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More rumbles coming out from staff people to McGinn about Ted's spendthrift ways.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/nfl/packers/mcginn/2017/04/22/mcginn-loss-tj-lang-just-business-usual/100747464/

Didn't realize they have now bankrolled $275 million in cash/investments for the rainy day fund.

This reminds me of:

Packers should not have lost Wahle/Rivera.
Followed up by Packers should not have lost both Colledge and Spitz.

If we had no clue how to draft capable olineman I would agree with them, but why pay big bucks to a position you are obviously strong at drafting?

I'm not saying all of it is undeserved, but god damn, McGinn really has it out for TT and the upper management of this franchise.

Turk Nowitzki wrote:I'm not saying all of it is undeserved, but god damn, McGinn really has it out for TT and the upper management of this franchise.

I assume that the coaching staff (and maybe Elliot Wolf) are at their wits end. There are guys they'd like to either retain or acquire.

With $23 million in remaining cap space they've got a point this particular off-season.

Turk Nowitzki wrote:I'm not saying all of it is undeserved, but god damn, McGinn really has it out for TT and the upper management of this franchise.

I think mcginn is good and I'm happy hes writing for the js but dude is undeniably a crotchety prick. It's also pretty clear he dislikes TT evidence by the handful of hit pieces he writes on him every year. I think some of it stems from TT being about as bad of a gm to cover media wise as it comes. He doesn't leak information, barely gives interviews and when he does he doesn't give the media much and what he gives can be borderline condescending.

Now as long as he finds good players i don't give a **** how he handles the media but i also get as a reporter after a decade his **** would get annoying.

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This would hold more weight if the Packers weren't able to consistently replace older offensive linemen with good, cheap replacements. Sitton and Lang were those guys once upon a time.

I will take Bennett over Lang and losing Sitton was a complete non factor. TT was right and Gardener had a personal beef with Ted or so I have heard.


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I like reading McGinn because of his insider takes, but I think he's off here. The premise is fine. We need to spend more of that money to win more rings. But proving his point with Lang (who I thought was one tough SOB) is wrong. Lang has shown signs of wearing down due to injury the last few seasons. Has he played thru most of them? Yup, but he isn't getting any younger.

And McGinn is going senile if he thinks Sitton had a great year in Chicago.

This article is not wrong in general. They are cheap. Plenty of over paying the wrong people. OL isnt that hard to replace. Next year the D will suck since we really have not addressed that. We have to get lucky in the draft and hope that some of the guy we signed cheap turn the D around. I just see another late playoff loss since we still have ARod.

I don't understand what the 'rainy day fund' has to do with cap space. Don't they roll over the cap space to sign extensions?

Is he saying the 5-6 million they carry over ever year on the cap goes into a reserve fund?

I'm confused.


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Ted had/has a plan. It was apparent to me when he traded up for Spriggs and drafted Murphy last year that their were some OLine changes coming. Just came a year earlier than I expected with the Sitton release. Never expected Lang to re-sign here.

The issue stems from people being told they had to sit on past cap room because of Sitton, Tretter and Lang all being free agents. Then us retaining none.

From a football standpoint okay with losing Lang. But wish we would have signed a cheaper vet on a one year band aid.

But just happy for the first time in years TT has actually come close to putting our best foot forward. Can't be too critical.

Time will tell how big of a loss Lang and Tretter (in addition to Sitton) are. If we can't open running lanes and opposing teams' DTs are billing through or DEs are stunting through the middle and hitting Rodgers in the face, he will have earned the vitriol.

Iheartfootball wrote:I don't understand what the 'rainy day fund' has to do with cap space. Don't they roll over the cap space to sign extensions?

Is he saying the 5-6 million they carry over ever year on the cap goes into a reserve fund?

I'm confused.


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It's a bit of a false equivalency. I think McGinn took the wrong line of argument here. I don't think the packers past of consistently keeping 8 or so mil in roll over is that big of a deal and actually below league average. He should have emphasized that they have over 20M in roll over as of now THIS offseason and that's frankly too high. That's the bigger argument for keeping Lang or if not that they should have used it else where. But hey it's only April so I won't kill them until it's September and I see how much roll over they will really have.

I've come around on being critical on Thompson's moves, but this and the RB situation have been handled almost perfectly this offseason (do not overspend). Still time to spend a little bit more money, but other than maybe not getting a pick for Sitton due to the timing of it, I don't think I wanted Sitton or Lang for their prices at their ages given the importance of the position and how we always fill it well. Agree on the Wahle/Rivera comparison.

If they spend basically the entire draft and some cap space on defensive players, great offseason. I realize they'll draft a RB and depth at G, but if I had to pick an overpriced corner or ILB on the FA market that I knew was going to be overpaid or Lang/running back...I'd take the defensive player and start a UDFA at G or have one behind Montgo at RB. Same goes for the draft. We've had way too many below-replacement defensive players on the field in the last few years.

I like the overall philosophy of not overspending to keep guards. I just wish the Packers would do what most SB contenders do...an example being the Broncos two years ago getting two time pro bowler Evan Mathis to fill in for a year for a whopping 2-3 million.

The not spending much on guards works two ways. What is the excuse when we can get somebody reasonable on a one year who will almost certainly grade out better than a rook, Murphy or Barclay?

Iheartfootball wrote:I don't understand what the 'rainy day fund' has to do with cap space. Don't they roll over the cap space to sign extensions?

Is he saying the 5-6 million they carry over ever year on the cap goes into a reserve fund?

I'm confused.

I don't have the spreadsheet but I'm assuming McGinn does. And I'd guess it shows that roll-over money they don't spend has gone into the cash coffers.

Most NFL teams have an owner with deep pockets and all kinds of outside revenue coming in. We don't. So I get the need for the "rainy day fund". You need a large reserve, there's not another pocket you can take cash out of.

Jerry Jones was a big force in getting the Raiders approved to move to Vegas. He was a big force in getting the Niners new stadium built. He was a big force in getting the Rams and Chargers to LA with a new stadium. That's because he's a major owner in "Legends", a company that sells suites and sponsorships at those stadiums. He will make literally hundreds of millions of dollars on those deals. The current Niners president ir a former exec at Legends. So in exchange for helping get those stadiums built he gets the suite/sponsorship business.

Our "rainy day fund" really isn't much in the scope of things. I have no issue them funding it. I still disagree with how we use our cap space though.

paulpressey25 wrote:

Iheartfootball wrote:I don't understand what the 'rainy day fund' has to do with cap space. Don't they roll over the cap space to sign extensions?

Is he saying the 5-6 million they carry over ever year on the cap goes into a reserve fund?

I'm confused.

I don't have the spreadsheet but I'm assuming McGinn does. And I'd guess it shows that roll-over money they don't spend has gone into the cash coffers.

Nah. They just have an operating surplus. I have never seen them fail to carry over the full amount available, and they typically use more than an average amount of available space.

The longstanding knock on TT that he's cheap on players is not at all true. He doesn't go outside the organization much, but he does fill the roster with salary. The key though isn't where we spend, but *when". There are no peaks and valleys in how we spend. Some teams will strategically underspend so they can carry over more and have a boom year. Not us. Ted puts the same amount of eggs in every year's basket. This is one big reason why you'll see a lot of other teams swing around us from season to season while we're consistently hanging around on the bottom of the 1st tier or the top of the 2nd. Other teams are going all in and falling off and repeating. I don't think what he's doing is wrong, but unfortunately it hasn't panned out for us ring-wise.

emunney wrote:

paulpressey25 wrote:

Iheartfootball wrote:I don't understand what the 'rainy day fund' has to do with cap space. Don't they roll over the cap space to sign extensions?

Is he saying the 5-6 million they carry over ever year on the cap goes into a reserve fund?

I'm confused.

I don't have the spreadsheet but I'm assuming McGinn does. And I'd guess it shows that roll-over money they don't spend has gone into the cash coffers.

Nah. They just have an operating surplus. I have never seen them fail to carry over the full amount available, and they typically use more than an average amount of available space.

The longstanding knock on TT that he's cheap on players is not at all true. He doesn't go outside the organization much, but he does fill the roster with salary. The key though isn't where we spend, but *when". There are no peaks and valleys in how we spend. Some teams will strategically underspend so they can carry over more and have a boom year. Not us. Ted puts the same amount of eggs in every year's basket. This is one big reason why you'll see a lot of other teams swing around us from season to season while we're consistently hanging around on the bottom of the 1st tier or the top of the 2nd. Other teams are going all in and falling off and repeating. I don't think what he's doing is wrong, but unfortunately it hasn't panned out for us ring-wise.

This makes sense. It's two different buckets. The operating surplus they carry over can be used to fund things like the Titletown district project or capitalization on any loan they take out to fund it as well.

McGinn's article has bad facts and creates a false. Why do reporters not try to fact check the accounting/finance? This is public information, correct? So WeekapaugGroove is correct, false equivalency.

Also, I'm not worried about the carryover this year. Now if they don't use it to resign guys this year then I have an issue. No reason to consistently carryover $5-6 million for no reason.