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.

A subtle factor in the Favre divorce?

Here is a question: what role did Aaron Rodgers’ high football IQ play in the Brett Favre divorce process? At one point I believe in 2007, McCarthy said that the offense under Favre had only learned 1/4 of his total playbook. McCarthy didn’t say this as a crack on Favre – more as a matter of fact. Was Favre reluctant to learn the other 3/4 of the playbook? It’s well documented that Favre has a narrowed preference for all things West Coast and that learning new plays especially later in his career was not something he was much interested in. Did MM ever feel like the true potential of his offensive ideas could only be realized with a potentially more cerebral (or at least more willing-to-learn) QB like Rodgers? Again, I’m not saying Favre is dumb, I don’t think he is, and I know there were lots of other factors in the divorce – but I wonder if this was even a small part of the discussion.

This year, my guess is that we’ll see Rodgers run a huge variety of plays – leaving defenses often guessing and fans once again praising McCarthy’s creativity. While there were times last year when the playcalling was poor/predictable, that seemed to me to be toward the beginning of the year when I think MM was trying to make it easy for Rodgers. But starting with the last 4-5 games of last year through this preseason especially, it seems Rodgers has grown more comfortable calling a greater variety of plays. Perhaps he’s now tapped into the other 3/4 of MM’s ideas.

Your thoughts?

Just pick-up Mitch Berger

I agree with Trav, Mike Vandermause (GBPG) and others who are concerned about our punting situation. I agree especially when Vandermause seems to question what TT is thinking re the punting. He blew it with Jon Ryan and it’s possible he’s blowing it now too when he could at least pick up a veteran guy who won’t totally suck.

I must confess, I have not seen Durant kick but if he’s not impressing in camp so far by most accounts and he certainly didn’t impress in Washington last year, I say cut the guy now. Just don’t waste any more time. Kapinos should have the edge if only because he’s lefty and that different spin that lefty punters impart on the ball apparently can be really hard for returners to adapt to.

But I would also bring in Mitch Berger. As far as I understand it, he is still a free agent. In addition to still being a serviceable punter, historically, he has been considered a fantastic holder too – another bonus. And his NFL experience may help Crosby a bit considering Ks and Ps hang out together all the time. (By the way, I have a feeling Crosby’s kicking woes last year were due at least in part to Frost probably sucking at holding like he sucked at punting, and then Kapinos being so new. Though Crosby, unlike Longwell, didn’t make a public deal out of it.) Anyway, Berger kicked adequately in relief duty for Pittsburgh last year – at least he didn’t mis-punt them out of the running for a Super Bowl. Just pick him up if he’s still willing to punt so we can have someone in camp who’s not so new to all of this.

TT actually considering Michael Vick?

Somehow, Jason Wilde of the Wisconsin State Journal, has learned that TT may in fact have genuine interest in signing Michael Vick. He indicates his non-comments the other day weren’t necessarily trademark, TT non-comments and that there may have been something behind them. We’ve been surprised by TT before, but this would be quite surprising. Read here from Wilde’s column today.

Thanks, by the way, to DaveK for finding this article.

Should the Packers consider Michael Vick?

Greg Bedard was right in predicting that there would be some noise about Ted Thompson’s recent non-comments on Michael Vick. Here’s what TT said. (si, pft, nfl.com others have already run with this story). For most Packer fans, this looks like very typical TT rhetoric – non-committal, saying mostly nothing. But it seems to me that if 24 other teams have already weighed in stating convincingly that Vick is not in their plans, if TT were not interested, it would have been far less of a headache for him to just do the same. Now, he’s let loose the hounds. While this may all mean absolutely nothing, I guess I was a little surprised that he chose to handle it this way.

This is an intriguing question and one I hadn’t considered much before now. Not sure what exactly I would do as GM. I suppose if I were forced to render an opinion at this moment, I would say we should definitely consider it (because I actually do agree with TT, we should consider lots of possibilities all the time), but in the end I would say no. The major reason I think we shouldn’t pursue Vick much further is that the smoke is just now clearing from a very high profile/media-hyped divorce with Favre. We don’t need any more fire/smoke right now and the fact is, wherever Vick goes he will carry with him some degree of flammability (to continue on way too far with this whole fire/smoke metaphor). I also don’t think Vick would be a huge contributor on this particular offense (though that may not be giving McCarthy enough credit – he could probably figure out some creative things to do with an athlete like Vick).

Now, if the Favre situation hadn’t just happened, I might be more inclined to consider Vick, but I’m still not sure I’d sign him. Some reasons for considering him seriously follow. First of all, the salary he’ll command likely won’t match his talent level – he just went through bankruptcy and he’s desperate for money/an opportunity. Second, he is one of the more gifted players out there. Third, we all know he can play at Lambeau. Fourth, though I’d have some misgivings about signing a convicted felon, and his crimes were vicious and profoundly stupid, I do believe he has served his time (unlike Donte Stallworth). Fifth, he would be a great player to have on the roster in case something happened to Aaron Rodgers. Sixth, even if he we couldn’t find a huge role for him on our offense, if he made some plays and proved to the world that he avoid getting involved in inane activities off the field, he could become good trade bait – especially for a team desperate for a QB.

Regardless of the real meaning behind TT’s comments, I put the question to you all: should the Packers consider signing Michael Vick?

A Favre conspiracy theory worth reading

Please take a moment to read this well-written, hilarious conspiracy theory re Favre/Thompson from frequent commenter Joshy. Made me laugh…will make you laugh.

Packers add DE Wynn and CB Underwood

I’m glad we picked up a DE, but my hope would have been that he would have been a bit bigger (he’s only 275lbs). It’s interesting, the more the draft plays out and the more I think about the Pack’s roster, the more I wonder if they are going to use a somewhat improvised 3-4 line-up. I am wondering if they are thinking about pairing Raji with Pickett and Jenkins on the line and going with 4 LBs. It would be a bit different from other 3-4 line-ups in that either Raji or Pickett (probably Raji), whoever plays DE, would be quite a bit bigger than most DEs in a 3-4. I also wonder if Capers’ system will be much more of a hybrid 3-4/4-3 that has a bunch of sub packages – one that brings a ton of different looks.

We do have future needs at CB so I don’t mind grabbing one here.