Lazard Situation...

[GreenNGold_81]

Amari year 2 vs Doubs year 1...they are not interchangeable.

I'm an Amari guy, LOVED the pick, have a signed jersey I quickly bought....I was wrong. Fit here for who knows how many reasons was not right - it was evident his rookie year time and time again and confirmed even more time and time again in his second year.

The answer is they're reasonably comparable and Doubs got more targets.

 

[Magooch]

As "long" as he did? He was in GB for 1.5 seasons. We gave Adams and Jordy years to develop and work through their struggles despite many writing them off early in their careers. Again, nobody here is going to convince me that we didn't give up on him too soon.

Do you think an UDFA who produced at the same level as Amari would've been afforded the same opportunities that he was? Again, if not for his "draft investment" he likely would not have even made the roster for this past season.

I guess we will see if he pans out in Houston or wherever in the coming years but I think that we should keep in mind that ultimately far more players (regardless of draft position) fail to "make it" at the professional level than DO "make it" and IMO occam's razor here would suggest that the simplest explanation is that he simply is one of that great majority of players who just don't have it.

 

[tynimiller]

The answer is they're reasonably comparable and Doubs got more targets.

Style and positionally they are not the same however at all. Amari is the type of WR best suited for living in the slot and having to use motion and movement pre-snap IMO to help - Doubs is as much an outside WR as he is slot.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

I think the acquisition of Toney has as much to do with them thinking of cutting MVS as anything else.

Given what they will have to pay Toney, I fully agree. He didn't have a monster year after the trade, but he sure looked legit at times.

He also was a fricking bargain! The Chiefs only gave up their compensatory 3rd round pick (#100) and their original 6th round pick (#207). Not to mention that they will have the ability to exercise his 5th year option for 2025.

2023: $1.9M
2024: $2.5 M

I know someone mentioned Amari Rodgers was mishandled in Green Bay, one has to wonder WTF the Giants were or weren't doing with Toney.

 

[tynimiller]

Given what they will have to pay Toney, I fully agree. He didn't have a monster year after the trade, but he sure looked legit at times.

He also was a fricking bargain! The Chiefs only gave up their compensatory 3rd round pick (#100) and their original 6th round pick (#207). Not to mention that they will have the ability to exercise his 5th year option for 2025.

2023: $1.9M
2024: $2.5 M

I know someone mentioned Amari Rodgers was mishandled in Green Bay, one has to wonder WTF the Giants were or weren't doing with Toney.

The Giants and Toney never meshed from a personality stance more than absolutely everything - it was very apparent quite quickly. That is one downfall of a team that on the offensive side of the ball they lacked that true veteran leader or personality wise guy that commanding he is the leader....who Saquon? no. Daniel Jones...not yet but maybe...

Toney went to a team with Mahomes, Kelce firstly....also established guy like JuJu not to mention some of the OL they have.

Now let's also not pretend that Toney was some massive gamebreaker for the Chiefs. In his games he actually played for them he tallied 17 targets, 14 receptions for 171 yards or 12.2 ypc.

Toney and Giants were in desperate need of a divorce and it was clear on day 1 essentially almost.

 

[GreenNGold_81]

Style and positionally they are not the same however at all. Amari is the type of WR best suited for living in the slot and having to use motion and movement pre-snap IMO to help - Doubs is as much an outside WR as he is slot.

I'm aware, and I expect that Doubs and Watson will be our receivers on the outside for (hopefully) years. Which may mean we don't have a true slot player being developed at the moment. Knowing that traditionally it takes most WR's ~3 years to develop in our system it is wild to me that they gave up after 1.5 and are probably going to spend another draft pick to make up for it. I agree with the above poster who said it probably wasn't a fit personality-wise with the team, I'm sure he also wasn't keen watching Cobb take his snaps and being urged to return kicks and then dealing with the whole weirdness with Aaron Rodgers and the hand signals or whatever else that makes it a barrier to approach him. Anyway, I don't think anybody is changing anyone's minds here.

 

[tynimiller]

I'm aware, and I expect that Doubs and Watson will be our receivers on the outside for (hopefully) years. Which may mean we don't have a true slot player being developed at the moment. Knowing that traditionally it takes most WR's ~3 years to develop in our system it is wild to me that they gave up after 1.5 and are probably going to spend another draft pick to make up for it. I agree with the above poster who said it probably wasn't a fit personality-wise with the team, I'm sure he also wasn't keen watching Cobb take his snaps and being urged to return kicks and then dealing with the whole weirdness with Aaron Rodgers and the hand signals or whatever else that makes it a barrier to approach him. Anyway, I don't think anybody is changing anyone's minds here.

If Amari thought Cobb was taking his snaps I giggle at that a touch, slot snaps were Cobbs for the taking and Amari wasn't seeing more snaps than Cobb for as long as Cobb and Rodgers were here - I'd say everyone knew that or if they didn't they should have. Again I'm an Amari fan more than many on this board but the dude was given tons of chances and continued to fail...now GB has as much of the brunt of failure as he does IMO as I've shared before - GB kept asking him to be what he clearly wasn't at the NFL level and that was a returner.

 

[mradtke66]

As "long" as he did? He was in GB for 1.5 seasons. We gave Adams and Jordy years to develop and work through their struggles despite many writing them off early in their careers. Again, nobody here is going to convince me that we didn't give up on him too soon.

An important distinction. While both struggled early, they also flashed impressive performance.

Both were playing behind established veterans, which somewhat explains their slower starts. Adams was also solidly our number 3 his rookie year. Against the Patriots, when BB schemed away Jordy, Cobb, and Rodgers' scrambling, Adams delivered. Against the Dolphins, just an intelligent player who knew what to do, without practicing it, when Rodgers faked the spike.

Yes, in his second year, he had a case of the drops. Even this can be explained away, due to Adams being thrust into the number 1 spot early AND his ankle injury. Sure, the ankle is generally not used to catch the ball, but his game was always about the release. His entire game suffered.

In short, while neither set the world on fire, both showed flashes of why they were drafted.

Amari never did. The best he did, in my opinion, was, "Oh look. He's not completely awful all they time." Never once was I impressed.

 

[GreenNGold_81]

An important distinction. While both struggled early, they also flashed impressive performance.

Both were playing behind established veterans, which somewhat explains their slower starts. Adams was also solidly our number 3 his rookie year. Against the Patriots, when BB schemed away Jordy, Cobb, and Rodgers' scrambling, Adams delivered. Against the Dolphins, just an intelligent player who knew what to do, without practicing it, when Rodgers faked the spike.

Yes, in his second year, he had a case of the drops. Even this can be explained away, due to Adams being thrust into the number 1 spot early AND his ankle injury. Sure, the ankle is generally not used to catch the ball, but his game was always about the release. His entire game suffered.

In short, while neither set the world on fire, both showed flashes of why they were drafted.

Amari never did. The best he did, in my opinion, was, "Oh look. He's not completely awful all they time." Never once was I impressed.

Ok, you guys brought me back. When you guys say he had "plenty of opportunity" what exactly do you mean? BECAUSE AMARI WASN'T TARGETED. He barely got thrown the ball AT ALL. I'm not talking about his failed attempts on special teams in this thread I'm talking about in-game situations at WR. He wasn't worked into any game plans, he wasn't used for jet sweeps like he probably should have been more often. He just wasn't used!

8 targets as a rookie. EIGHT. This is a 3rd rounder that we traded up for.
8 targets again in year 2 (with GB). Almost all during the stretch when Cobb was out indicating they had no intent to throw him the ball when Cobb was in there.

Against the Pats in his rookie year Adams was targeted ELEVEN times. In Adams's second game ever with GB he was targeted seven times.

Not just that, they made no attempts to showcase him for a trade. At least give him a game or two where you target him 10 times to see if he can increase his trade value. No, didn't even get more opportunities then. In the middle of a losing streak with an offense that looked like complete garbage, we threw him at most 3 balls a game. Trotted him out there to struggle on special teams though.

Again, this was a kid who got put in the dog house for whatever reason and couldn't dig out. And the Packers kept Cobb around despite his age to appease Rodgers rather than work on developing Amari and letting him play through growing pains. At least they got their photo together leaving Lambeau after Rodgers only targeted him twice for eleven yards in a must win game, hope it was worth it.

Super weird frustrating situation because Amari was the type of player this offense would have benefited from having if he was developed right.

 

[mradtke66]

Ok, you guys brought me back. When you guys say he had "plenty of opportunity" what exactly do you mean? BECAUSE AMARI WASN'T TARGETED.

The opportunity starts in practice.

If a player does not know the playbook, at minimum his responsibilities, he won't see the field. If he learns all the responsibilities for his entire position group, ala rookie Greg Jennings learning X, Y, and slot, your chances of playing go up.

If you learn the playbook, but don't run the right route, you won't see the field. If you can run the right route AND make the correct sight adjustments based on defensive alignments, ala rookie Adams against the Dolphins, your chances of playing go up.

It starts in practice. If you aren't doing the right things there, you aren't going to play.

Amari walked into the perfect situation. There was a lack of talent in the Packer's receiving room. If he could demonstrate that he knew the playbook, could run the right routes, and generally not screw the pooch, he'd have gotten snaps. Even when Cobb missed time, he didn't get snaps. Why? What was he ******** up in private that we didn't see?

I hoped he would have turned out better, but coming back around to showing something, even J'mon Moore (check my spelling here. the 4th rounder the same year we picked MVS and ESB) showed something. His hands were a special kind of terrible, not going to lie, but part of the reason his drops looked so horrible is that he could run a great route. He got so open, passes to him looked like pre-game warmups.

 

[Magooch]

Ok, you guys brought me back. When you guys say he had "plenty of opportunity" what exactly do you mean? BECAUSE AMARI WASN'T TARGETED. He barely got thrown the ball AT ALL. I'm not talking about his failed attempts on special teams in this thread I'm talking about in-game situations at WR. He wasn't worked into any game plans, he wasn't used for jet sweeps like he probably should have been more often. He just wasn't used!

I don't want to put words in your mouth but it seems like you are operating out of the assumption that Amari *deserved* more targets/looks/etc and that the only reason he didn't receive them is because he was mishandled/mismanaged, not developed properly, etc. Are you willing to at least consider the possibility that perhaps the reason he didn't receive more opportunity is because he simply wasn't good enough to merit it?

8 targets as a rookie. EIGHT. This is a 3rd rounder that we traded up for.

One could just as easily look at this as an indictment of our drafting rather than an endorsement of Amari. Gute has been notoriously bad in the 3rd overall at this point anyways, so I don't really think this speaks to Amari's favor.

 

[swhitset]

How many years did it take Jordy or Davante? How many years did we give Amari? Further, extrapolate Amari's production in Houston and compare it to what Doubs did for us this year. We gave up on a prospect, no doubt about it.

lmFA offf… Is Amari your Son, brother … cousin … ?…

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

Gute has been notoriously bad in the 3rd overall at this point anyways, so I don't really think this speaks to Amari's favor.

So bad that I am fine with him using our 3rd round pick on a kicker!

 

[GreenNGold_81]

lmFA offf… Is Amari your Son, brother … cousin … ?…

Nah, just think we screwed up developing him is all. He was pushed down the pecking order to appease Aaron when Cobb was brought back. At no fault of Cobb's mind you, I'm sure he just didn't do a great job mentoring him and we'd rather push him out than continue to develop him. I don't think you or anyone can say that he had a fair shot when he was used so little despite the obvious talents he has on tape coming out of college. To me, that alone would merit a few years to develop in our system as a dedicated slot receiver. I also think that Aaron had no interest in getting him involved for some weird reason.

 

[GreenNGold_81]

I don't want to put words in your mouth but it seems like you are operating out of the assumption that Amari *deserved* more targets/looks/etc and that the only reason he didn't receive them is because he was mishandled/mismanaged, not developed properly, etc. Are you willing to at least consider the possibility that perhaps the reason he didn't receive more opportunity is because he simply wasn't good enough to merit it?

One could just as easily look at this as an indictment of our drafting rather than an endorsement of Amari. Gute has been notoriously bad in the 3rd overall at this point anyways, so I don't really think this speaks to Amari's favor.

I think if you're a third-rounder it's important to keep them developing to see if they can take advantage of their opportunities and let them find their game. Bury them on the depth chart if you have to, but at least give them three years. I assume that Cobb and Lazard are gone this offseason, we have Watson, Doubs, Toure (who's older than Amari) and Bo Melton. Then basically nobody. None of these players look like a traditional slot receiver and my guess is we spend another early pick to make up for our losses. Poor asset management. I will not be surprised if Houston drafts a QB and Amari turns things around. That's all.

 

[Firethorn1001]

Seemed like Amari could have been used in some capacity other than punter returner, but they just kept taking that square peg and banging it with a rock on the round hole. Did he ohh and ahh me? No, but sure seemed like he could have had some use.

 

[OldSchool101]

If Amari thought Cobb was taking his snaps I giggle at that a touch, slot snaps were Cobbs for the taking and Amari wasn't seeing more snaps than Cobb for as long as Cobb and Rodgers were here - I'd say everyone knew that or if they didn't they should have. Again I'm an Amari fan more than many on this board but the dude was given tons of chances and continued to fail...now GB has as much of the brunt of failure as he does IMO as I've shared before - GB kept asking him to be what he clearly wasn't at the NFL level and that was a returner.

yep. Sometimes draft picks don’t work out. It happens across the entire league. There’s really not even guaranteed a Day 1 will excel.
Look at Datone Jones or HaHa, not exactly super inspiring.

 

[OldSchool101]

I think if you're a third-rounder it's important to keep them developing to see if they can take advantage of their opportunities and let them find their game. Bury them on the depth chart if you have to, but at least give them three years. I assume that Cobb and Lazard are gone this offseason, we have Watson, Doubs, Toure (who's older than Amari) and Bo Melton. Then basically nobody. None of these players look like a traditional slot receiver and my guess is we spend another early pick to make up for our losses. Poor asset management. I will not be surprised if Houston drafts a QB and Amari turns things around. That's all.

While that might be generally fine. Sometimes players just don’t develop. Meanwhile, Rich brings in a guy as Returner that was already developed. He turns out to be one of the better Returners leaguewide. Do you still pay a guy 1M to hope he catches on later when you already have 2 guys ahead of him on the depth chart? Remember he’s eating a roster spot.

Also I’m almost positive he was 1 of several guys who were Running wrong routes left n right. Sammy being another. Sometimes it’s wise to cut bait when you’re noticing early and often signs of trouble.

I appreciate you not wanting to waste a draft pick, but this league is stocked with talent. We don’t need to wait 3 seasons to hope we get that. There’s Kurt Warner’s bagging groceries for gosh sakes.

 

[Mondio]

My guess is Amari said or did something outside of just not developing that quickly that ended his time here so abruptly. I mean, he didn't have a good game again against Dallas. Packers were in it, battling and then BAM, another Amari Rodgers fumble and the game quickly went from 14-14 to 28-14 in the blink of an eye. My ride texted me, when do you want to leave, and I said as soon as we come back and win this LOL. I was glad we did, and I was glad he was replaced finally in that game.

My guess is he didn't respond well to it and that's why he's gone.

 

[tynimiller]

I don't want to put words in your mouth but it seems like you are operating out of the assumption that Amari *deserved* more targets/looks/etc and that the only reason he didn't receive them is because he was mishandled/mismanaged, not developed properly, etc. Are you willing to at least consider the possibility that perhaps the reason he didn't receive more opportunity is because he simply wasn't good enough to merit it?

One could just as easily look at this as an indictment of our drafting rather than an endorsement of Amari. Gute has been notoriously bad in the 3rd overall at this point anyways, so I don't really think this speaks to Amari's favor.

He needs to only draft defense in the third lol…test the curse to see if it is only offensive players lol

 

[swhitset]

He needs to only draft defense in the third lol…test the curse to see if it is only offensive players lol

Oren Burks

 

[tynimiller]

Oren Burks

Didn’t he predate Gute in charge?

 

[tynimiller]

You’re right first year he was. I’d also argue Burks is the best guy in the third he’s had however lol.

 

[swhitset]

You’re right first year he was. I’d also argue Burks is the best guy in the third he’s had however lol.

That might be true… and says a LOT. Don’t forget… Gute Traded back UP into the 3rd round just to draft Burks.

 

[longtimefan]

Players get opportunities based off of draft status in the NFL all the time. If you don't know that, you need to pay more attention.

For everyone of those, a Donald Driver shows up