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With training camp approaching, fans most cherished prognosticating event, second only to mock drafts is predicting the final 53-man roster.  Our own Adam Czech and Chad Toporski have each done their own analysis of the 53-man rosters and I’m sure the entire AllGreenBayPackers staff will be making predictions further down the road, but instead of doing one this early myself, I’ve decided to write so general rules that I think you should follow when making your own 53-man rosters

Rule 1 – Drafted players almost always make the team: Over his 8 year tenure as the Packers GM, Ted Thompson has only cut 8 drafted rookies by the end of training camp (technically DE Lawrence Guy was also cut last year, but ended up on the IR list, so the Packers still hold his rights and he is part of this year’s training camp so I don’t consider him a true cut). That’s roughly 1 draftee cut per year, so with the Packers taking 8 players in this year’s draft, expect to keep at least 6 or 7 of them on roster.  Also keep that in mind that when trying to add Diondre Biorel, Tori Gurley or Dezman Moses to the roster, drafted players almost always get preferential treatment unless an undrafted rookie has played lights out.  Read more... (1440 words + 1 image, estimated 5:46 mins reading time)

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2012 NFL Draft

So here is part II of the reasons behind the draft picks (see part I here)  Again, I’m not assigning grades to the draft or to the players because I don’t believe you can tell whether or not a player will pan out within the first 30 something days.  What I am interested in is what the Packers were thinking of when they decided to draft a player; with that in mind, this is what I think the Packers want to accomplish with each draft pick and which player each rookie could be potentially be replacing.

Jeron McMillian – Projected Strong Safety – Round 4, Pick #38 (#133 overall) – Replaces Pat Lee

Rationale: First off let’s be honest here, I don’t think we have the next Nick Collins in McMillian; I was actually very surprised that McMillian was drafted at all by the Packers simply because he doesn’t fit into the mold of what the Packers look for in safeties.  The Packers are probably more interested in playing two free safeties (which there really wasn’t one this year in the draft), consider their preferred pairing of Collins and Morgan Burnett (who ironically never really played together): both have good ball skills and the ability to jump passing routes.  What McMillian does best is run support, which is almost the exact opposite of a ball hawk.   Then again even if McMillian is the next Collins I highly doubt that the Packers can afford to stick him out there in his first year, which is even more reason why I think Woodson will have to make the move to safety.  Read more... (1506 words + 1 image, estimated 6:01 mins reading time)

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How much would trading up for a player like Clay Matthews cost the Packers in 2012?

Ted Thompson and the Green Bay Packers have a lot of options in the 2012 NFL Draft with 12 overall selections, and they are probably going to need them with some of the defensive holes they need to fill.

Our own “Jersey” Al Bracco spent time presenting some First and Second Round trade-up scenarios that could possibly occur, and Thomas Hobbes looked into Thompson’s trading history in relationship to the Trade Value Chart (TVC).

A lot of people are wondering, though, does the old TVC still apply?

This will be the first draft under the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NFL and NFLPA, and it comes with a shiny new set of rules for a rookie wage scale. Though we haven’t had a draft under these restrictions on pay, the 2011 rookie class did feel the effects of it when they were finally signed.

Below is a comparison of the contracted salaries of the top 10 picks in the 2010 and 2011 NFL Drafts. The numbers shown are in millions of dollars, and for simplicity in numbers, only the guaranteed amount has been recorded. It’s not a perfect barometer of the wage scale’s effects, but it should give you a general idea of what has happened:

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Was 2009 the best draft year for Ted Thompson?

With the 2012 NFL Draft just days away, I thought it might be interesting to rank Ted Thompson’s previous drafts as General Manager of the Green Bay Packers.

This activity will incorporate his first draft in 2005 through the 2009 draft. The 2010 and 2011 years will be omitted based on the reasoning that the players from those drafts are too young in their careers to accurately gauge. (But feel free to leave a comment on how you’d rank them if they were included.)

Now, in order to grade or evaluate something, you have to base your decision on a set of criteria. So here is what I will base the ranking on:

1. How much have the players in a specific draft contributed to the success of the Green Bay Packers?
2. Secondary to the first criterion is how well has the player has succeeded in the NFL overall.
3. How many “busts” did a specific draft include?
4. How much value did Thompson get with each selection based on overall pick number and the player’s future performance?

For the sake of brevity, I won’t go into detail about each of these questions for every draft year; however, I will mention some of the booms, busts, and quick thoughts about each. That way you can at least get a sense of where I am coming from, and I will leave you to discuss your agreements/disagreements in the comments below.  Read more... (1052 words + 1 image, estimated 4:12 mins reading time)

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Let’s play devil’s advocate one more time and look at why the Packers should trade up in the NFL draft.  This time I will be looking purely at the economics of the draft.  The classic example that Packer fans love in the 2005 NFL draft where Alex Smith was given the biggest rookie contract of all time at that point with $45.9 million deal with $24 million guaranteed while Aaron Rodgers only commanded a $7.7 million deal (less than Smith’s guaranteed contract) with $5.4 million guaranteed.  I’m not going to go in the relative value of Smith vs. Rodgers as players (as countless writers including myself have beaten the topic to death) but the take home message is that the Packers couldn’t lose economically: if Rodgers is the next Bart Starr, then they’ve got him at a discount for the first 5 years, if he’s decent the Packers paid a fair market value for him and if he’s a bust they can cut Rodgers without much penalty.  Smith on the other hand had to succeed; it was the only way to justify his massive contract.  Read more... (963 words + 1 image, estimated 3:51 mins reading time)

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The NFL has finally announced the awarding of compensatory picks for the 2012 draft. A total of 32 compensatory selections were given to 15 teams, with the Green Bay Packers receiving the maximum four picks. Also earning the maximum amount were the New York Jets and Cleveland Browns.

Two of Green Bay’s four selections come in the fourth round (no. 132 and 133), while the other two come in the seventh (no. 241 and 243). Combined with the seventh-round pick earned from the Jets through trading OL Caleb Schlauderaff, this takes them up to 12 total picks for the 2012 draft.

Information about compensatory selections and this year’s full list are provided by NFL.com:

Under the rules for compensatory draft selections, a team losing more or better compensatory free agents than it acquires in the previous year is eligible to receive compensatory draft picks.

The number of picks a team receives equals the net loss of compensatory free agents up to a maximum of four. The 32 compensatory choices announced today will supplement the 221 choices in the seven rounds of the 2012 NFL Draft (April 26-28), which will kick off in primetime for the third consecutive year.

. . .

Compensatory free agents are determined by a formula based on salary, playing time and postseason honors. The formula was developed by the NFL Management Council. Not every free agent lost or signed by a club is covered by this formula.  Read more... (501 words + 1 image, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

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Greg Gabriel at the National Football Post (a great website that I highly recommend) recently published an article entitled “How clubs strategize for free agency and the draft” which postulates an interesting idea that when picking at a certain position in the draft, a team can expect a certain number of players at a position to be picked ahead of them (if that sounds confusing please check out his article where he goes more indepth in the concept).  For instance, if a team just won the Super Bowl and is picking last in the 1^st round and is interested in drafting a quarterback, they can reasonably expect to see the 3^rd or 4^th best quarterback still available because on average 2-3 quarterbacks get drafted in the 1^st round.  If you think about it, there are only so many “can’t miss” 1^st round draft picks produced every year and usually their positions are distributed rather evenly (factored in with the nature of the NFL).  Obviously some years can be strong years for certain positions, like this year with defensive ends, but on average the amount of players in a certain position selected remains relatively constant.

With that in mind, the question I had is which players are statistically likely to be available at pick 28 for the Packers and which picks would make sense compared to previous years.  To do that I complied a list of every draft from the 1^st pick overall to the 28^th pick overall from 2005 (the year Ted Thompson became the general manager) to 2011 and then computed the average number of players at a position taken and their standard deviation between each year.  Read more... (927 words + 1 image, estimated 3:42 mins reading time)

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