Any chance Raji decides to come out of retirment this year?

GreenBaySlacker

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Since it seemed the only thing stopping him from playing, was him deciding (out of nowhere) he didnt want to play anymore...

So what if he rests. Heals. His ailing mother gets better. I mention that because it was one of the main reasons he retired i heard... Anyways. Things change. Circumstances change. Maybe the games start, and he realizes he will probabally regret retiring early some day. You got to get it while the gettins good. So to speak.

It would be great strategy by raji, to manipulate ted into drafting some high quality help on the DL finally. Then come back out of retirment and whammo. Our dline dominates games............
 

Pkrjones

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Raji is a free agent and may sign with whatever team he wants. Don't think he (or anyone else) manipulates TT into anything. The D-line was better last year then '14, but still a weak area that TT should be addressing later this week. If Raji chooses to un-retire he'll find the same or even more luke warm towards him than 2 months ago.
 
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I forgot he was a free agent... Crap. That changes a lot...

Im just holding out hope hecomes back in a big way...suprises us and boosts the defense.
 
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Raji is a free agent and may sign with whatever team he wants. Don't think he (or anyone else) manipulates TT into anything. The D-line was better last year then '14, but still a weak area that TT should be addressing later this week. If Raji chooses to un-retire he'll find the same or even more luke warm towards him than 2 months ago.
I know nobody manipulates ted. But if he " retires". Ted will surely draft a replacment imediately... Then he says to ted, he changed his mind and wants to play for gb to win it all for the green and gold... Boom. We sign him. And raji has another dominant rookie to help his cause... Otherwise ted wouldnt have spent the cheese on a top tier DT....

A little Favreish.... And a little gilbert brownish too. Brown unretired twice to help gb, didnt he? Like he couldnt play a whole season anymore. So he played half. :) the best half.
 
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And a little gilbert brownish too. Brown unretired twice to help gb, didnt he? Like he couldnt play a whole season anymore. So he played half. :) the best half.

Brown never retired and later came back to play for the Packers. The team decided not to renew his contract after the 1999 season because of him being out of shape. After he lost significant weight before the 2001 offseason the Packers decided to re-sign him at that point.
 

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Since it seemed the only thing stopping him from playing, was him deciding (out of nowhere) he didnt want to play anymore...

So what if he rests. Heals. His ailing mother gets better. I mention that because it was one of the main reasons he retired i heard... Anyways. Things change. Circumstances change. Maybe the games start, and he realizes he will probabally regret retiring early some day. You got to get it while the gettins good. So to speak.

It would be great strategy by raji, to manipulate ted into drafting some high quality help on the DL finally. Then come back out of retirment and whammo. Our dline dominates games............

How is the addition of Raji, a sub-par NT, an ingredient for a dominant dline? If the Packers draft a good NT then Raji wouldn't play unless that guy gets hurt. If Raji was actually good against the run then you could maybe say that he could spell a guy on run downs but Raji is only, at best, mediocre against the run.
 

adambr2

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I feel like I've spent the last 5 years reading articles about how Raji is in the best shape of his life and just had an injury slowing him down last time and this is the year we should expect him to be a dominant force again. Then every year he just kind of isn't and we go back and repeat the cycle.

At some point you just move on whether Raji plays again or not. I wish him the best, but if he never plays another down in a Packer uniform I won't shed any tears over it.
 

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I feel like I've spent the last 5 years reading articles about how Raji is in the best shape of his life and just had an injury slowing him down last time and this is the year we should expect him to be a dominant force again. Then every year he just kind of isn't and we go back and repeat the cycle.

Last season was supposed to be his monster year, wasn't it? I must have been in an alternate reality! :D
 

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I feel like I've spent the last 5 years reading articles about how Raji is in the best shape of his life and just had an injury slowing him down last time and this is the year we should expect him to be a dominant force again. Then every year he just kind of isn't and we go back and repeat the cycle.

At some point you just move on whether Raji plays again or not. I wish him the best, but if he never plays another down in a Packer uniform I won't shed any tears over it.
He started last year better than he finished. I've been as ******* him as anyone. he went from a guy we must pay big money to when his rookie contract was up after a season or 2, to being a guy i wasn't sure should even get an offer from us.

But he was a part of an improved defense last year. as I said earlier, he started better than he finished in my eyes, but overall, he was OK. We could certainly get more production out of the position, but we could have also had worse out there too. I was ok bringing him back again if the contract was right.
 

adambr2

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He started last year better than he finished. I've been as ******* him as anyone. he went from a guy we must pay big money to when his rookie contract was up after a season or 2, to being a guy i wasn't sure should even get an offer from us.

But he was a part of an improved defense last year. as I said earlier, he started better than he finished in my eyes, but overall, he was OK. We could certainly get more production out of the position, but we could have also had worse out there too. I was ok bringing him back again if the contract was right.

Mostly true, although I would have called his performance last year pretty average, though better than 2013. My point was that I think a lot of people still see a dominant player in there somewhere and I've long accepted that that player is gone forever.

I too would have been okay with bringing him back at the right price but judging by contracts given to some of our internal FAs this offseason I think that price would have been much more than I would have liked to see.
 

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It would be great strategy by raji, to manipulate ted into drafting some high quality help on the DL finally. Then come back out of retirment and whammo. Our dline dominates games............

If....and when....Raji makes a decision to play football again, the Packers will have already moved on without him. How successfully they do this has yet to be determined. But I doubt that this was some kind of strategic plan by BJ to get TT and the Packers to draft him help on the D-line. Sounds like a guy who is just taking care of more important things then Football, I applaud him for that.

So unless, BJ changes his mind between now and the draft AND the Packers would decide to resign him, he will only become a Packer again, if their "life after BJ" plans fail. I'm expecting lots of new faces on the D-line in camp.
 

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I feel like I've spent the last 5 years reading articles about how Raji is in the best shape of his life and just had an injury slowing him down last time and this is the year we should expect him to be a dominant force again. Then every year he just kind of isn't and we go back and repeat the cycle.

At some point you just move on whether Raji plays again or not. I wish him the best, but if he never plays another down in a Packer uniform I won't shed any tears over it.

Don't forget that his position isn't one that allowed him to actually make plays! Packers use the only defense in the NFL where the NT is asked to perform interpretive dance with the opposing guard in the middle of the play.
 
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Don't forget that his position isn't one that allowed him to actually make plays! Packers use the only defense in the NFL where the NT is asked to perform interpretive dance with the opposing guard in the middle of the play.

The Packers play their base defense on less than 20% of the snaps. Raji didn´t play in subpackages where he could have rushed the passer because he underperformed in that role.
 
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The Packers play their base defense on less than 20% of the snaps. Raji didn´t play in subpackages where he could have rushed the passer because he underperformed in that role.
Raji took 42% of the defensive snaps last season which means he took more snaps in nickel/dine than in base. It just seemed like he was a base-only player because his pass rush, as in the past so many years, was ineffective and unnoticeable.
 
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Raji took 42% of the defensive snaps last season which means he took more snaps in nickel/dine than in base. It just seemed like he was a base-only player because his pass rush, as in the past so many years, was ineffective and unnoticeable.

Compared to early in his career that is a pretty low number of snaps played for Raji.
 
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Compared to early in his career that is a pretty low number of snaps played for Raji.
Certainly. Capers might have just worn him down. Or maybe he just lost enough of an edge once he had enough money in the bank. He said upon his departure he didn't need the money.
 

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The Packers play their base defense on less than 20% of the snaps. Raji didn´t play in subpackages where he could have rushed the passer because he underperformed in that role.

I'm not sure where you were going with this. Were you agreeing? I mean, I said that he couldn't rush the passer and you appear to agree but it seems like you were trying to correct something I said and I'm not sure what.
 

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I remember in Raji's second and third years that he was playing 80 or 90% of the snaps. Then again, last year he was sharing snaps with Guion so even if he was a spring chicken, I doubt that he would be taking all of those snaps because of Guion.
 
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I'm not sure where you were going with this. Were you agreeing? I mean, I said that he couldn't rush the passer and you appear to agree but it seems like you were trying to correct something I said and I'm not sure what.

What I meant is that Raji could have made plays in subpackages but because of him underperforming mostly wasn't on the field in those situations. That's his fault and not the coaching staff's.
 
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Didnt he get injured mid season around the time perry went down? And around the time our sacks......stopped......?
 
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Didnt he get injured mid season around the time perry went down? And around the time our sacks......stopped......?

The defense had nearly as many sacks in the second half of the regular season (20) as during the first eight games (23). In addition the unit added nine in two playoff games. So the conclusion the number of sacks diminshed because of Raji's injury is wrong.
 

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What I meant is that Raji could have made plays in subpackages but because of him underperforming mostly wasn't on the field in those situations. That's his fault and not the coaching staff's.

Oh, thanks. I agree, my interpretive dance comment was intended to be sarcastic. I never believed the whole "Raji doesn't make plays because Capers' defense doesn't want him to make plays" narrative.
 
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The defense had nearly as many sacks in the second half of the regular season (20) as during the first eight games (23). In addition the unit added nine in two playoff games. So the conclusion the number of sacks diminshed because of Raji's injury is wrong.
I didnt realize... It just seemed clear when those two got banged up, the entire defense stalled. And the whole team became a .500 club mid season...

I didnt realize they did so well to finish...

Any chance that was because the dline started getting healthy again. And perry came back to 100 percent gradually?
 

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