RealGM

Lots of discussion about the sh***y Packers defense. Specifically this front 7 is responsible for stopping the run and all the underneath passes to RBs/TEs and scrambling QBs. (I never thought of jay Cutler as a scrambling QB before). Year after year it seems this is always the weakness of this D. So I went back and looked a the draft picks of the front 7 since 2007. It looks like LBs were constantly ignored, and the dline was just crappy picks.

2007
1st Rd Pick 16 Overall Justin Harrell – Horrible Bust
6th Rd Korey Hall - bust
6th Rd Desmond Bishop - Good

2008
4th round: Jeremy Thompson DE – Bust

2009
1st round: 9th overall: BJ Raji – Mixed. Was amazing for a while before turning to garbage out of position and this week didn’t look too good at his old spot.
1st round: 26th overall: Clay Mathews – Excellent. One of the best in the league.
6th round: Jarius Wynn DE – Bust.
7th round: Brad Jones LB – He who shall not be named ever again.

2010
2nd round 56th overall: Mike Neal DE – Closer to bust. Several unproductive injured years and a few flashes of talent in between. Today was not a good day for Mike Neal.
7th round: CJ Wilson DE – OK. Meh. He was ok but more of just a guy.

2011 (This was just a terrible draft. Only Cobb is left. I've included the entire draft coz it's that bad.)
1st Round: Sherrod
2nd Round: Cobb
3rd Round: Alex Green RB
4th Round: Davon House CB
5th round: DJ Williams TE
6th Round: Caleb Schladuerhaff G
6th Round: DJ Smith LB – Bust
6th Round: Rick Elmore DE- Bust (I don’t even remember this guy surviving camp).
7th Round: Ryan Taylor TE
7th Round: Lawrence Guy DT – Bust
We waited until the END of the 6th before we addressed the front 7.

2012 (The year we went all defense when our 2011 defense was crap, and yet we missed so bad)
1st Round 28th overall: Nick Perry DE/LB – Close to a bust. Flashes a little here and there but 3 fairly unproductive years. Did he do anything yesterday besides get a penalty?
2nd Round 51st overall: Jerel Worthy – DT – Colossal bust. Traded up to get him. Damn I was fooled.
4th Round: Mike Daniels-DT/DE – Good. Not sure he’s $10 million/yr good, but he’s been a lone bright spot in a terrible draft.
5th Round: Terrell Manning LB – Bust (don’t address LBs until 5th round).

2013
1st round 26th overall: D. Jones DE – Close to a Bust. I’m still hoping against hope he comes around, shown flashes but not be a very productive pick so far.
5th Round: Josh Boyd DE- OK. Kinda just a rotational guy, not a starter but good and bad at times.
6th Round: Nate Palmer LB – Below average. Not impressed so far. (another draft where the LB is taken at the end).
7th Round: Sam Barrington LB – OK. I hope he becomes good, but right now he’s just a guy. He looked pathetic against Eagles in preseason and he didn’t have a great start today. He’s better than Brad Jones/AJ Hawk but that’s not saying much.

2014
3rd round 85th OVERALL: Kyri Thornton DT – Bust. High draft pick that sucked so bad couldn’t even got on the field.
Round 4: Carl Bradford LB – Bust. Finally an LB before the 5th-7th rounds but he sucks. I doubt he turns it around.

2015
4th round: Jake Ryan LB: Oh please let this be the one!!!
6th round: Christian Ringo DE: Unknown. Couldn’t even crack the top 55 when we had a need for more DLine.



It just seems after Clay Mathews and a year or two prior we had AJ Hawk and it was decided never to draft LB until the 5th to 7th rounds year after year after year and hope to get lucky with one of those 7th round LBs.

What you're failing to mention is all the great free agents he's signed at these positions.

What stands out to me is that in his entire tenure, TT has only used 2 top 100 picks on LBs and they were both DEs in college. We take those kinds of players so much more often than traditional linebackers that we end up moving them inside. Obviously the other thing is that the DL track record in that range is abysmal.

I think in 2016 we have to draft about 2 LBs in the first 4 rounds. And I mean, actual LBs who can cover the middle and stuff the run.

Peppers may or not be on the team... Neal and Perry will be gone and Clay is going to be 30. Plus, there's nothing at ILB.

TT will have to use free agency to rebuild the LB corps.

emunney wrote:What stands out to me is that in his entire tenure, TT has only used 2 top 100 picks on LBs and they were both DEs in college. We take those kinds of players so much more often than traditional linebackers that we end up moving them inside. Obviously the other thing is that the DL track record in that range is abysmal.

Well 3-4 OLBs are almost universally DEs in college so are you complaining about not drafting ILBs high period?

I won't argue that the ILBs are grossly neglected high in the draft as I don't think TT places a premium on the position just that the complaint that most of the LBs drafted were DEs comming out because in those situations we were drafting OLBs and those guys almost always come from the line in college.

I mean, idk, I have a hard time calling a guy picked in the 5th round or later a "bust" if it ends up not working out. I bet that if you looked at the guys picked in the 5th or later for every team, 90% of them don't end up contributing meaningfully.

I also disagree that Jarius Wynn is a bust because he's still in the league and was in the DL rotation in Buffalo until he recently tore his ACL.

Those caveats aside, Ted has done a fairly poor job addressing the Front 7 since he was brought in here. It's clearly his biggest weakness as a GM.

I saw Lawrence Guy is still playing. I was shocked when I saw that.

Anything productive past the 5th round is usually gravy, can't call them a bust if they don't produce but I understand where you are getting at. ILB has been an issue for years and its a shame it hasn't been addressed through the draft with a higher pick. Of all the years to do it, I thought this would be it. I really like our picks thus far from this past draft, but hopefully Ryan can show something in that spot, b/c it was a clear weak spot yesterday.

RRyder823 wrote:

emunney wrote:What stands out to me is that in his entire tenure, TT has only used 2 top 100 picks on LBs and they were both DEs in college. We take those kinds of players so much more often than traditional linebackers that we end up moving them inside. Obviously the other thing is that the DL track record in that range is abysmal.

Well 3-4 OLBs are almost universally DEs in college so are you complaining about not drafting ILBs high period?

I won't argue that the ILBs are grossly neglected high in the draft as I don't think TT places a premium on the position just that the complaint that most of the LBs drafted were DEs comming out because in those situations we were drafting OLBs and those guys almost always come from the line in college.

I don't know that it's a complaint, I just think the reason we don't have good linebackers is that we don't draft any players who are good enough as linebackers in college to be esteemed top 100 picks. The teams that have good linebackers prioritize them. Hawk in his prime was substantially better than either of the non-Clay guys we're running around back there now -- Barrington can't run and Palmer has had his hand down until recently. The 4th rounder we just used on Ryan is the highest college linebacker TT has taken since he took Hawk and Hodge *nine years ago*. Between Hodge and Ryan, we've used a 5th, three 6ths and a 7th on college LBs. So we can talk about how TT can't pick LBs or we can talk about how he doesn't.

Too bad TT can't only draft WR's and DB's and then trade the excess to get his LB and DL players. I wonder why he is so terrible at drafting DL. He needs to try drafting some LB's in the first couple rounds that are not hybrids. Maybe he would be good at that but we just don't know.

BUCKnation wrote:I saw Lawrence Guy is still playing. I was shocked when I saw that.

Anything productive past the 5th round is usually gravy, can't call them a bust if they don't produce but I understand where you are getting at. ILB has been an issue for years and its a shame it hasn't been addressed through the draft with a higher pick. Of all the years to do it, I thought this would be it. I really like our picks thus far from this past draft, but hopefully Ryan can show something in that spot, b/c it was a clear weak spot yesterday.

Ya 5th round and up is not really a bust I just didn't know what else to call it.

Thanks for doing this, shows he hasn't given much resources to DE/ILB in the top 4 rounds and he's done a decent job in finding

Busts: D. Jones, Harrell, Thompson, Worthy, Bradford, Neal(I'm torn to put him here, if he was drafted later he wouldn't be here) and Thornton


Good Picks/Good value where drafted: Bishop, B. Jones(I know, but he was a 7th round pick), Wynn, Wilson, Guy, Boyd, Palmer, Barrington.

Studly Picks: Raji and Daniels, probably get flack for including Raji but the coaching staff is to blame for moving him after the super bowl.

All in all Ted does a decent job in finding guys late in rounds that fit the system, when he's tried to commit a high a pick on an ILB he hasn't done well. But he's done I believe 10 drafts and drafted a DL/ILB according to this list in the top 4 rounds 9 times and missed 7. Not great odds but he did find 2 starters in those rounds.