Most times I agree with you but that is an odd take in my opinion. While players in their fifth demand more money teams definitely benefit from retaining draft picks even after their rookie deals have expired.
Therefore Thompson's 2015 draft has to be considered a huge failure.
Nowhere did I say the 2015 draft was other than a failure with serious inpact. The
brunt of that impact, though,
is through last season. It is now water under the bridge.
Perhaps your statement above that I've bolded is the point of disagreement.
I don't look at it that way. There are several Packer names we can point to (which I already have) who did not yield good value in second contracts. In fact, they are everywhere in the league.
Getting a critical mass of star and otherwise productive performance on cheap rookie contracts is essential to winning.
To wit, Kenny Clark's cap and cash cost for his rookie contract comes to a grand total of $9.4 mil. I think we can say he is a tremendous value through 2019. Having that player on that contract frees up cap to do other things. In 2020, he might be on a 5th. year option. That would still represent good value, but less so. If he's signed to an extension instead at some 8 figures per year, then the value proposition decreases sharply from the current value proposition.
What contributes more to winning? A $10 mil player playing like a $10 mil player in his second cotract? That looks like an 8-8 player. A $2.5 mil player playing like a $10 mil player improves that picture. Compound the cheap rookie contract factor across the most recent 4 draft classes (including the one to come), to a lesser or greater degree than Clark, we're talking about a pool of 38 players where the potential for performance-above-contract is far greater than with second contract players.
Another example among several: If Jason Spriggs had shown himself to be of quality RT starter caliber, Bulaga could be released with his cap used elsewhere. That did not happen.
I've mentioned before the ultimate example, the 2013 Seahawks with 5 Pro Bowl caliber players making $5 million altogether. That provided a whomping amount of cap to improve the roster elsewhere. Why did Seattle gradually tail off? Because those 5 players gradually came into their second contracts.
If high value had been captured in the 2015 draft that would have improved Packer prospects considerably for the years 2015 - 2018. From a prospective view, which is what I'm talking about, 2015 is now in the rearview mirror even if those players had turned out to be good because they would be getting paid by the Packers or somebody else on par with performance.
Instead of some woulda-shoulda-coulda, assessing the current roster should focus on what the Packers have in the 2016 - 2018 draft plus the one to come. That is where the winning value (or lack thereof) lies.
