Why 2016 is a Make or Break year.

[HKPackFan]

I hope TT knows that 2016 is an extremely crucial year. It's not a year to just sit on our hands. As we know this team is built around Rodgers and the offense. So Im focusing on the offense right now.


In 2016 it will be a very veteran offense, hardly any rookies or young players. That's a good thing that we don't have to rely on rookie mistakes but savvy solid veterans, but it unfortunately means a lot of long time starters will be gone. 2017 could be a mini-rebuild year with some major starters leaving and we saw how crappy this offense looked when we lost some starters for portions of the season. I really want TT to plug a couple holes in 2016 with some dynamic difference makers now. Especially at TE, a veteran. And possibly a fast RB who can make a play on 3rd down.

Let's take a look at each position:

LT David Bak. in 2016 entering his 4th year, currently 24years old. He will be a UFA 2017. A decent Left tackle costs a lot of money.
LG Sitton. entering 9th year, 29 years old. UFA in 2017. Possibly the best guard in football. Best guard in football will cost a lot of money.
C Linsley. entering 3rd year, 24 years old. UFA 2018, have a couple years.
RG Lang. entering 8th year, 29 years old. UFA 2017. Also considered one of the best guards in football. $$$$$ Notice a pattern?
RT Bulaga. Entering 7th year, 26 years old. Just signed new contract. Usually doesn't survive 16 games.
6th lineman: JC Tretter. 4th year, 24 years old. UFA 2017.


Did you notice that folks? 3 out of our starting 5 will be UFA's in 2017. 4 out of our top 6 are UFAs. Obviously can't sign them all, might lose 2-3 of them. There's some HUGE decisions to make. We saw how this offense fell apart without a good oline this year. We know we have some good quality starters and JC seems to be a good starter as well. Other teams are going to pay big money for these guys. Do you remember a few years ago when we lost Rivera and Wahle left for huge contracts in the same year? And we replaced them with cutout pictures of Olineman? The management brought in some scrubs and the oline was a predictable disaster. We went 4-12. Will Whitikar and Adriam Klemm ring a bell? They were out of the league after that season.

2016 is the last year we are going to have this awesome unit together. 2017 who the f*** knows what this line will look like. We can hope Josh Walker, Tretter finds a solid spot, and a draft pick can fill in the holes by 2017 but that's a long way away. For now, 2016 we will have a starting five with 30+ years of experience.

WR
Jordy 9th year, 30years old, signed thru 2019
Cobb 6th year, 25 years old, signed thru 2019
Adams 3rd yr, 23yyears old, signed thru 2018
Ty 2nd year, 23 years old, signed through 2019
Abby 3rd year, 25yrs old, signed through 2018
Janis 3rd year, 24 years old, signed through 2018

This is a young unit (23-25 years old) but 5 out of 6 will be in their 3rd+ year. What's frustrating is we don't know what we have. Adams, Abby, Janis. These guys are entering their 3rd year, we should know by now if these guys are going to be part of the core. I think we know Cobb has limitations. He's not a go to guy, he needs someone taking some of the heat off him like Jordy. He needs a complimentary player next to him. What about the rest? Is this unit going to be fine as soon as Jordy returns? Back to breaking records? Does it need 1 more piece? Is Ty the missing piece? Lots of guys, lots of potential, lots of questions.

TE
Dick Rodgers, 3rd year, 24yrs old, signed through 2018.
Perillo 3rd year, 25yrs old...
Quarless 7th year, 27yrs old...
Backmann 2nd year, 22yrs old.

Wow, this is the most pathetic group I've ever seen. The 3 depth players are crap, Quarless is just a guy, at 27 he's not going to transform who is he. Perillo and Backmann not sure they belong in the NFL. Dick Rodgers is the most frustrating player on this team. He's slow, can't get YAC, and he's counted on way too much. You can't teach speed, he's never going to have it. He's not a player I want to see much between the 20's more of a redzone target.

MM admitted opening up the middle of the field is the most important thing to get the rest of the offense moving. Now do we draft a TE like Finley,but remember Finley took 2-3 years to develop into a stud. Do we have that long???? For such a critical piece of the offense do we really have time to sit around and wait to see what we have with scrubs like Dick, Perillo, Backmann, and a rookie?

This is where I want TT to get off his ass and make a move. 2016 Is FULL of veterans. We need 1 TE weapon to open up everything. I don't think we have time to wait for a guy to develop when 2017 could be a down year, and wasting a prime Aaron Rodgers. We have the Oline built to protect Rodgers, I think we can't blow this opportunity sitting on our hands.

RB
Lacy 4th year, 25 years old UFA 2017 (Is he worth a big contract in 2017?) Fat, slow lacy who can barely outrun lineman and falls down from being too top heavy is not worth a big contract.
Starks 7th year, 29yrs old current UFA may not be re-signed.
Crockett 2nd year, 23yrs old, 2017 UFA.

This group needs help. Starks is old, Lacy is fat, and crockett is unknown. Maybe a draft pick this 2016 will be OK as a depth pick crossing fingers that lacy goes back to 2012 and 2013 form. Even if he does he may or may not be around 2017. This could very well be lacy's last year. Would also like to add some speed with this pick. A Sproles type of back that can catch the ball and run. We were forced to sometimes check down to slow ass Dick Rodgers or Kuhn. How about an actual weapon with some speed!?

FB
Kuhn...older than dirt. May not be re-signed.
RIP 2nd year, 23yrs old, signed through 2019.

You hope RIP is ready to take over but he's probably not a difference maker.


QB
Rodgers, 12yr, 32yrs old, Signed thru 2020.
Tolzein, 6th year, 28 yrs old...not signed.
Hundley, 2nd year, 22years old. Signed thru 2019.


Rodgers has 3-6 years left. Every year is becoming more critical. It would be tragic to waste 2016 knowing in 2017 could involve a lot of turn over on offense and not sure how the will perform. (Wouldn't it be terrible if we repeated 2005 as Favre was in his later years in a rebuilt offense which took 2 years to rebuild, and we did the same thing with Rodgers?? Needing a rebuild in 2017?)

It's not often a team can go 2-3 years with almost the entire offensive unit intact. 2016 is pretty much the last year we should return every starter and most of the backups. We have a couple depth needs and we have one big hole at TE. Beyond 2016 is extremely difficult to predict.

if you take the years of experience (not including their 2016 year) of the starters: oline, 3 WR (adams #3), 1 TE, 1 RB, 1QB = it's an average of 5 years experience.

This is a primed veteran offense possibly 1 weapon away from having a blow out year, TT needs to make a move for 2016. It's way too important a year to waste with the "Draft and develop exclusively philosophy".

[midranger]

Calvin Johnson at TE.

Half serious.

[JackSIKMA43]

I do think that 2016 needs to be Super Bowl win or bust, for the TT and MM regime. Bill Walsh used to say that a coach's shelf life with one team, really should be no more than about 10 years. Problem is, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Is there a better coach candidate out there, than MM? If so, then who the hell is it? Gotta be real careful there. I like MM, he is a very good coach and the continuity and stability is important. But they can't stay forever, bottom line.

The biggest difference between Wolf and TT ... Wolf covered his bets, far far better. He blew a few of his 1st round picks, yes. But he made up for it greatly in the later rounds, and if he didn't, he'd get veteran free agents. That's the difference. In theory, draft and develop is a sound philosophy, but too risky. But that's only if TT gets it right with every pick. He doesn't (no GM does), but that's the problem. SB XXXI doesn't happen without R. White, S. Jones, S. Dotson, E. Robinson, and in light of Brooks' season-ending injury, Andre Rison, too. None of them were Wolf draft picks and none of them were young, either.

I lost count on how many o-linemen draft picks were wasted, because TT and MM had such a ridiculous boner for the zone-blocking scheme crap. Coston, Whittaker, Colledge, Spitz, Moll, Barbre, Giocomini, Meredith, Newhouse, and Sherrod. All, absolutely terrible. It's a wonder Rodgers is still alive, when looking at how many o-line picks, have been disastrous. Sitton is the only great one TT has drafted for the o-line, so far. Not saying our line is overall terrible, but ... look at the amount of misses there - too many. I don't hate TT and I definitely took his side with the Favre drama, but I'd argue that we won it in 2010, more in spite of TT's methods, than because of them.

[MickeyDavis]

It will be interesting to see if TT changes his M.O. at least somewhat as Rodgers gets older. Makes a few more "win now" moves. I have a feeling TT retires when Rodgers retires. Maybe earlier. The chances of getting 3 HOF QB's in a row is slim to none (no offense to Tolzien ). I want at LEAST one more Super Bowl title.

[JackSIKMA43]

It will be interesting to see if TT changes his M.O. at least somewhat as Rodgers gets older. Makes a few more "win now" moves. I have a feeling TT retires when Rodgers retires. Maybe earlier. The chances of getting 3 HOF QB's in a row is slim to none (no offense to Tolzien ). I want at LEAST one more Super Bowl title.

Eh, forget Tolzien. I'd like to see what Hundley's got, if he sticks around a few more years. 6'3" and appears to be quite mobile, etc.

[humanrefutation]

No year is make-or-break as long as you have a healthy Aaron Rodgers.

But there should always be a sense of urgency to take advantage of his ability while he's still playing.

[Kerb Hohl]

Those that want Ted to be more "urgent" will probably not be happy. We've got a little more than $26 million + cutting Masthay is $1.2 - the 500k his replacement will get meaning $27 million. Peppers could be cut/retire for $8 million. However, we have a ton of roster spots to fill. Unless we get crazy and don't bring back Crosby or trade somebody away, there aren't many logical moves to make to open up more cash. Everyone on the upper end of the payscale is earning it.

I am on the train of signing an ILB or TE, but it may be at the expense of Peppers or not bringing Raji back. Other than that, it's going to be draft picks and cheap players. We may also cut him if we are dying to save some of that up-front money to sign one of the O-linemen to another extension.

[DigitalFool]

I don't think it's a make or break year either although you can argue the momentum of some teams in NFC will catch up to the Packers quickly (if you say, when healthy, the Packers are still the best team in the NFC).

I don't know how super concerned I would be about the OL either because the cap is expected to increase 10 mil per year and Packers will have an estimated ~26 million in cap space next year:

Lang earned 5.2/yr on his contract - if you bumped him up to 7 per (just above Bulaga) that is a net 2 million off the cap.
Sitton earned 6.7/yr on his contract - if you bumped him up to 9 per (which would be highest paid guard in the league) another 2 net off cap.
Bak is probably the only concern I would have since he only earns 650K/yr, his net would be significant - I want continuity on the line (unless of course we trade from J Thomas ) so I think he'll probably be commanding somewhere between 8-11/per, which would put him in the top 10 paid LT in the league. That will be the biggest cap hit and unknown for 2017.

Plenty of ways to get creative with the cap, so I don't have a LOT of concerns yet. Guess it all depends on how this years UFA class goes.

[RRyder823]

The title of this thread should be "Same exact thing said every offseason since 2010"

We had about 6 "make or break" years in the last 5 it seems like.

Untill it's Rodgers last year I won't call any year a make or break.

Now if you want to say MM is on the hot seat going into this season sure I can agree with that

[RRyder823]

Those that want Ted to be more "urgent" will probably not be happy. We've got a little more than $26 million + cutting Masthay is $1.2 - the 500k his replacement will get meaning $27 million. Peppers could be cut/retire for $8 million. However, we have a ton of roster spots to fill. Unless we get crazy and don't bring back Crosby or trade somebody away, there aren't many logical moves to make to open up more cash. Everyone on the upper end of the payscale is earning it.

I am on the train of signing an ILB or TE, but it may be at the expense of Peppers or not bringing Raji back. Other than that, it's going to be draft picks and cheap players. We may also cut him if we are dying to save some of that up-front money to sign one of the O-linemen to another extension.

Agreed