'd set the floor at a 1st and 3rd, but expect we will do better than that.

Yoop wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:54

paco wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:41

Yoop wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:31

those where always unrealistic expectations, teams are not going to hand over 1st round Rookies or highly talented young players, draft picks where our best chance for compensation, possibly 2 first, maybe 3 scattered over a few seasons and a 2nd rounder, but the idea that we could demand multiple players never made sense to me, I'd never give up the players.

The players never made sense to me either. Just from a cap perspective. But I do expect at least a few higher draft picks in exchange.

I think we'll get 2 first rounders, but if Rodgers plays even close to last season I think we'll get more, and the FO might just try and get him to stay and retire a Packer.

I brought up that stuff with Ron Wolf because if Love does look good we could trade him and just draft another QB and ride Rodgers as NO rode Bree's, the goal is to have the very best QB we possibly can, and Rodgers could easily be that player.

paco wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:45

wallyuwl wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:44

I keep hearing on the radio the Packers have made/will be making "concessions" to AR? Are they going to give him nachos and beer?

He doesn't eat cheese anymore, so the nachos are probably out.

go pak go wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:54

NCF wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:41

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:36

Rodgers will be worth 2 first round picks any year where he is still playing. Any downfall in his play this year will be blamed by optimistic coaches and insatiable owners as a result of circumstances and displeasure. We learned clearly this offseason that there will always be those around the league who believe Rodgers is great and only fails as the result of others, and never because of himself.

Don't kvetch about it now. We got what we wanted/needed. Another year with him at the helm. The original plan can go back in place, only now it IS path-dependent and locked in; whereas before it was a set of options annually.

We need multiple teams to be calling. With reports that Aaron has, at least some, say in his next destination, that team isn't going to be bidding against itself. That actually could get really ugly, too. I think the Packers need to be prepared to accept some kind of discount compared to his true value. If like Denver, Washington, LV, and others are all in pushing strong, I'd set the floor at a 1st and 3rd, but expect we will do better than that.

Yup. This is the thing that makes me nervous too.

Rodgers could actually "decide who he wants to play for" and artificially drive the price down. And honestly, there is incentive for Rodgers to make the price as low as possible so he gets as many resources from his perspective for his final years.

BF004 wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:45

I have said too, if we do trade him, I'd be very content getting more future picks than immediate.

A) The team trading for Aaron will clearly be going all in, will probably not want to give a lot of immediate potential in terms of players or even current draft picks.

B) If we are playing the long game, let Jordan develop and when its time for him to get a 2nd contract, I'd rather some more guys on rookie contracts as long as possible.

C) Knowing the team acquiring Aaron will likely be good (1st rounders 25+, we can use that to as for more, vs. getting a top 15 pick from Denver in the '22 draft)


I feel like an ideal trade would be like a 2nd rounder in 2022, 1st round and 3rd in 2023, 1st and 3rd in 2024.

Should net us a decent 2nd round pick next year, then a few bad 1st and 3rd rounders in upcoming years.

I guess I like that more than 2022 1st and 2023 1st and 3rd, or something like that.

paco wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:56

Yoop wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:54

paco wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:41

The players never made sense to me either. Just from a cap perspective. But I do expect at least a few higher draft picks in exchange.

I think we'll get 2 first rounders, but if Rodgers plays even close to last season I think we'll get more, and the FO might just try and get him to stay and retire a Packer.

I brought up that stuff with Ron Wolf because if Love does look good we could trade him and just draft another QB and ride Rodgers as NO rode Bree's, the goal is to have the very best QB we possibly can, and Rodgers could easily be that player.

Bless your heart Yoop. Hang on to that hope. But Rodgers is not a Packer after this year.

paco wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:45

wallyuwl wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:44

I keep hearing on the radio the Packers have made/will be making "concessions" to AR? Are they going to give him nachos and beer?

He doesn't eat cheese anymore, so the nachos are probably out.

lupedafiasco wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:07

Also with this seeming to be a handshake type deal between Rodgers and the Packers and probably having an exclusive list the two sides agree on I think it shrinks the compensation immensely. I would be surprised with multiple 1st round picks as compensation.

wallyuwl wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:09

paco wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:45

wallyuwl wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 10:44

I keep hearing on the radio the Packers have made/will be making "concessions" to AR? Are they going to give him nachos and beer?

He doesn't eat cheese anymore, so the nachos are probably out.

Maybe burgers and beer? Popcorn? Trying to figure out what these "concessions" are, on the radio they don't say.

lupedafiasco wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:04

I am interested to see how it turns out. There will be no in between. Either Love is a good QB and this end up being a great decision or Love is not and this ends up being probably the worst decision in Packers, possibly league, history. Time will tell.

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:07

So yeah, a 2022 top-12 pick is a must for me. What more we can get, we take. But the top-end talent, for me, is a must.

Yoop wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:38

very doubtful he'll go to a team with a record that gives them the 12th pick, he'll want to go a team that gives him a chance to win, and win quickly, he wont go to a team that needs a bunch of players to win it all, why would he do that? and most of the teams like that play well enough to give us a pick that high, thats why we need maybe a 1st and a 2nd year one and another first the following year, or something more reasonable like that.

Rodgers Returns, But What Did He Get?
Aaron, by all reports, wanted out of Green Bay, and had for some time. I am still not sure about the “wanting out” part of the reporting, but I do know he had issues there, yes. There appeared to be no one in the Packers front office for whom Aaron felt as a “point person,” someone he could shoot the breeze with about things beyond football and talk to openly and honestly. I have spoken before about the Packers’ tradition of “football guys” running the operation, with great talent in player evaluation but deficiencies in communication and people skills. Although I was clearly a minority in this thinking, I always believed the Packers should be more communicative publicly, as I have always seen them as somewhat of a public trust, but they are not. And I think that filters down to player communications.

Aaron is a person that gets set on something and it is hard to convince him otherwise. He can put people, as he phrased it to me many years ago, “on blast” and it appeared he had put the Packers front office “on blast.” It also appeared deeper than money; were it about money—adding future guarantees, bumping up his salary, etc.—it would have been resolved in a day. It seemed personal, an accumulation of disrespect—whether perceived or real was not really important —from the Packers. And face-to-face visits from the coach, general manager and the president of the team, which is the right response from the team, yielded no resolution.

When the Packers drafted Love, I said two things: 1) we had an expiration date on Aaron and the Packers (what I have always thought to be 2022); and 2) the Packers would have to manage this situation, as we did many years ago with Brett Favre in Aaron’s current role and Aaron in Love’s role, and that’s not easy. It is challenging managing a situation with no specific transfer point and competing interests on each side. And it appeared the Packers had not managed this well.

Aaron is not blameless here, but superstars like Aaron drive the product; they move the needle; they merit special treatment. The Packers seemed to be stuck in a pattern of treating everyone the same and not making special allowances for anyone, even Aaron, and that was coming home to roost. It is the world we live in; sports is a star-driven business and stars have to be treated with great care and attention. Adapt or die.

I have said for months that the Packers weren’t trading Aaron in 2021, that Aaron can’t trade himself, that he wouldn’t retire, that the Packers would make some kind of financial or other accommodation to have Aaron play this year and that he would be traded in 2022. I believe this is on track.

Deadlines spurred action (sound familiar) and after all the angst and breathless reporting of Aaron’s discontent, he is going to play this season for the Packers. There are reported “concessions” made to Aaron, with some information on them, although still awaiting the details.

In recent weeks and even as recently as Sunday, I advanced a potential resolution that both sides would hate, but often the most distasteful deals are the ones that get done. It would have had the Packers granting Aaron a void, an ability to get out of the contract—as the Patriots gave to Tom Brady a couple years back—after this season (2021). It would be distasteful to the Packers as they would get no trade compensation in 2022. It would be distasteful to Aaron because if he wanted out of Green Bay as bad as it seemed. But maybe, I posited, the mutual distaste could make it work. It was food for thought.

According to reports, there was a meeting of the minds between the Packers and Aaron in this way I advanced, with a void. But, surprisingly to me, the void is after 2022, not after 2021. Thus, the Packers would retain the ability to garner trade compensation for Aaron next year after riding his expected MVP-level play this year. To me, this seems like a win for the Packers. Their plan, in my mind, has always been to play Aaron this year and move to Love next year. My sense was that Aaron was not down with that and perhaps he even suggested to just move the calendar up a year and trade him now, which the Packers have resisted all along. But alas, the Packers will have their wish: Aaron as both MVP and placeholder for Jordan Love.

Another concession that was reported was some kind of review of the situation after this year, despite the void not being until after next year. What does that mean? Well, to me, that means Aaron will be traded and have major input into where he is traded. And according to reports the Packers, at Aaron’s request, will be bringing back Randall Cobb to the team; a step, although not a huge ask from the team.

Again, my strong sense is that the Packers plan was to move to Love in 2022, next year. And their plan is intact.

I am left scratching my head as to what Aaron accomplished here but maybe it was the reporting, not Aaron’s discontent, that was over the top. Wasn’t Aaron, according to reports, “done with Green Bay”? And now he is committed there another year, perhaps even two, for getting a void in 2023 and Randall Cobb? Really?

I guess what all of this means is what I have said all along: There is a limit to player empowerment, even for the elite of the elite, in the NFL. Aaron is a true superstar, but in a sport still tilted towards management. He is not James Harden or Anthony Davis; this is not the NBA. The superstars have some power in the NFL, but the teams have more, a lot more. Heck, it took 20 years for Tom Brady to “get out” of New England and exert some level of power. As I say often, the only true driver of player power in team sports is free agency, and NFL teams prevent that well with long-term contracts (which Aaron had) and the franchise tag. NBA superstars always hit free agency; NFL superstars virtually never do.

Maybe one day we will have true player empowerment in the NFL, where A-listers like Aaron can truly force teams’ hands in a way that did not happen here. But that day is not today. As great as players like Aaron are, the winning side of the business of football is still the team side.

Yoop wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:38

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:07

So yeah, a 2022 top-12 pick is a must for me. What more we can get, we take. But the top-end talent, for me, is a must.

very doubtful he'll go to a team with a record that gives them the 12th pick, he'll want to go a team that gives him a chance to win, and win quickly, he wont go to a team that needs a bunch of players to win it all, why would he do that? and most of the teams like that play well enough to give us a pick that high, thats why we need maybe a 1st and a 2nd year one and another first the following year, or something more reasonable like that.

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:42

Yoop wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:38

very doubtful he'll go to a team with a record that gives them the 12th pick, he'll want to go a team that gives him a chance to win, and win quickly, he wont go to a team that needs a bunch of players to win it all, why would he do that? and most of the teams like that play well enough to give us a pick that high, thats why we need maybe a 1st and a 2nd year one and another first the following year, or something more reasonable like that.

His list this year included teams who would have picked 9th, 12th, and 17th. I specifically addressed that in the same post.

YoHoChecko wrote: ↑

27 Jul 2021 11:25

Not to mirror Florio's take too closely, but the only reason it's being reported that the Packers made concessions is because after being in Rodgers' camp all offseason, the national media doesn't want to report that he caved.

The concessions are literally what they were willing to give all along. The plan is now exactly what Rodgers was allegedly attempting to protest "play one more year, then you're out." The restructure of the deal creates the cap space the Packers wanted. The voiding of 2023 basically means that the Packers have to move Rodgers next offseason or let him walk without compensation, so Rodgers gets the assurance that the Packers will do exactly what he "feared" they would do to him.

This is an unmitigated win for the Packers org in terms of how the showdown could resolve. The showdown itself was lose-lose, in that it took options away from both sides. But Rodgers held out and made a stink all offseason just to come back in and get traded next offseason--just like we all figured.