packer_bob Says: May 12th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
“3-They sent Murphy to buy him off – cutting him loose with the organization’s blessing was a better option for the franchise, the fans and Favre.”

I really want to keep this dialogue good-natured, but you can’t truly believe this! A) Nobody “sent” Murphy unless it was the Board of Directors – are they in on the conspiracy to keep Brett from playing?; B) the $20M marketing deal was a good faith attempt to keep BF “in the family” – I’m stymied as to how this is continually portrayed as a negative – again, it had to be authorized by the Board – McCarthy & Thompson don’t carry the checkbook; C) In no way is allowing a star player to freely sign with a formidible division rival a good option for the franchise – there’s not a management team in the NFL who’d have done what you’re advocating!

I agree with you that the parting of ways was messy and regretable, but we’re separated by about 170 degrees on where the blame lies. JMHO…

The $20M offer was on the table immediatly when Favre retired. They had been negotiating and talking about that for some time. Many jumped to conclusions about that but all teams in all sports offer these type of promo deals to their long time all-star players when they retire, it’s really just the VIP treatment all-stars get when they retire. For the time being that deal is off the table from what I understand but eventually hopfully Brett will retire as a Packer and be a Green Bay promo guy with Brett Favre bill boards and everything else all over town, in the malls, and a sign entering Green Bay saying “home of the Green Bay Packers” with Bretts picture on it. I hope it can still get to that point. 10 years from now I think it can get there but for now I think everyone in Green Bay is getting sick of the Favre talk.

Still tho Packer_Bob everything you say is speculation and it’s really all just stuff you don’t know and you are just filling in the blanks with a bunch of maybe this is the way it went down.

C’mon, Mark, be fair. Whale had been with the Pack for 8yrs, made Pro-Bowl once, played 3 seasons with SEA, then played 10 games and went on INJ RES in 08. He thought he had Pack by the nads. He was replaced on the roster by a 10yr vet who had started for 2 teams for 8 of those years and 7 of them blocked for 1000+ yd rushers. At that point everything looks even on paper. I have no idea why O’Dwyer couldn’t make the team, but it appears he had some off-field problems. And whats the high draft choice reference? Wahle was a 2nd RND supplemental pick because of his Navy obligation.

For all your discussions of who got who……………… none of those whos helped anybody hoist a trophy. Wahle didn’t put Carolina over the top, same with Green or any of the others. Jets added a probowl O-line guy, probowl D-line guy and HOF QB to their team last year and didn’t get squat for it. Was it Mark with a good post, that maybe this season was just what we needed. Otherwise we may have continued along at decent for a while. Looking back at SB winners the last couple years, who’d the Giants get to put them over the top and who did Pittsburg get that put them over the top? (F/A’s) May as well suck or push for the top, all those early playoff exits weren’t working.

Seriously, I really liked that post of Mark’s. Of the hundreds of posts of “what if” we’d have gotten so or so, or “what if” we had managed to keep so and so, drafted/not drafted so and so and how’d that have made a difference here and there…………… his 180 degree turn, out of the box thinking of “what if” “this is a good thing?”. He could very well be right in thinking this may have started us down the right path for the future and the post REGGIE years of consistantly coming up short. Really, it’s a whole new topic of how things might change w/new coaching and lessons learned from last year, cause everything generally went wrong last year in EVERY phase. “What if” every member of the the Green Bay Packers learned alot this year from all the mistakes that were made and those mistakes get used to improve themselves and the team and it becomes the foundation for a championship caliber team for years to come??? “What if???”

Mark, it appears we have a consensus, at least for the future, contained in these recent posts. You’ve just got to know that hindsight is always the Devil when comparing performance; in this case TT’s. Because of the BF situation everything TT does will be over scrutinized. As DA says everything that could go wrong with a football team did last year from the Specials to the OL. I have to laugh when they blame TT for holding on to a punter too long, when the sucker blasts them 80-90 yds on the fly in practice (maybe and exageration, but you get the point.). Who knows? While this draft looks extremely positive by pretty much most of us, what if there is a Mandarich, Carroll(?), or who was that cant miss DE from Florida? A lot of people are enamored with KGB, and while he is a hell of a guy I never thought he was that great. Hey, thats the good natured banter that makes this blog better than the rest.

Hey Larry, from the sounds of the article, Miami was the only place he was going to go…… at any price.

If Cliffy,Harris, or A-Rod go down, it probably won’t be pretty.

Rocky, I’m truly sorry for subjecting you to Favre talk in a Favre related thread.

Anyway, the way some of you guys make it out, we should keep having 6 win seasons until we get enough killer players through the draft that WHAMMO, we’re in the Super Bowl! I get the idea that sometimes it’s one step backwards that leads to two steps forward, but from my perspective last season was a supreme disappointment and if it leads to future success, so much the better, but I’m sure that’s not exactly what anybody had in mind after being in the championship the year before.

I agree with all the changes after last year and am as optimistic as anyone about the POTENTIAL of this draft to help what we’ve already got. Reality check time, though: Our current offensive line still hasn’t demonstrated the ability to establish a consistent running game, we have a new defense that we have no idea will turn out, we’re painfully thin at quarterback if Rodgers gets hurt for any period of time (a distinct possibility to me), we have aging corners that may or may not be able to adapt to the new defense, and I’m still looking for big improvement in special teams at least as far as a punter and kick returner go, and we really don’t know yet what any of these rookies bring to the table at this point. After last season I subscribe to the motto of “It’s time to do something even if it’s wrong” but I also realize that the “wrong” part of that is a possibility.

As to Devil, does the name Plaxico Burress for the Giants ring a bell? You may remember him from the NFC Championship game and the Super Bowl? And how the Giants looked when they didn’t have him last year? Not trying to be smart, but that’s a move that if they didn’t make no ring, imo.

One last thing before I carry on too long as I’m want to do–the playoffs are like Lotto, you have to be in it to win it. To win it all isn’t just about talent on the page, it’s about team chemistry, gelling at the right time, luck sometimes, I could go on and on. Did anyone see the Cardinals getting there last year, even though they made the playoffs? I sure as hell didn’t. And they didn’t just get there, they damn near won it. Anybody see the Giants winning it all 2 years ago? Or even at the start of the playoffs? I didn’t–when they beat Dallas I thought they did us a favor and would have bet my schnutz we were in the Bowl. (Glad I didn’t, by the way!)

My point is some of these so-called “mediocre” division winning playoff seasons are the prerequisite to the chance to do what we all want, win it all. Truly dominating teams that run the table wire-to-wire are an extreme rarity (I submit the 15-1 Vikings from the 90′s and the 16-0 Patriots from two years ago). I felt the 4th and 26 year we were going to Super Bowl if we win that game.

I realize we didn’t and we didn’t but let’s not be so quick to dismiss sustained success, OK?

For those who are concerned about the first year conversion to the 3-4 defense here is a copy and paste from an article in the Chicago Tribune. This is encouraging that the new Pack defense will hit the ground running. Article link below

“When Capers took over the 25th-ranked Jaguars defense in 1999, the Jaguars moved up 21 spots in the rankings and led the league in scoring defense. And when he changed the Dolphins to a 3-4 in 2006, they went from 18th to fourth in the defensive rankings”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/chi-10-pompei-inside-nfl-may10,0,4146320.column

packer_bob, you have to wonder what would have been our chances two years ago if we had gotten Moss. We wouldn’t have gotten Jones with the 3rd rounder we would have given up. But he actually cost us a game against the Bears that year. And even if Moss didn’t light up the Giants in the championship they would have to give the passing game more respect which would have freed our running game up. The Giants overplaying the run killed us. We rushed for 28 yards and looked bad doing it. Farve got blamed because of the int. but come on, 28 yards. Also #4 got blamed because no one gave the Giants any credit. I think we would have lost the SB since we didn’t have the Giant’s pass rush but if had Moss instead of the Pats who knows. Oh well the sun still came up the next day and we’re looking forward to some exciting football. If we have to look back let’s try to remember the good stuff.

Mark,
The “What if’s” are impossible to know but we had a chance to get one of the best receivers in the league for a 3rd round pick and didn’t do it. For those that are going to think I’m playing hindsight about it, I was saying it at the time and bitched all year watching Moss catch touchdown after touchdown. (If you don’t believe me ask my wife–She said she’s going to strangle me if she evers hears his name again!)

And let’s see, I can already hear somebody saying “But Moss didn’t put them over the top, he’s never won anything, blah blah.” One player doesn’t win a Super Bowl by himself–that’s not the point. If you were starting a team today and could take a young Dan Marino would you pass? He never won one. (By the way, if you answer that question in the affirmative you need to reevaluate what you think you know about football.)

The correct way of looking at it is would you rather have Jones or Moss. Having a combination of great players gives you a credible shot at winning it all. Anybody have New England going undefeated that year without him? I don’t. It’s in the past now but I will call that a huge blunder till the day I die.

P_B those other teams who suffered set backs moving to the 3-4 didn’t have Dom Capers. They had other coaches. It’s more about the coach than the scheme is what i’ve been trying to tell people for the last 2 months. Every defense Capers has ever touched has been a success right from the get-go whether it was a transition or not.

3-4 or 4-3 both defenses can either work or not work. I don’t care what system a particular coach runs it’s how well he runs it and how well he utilizes the talent on his team and Dom Capers is a prove comodity in that capacity.

Yes, I agree–It looks like he has a specialty for this sort of thing and that makes me more comfortable than just the general switch to 3-4. Hell we could run anything and probably do better than last year’s stats.

I’m just advising caution in our optimism about something that hasn’t even hit the field yet.

A couple things……. Capers starts strong but it seems he tails off and digresses after awhile also. Second, when Favre plays that first game against the Pack, he won’t have a whole lot to look at, as far as tendencies. It’ll be early and that new D won’t have many at that point. Another change that happened after this last year was, besides firing the pieces that failed, MM started aiming for players that are bigger. Big and fast is what they need!

That is a trend commented on by the media–that this draft aimed for bigger, tougher players. If we could pound the rock for short yards when we need to, it would solve alot of problems.

With the youth on our D-line and linebacking corps, I’m more worried about problems with adjustments than wearing down, whatever Capers prior history might be.

I’m embarrassed!!
Looks like we’ve all been wrong about both BF & TT.

PACKERS’ PLOT UNCOVERED

http://teawithstavrogin.blogspot.com/2009/05/packers-plot-uncovered.html

Rocky,

That shit was FUNNY, LOL! Don’t know where you found that but thanks for posting!

Played spit-take theater with my afternoon grog a couple of times reading that one!

I THINK IT’s TRUE ANYWAY——————

but I also believe in Bigfoot and the Lock Ness Monster—–

so take that with a grain of salt!

Larry, good article. Shows how much worse #4 did at the end of seasons and in cold weather and better in domes than I remember. Either way his body is breaking down and it’s pretty clear he’d only be useful as a part time starter. Even if his arm improved enough to play the most he could affect us would be one game. I wish him well but we have to be concerned about our improvement. To me, it’s like Glavine finally being healthy enough to play for the Braves, interesting but not very important anymore.

Who has had more jobs in the last 4 years Dom Capers or Jago?

good answer Larry!