Alright, maybe there aren’t 18 receivers on the Green Bay Packers roster, but it sure as hell feels like it.
The Packers drafted three receivers earlier this month — Davante Adams, Jared Abbrederis and Jeff Janis. Those guys will be thrown in with the three remaining guys who are more or less guaranteed roster spots — Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb and Jarrett Boykin.
Then you’ve got the other holdovers, who have more or less been forgotten, but should have just as much claim to a roster spot as the guys who just got drafted. They are Myles White, Chris Harper and Kevin Dorsey.
That’s nine receivers on the roster, not counting any riff raff the Packers might have picked up off the street.
At most, six of these guys are going to make the roster. Barring injury, four of those spots are already sewn up. In addition to last year’s top three holdovers, Adams gets one for being a second-round pick. So five guys for two spots.
“I don’t know if we’ve ever had as competitive as that as far as if you go just off pure evaluation of players coming into your program and aligning them with the players that are already here,” said Packers coach Mike McCarthy.
Oh, REEEEEEEEEALY?
Let’s whip out the nine-receiver set and confuse the hell out of everyone! Unstoppable!
Anyway, that’s a fairly bold statement considering the Packers have had some pretty stacked receiver groups. As recently as two seasons ago they had a group of Nelson, Cobb, Boykin, James Jones, Greg Jennings and Donald Driver.
While this is great for paying lip service to competition and what have you, it’s not so great for when the Packers inevitably find themselves with a rash of hamstring injuries at another position. Then someone is going to be like, “Well, shit. If we only had one more [insert position here] instead of NINE fucking receivers!”
But hey, just think of that nine-receiver set. Thats’ what Big Mike does at night when he touches himself.
Jordy found where to leap here. Usually when they do the leap, its into the lap of some fat dude
I would not ay Boykin is guaranteed a roster spot.
& you can basically add Richard Rodgers to the list of WR’s cause that’s really what he is.
I doubt Rodgers will be competent at any position. I still have no idea what Thompson sees in him.
Right little ray of sunshine you are, I was surprised at his darfting as well, but neither you nor I have spent so much as a tenth of a percent of the time evaluating his ability as TT and his scouts have. That might explain the lack of understanding…
Tyko, Rodgers is 6’4″, 260+ pounds, that’s a good size even for a TE. His blocking abilities may be questionable, but he hasn’t exactly had a lot of practice.
Alex Gillett is #10 on our roster. watched him last year at TC. dude caught everything thrown at him. hung on the practice squad. Having this many receivers that can actually catch is a real good problem to have. I imagine some could be used as trade bait later on, if a team wants them bad enough.
I noticed that Greg had the habit of scouting his Leap spots ahead of time in the last season he was here. Good strategy. Then the inevitable “crotch grab” doesn’t bother you so much.
Since you should be able to use this position to fill your kick return needs, you keep six. Nelson, Cobb, Boykin and Adams should be locks. Abbredaris is your sixth as long as he can return kicks. Janis can go to the PS. So that basically leaves Myles White, Kevin Dorsey, Chris Harper and Alex Gillett battling for the fifth spot. The most pressure is on Myles White. Since he was on the active roster last season, he can’t go to the PS. It is 53 or bust for him.
The way it’s suppose to go is you have 5 WRs on the 53 with one or two WRs on the pratice squad. Having 6 WRs for the 53 is a waste of a roster spot. I said last year cutting OLB Moses to only leave Mulumba & Palmer as our only backup OLBs to Clay & Perry was a mistake. And damn it sure was. Going into the SF playoff game McCarthy made OLB Palmer inactive leaving only Neal, Mulumba & a hurt Perry the only OLBs on the roster going into the game. After Neal & Mulumba were hurt why was Datone playing OLB when LB Jones & Lattimore (both former OLBs) are active and on the roster. Was a horrible example of poor planning & decision making that cost GB the season. I still have nightmares of Kaepernick running off LT around the line of scrimmage for cakewalk first downs on the last drive of the game while a hurt & gimpy Mulumba struggled just to move out of his stance. Bottom line is McCarthy & Thompson have already stated they don’t look at how many players they have at a position (which is utterly retarded) & only add to the roster based on talent. This year they will keep too many roster spots at WR and TE on the 53 making other positions lack at depth & quality.
You have to keep the 53 best players. If you start to let better players go due to position quotas, you will end up like the Atlanta Falcons last season.
The Packers kept 10 linebackers last season. Most of whom could play outside (out of the 10, only Hawk and Barrington had never been outside). That means the Packers had potentially 8 OLBs at the start of the season. I think we would all agree that is plenty of depth.
As it turned out, 9 of the 10 LBs we kept got injured. There is no amount of planning that could have prepared for a calamity of that magnitude at one position.
Both Jones and Lattimore were also injured for that final game against San Fran. And none of them, including a healthy Mulumba, have the speed to stop Kaepernick from getting around the end anyway.
As painful as that final drive was, suggesting that the defensive failure there cost the Packers their season is an oversimplification to the extreme. Maybe if the offense hadn’t gone the entire first quarter without getting a first down. Maybe if the offense would have scored a touchdown in the redzone on their final drive instead of settling for a FG.
Frankly, the defense minus probably its too best players- Clay Matthews and Sam Shields- battled their asses off all game and deserve a lot of credit for keeping us in it until the end.
I’m not talking down on the defense in the SF playoff game, they played great. Couldn’t disagree more about the Atlanta comparison and pretty much almost everything you said. Atlanta doesn’t know how to construct a roster in general, and when you give up too many draft picks for one player and your starters get hurt guess what, your backups suck. Far as everything else..
After the final cut they started the season with 4 OLBs Matthews, Perry, Mulumba, Palmer. 5 ILBs Hawk, Jones, Lattimore, Francois, Barrington. Starting the season Neal was to be the hybrid that took snaps on the D Line as well at OLB. He only became full time OLB after the massive amount of injuries to the LBs (as you mentioned) and we had 7 D Lineman on the 53 with no injuries (at the time).
Again at the time of the final cuts I said letting Moses go was a mistake in my opinion because I knew Clay & Perry wouldn’t make it through the year without missing time. Trusting a first year UDFA & a first year late 7th round draft pick to be a #1 backup to step in & start at OLB over a player that already had experience in the system & was proven not to be a liability was not only risky but foolish. Several articles I read last year highlighted that and agreed as well.
Was there a way to predict the amount of injuries last year at the position? It’s easy to say no, but if anyone really pays attention to GB football they would know the team loses 3-4 LBs at minimum to injury every year including Clay. Others and me as well said that was a bad roster move (Moses) and that proved to be true. There’s no disputing that. Not only because of the overall injuries to the position (should of been anticipated) but because it hurt at the worst time of the year, the playoffs.
Fast Forward to before the SF playoff game. Matthews, Francois, Barrington gone from injuries. Jones & Lattimore both already returned from injury & were playing banged up. Neal didn’t practice the last 6 weeks of season because he was playing so banged up. And Perry’s foot was so bad his snaps were reduced from 30 to 15 to 5 the last 3 weeks of the season. Going into the game they suited up 3 OLBs Mulumba, a beat up Neal, and a really hurt Perry. Palmer was inactive the previous 5 weeks. I said they should put Palmer on the active roster with the injuries the OLBs had. They didn’t and it was a mistake. It went very quietly after the game but there were several articles that highlighted that mistake. There’s no disputing that.
Saying “no amount of planning that could have prepared for a calamity of that magnitude at one position.” is ridiculous and is giving a pass for poor decisions & roster management. Like they don’t know the roster or can’t figure it out on a game by game basis. They have to do that every week. If they knew going into the game you have 3 OLBs ones a UDFA rookie, ones beat up and ones hurt you think they might want to activate Palmer? Or have B. Jones or Lattimore ready to play at OLB in case someone was hurt? They both were active & on the roster. Sadly GBs coaching staff messed up on that. If some journalists, myself and others can see that why can’t they? They fucked up with that bottom line.
Lastly I’m not one to say one play here determines a game or season, because it doesn’t. I (as well as others) just pointed out some mistakes they made with the roster last year that cost GB in a big way. We can disagree on how you keep a 53 but what you can’t dispute is that with the multiple OLB roster debacles last season GB obviously learned their lesson. Last year the OLBs were Clay, Perry, Mulumba & Palmer with possible time for Neal. This year it’s Matthews, Peppers, Perry, & Neal with Hubbard & Elliott coming in, Palmer is gone and Mulumba will have to fight and will be lucky to have a job. Coincidence? I think not.
I’ll say this about the bundle of receivers. Should we wait until Rodgers is 36 and then start developing a totally new WR corps? Think about it. We need to have receivers at the ready for the game’s best QB. Look at what happened to Tom Brady this year.
Ron Wolf’s biggest regret was not surrounding Brett Favre with more weapons. The guys that were picked up, IMO, have just as much potential as Cobb Nelson or Boykin.
That being said, there were obviously far more pressing needs on the defensive side of the team. And with THAT being said (too), McCarthy did promise that the D will be better this year. He made the same promise about the run game last year, and that worked pretty damn well for us.
The first 5 seem like locks: The Great White Flash, Randall Texx” Cobb, Jarrett “Nervous Nelly” Boykin, Adams, and the Great White Wisconsin Hope himself, Abbrederis (Special Teams alone should allow him to make it). I could see Whyte potentially making the roster, Dorsey getting stashed on the PS again, along with either Gillett or Janis.
I don’t give a fuck what anyone says but you got the funniest Packer column on “the net”.
it doesn’t matter how many receivers you set up with, if the o-line can’t keep A-Rog protected, they won’t see many passes. Can any of these new receivers block?