You might think the Green Bay Packers’ directive in free agency is to spend nothing at all. Well, it’s not, according to team president Mark Murphy.
It’s not to overspend and that just ultimately results in the Packers not signing anyone at all.
“… some of the minimum spending rules have kicked in, so you’ve seen some teams spend a lot of money that you haven’t seen spend in the past and I feel confident in our strategy that we’re not going to overspend for players,” Murphy said. “The main focus is on keeping our own. But I know if we can help ourselves we’re looking at it. We brought Jared Cook in for a visit, and we’re going to continue to look at different ways we can build the team.”
As aggravating as it is, this is a sound strategy.
The Packers don’t need to get into bidding wars for players. When that happens, teams end up paying more for a lesser talent and that ultimately cripples their salary cap.
The way the Packers operate is they assign values to players and, we assume, if they can get those players at that number, then they’ll do so.
That just never materializes, so we have to wonder what sort of values they’re assigning.
If you go back to the beginning of free agency this year, both tight end Ladarius Green and inside linebacker Danny Trevathan — two players that would have improved the Packers — received reasonable deals. They were deals the Packers could have afforded and you’d have a hard time finding anyone who says those deals represented overspending.
At the same time, the Packers gave a one-year, $5 million deal to Nick Perry — he of the 12.5 career sacks.
So if you wanted to make a case for overspending, you might say the Packers overspend for their own free agents. If you need another example of that, look back to last offseason when the Packers gave the completely mediocre Bryan Bulaga $6.75 million annually.
That deal will likely prevent the Packers from re-signing at least one of their starting guards — Josh Sitton and T.J. Lang, both of whom are superior to Bulaga — next year.
You could also argue the Packers overpaid to sign Randall Cobb last year, as well. Cobb’s deal averages out to $10 million annually, which is No. 1 receiver money. In the absence of Jordy Nelson, we quickly learned that Cobb is not a No. 1 receiver.
Another clear example of overspending.
So, no. The Packers will not overspend for outside free agents. They probably won’t spend at all. They’ll just overspend to keep their own free agents.
And what better way to keep the status quo intact?
7 Comments
I would argue bulagas contract was a decent deal. Starting caliber tackles aren’t the easiest thing to find. We found that out last year. Cobb is probably overpaid, but honestly we were kind of forced to. He was coming off a career year, we didn’t have the information we have now, and if he left, we would have had jordy, then three second year players and a rookie. A lot of inexperience. Not something I wouldnt want to roll the dice in that situation unless his asking price was completely out of hand. I would argue their worst contract was the brad Jones contract. Paid for one year of production, for what had been a mediocre player his entire career.
The Nick Perry contract ?? who knows how that will turn out. It is tough to pay a guy on potential when he’s going to be a 5th year pro. You’d think his potential was understood by now.
I think Bulaga and Cobb could have got a bit more on the open market. Half a mil here, a mil there. Some other team may have offered them slightly more so the Packers basically paid up to keep them. Probably negotiated accurately, for the slight discount to market rate that would keep them in GB. Does that mean they are good deals relative to what Jordy, TJ and Josh are making? No! those guys are better, but unfortunately that doesn’t change what the Pack had to do to keep bulaga and cobb.
Starks at $3 million was unnecessary and not what I would call frugal either. When Lacy comes back a beast this year this will prove to have been a poor use of money.
You were wrong when you demanded the Packers overspend in free agency, you were wrong about them resigning their own free agents when you claimed “nobody wanted them”, and now you’re wrong about how much they paid them.
But you’ll say anything to shit on this franchise until Thompson is fired.
Keep. Fucking. That. Chicken.
Monty’s right. You don’t build a Championship roster relying on overpaying for your crop of talent. You admit where you made a mistake in an evaluation, and then supplant that starter with a proven asset in Free Agency. There’s no argument to the contrary that’s even worth listening to as Super Bowl rosters are littered with free agents from other teams. Yes, you don’t want to get into bidding wars and overspend in Free Agency but to ignore it completely while overvaluing your own “home grown” talent makes players feel their jobs are safe in Green Bay and therefore provides no sense of accountability or incentive toward actually improving as players. I would also argue that these players get complacent if they know their jobs are not on the line each and every year.
A joke, real joke IMO…look at our NT position for example, now we have NO ONE manning that position to start the year. What are you going to do, rely on a bunch of rookies? Not very smart at all.
Guion plays NT and he arguably plays better than Raji did.
Sorry, Joseph wrote the article…whomever that is.