Raptorman
Vikings fan since 1966.
Key guys to replace? Let's look at the Packers key players they are going to have to replace. Clifton, Tauscher, Pickett, Harris, Woodson, Driver. Heck, you may have to replace 3 of them this year. Who's going to back up Raji? Harrell?(maybe if he can stay off IR) Who are the great young players that are going to take Tauscher's and Clifton place? Coolledge and Giacomini? That worked out so well the first few games. Speaking of the short life of RB, Grant is 3 years older than Petterson. If he has 2 good years left in him you will be lucky.Key positions are getting old and injured. Obviously not the whole team there Einstein, you draft new guys just like everyone else. Your QB is 40. Guys like Pat Williams come to mind. McKinnie and Hutchinson too. How about Winfield? Add in Henderson just because of the horrific injury. Your purple helmet boys have a LOT of their key guys that they are going to replace soon. Tauscher and Clifton? Sure, but they are barely serviceable now as it is. We are not talking about replacing guys who are at the top of the heap at their positions. Right now, on our roster I only see one guy that is an excellent player who is getting up there and that is Woodson.
Green Bay has one of the best young cores in the league. Piece one is the QB. We have a guy who has 10 years of great football ahead of him. You have favre (or maybe you don't) and then you got nothing. That is the single biggest piece of any football team. We have Jennings and Finley - you have Rice and Harvin. Pretty much a wash there. You have Peterson - who is being WASTED in the favre experiment. The shelf life of RBs is always one of the shortest. We'll see how that plays out. We have Grant who isn't the player Peterson is, but it would also take Grant about 3 seasons to cough the ball up as many times as AD did in the NFCC game too. You have Loadholdt, we have Sitton so each has one solid young OLman. On D, I don't see a Clay Matthews anywhere on your roster. Greenway is a good player but Matthews was better than Greenway was this year and he was a rookie. We'll see what happens with Raji. And for young DBs I'd take Collins over anything you have in a heartbeat.
So, when it comes to YOUNG talent, I like GB's better. The fact that we have a young star QB and you don't obviously puts the queens at a big disadvantage. I think that IF favre comes back for you, the two teams will be fighting tooth and nail for the division and probably conference next year. If he doesn't your boys will be sucking our tail pipe next year and probably for years to come.
It is my opinion - and only that. That is why they play the games.
Greenway and Matthews play in a different style of D so they will be expected to do different things. Greenway may not have 10 sacks but he did have 99 tackles and 3 ints. Matthews is being used more as a DE then a true LB. But keep thinking that MN is falling behind in key players.