Last night an anonymous Acme Feed & Seed waitress provided Total Packers with a tape recording. We’ve identified the voices as:
John Dorsey, Browns GM; spent two decades in Packers’ scouting department. Has also been Seahawks’ Director of Player Personnel
Eliot Wolf – Browns’assistant GM; from 2004 -17 he held nearly every job in Pro Personnel department, rising to being director of football operations in 2016-17.
John Schneider, Seahawks GM, former Packers front office exec, and Director of Football Operations 2008-09
Mike McCarthy – former Packers’ head coach (2006-18)
Here’s a partial transcript:
McCarthy: Hey Eliot, can you believe this place: three floors of food and drinks, and from the rooftop, you can look right down to the NFL stage! Have you tried the Broken Spoke Meatloaf? I’m gonna go get me some.
Wolf: Good to see Coach back to his old self. We’re the four amigos – all screwed over by Mark Murphy.
Dorsey: Wait’ll Gutekunst finds out we’ve got a trick or two up our sleeves. Yup, vengeance is a dish best served cold.
McCarthy (returning to table): What’s that? You mean the sliced cucumber salad? Had it for breakfast.
Dorsey: No Mike, we’re talking about Green Bay’s draft. We knew Gute wanted Rashan Gary at # 30, so we spread the word Atlanta was taking him at 14. Gute bit, and used his # 12 pick on a guy with not even 10 sacks in three years. And a # 12 comes along about once a decade in Green Bay.
Schneider: It gets better – we spread the word that our team physician found that Gary’s bad shoulder has fully healed. Gute thinks it’s 110%, baby!
McCarthy: Hold that thought, here comes my order of “Heaven-Lee” ribs.
Schneider: That’s not all, Mike. Gute wanted Darnell Savage – you know, the safety in the funny Maryland uniform – at number 30. So we made sure he thought we were taking him at 21. Guess what, Gute got on the phone and traded up with me to get that pick. Otherwise, the guy doesn’t go until the second round. (Laughter)
McCarthy: Well at least they got a good player.
Schneider: Get this, though, Gute handed me both of the Pack’s fourth-round picks to swing the deal.
McCarthy: You’re kidding, right? Hey waitress, we’d like some Beer Belly Tacos all around.
Dorsey: No irony there, huh Mike? Anyhow, we got Gute so flustered, he forgot about needing a wide receiver. Could have had anyone at # 30, and still had great options at # 44. He goes with a center named Jenkins – when Corey Linsley is just coming into his prime.
Wolf: Like a center or a guard is more of a game changer than either of the Ole Miss receivers, D.K. Metcalf and A.J. Brown, are gonna be. They’re no shrimps – Metcalf weighs 230 and Brown goes 225. Gute is off the rails, I tell ya.
McCarthy: That reminds me, you’ve got to try the Shrimp and Grits, southern cuisine at its best.
Wolf: Hey John (Schneider), I’ll bet you and our mutual buddy, Pete Carroll, are going to rub Gute’s nose in it when the Seahawks come to town – could you believe you just got “the monster,” D.K. Metcalf, at number 64?
Schneider: Gute will live to regret that one. The party’s already over for Green Bay – and to think they spurned all four of us. After giving us their two picks in Round 4, the Pack has no dog in the hunt from # 75 all the way to # 150, then they finish up with two sixth rounders and a seventh.
Wolf: I heard most of the gang left town after # 75, leaving Russ Ball to sweep up the late-round crumbs. (Laughter)
McCarthy: Tell you what, you won’t find catfish and hush puppies like this in Green Bay. You guys got any other surprises in store for my old team?
Schneider: Wait and see. Gute loves to trade up, though he always gets burned. I schooled him last year too – remember how he moved up from 27th to 18th in Round 1, but I got their 27th, a third rounder, and a sixth rounder. Gute is obsessed with getting the best of me – won’t happen.
Dorsey: Speaking of obsession, Gute has gone for defensive players on both top picks. We all agree Gute won’t be selecting any more defensive players, right? He can’t possibly keep picking defenders – CAN HE?
McCarthy: Hey waitress, four Mule Kickers, please – it’s billed as a moonshine slushee, guys, you’ll love it. An appropriate toast fellas: Here’s to Gute getting his ass kicked in Nashville. (Cheers and guffaws)
Last updated on April 30th, 2019 at 05:11 am
I would like to know just how much input TT had in this draft. His mark seems to be all over the place. B G sucked this draft. Just not feeling any of these players. Hell, their #1 is injured. #2 cost them two 4th rounders when he most likely would have been available at 30. The others? (especially the LB looked weak, his #’s were down the last 2 years and the CB avoids contact) all seemed to be practice squad fodder. Upside to some or all? Perhaps. But aren’t they supposed to play like they want to get into the NFL? Before they get drafted?
On a positive note, Thanks for the humor Rob. It was appreciated.
Jesus. I mean, it is kind of funny. But there is a fair amount of ignorance here. It is a little concerning about Gary’s production versus his athletic numbers, numbers that you value. I haven’t watched any film on the guy, but everyone swears up and down that he was a disruptor that constantly demanded double and triple teams. He still got first team all big 10 despite not putting up big numbers, which means that other teams recognized his value on one of the top defenses in the country. As for trading two fourth round picks for Savage, who knows. We don’t have any idea what went down, and maybe there was a fair amount of interest in him. It seems the Ravens might have had interest in him. It reminds me of the ignorance of bears fans when they traded up one spot to draft Trubiskey. Never mind the fact there were other teams trying to move to that spot to pick Trubiskey.
Finally, people complain about Rodgers protection, particularly up the middle. Then we get a top interior Oline prospect and we complain. Gutekunst inherited a poor roster, and has had a lot of reconstructing to do. Part of it his own fault for bad FA signings like Jimmy Graham. Unfortunately given the pressure to compete again right away and inheriting poor contracts and a bloated QB salary, he has very little margin for error. Essentially he cannot make very many mistakes and has to hit on at least half his choices. He definitely doesn’t have the grace period a lot of new GMs enjoy when they aren’t expected to win right away and are typically given at least 3 years to totally rebuild a roster devoid of QB talent. Chill out man lol.
Gary was never going to fall to #30.
I would have been happy to have Dorsey as the Packers GM, but give Gutekunst a chance. Every GM is going to make mistakes. Even Dorsey makes mistakes such as drafting a woman beater and alleged child abuser. It was to bad Gutekunst started out with the Graham for Jordy move.
It is hard to tell last year how much influence the Murphy, McCarthy, and Ball influence had on Gutekunst moves prior to final cut down. It is also hard to know how much influence TT had on last years draft? I think little on the draft part.
I’m almost 100% certain that several if not all of the final cuts, in season trades, and in season releases was on Gutekunst.
This draft has no TT influence. The Packers may be still paying TT, but it isn’t for his draft input.
Dorsey drafted Hunt and Hill but from a football standpoint they were some of the best in the league. Personal issues aren’t always so obvious like picking Watt over King, lol.
TT may not have had any input in this draft but his influence was strong. Drafting a DL with an injury history and converting him to OLB has TT written all over it.
Cheese, Patriots convert players all the time. You can go on forever with the Patriots starting with Teddy Bruschi and up to Trey Flowers with many other conversions in between. Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith are both converted DL from college. I can go on forever about teams that convert college players positions when they enter the NFL. Bradley Chubb Denver, etc. The 3-4 defenses have encouraged such.
Injury may be another story. We have to see if the injury is anything. You know you can’t trust anything you hear at draft time. Some is good and some is bad.
Did you know that Darnell Savage Jr. received a concussion last year? During the Minnesota game it looks like Savage went totally out on a head to head sideline hit. Never went back into the game.
There is a huge difference with a team converting players and being successful doing so, and another team converting players and failing miserably at it for years and years.
Much respect to both of you, but I’ll ride with Cheese on this one. He rarely misses a beat, explaining why i now deem him the #1 commenter on this site.
Thanks for the chat guys. I consider it an honor to have shared common thoughts with both of you.through the years.
PF4L….OUT
Correct. I’m not saying that you can’t convert players but the Packers success at doing so recently has been garbage. Combine that lack of success with the frequency at which they try and turn 1st round picks into long term projects and it becomes highly frustrating. Hopefully Gary pans out, but the many OLB projects before him did not.
With all the swapping the Packers try to do it’s surprising that they refused to keep Charles Woodson around and play him at safety. I guess MD Jennings was too good to keep off the field.
Is this farewell PF4L? If so, I salute you. Otherwise, offseason hiatuses aren’t a bad idea since football news is slim and mostly filler material anyway.
Both of you are correct that the Packers have not been very good at converting high draft pick players from DL to OLB. That is the reason I did not list any Packer players names. I never tried to imply the Packers had success under the TT, MM and Capers regime with the conversion. With that said the team was probably worse at converting safeties to corners. Who does that? TT, MM and DC.
There is a new GM, Head Coach and Defensive coordinator in town and I don’t believe individually or as a group they have failed to convert a player yet. I’m going to give it a chance because I have no choice. But I will opine as I see how the conversion process is going, good or bad.
I understand why you two think TT has an influence on Gutekunst. Hell I worked with people 40,30,20, and 10 years ago that had influences on my decisions. I do think it is a folly to interject TT for decisions Gutekunst makes. This is all on Gutekunst good or bad.
Speaking of bad. It would be a loss if you did not continue to offer your comments PF4L. I understand why you might be thinking about not commenting. I do look forward to your and cheese’s comments. We may not always agree but I respect both of your opinions, but hey that is coming from a commentor way down the totem pole. ;-)
Thank you both for the kind words.
I have often stated that this site was the only site i was on. Also that the reason i was even on this site was because we had the freedom to speak, to express any opinion we wanted. I gave that given freedom multiple test, pushing the limits. So much so i expected Monty to ban me. But he didn’t, for which i had a deep respect.
Well, time and circumstance has a way of changing things. That circumstance happened last week when the new administrator took it upon himself to not only remove my post, but replaced it with “Go Vikings” under my name. To me, that was the equivalent of spitting in my face. I spend too much time and thought, contributing to this site to be disrespected by the new owner. If he has a problem with me, he’s going to need more intellect to challenge me than calling me a “dick sucker”, or censoring my posts. I won’t have it, and neither should anyone else.
I can promise you, it won’t happen again.
You’re Tina and I’m Ike Turner. These squabbles only make our relationship stronger, baby.
I don’t view moving Gary to OLB the same as moving Nick Perry. Gary is a much better athlete than Perry. In fact, I would say Gary’s abilities could be better showcased standing up as an outside rusher rather than with his hand in the dirt as a D end. That’s just me though, and apparently Packers scouts and coaches. Yeah, the Packers had some failures but let’s not forget one that did work out. An old Julius Peppers. I remember there was a lot of talk about whether Peppers could succeed as a standup OLB rather than a D end like he had been his entire career. I recall that transition working out pretty damn good. Makes me wonder if, amazingly enough, Peppers was miscast as a D end his whole career and may have been an even better player as an OLB. I view Gary as more comparable to Peppers than Perry in terms of athleticism. As I have said, injury history does concern me a bit