AllGreenBayPackers.Com

Franklin has signed his rookie deal and will participate in the team’s rookie OTA’s

With rookie organized team activities (OTA’s) underway, the Green Bay Packers have begun signing this year’s draft picks.  Earlier today and per Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, RB Johnathan Franklin, OL, J.C. Tretter, LB Sam Barrington and LB Nate Palmer had all signed their mandatory four year deals.  OL David Bakhtiari reportedly has agreed to a deal with the team and will sign his contract later today.

This afternoon, ESPN Milwaukee’s Jason Wilde is reporting, via Twitter, that the only unsigned draftees are first rounder, DE Datone Jones and second round pick, RB Eddie Lacy.

Per the new league CBA, all rookies, with the exception of first rounders, must sign a four year rookie contract.  There is also a rookie salary cap that was implemented that has taken some of the labor and intrigue out of teams getting their rookies signed.  As a result, these deals are getting done in quick succession.

The team is hoping to sign most, if not all, of their rookies as quickly as possible.  Players who are unsigned are still permitted to take part in team practices, but have to sign a waiver in the event that they are injured while at the team facilities.

Only Franklin’s deal had a reported value and that was at around $2.5 million.  There were some questions about whether Franklin would be able to participate in rookie OTA’s due to an NFL rule that states that draftees are not permitted to practice with their new team until their school’s graduation has passed.  Franklin, however, finished his undergraduate degree in June, 2012 and so he is fully eligible for all team activities.  Read more... (309 words + 3 images, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

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Packers RB DuJuan Harris – Forgotten Man?

It was only a month before the NFL draft that Mike McCarthy was singing the praises of DuJuan Harris:

“Oh he’s going to play for us next season. That’s his responsibility if he wants to be the starter…  Once he got ready, I felt great about the way DuJuan finished the season. Looking forward to having him for an offseason and look for good things for him.”

March was a good month for Harris. You couldn’t go two clicks of the mouse without finding a feature on Harris. JSOnline did a feature piece on him and what he was doing to prepare this offseason. Our own Adam Czech posed the question, “Real Deal or Flavor of the Month?”

And then the draft happened.

The Packers added not one, but two dynamic running backs in the first four rounds of the draft. Before a down has been played, Eddie Lacy and Johnathan Franklin are already being described as the “Thunder and Lightning” tandem the Packers haven’t seen since Hornung and Taylor.

Rob Reischel of JSOnline.com wrote a fine piece the other day titled, “There’s a Storm Brewing in Packers Backfield.” It was a well-written and informative piece, but I had one problem with it; there wasn’t even a mention of DuJuan Harris. He’s suddenly the Rodney Dangerfield of the Packers’ backfield.  Read more... (540 words + 3 images, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

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Packers Defensive Lineman Ryan Pickett

Green Bay Packer defensive lineman Ryan Pickett recently joined the hosts of CheesheadRadio to talk about football, his charitable endeavors, “his “grizzled veteran” status at 33 yrs old, and his outlook on life in general. It’s a fascinating interview that gives you a unique look inside the mind of this huge man with a heart of gold.

The Pickett interview starts at the 17:00 mark, but I hope you’ll have time to listen to the entire show and become a regular Cheesehead Radio subscriber on itunes or listener on Blog Talk Radio.

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Find out more out Ryan’s Charitable foundation, Team 79, at theryanpickettfoundation.com, and get the full details about his Celebrity Golf Tournament coming up at  Barona Creek Golf Club in Lakeside, CA.

Here’s some info on Ryan’s Golf Tournament:  Read more... (309 words + 3 images, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

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Charles Woodson

For seven years, Charles Woodson was everything Packers fans wanted–a leader and defensive difference-maker.

Oh, and an expensive free agent acquisition.

But scheduled to count $9,437,500 against the salary cap in 2013, the Packers opted to release Woodson and use that money elsewhere. Since then, the Packers have signed Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews to lucrative contract extensions and brought in 11 players via the draft.

But one position that wasn’t addressed by the Packers in April’s draft was safety.

Alongside Morgan Burnett, the Packers’ have questionable depth at the position. Second-year player Jerron McMillian has his sights set on the starting job, and M.D. Jennings has added five pounds in hopes of being an every-down player. Sean Richardson, an undrafted rookie last season, also figures to compete for playing time.

Entering the draft, many expected the Packers to address the safety position early. But with the No. 26 pick, they turned their shoulder to Matt Elam and Jonathan Cyprien, and instead selected UCLA defensive end Datone Jones.

Safety was widely viewed as one of the deepest positions in the entire draft, with starting-caliber players available into the middle rounds. But the picks kept coming, and a safety was not among the Packers’ 11 selections.

So is the door completely shut on Woodson’s potential return to Green Bay?  Read more... (891 words + 1 image, estimated 3:34 mins reading time)

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Packers defensive linemen Neal, Wilson, and Pickett are all set to become free agents in 2014.

In the wake of the Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews contract extensions, many of us have been wondering how the Green Bay Packers will utilize their remaining cap space. How they use it will depend a lot on the current players who will be free agency following this season. Not counting the recent restricted free agent tenders and offseason signings, there are a total of fourteen Packers players entering their final year of a multi-year contract.

One of the major concerns, though, is that four of those players – or over a quarter of them – are defensive linemen. And not just any defensive lineman. They accounted for 38 starts, 51 total games played, and 2,108 defensive snaps in 2012. Take a look:  Read more... (786 words + 1 image, estimated 3:09 mins reading time)

• Ryan Pickett, DT, 33, 13th yr.
  (2012: 16 starts, 16 games, 658 snaps – 2^nd DL, 3.8 PFF grade – 2^nd DL)
• B.J. Raji, DT, 26, 5th yr.
  (2012: 14 starts, 14 games, 768 snaps – 1^st DL, 6.5 PFF grade – 1^st DL)
• Mike Neal, DE, 25, 4th yr.
  (2012: 0 starts, 10 games, 323 snaps – 5^th DL, 3.4 PFF grade – 3^rd DL)
• C.J. Wilson, DE, 26, 4th yr.
  (2012: 8 starts, 11 games, 359 – 4^th DL, -2.1 PFF grade – 6^th DL)

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Green Bay Packers front office masterminds Russ Ball and Ted Thompson.

Despite the Green Bay Packers recently inking two big-time contract extensions for Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews, they have only suffered a net loss of . . . wait for it . . . $4.1 million in cap space. They held roughly $17.5 million in cap room prior to the contracts, and yet they still have over $13 million left to work with. And we have one major person to thank for that: Russ Ball.

His official title is Vice President of Football Administration/Player Finance, but that long moniker doesn’t even begin to honor his work (or its worth) for the Packers. According to the team’s official website, “He is responsible for negotiating player contracts and managing the salary cap, in addition to the daily supervision of football-administration departments including athletic training, equipment, video, corporate travel, player development, family programs and public relations.”

What he has accomplished, though, is allowing Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy to do their work without having to worry too much about the financial complications.

He is the wizard behind the curtain, despite being handed praise from the local media. In the early half of 2011, Brian Carriveau of CheeseheadTV examined how Ball’s work helped propel the Packers to their first Super Bowl in 14 years. Bob McGinn added to this praise a few months later with an article about Ball being “a key cog in Packers machine.”  Read more... (895 words + 3 images, estimated 3:35 mins reading time)

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I actually got my first shot writing for AllGreenBayPackers.com when Al allowed me to post my draft rationale on his site and 3 years later I’m continuing the tradition.  As before I’m not going to be assigning draft grades or projections, I agree with the idea that grading picks now is something akin to being graded on a test you haven’t taken.  In this article I want to point out some more broad observations I noticed during the draft

Aaron Rodgers dictated the Packers 2013 draft: And Clay Matthews III to some extent as well.  Simply put the Packers are now in a mini-rebuilding year, not due to a lack of talent but due to a lack of money.  While Rodgers’ $110 million and Matthews’ $66 million contracts were both necessary and in my opinion great deals for the Packers, let’s not kid ourselves and think that the Packers are going to be awash with saved money over the next couple years, Rodgers and Matthews are still two of the highest paid players in the NFL and that will have financial ramifications down the road; maybe not as bad as Joe Flacco and DeMarcus Ware bad, but Ted Thompson probably isn’t going to be able to keep everyone he wants.  This is why I think this is the start of a mini-rebuild; teams typically trade down and stockpile draft picks in order to stock the team with young, cheap players who can be the foundation long term and perhaps become stars.  Read more... (1368 words + 1 image, estimated 5:28 mins reading time)

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