Raji is a gigantic woosie.

[OldSchool101]

The more important thing here is that Raji is done for the year, and likely with the Packers. I can't imagine that TT is going to be sitting in Packers Castle thinking about bringing back a veteran nose tackle with an injury history and only one truly good season under his belt. The TT that I know will be drafting more NTs and looking towards the future.

Right now we should be looking at a NT and an ILB within the 1st 3 rounds of draft. Guion is in his sunset years at the position and we need to shore up the nucleus of our run D

 

[OldSchool101]

My list of All-time favorite Packers is getting longer as I get older. But theres nothing like Gilbert brown, Grady Jackson was like him for a couple few years for us. Reggie is all world. So are the two QBs. But in terms of awesomness, I dont think anything compares to 400 pound Gilbert Brown chasing down a QB from behind. His heart and hustle was amazing for such a huge man!!! I thought Raji was going to make the list, but he's floundered in recent years. 3-4 or not. Never stopped Wilfork.

Yeah, I miss old Gilbert. His career was short with us but he was awesome. Every time I hear this song Gilbert comes to mind digging in the QB pockets. Lol.

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[bdawkins711]

Interesting

 

[adambr2]

All I'm doing is looking up statistics on a website...yup. I don't watch Packer games ever. You realize that you are saying that one of Raji's worst years was a Pro Bowl year, right? Do you think maybe, just maybe, the hate has gone a little far?

First of all, I was excited about Raji so I don't think you can accurately say that people weren't excited about him. I also think your star comment is very telling. It seems you see thing in black and white. Either Raji is a star or he isn't worthy of being on the team. Why can't we have something in the middle? Raji is a good player. He's been inconsistent, but he's been mainly healthy. He's made a Pro Bowl, helped take us to a Super Bowl (and was a major reason we went there), and the team is better with him than without him. This hate has really gone far.

Yes, he's right, one of Raji's worst years was a Pro Bowl year. You can repeat 'Pro Bowl' all you want. It's a popularity contest and at times has no actual correlation to performance that year.

PFF had him rated as the worst defensive lineman in the NFL against the run that year. The WORST.

No, he's not a good player. He used to be a good player. He did help take us to a Super Bowl. That has nothing to do with who he is now. There is a reason he couldn't get more than a mostly non-guaranteed 'prove it' deal from his home team in unrestricted free agency.

 

[adambr2]

By popularity contesst you mean 1/3rd coaches, 1/3rd players, and 1/3rd fans. So 2/3rds of the voting is done by what could be deemed experts.

Raji had 3 sacks, 22 tackles, 1 FR, 2 PD's, and 1 rushing TD on offense. He also played all 16 games, which availability is key to being a good player. That seems like a pretty good season for a NT to me statistically.

So since I'm consistently asked for evidence to back up my position, what is your evidence that Raji's 2011 season was the worst of his career, and that his Pro Bowl selection was unwarranted? I understand that you referenced PFF, but that is not a very reliable source IMO. House had a negative ST's rating after causing a turnover, too. Their stats are often wrong, and I think Pro Bowl slections are more reliable than PFF stats. Btw, PFF stats are really little more than opinion. They simply put numbers to their opinion of how each play goes.

EDIT: I just looked at QB ratings on PFF. They rank Foles as the worst QB in the NFL right now (35th out of 35). I think that's pretty clearly not true, as Philadelphia is undefeated.

PFF goes a little more in depth as to why Raji's performance in 2011 justified the grade. Here is the article on it:

http://www.totalpackers.com/2012/03/11/b-j-raji-is-the-worst/

Given that this was a big regression from 2010, and he hasn't had a sack since then, his presence as a pass rushing threat has definitely gone from "minimal" in 2011 to "nonexistent" now. The article of course addresses his deficiencies in run defense.

Also, pointing out that Raji scored a rushing TD on offense to justify your opinion on him as a defensive player...come on, that's just silly.

PFF is not perfect. But they do, just as you said you do, watch the Packers (and everyone else). Their grades are opinion based, but they're based on what they see.

I can't stress enough how much better it is than basing it on a single Pro Bowl selection. Bubba Franks made some Pro Bowls. Brett Favre made it as a Jet in 2008 when he had a pretty bad season. Vince Young made it as a rookie with 12 TD's and 13 picks. (!) I could go on and on. There are silly Pro Bowl selections almost every year. It just can't be read into too much.

 

[adambr2]

So this is how PFF gets their DT rankings:

I don't agree with that methodology at all. At least I understand where you are coming from.

On the Pro Bowl, sure, you can find a few exceptions here and there on players that shouldn't get voted in that do, but for the most part, I think you can find a lot more exceptions on PFF stats. Take, for instance, the 80th overall ranked DT Ahtyba Rubin, who had 45 stops, 8 more than the 2nd best DT in stops. He was also ranked 142nd in run defense, even with all of those stops. I'm not sure how that makes any sense at all.

PFF is wildly inconsistent. In 2010, when the Packers won the Super Bowl, Rodgers was rated 5th best. Of the 4 QB's rated above him, only Phillip Rivers had a better passer rating. Tom Brady was 8th according to PFF even though he had a passer rating of 111.0. For reference, Matt Ryan, who was 2nd according to PFF, had only a 91.0 passer rating. That's a 20 point difference. So yeah, I really question these stats.

About Raji, it's not about just the Pro Bowl season. I also referenced his other 6.5 sack season. Also, just look at how much worse this team gets when Raji is not in there. Today was better, but the first 2 games were terrible on defense.

The run D was terrible with Raji last year. I watched him play too much patty cake and constantly fail to disengage from a single blocker too many times to believe the D is any better with him. I believe he set an NFL defensive record for least tackles per snap on defense. The run defense the last 2 games has been holding the opposition to 3 YPC or just over. I sure don't see where he's being missed.

I'm not denying that he was very good in 2010, he was. I'm just saying he's not anymore. Could he have rebounded this year returning to NT and discovered his old form, sure, possibly. We'll never know, at least not this year.

But based on last year, I can't give him the benefit of the doubt. Raji has a lot of proving and work to do. As far as I can tell from his second half performance, he just flat out gave up when Rodgers went down last year. In my opinion, just opinion, he's a lazy player who thought he could coast into free agency on his reputation and size and land a big offer, and he vastly overplayed his hand.

 

[TJV]

The pro bowl is much too much a popularity contest. Coaches and players have other things to worry about rather than assessing the play of players on teams they didn't play that year. I wonder how many coaches hand the ballots off to someone else to fill out? And how many fans are knowledgeable about the entire league. It probably should be done by sportswriters who cover the entire league.

Regarding Raji the hope and from reports from camp, the expectation this season was that he was finally rejuvenated and back to playing at least a semblance of how he played in 2010.

 

[melvin dangerr]

That one discount double check commercial doomed Raji he has never been the same after that