bigfog
Cheesehead
Picked this up from Railbird
Being in Fargo, I didn't really get a chance to hear this interview first hand, but if this is an accurate transcript, I like the sounds of it. It gets rid of the loafer players who collect a bonus and do nothing and creates a great culture - accountability.
Very nice to hear.
As most of you know, the Packers' chief contract negotiator, Andrew Brandt, has left the team. Just two days ago after leaving, Brandt did an interview on a sports talk radio station in Green Bay called WDUZ. Hosts Chris Havel and Harry Sydney talked to Brandt on issues such as the future for Brandt and the Green Bay Packers. I happened to be listening to the show in my car, but arrived at my destination before the Brandt interview.
Luckily enough, someone out there in cyberspace was able to hear it. The following is is a comment on the Talkin Packers message board left by user "Frottis." It's not the most graceful writing, but it is very, very interesting:
Since MM has been in GB he has continuously stated that the most important factors that he stresses with his players when talking about developing a Championship caliber team are "Availability and Accountability".
For the most part we have assumed what he meant by this and sometimes he will state specifically what he means. But most times he generalizes with the press about these subjects.
Last night I listened to an interview with Andrew Brandt on the local sports radio station here in GB. Brandt described specifically what MM is talking about and how TT, MM and Brandt specifically have gone about trying to make those things happen. I thought I would share.
Brandt stressed that it really comes down to how they, over the past 2-3 years, have transitioned how they structure contracts. "Pay as you go" is a term being thrown around lately. And this is what they mean by that.
They are no longer building "signing bonuses" into contracts. They felt this sent the wrong message to the athletes. A signing bonus only pays them, literally, for signing the document. After that point there is no incentive to continue to earn that normally huge amount of money they were just given. In essense, if created complacency.
So instead what they have done is worked exclusively with workout and roster bonuses. This is where availability and accountability come into major play.
Accountability: With the workout bonuses they are trying to create incentive for all of the players to be here from March-June. This is the time that MM says they "get the most work done", and makes training camp a much more fruitful experience for everybody involved.
As evidenced by this past year they were also able to keep their players fresh through training camp-even giving Wednesdays off, which led to a fast start.(for the past 3-4 years before MM was here there was a constant struggle at the beginning of the year, but they always finished strong to stay in playoff contention. It seemed to really put some undo pressure on everyone though because they were always trying to catch back up.) This was a big goal for MM when he came in..and especially last year when he already was 1 year into his program.
We also saw a very nice increase in offseason player activity in GB because of these incentives, which most of us feel did lead to a very closely-knit team this year and directly correlated with the success they had.
Availability: We can all see how important gameday availability is. If you don't have the players you need it's tough to accomplish what you need to in order to consistently win.
To stress this idea what they have emphasized is bonuses for being on the gameday 45 person active roster. This puts the ball in the players hands for them to do everything they can to make sure that they are on the actives that week. If that means seeking extra treatment, extra film study, extra drills, whatever the player can do to entice the coaches to put them on the 45 for that week.
What this also allows them to do is structure low-middle market value base salaries while giving the player all the opportunities to raise their own value throughout the year. It really puts their value back into the players' hands. If they want to make big $$, be responsible for your actions and you will earn that big $$. But you must earn it while helping this TEAM reach its goals.
In the long run what this is doing is two things.
1-It is keeping the organization fiscally sound. They are not gonna run into the cap hell that many have when they suddenly need to pay $10 million on a signing bonus they gave 3 - 4 years ago, which normally leads to that person being released..and as we saw with Wahle, regrettably released.
2-It helps the GM and coaches to more quickly identify players that they think are going to fit into the culture they are trying to create. When 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year players are not participating in the off season programs and taking advantage of incentives it may provide insight into that persons longterm future in this program. There are obviously exceptions to this: Woodson and Harris are the immediate examples. But what we can say is that these two have proven that they aren't sitting around getting fat and lazy all summer. Harris hasn't missed a game in years and Woodson is simply a gamer. They both are in impeccable shape and have developed regimens that allow them to pick it right up in camp.
Overall, the interview with Brandt was great and offered much insight into ideas we hear, but don't necessarily have clear understandings of.
Personally, I think Brandt will be a loss to this organization on many different levels. But, I also think that as long as they continue with this mindset and structure we will see much success for this great organization!
Railbird Comment: Perhaps one thing we're seeing is the need to be in tip-top physical condition. One of the reasons the Packers saw success this year was the fact that they remained relatively healthy. Of course they had injuries like everyone else, but nothing major compared to other teams.
Perhaps the best case study of this availabilty and accountability theory will be the future of Johnny Jolly. As you might remember, Jolly was forced to sit out the first couple days of training camp this past season while deemed not in shape enough to practice. He wasn't able to pass a conditioning test. Jolly also ended up the season on injured reserve.
Jolly's performance this offseason and how he comes into training camp in '08 will be something to watch in the future.
The interview with Brandt can be found here along with other archived shows on WDUZ.
Being in Fargo, I didn't really get a chance to hear this interview first hand, but if this is an accurate transcript, I like the sounds of it. It gets rid of the loafer players who collect a bonus and do nothing and creates a great culture - accountability.
Very nice to hear.
