Just trade for Steve Slaton

Ok – I’ll say it one last time: just make the trade. At this point, Steve Slaton has fallen to the #3 RB position in Houston behind Arian Foster and newly acquired (and apparently rather fat and out of shape) Derrick Ward. Even though the depth chart says he’s #2, he’s not. While some believe this decline in opportunity is due to a possible decline in skill level, I don’t. There are other factors. Last year he was hurt, so some time was spent recovering. And last year, he also had a fumbling issue. I also believe that the Hou O-Line, toward the beginning of the year last year, was not run blocking well – their focus was on pass blocking. So Slaton was a victim of that.

But the biggest factor here is the doghouse factor. Gary Kubiak doesn’t like Steve Slaton and I think it may be solely because of his fumbles last year. (For the record, Slaton only fumbled 2x in 2008 when he rushed 268 times for nearly 1300 yards averaging 4.8 yards per carry…he also had 50 receptions). The RB’s coach and other offensive coaches were raving about Slaton in the preseason – talking about how he looked like himself again (after recovering from the injury) and how he still had the dynamic skill set that sets him apart.

So, that brings me to my point: why not make a play for a guy like this who is in the doghouse? If the other offensive coaches are to be believed, Slaton still has it. He is a great runner, has better hands than most RBs in the league w/re to catching the ball out of the backfield, and the bonus is that he could be a great return guy as well. At this point, considering they got him for a 3rd round pick and considering Gary Kubiak doesn’t like him – I bet they let him go for a 4th round pick or a 5th rounder …maybe even a 6th rounder.

JUST DO IT!

Finley out for the season???

Ugly, ugly info coming in. Read here from nationalfootballpost.com. Brad Biggs says that Finley’s injury may put him out for the season. Brother Steve indicates that Fox 11 in Green Bay is also reporting this. And now, Bedard at jsonline who initially had a more optimistic read on the news this morning, is indicating Finley is looking at, at the least, 8-10 weeks of recovery – making it a tough decision for the team w/re to placing him on IR. Ugh. Anyway you look at it, this sucks.

I realize it’s highly doubtful that we’ll leave a roster spot open for a guy whose recovery is expected to be at least 8-10 weeks, but frankly, I’m annoyed by the thought that we’ll probably end up filling Finley’s roster spot with an undrafted free agent who is presently working at a factory (assuming TT won’t trade for someone, which would be the only way to acquire quality right now). But with all the other injuries and needs for guys on special teams etc, my guess is that Finley’s done for the year.

Just a nasty situation. The guy is very good but staying healthy already seems like a problem for him in his young career.

One thought on all these injuries – in the next 4-5 weeks, I think we may get a better sense for how good McCarthy, Capers and TT are at their respective jobs. In tough times, we look to leadership – it’s an opportunity now for them.

Interesting Rodgers/Finley info from Scott W

Check out this comment from reader Scott W (thanks Scott):

“Madison sports talk this morning mentioned Rodgers angrily threw his towel into his locker when asked about the play calling. Finley also expressed his feelings comparable to Rodgers.”

Maybe this is a bigger deal than I thought (or hoped) it is. Just read through Greg Bedard’s updates at jsonline – here is what McCarthy had to say. Read here, for Rodgers comments.

Tough to know what’s really going on here. My guess again is that it’s probably pretty basic. Rodgers wants the offense to be super-explosive mostly because he just wants to win and he knows that our defense and special teams won’t always be able to bail this team out. He knows that without a decent RB, the offense won’t produce like he knows it can considering the overall talent level – so he wants to go back to that dink and dunk offense that moved the ball quite easily against the Bears.

Again, my lean here is with Rodgers. I think he’s right – the offense hasn’t crafted a strong identity yet and they haven’t put together a solid game. But I can’t help but wonder if at least part of this is Rodgers voicing sideways frustration at TT for not picking up another running back. I think the real thrust of his comments might have been aimed at our RBs – and by extension at McCarthy for putting these guys on the field when they aren’t our “best players”.

Maybe this is what needs to happen to force TT to make a move – Rodgers is his boy after all.

Bet TT is eyeing this kid already…

See here.

Randy Moss/Brett Favre background

Thanks to Trav for pointing out this Andrew Brandt article over at National Football Post. As Trav notes, this does give us a bit more info w/re to the still murky details of the fracture of the TT/Favre relationship.

Couple thoughts:

• I find it curious that the Packers were only willing to offer a 2-year deal for Moss mostly out of fear that if we offered a 1 year deal, he’d hit the open market and bank out – yet, we were apparently one of the teams to be interested in him after he did have a monster season with NE and was looking to cash out. Makes me think our re-interest in Moss, if you will, was driven by Favre being relentless about it. (In other articles, Brandt has described Favre as such when it came to signing guys…)
• It’s interesting to know that TT really seemed to want Moss too – that it wasn’t just a totally Favre-driven idea.
• I find Brandt’s opening statement very interesting: “The strange ranting of Randy Moss this week takes me back to the weekend of the 2007 Draft; much of it spent trying to sign Moss.” If we are to believe that they spent most of draft weekend trying to sign Moss (I see no reason to doubt Brandt) – imagine what this must have been like for TT, who considers the draft the most important thing in his life. It becomes a bit clearer to see from this article why both Favre and TT were annoyed with one another. Favre just plain wanted a top-flight WR and probably felt the Packers were just being cheap/too focused on non-free agents. Meanwhile, TT was trying to focus on the draft but had to deal with Favre and apparently Bus Cook lobbying for Moss.
• I wonder if Brandt has written at all about this before. Odd that I haven’t read about this before. I had suspected at the time that not getting Moss again was something that Favre was pissed about (back in 2008) but this article makes a good argument for it essentially being the last straw for Favre. (And maybe for TT too).

I also

No ceiling, no floor

Not only will there be no salary cap, but there is no salary minimum either. Will Tight Ted Thompson strive to have the league’s smallest payroll? Hope not.

Hopefully the final Favre links this year

I’m ready to move on from yesterday’s game now – in fact I’m looking forward to it. But there are two links I think readers may find quite interesting. Jsonline also linked to these articles. They are written by the former VP of the Packers Andrew Brandt over at NationalFootballPost.com. Brandt writes from the unique perspective of having had relationships with both TT and Favre (though I believe his not-so-good relationship with TT may have resulted in his dismissal – so there is likely a bias). Like I said, I’m Favred out but I just thought this was as interesting a perspective I’ve read on this whole thing in a while.

Read here for last Friday’s article and here for today’s article.

 

Trade deadline ideas

I thought I’d put together some trade ideas for TT to think about here last minute. He usually doesn’t read the blog until noon or so, but he should still have time to act.

• anyone the Giants want for any of their O-Linemen
• Chillar, James Jones and 1st round pick for Steven Jackson
• Barnett, Jordy Nelson and 3rd round pick for Tashard Choice
• Kampman, Hawk, 1st round pick (maybe Jordy Nelson too) for Maurice Jones-Drew.
• Kampman, James Jones, 1st round pick for Andre Johnson.
• Barnett, James Jones, 3rd round pick for Leon Washington
• Barnett, 3rd round pick and Jermichael Finley for Joe Thomas
• Poppinga and Donald Lee for Mewelde Moore
• Chad Clifton and 5th round pick for Matt Light
• Aaron Kampman and 3rd round pick for Jordan Gross
• Donald Lee and James Jones for Laurence Mauroney
• Barnett for Willis McGahee
• 5th round pick for Tyrell Sutton
• Barnett for Fred Jackson
• Kampman for Derrick Ward
• Jermichael Finley and 3rd round pick for Ahmad Bradshaw
• James Jones and 5th round pick for Ricky Williams

Punting stats

Came across some interesting stats this morning over at nfl.com. In 3 games, the leading punter in the NFL for net average and overall average is Jon Ryan: 45.1 ypp and 52.8ypp respectively. Even though Jeremy Kapinos hasn’t been great (he’s 31st in net average, but does have 5 punts downed inside the 20), he hasn’t been horrendous either. This post isn’t really about Kapinos though, I just thought it was interesting that the guy we cut last year is leading the NFL in 2 significant punting categories.

Still bitter re Tyrell Sutton

Just reading today again that Brandon Jackson is expected to miss this week as well. Right now, we have 2 healthy halfbacks. Halfback is a position that sees plenty of injuries. I know the team thinks John Kuhn is able to switch in and play halfback because he did it in college – I don’t. That would be ugly. If Sutton were here now, he could be getting some playing time and doing some damage on the field because the guy can flat out play. Even though Jackson still has potential and I don’t think he’s bad, he has some trouble staying healthy. I know McCarthy/Thompson always have their reasons for cutting guys, but I still think cutting Sutton was a mistake. The fact that he was picked up instantly and put on a roster  of a team that already had 3 quality RBs (Carolina) and not put on a practice squad, offers support for the argument that this was a mistake.

Couple the Sutton situation with the Desmond Bishop situation (plus a few others over the years), and it leads me to a small worry that sometimes MM/TT overlook obvious, obvious talent. Generally, they evaluate talent reasonably well, but there are times when I can’t possibly imagine how they arrive at their decisions. Cutting Tyrell Sutton is one of those decisions.