Free Agency Thread

[Pokerbrat2000]

Looks like the NFL is serious about the "No Tampering" rules. Both the Falcons and Eagles could be facing loss of draft picks.

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thespun.com

 

[OldSchool101]

2023 3rd round comp picks all got multi-year contracts averaging over $18mil/yr... don't envision any team giving Fields that. For his career's sake hope he gets another shot at starter, soon, otherwise he'll bounce around as an experienced #2 for a few years.

True. Fields always gets hype but the results just are not there yet. He’s that Stock that was supposed to soar and it’s just a smidge into underperforming. Some guys wear well though maybe a new Offense will spark him idk

 

[OldSchool101]

Looks like the NFL is serious about the "No Tampering" rules. Both the Falcons and Eagles could be facing loss of draft picks.

Loading…

thespun.com

They should take their draft picks and circulate them to other teams that have no violations, like the waiver list.

 

[Thirteen Below]

Looks like the NFL is serious about the "No Tampering" rules. Both the Falcons and Eagles could be facing loss of draft picks.

Loading…

thespun.com

Cousins has to be a complete nincompoop. He just blatantly announced in his first press conference that Atlanta's trainer contacted him directly weeks ago to discuss how his rehab is going, which is as illegal as it gets. What the heck was he thinking?

I don't see how the league has any choice but to take a pick away from the Falcons, especially if the Vikings raise a fuss about it. Which we don't know yet whether they will.

Eagles' situation looks a little less cut and dried, though. Barkley's claiming it's just a misunderstanding. Remains to be seen how deep that one actually goes.

 

[Team Ronny]

True. Fields always gets hype but the results just are not there yet. He’s that Stock that was supposed to soar and it’s just a smidge into underperforming. Some guys wear well though maybe a new Offense will spark him idk

They kept making excuses for him sucking. No ol. No good wrs..they had Mooney.. traded for Moore & Claypool..they had Graham and Kmet. Jordan had rookies 2nd year wrs. Rookie tes and a mediocre oline..yet they kept saying he was no good.

 

[milani]

The Bears got better before the draft even started!

So the NFC North has 2 new starting QBs. Just a few years back it was Cousins, Trubisky, Stafford,, and Rodgers. The times they are a changin.

 

[Team Ronny]

Their coaches will ruin his career too!!!

 

[Thirteen Below]

So the NFC North has 2 new starting QBs. Just a few years back it was Cousins, Trubisky, Stafford,, and Rodgers. The times they are a changin.

I remember being worried for a few minutes about Trubisky. He showed some flash there, and I recall thinking "Oh, ****, they may have finally found one."

I should have known, I guess!

 

[milani]

I remember being worried for a few minutes about Trubisky. He showed some flash there, and I recall thinking "Oh, ****, they may have finally found one."

I should have known, I guess!

Now it becomes Keenan Allen and Sam Darnold. But my biggest concern now is at LB. Not much left to sign. Will we draft and play rookies?

 

[Thirteen Below]

Now it becomes Keenan Allen and Sam Darnold. But my biggest concern now is at LB. Not much left to sign. Will we draft and play rookies?

Good question. Who's left out there who's worth having, that we can afford? I haven't kept track all of the homeless linebackers. But it's a definite need, and Gutekunst does not like going into a draft knowing that he's boxed into having to fill out a certain position group.

It seems likely he'd have a couple of guys in mind for this second stage of free agency, but I'll be damned if I can guess who they are. They probably won't be very high-profile at this point, though - just guys. Could be that he's targeting Cooper or Gray or something, because he realizes there's only so much you can solve in free agency.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

They kept making excuses for him sucking. No ol. No good wrs..they had Mooney.. traded for Moore & Claypool..they had Graham and Kmet. Jordan had rookies 2nd year wrs. Rookie tes and a mediocre oline..yet they kept saying he was no good.

I love this Headline, from a Chicago Source no less.

REPORT: Chicago Bears receive Chase Claypool like haul for Justin Fields​

REPORT: Chicago Bears receive Chase Claypool like haul for Justin Fields

The Chicago Bears are trading Justin Fields to the Pittsburgh Steelers. They're receiving a Day 3 pick for Fields after his trade value tanked.

www.chicitysports.com

 

[milani]

Good question. Who's left out there who's worth having, that we can afford? I haven't kept track all of the homeless linebackers. But it's a definite need, and Gutekunst does not like going into a draft knowing that he's boxed into having to fill out a certain position group.

It seems likely he'd have a couple of guys in mind for this second stage of free agency, but I'll be damned if I can guess who they are. They probably won't be very high-profile at this point, though - just guys. Could be that he's targeting Cooper or Gray or something, because he realizes there's only so much you can solve in free agency.

Going into a position group with no experience is fine if you are in full rebuild. Our receiver group was so green last year. It took most of the season for them to develop. But LB does not live by the QB. Offenses will play into our inexperience.

 

[Thirteen Below]

Going into a position group with no experience is fine if you are in full rebuild. Our receiver group was so green last year. It took most of the season for them to develop. But LB does not live by the QB. Offenses will play into our inexperience.

Yeah, that's exactly what worries me too. Playoff teams will shred a weak linebacker squad. Teams like the Niners are custom-built to exploit that weakness.

I'm not even sure how much money we have left to spend on linebackers. But over the last year or so, I've learned to trust Gutekunst a lot more than I've trusted any Packer GM in 25 years, and I assume he sees the same things you and I see and is one (if not two) step ahead of us. He shocked the absolute hell out of me with McKinney and Jacobs, I imagine he's capable of doing it again.

And again - we don't talk about this much, but I still wouldn't rule out a trade. I'm sure he gets calls on a regular basis about those receivers, and it wouldn't break my heart if one of the lower-tier kids brought us back a promising young LB.

On the one hand, you're reluctant to trade any of them away before we know their full potential, but with some of them, we're never going to find that out anyway. We're at least 6 deep at that position; several of these kids are never going to get the playing time they really need to show how good they really are. We're going to have no choice but to dangle some of them as trade bait sooner than later; certainly no later than next spring, and possibly as early as this off-season.

 

[OldSchool101]

So the NFC North has 2 new starting QBs. Just a few years back it was Cousins, Trubisky, Stafford,, and Rodgers. The times they are a changin.

Yeah. We took a beating when Brady came into the NFC. The 1 season we were poised to go all the way and he has to switch to our Conference.

Losing Cousins in FA was absolutely a loss for the Vikings for at least 1 season at minimum. Possibly more.

The Bears however hold the keys to the first choice in this draft. Their situation is much better. We can only hope that Caleb Williams goes the path of the Jaguars QB. I still like our odds either way. Our QB might not be Mahomes, but he’s better than Fields by a mile.

 

[GreenBaySlacker]

You realize the Raiders have one of the absolute worst OL in the league, right? Not sure what "Pot committed" means.



Bottom line here is that Jones is a guy who cares more about money than winning. He has absolutely no chance at a Super Bowl ring in Minnesota. He's the one who threw that away. And all over around $900K. He'll regret his decision one day.

Was Cousins traded after Jones signed? ( I think the rug kinda got swept out from under him on that one.)

 

[OldSchool101]

You realize the Raiders have one of the absolute worst OL in the league, right?

I’m not sure where you are getting this from but the Raiders are nowhere close to the worst OL

NFL 2023 - Comparative Offensive Line Rankings & Ratings - Final Rankings - NFL Lines

Rating NFL Offensive Line units is a bit of a tricky proposition. Most rankings involve looking at the individual linemans’ grades and or block win rates.

nfllines.com

 

[Firethorn1001]

REPORT: Chicago Bears receive Chase Claypool like haul for Justin Fields

Might as well just say "Bears receive potential future hall of famer in Field's trade"

 

[AmishMafia]

I’m not sure where you are getting this from but the Raiders are nowhere close to the worst OL

NFL 2023 - Comparative Offensive Line Rankings & Ratings - Final Rankings - NFL Lines

Rating NFL Offensive Line units is a bit of a tricky proposition. Most rankings involve looking at the individual linemans’ grades and or block win rates.

nfllines.com

Not the worst, but near the bottom, 25th, in run blocking and just as bad in ypc - yards per first contact. Great in pass blocking, but we are looking at Jacobs rushing opportunities.

 

[Thirteen Below]

Was Cousins traded after Jones signed? ( I think the rug kinda got swept out from under him on that one.)

Cousins signed with the Falcons as a free agent, but I think it was announced about a half hour before Jones-Vikings was announced. Schefter broke Cousins-Atlanta at about 14:30, and Jones-Minnesota broke at about 15:00.

 

[OldSchool101]

Not the worst, but near the bottom, 25th, in run blocking and just as bad in ypc - yards per first contact. Great in pass blocking, but we are looking at Jacobs rushing opportunities.

I’m seeing slightly above average RBWR (71%).
League Average was 70.69
So I’m guessing #15/32 area.

Surprisingly Very Well disciplined in penalty yardage #1/32

I’m looking at “Final Season” Rankings for the largest sample size. Seemed pretty average to above average in that one. I’m also concentrating on “overall Win rates for blocking”. I’m not as concerned about 1 aspect (1 test) as I am how did they Finish (Final Grade)
I have no axe to grind. Im just reading what the research displays it. I’d call them average at worst

 

[Thirteen Below]

Going into a position group with no experience is fine if you are in full rebuild. Our receiver group was so green last year. It took most of the season for them to develop. But LB does not live by the QB. Offenses will play into our inexperience.

One other thing that relates to this conversation - it's coming out that Green Bay did not have any real interest in free agent RBs until the weekend, when it became apparent that Jones was not going to give in. Jones was their Plan A for RB until late Friday/sometime Saturday.

Prior to that, we know that they had a list which likely had McKinney at the top - call McKinney "1" on their list.

We can also presume that the Jones development immediately elevated running back to "1B", ahead of whatever other targets Gutekunst had on the list... with McKinney probably still 1A.

Whatever was #2 on the list had to get shoved aside, and with what we know of the team's needs, it seems like a good bet that linebacker was #2.

So it seems highly likely that until last weekend, Gute had a good plan in place for solving linebacker. One that probably would have worked. We can be sure that he had players in mind, and a budget he was confident would pay the tab.

Considering how long he'd had to work things out, I'm reasoanblly sure the linebacker plan would have had a high likelihod of success, and right now we'd probably be looking at a 2024 with Aaron Jones at RB (along with a Day Two draft pick to develop under him), Xavier McKinney at safety, and maybe Frankie Luvu at linebacker. Or Patrick Queen. Or cheaper but still substantial additions like Jordyn Brooks or Azeez Al-Shaair. Maybe Jeremy Chinn as a hybrid strong safety/LB (who I still think was a lost opportunity. He's gonna rock Washington's world.; I'm expecting a big year from him with the Commanders), but quite possibly some other second safety to bolster that position while we draft a couple to develop.

But whatever might have been in an alternate universe, the thing that's certain is that the Jones development changed Green Bay's entire offseason reload plan. Gute had to redesign his free agency strategy to fix running back, and whatever his plan was for other positiions (linebacker, probably safey #2 as well) had to wait.

I'm sure he had a terrific Plan B, but there's no way to know how much that Plan B was impacted by the Jones development. But I think it's safe to see the impact was probably substantial, because it suddenly rearranged a hell of a lot of arithmetic that had been carefully worked out for many weeks. What he does next as Plan C is still a mystery, but one thing that seems likely is that we're going into the draft a lot weaker at linebacker than he had hoped.

The one thing that makes me scratch my head is that if I'm right about this, a couple million per year to keep Jones seems trivial. Seems all this disruption is a huge price to pay for all the chaos and instabillity I'm describing, and would Gute really have thought it was worth all that? So it's quite possible I'm completely missing something, and maybe a million miles away from being close to nailing it. I know I have some of it right, and certainly some of it wrong, but how much of each I cant know. Just sonethig to kick around, i guess.

 

[PikeBadger]

I’m not sure where you are getting this from but the Raiders are nowhere close to the worst OL

NFL 2023 - Comparative Offensive Line Rankings & Ratings - Final Rankings - NFL Lines

Rating NFL Offensive Line units is a bit of a tricky proposition. Most rankings involve looking at the individual linemans’ grades and or block win rates.

nfllines.com

Very interesting. Thanks.

Was surprised our run blocking graded out in the top half of the league. Hopefully this all gets even better if Jenkins returns to his pre-injury level.

 

[sschind]

One other thing that relates to this conversation - it's coming out that Green Bay did not have any real interest in free agent RBs until the weekend, when it became apparent that Jones was not going to give in. Jones was their Plan A for RB until late Friday/sometime Saturday.

Prior to that, we know that they had a list which likely had McKinney at the top - call McKinney "1" on their list.

We can also presume that the Jones development immediately elevated running back to "1B", ahead of whatever other targets Gutekunst had on the list... with McKinney probably still 1A.

Whatever was #2 on the list had to get shoved aside, and with what we know of the team's needs, it seems like a good bet that linebacker was #2.

So it seems highly likely that until last weekend, Gute had a good plan in place for solving linebacker. One that probably would have worked. We can be sure that he had players in mind, and a budget he was confident would pay the tab.

Considering how long he'd had to work things out, I'm reasoanblly sure the linebacker plan would have had a high likelihod of success, and right now we'd probably be looking at a 2024 with Aaron Jones at RB (along with a Day Two draft pick to develop under him), Xavier McKinney at safety, and maybe Frankie Luvu at linebacker. Or Patrick Queen. Or cheaper but still substantial additions like Jordyn Brooks or Azeez Al-Shaair. Maybe Jeremy Chinn as a hybrid strong safety/LB (who I still think was a lost opportunity. He's gonna rock Washington's world.; I'm expecting a big year from him with the Commanders), but quite possibly some other second safety to bolster that position while we draft a couple to develop.

But whatever might have been in an alternate universe, the thing that's certain is that the Jones development changed Green Bay's entire offseason reload plan. Gute had to redesign his free agency strategy to fix running back, and whatever his plan was for other positiions (linebacker, probably safey #2 as well) had to wait.

I'm sure he had a terrific Plan B, but there's no way to know how much that Plan B was impacted by the Jones development. But I think it's safe to see the impact was probably substantial, because it suddenly rearranged a hell of a lot of arithmetic that had been carefully worked out for many weeks. What he does next as Plan C is still a mystery, but one thing that seems likely is that we're going into the draft a lot weaker at linebacker than he had hoped.

The one thing that makes me scratch my head is that if I'm right about this, a couple million per year to keep Jones seems trivial. Seems all this disruption is a huge price to pay for all the chaos and instabillity I'm describing, and would Gute really have thought it was worth all that? So it's quite possible I'm completely missing something, and maybe a million miles away from being close to nailing it. I know I have some of it right, and certainly some of it wrong, but how much of each I cant know. Just sonethig to kick around, i guess.

I guess if the Jones development caused Gute to give up on getting a decent LB that would be a tick on the negative side of the Jones/Jacobs swap. One that I hadn't thought of. Even so it still leaves me on the favorable side of the change.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

For those of you like myself, that need a technical explanation of the type of defense that the Packers will most likely be running under Hafley, this might help. Although I have to admit, I am going to need to watch it a second and possibly even a 3rd time.

You must be logged in to see this image or video!

 

[milani]

One other thing that relates to this conversation - it's coming out that Green Bay did not have any real interest in free agent RBs until the weekend, when it became apparent that Jones was not going to give in. Jones was their Plan A for RB until late Friday/sometime Saturday.

Prior to that, we know that they had a list which likely had McKinney at the top - call McKinney "1" on their list.

We can also presume that the Jones development immediately elevated running back to "1B", ahead of whatever other targets Gutekunst had on the list... with McKinney probably still 1A.

Whatever was #2 on the list had to get shoved aside, and with what we know of the team's needs, it seems like a good bet that linebacker was #2.

So it seems highly likely that until last weekend, Gute had a good plan in place for solving linebacker. One that probably would have worked. We can be sure that he had players in mind, and a budget he was confident would pay the tab.

Considering how long he'd had to work things out, I'm reasoanblly sure the linebacker plan would have had a high likelihod of success, and right now we'd probably be looking at a 2024 with Aaron Jones at RB (along with a Day Two draft pick to develop under him), Xavier McKinney at safety, and maybe Frankie Luvu at linebacker. Or Patrick Queen. Or cheaper but still substantial additions like Jordyn Brooks or Azeez Al-Shaair. Maybe Jeremy Chinn as a hybrid strong safety/LB (who I still think was a lost opportunity. He's gonna rock Washington's world.; I'm expecting a big year from him with the Commanders), but quite possibly some other second safety to bolster that position while we draft a couple to develop.

But whatever might have been in an alternate universe, the thing that's certain is that the Jones development changed Green Bay's entire offseason reload plan. Gute had to redesign his free agency strategy to fix running back, and whatever his plan was for other positiions (linebacker, probably safey #2 as well) had to wait.

I'm sure he had a terrific Plan B, but there's no way to know how much that Plan B was impacted by the Jones development. But I think it's safe to see the impact was probably substantial, because it suddenly rearranged a hell of a lot of arithmetic that had been carefully worked out for many weeks. What he does next as Plan C is still a mystery, but one thing that seems likely is that we're going into the draft a lot weaker at linebacker than he had hoped.

The one thing that makes me scratch my head is that if I'm right about this, a couple million per year to keep Jones seems trivial. Seems all this disruption is a huge price to pay for all the chaos and instabillity I'm describing, and would Gute really have thought it was worth all that? So it's quite possible I'm completely missing something, and maybe a million miles away from being close to nailing it. I know I have some of it right, and certainly some of it wrong, but how much of each I cant know. Just sonethig to kick around, i guess.

A lot of us are missing. For me it is because we had TT for so long. We seemed to know his every move or lack thereof. Gute keeps us guessing. He never let's his right hand know what his left hand is thinking.