Biggest offseason mistake

Ok time to play arm chair GM,

What was the packers biggest mistake of the offseason and why? Try and be reasonable, saying "not signing Mario Williams" isn't realistic lol.

In my eyes I think the move that should have been made is signing Erin henderson. He was a free agent LBer from the Vikings. Not an expensive sign as he later resigned with the Vikings for a 1 year deal. He is a solid starter that could have helped out our depth.

Cutting AJ hawk is 2nd on my list lol. (I somewhat kid)

Hard to call anything a mistake until we see how any of this season pans out. Judging football transactions is a bit like judging a US presidency, you should wait at least a few years but probably closer to twenty before making a claim of certainty.

this.

...although there is a HUGE injury on the defensive side already, we are just 1 game into the pre-season....all we can do is sit back, eat, drink and watch. oh, and go pack go.

I think Thompson did as well as one could reasonably expect this off season. He drafted just about every defensive player he could, signed Saturday and Hargrove in free agency. I was happy with what he did. The injuries to Bishop and House were unfortunate but he couldn't forsee that.

I believe the Packers have full faith in ILBers DJ Smith, Robert Francois, the rookie Manning whom they traded UP to draft this year, and of course Hawk.
They also say Jamarri Lattimore is decent in there.

Surely do miss Bishop though, but losing him isn't like letting Cullen Jenkins go last year.

Not signing Mario Williams.

not going after Laron landry or Payton hillis. I think Hillis would look awesome in a Packer uniform.

Obviously his biggest mistake was not joining the Packer forum,..so he could CLEARLY see all the things he should and should not be doing!!!!

Im surprised at all the negativity from the thread.

At some point during the season everyone says "oh the Packers should have done such n such", it just makes more sense to go on record before the season and say it instead of week 12 when its obvious.

That was my sad attempt at being funny!!! (I should be working on paper work)
I'll leave it to the pro's to add what shoulda, coulda , woulda happened if they were GM.

Packers 2012: REDEMPTION

Have you seen the video?

I think last season was a learning experience, and we are set for dominance now. Dynasty if our injuries are better than average. Of course, that's a lot of luck.

This off-season has been fine. Very good.

It's hard to second guess one of the best GMs in the NFL but I can say I feel Merling, Datko, Manning and Richardson might be diamonds in the rough. I'm looking forward to them developing and contributing.
I'll be sick when we lose players on the practice squad. We know it's going to happen.
I know about Merling's past but when you know the gravy train is about to enter the station I know I'd be finding my second gear.

Dropping the ball on Peyton Manning, now there's a back up I could believe in. Tebow could have been good too.

You asked what the biggest MISTAKE was. Therefore you have yourself a negative thread.

Laron Landry would have filled the void in our defensive backfield.

Letting go of Charlie "The Dictator" Peprah. That man was the future of our defense.

lol letting him go was one of the BEST moves haha.

Not firing TT and MM in order to hire Brett Favre at GM and promote Sean Slocum to HC

Heck we should have sold the team to a different owner and bolted for LA

Not trading for Asante Samuel. He's such a great tackler and we are SO thin at corner

Give TT a break. He signs Saturday, Hargrove, and now Benson. That is a world record for him.
For a guy who's only free agent claim to fame is Charles Woodson and John Kuhn in 8 years that is monumental!

I agree with Wood Chipper: Asking for the biggest mistake leads to negativity (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The part of this post with which I agree is the call for foresight instead of hindsight. Ted Thompson and his staff have to make decisions in real time and the best criticism of those decisions happen in real time too (before their outcome is obvious). The other thing I’d like to see is when posters advocate for UFA acquisitions they reconcile the costs of those acquisitions with the roster. For example, Landry signed for $3.5M this season and Hillis for $2.8M. How would that impact extending Jennings or others they may be looking at extending even though their deals aren’t up after this season?

I’m still nervous about the depth on the OL. My guess is the acquisition of Reggie Wells signals that Lang is the backup LT until Sherrod gets healthy. Wells played LG last Thursday and IMO he’s more an OG or at most RT at this point in his career. I would have preferred they signed the best veteran (true) LT available so if Newhouse gets hurt only one position is affected instead of two. But they obviously made the cost/benefit determination Wells was the best available option. It’s not great fodder for this thread but I just don’t know enough to disagree with that; for example what was the cost of acquiring others, how would they likely affect the locker room, how close is Sherrod to coming back, and what are their expectations of his play at LT at this point?

I did like Thompson’s draft in that he was aggressive in adding defenders for Capers. And while he was aggressive in trading up twice he wasn’t foolish in doing so; he “won” those trades in terms of value given vs. value received.

BTW, Ryan Pickett counts as another significant UFA acquisition by Thompson. IMO acquiring Woodson and Pickett in one off season eclipses what Thompson has done in that regard this off season by a significant margin.

I thought the thread was going to ask about MY personal biggest off-season mistake. This was a let down of epic proportion...but... this is after all, a family forum so, never mind.

Every personnel decision has a salary cap impact question at the top of the considerations list, no doubt about it.

Someone in another thread noted a recent report that we're about $10.x mil under the cap, I can't recall the exact figure. This sounds right, give or take, though at this point it's a moving target. I had us at about $2 mil under the cap before Clifton and Collins were released and Driver was renegotiated. Offset those savings with around $800k for two of the FA vet signings taking those spots and you get to something close to $10.x mil cap space.

Lang's deal is back loaded from a cap standpoint with the bulk of the hit coming in 2014 - 2016...the net affect this year looks to be something like an additional $1 mil over his cap hit prior to signing...not a big deal...for now. The actual team cap figure can't be known until the final cut downs, and only if somebody bothers to leak it...we just don't know which higher priced or lower priced bubble guys will make the 53 man.

Jennings, taken in isolation, does not look to be a problem over the short term. According to the Press Gazette's roster link, his cap hit this season is about $7.8 mil. Assuming that figure is correct and he signs for around $10 - $11 mil per year (franchise tag is around $9.5 mil this year; DeSean Jackson's deal was for about $10 mil per), and assuming he'd get a healthy signing bonus which is prorated over the term of the contract, his 2013 cap hit may not be much more than 2012's. However, Jennings will be 30 years old next Sept...getting this deal done at "market value" may have more bumps in the road than many might imagine.

The problem comes in when you start talking about $20 mil per year for Rodgers (in line with Brees' deal if the full contract is played out), $10 mil or more for Mathews, and some smaller but sizeable chunk for Raji, all falling in a fairly small window, and adding significant cap hit additions over those players' current figures. In that light, it starts to make sense why the FAs we signed are marginal guys brought in on one year deals. These guys are stop gaps and depth additions holding places until some some younger (and/or cheaper) guys move past them on the depth chart (or come off suspension). Some of those FAs might not make it past the final cut; some might stick for a couple of years, but there's no commitment past this season.

$10 mil cap space sounds like a lot, but it will go "poof" as soon as Rodgers or Matthews is re-upped. Signing a big money FA now compromises locking those guys up a year or two down the road. Unless of course one would want to fire Woodson sometime before his deal is up after 2014. At this juncture I would consider that move ill-advised.

It took me a while but I have come to recognize the impact of signing free agent guys and their impact on our salary cap. That's why I disagree with signing an Assante Samuel for instance. 31 years old and it took $14.5 million for him to sign with Atlanta. Would you do that and jeopardize your ability to sign a Jennings, Rodgers or Matthews down the road? All those $ count. I'm not interested in going after other teams dregs..for the most part we have better guys to address on our own roster.

That's why you see that so often in this forum. Many fans advocate for free agents but given the cap you'd be saying goodbye to established talents. You can't be perfect at every position so it makes sense to keep what you know and develop others. I'm sure it hurts the front office as much as the fans.
BTW 13 times, you might like this:
http://www.totalpackers.com/2012/08/18/best-custom-packers-jersey/