I'm no GM, and I don't watch a ton of tape in the way a scout might, but I do see each Packers game, and here's the thing that stands out to me: Raji hasn't consistently made plays since our SB year.
I don't get why people are arguing about bringing Raji back on a modest one year deal. No one is lining up to pay him big dollars are this point. Everyone knows he has talent, but the long silent space in the highlight reel for #90 grows ever longer.
I watched Steelers games, and Brett Keisel and Casey Hampton may not have been game breaking talents, but you saw them make contributions game in and out, and so many of them sprang out of persistence- they weren't going to get home with speed or brilliant technique or sheer talent- they got there on will. Other guys did their jobs, plays took longer to develop, and they closed and finished.
That's the kind of play we need out of a player in the role available to Raji, and it's precisely the kind of play he has failed to deliver.
There's no question that talented guys get second, third and fourth chances in this league above and beyond the chances that hard workers with less ability get, but there's a diminishing return for those chances- they don't make bigger and bigger money. They make less and less with each subsequent once, in general.
Until Raji delivers on his considerable potential consistently, he'll be a modestly paid bubble guy who is easy for teams to cut, including ours. The one advantage he has with us is that he knows our system.
There have been knocks on Raji's heart going back to his college days. This is no surprise- you hope that some of this comes from being young and immature. But this guy is closing on 30. If there isn't obvious and permanent change/improvement, he's done, and that is hard for many to take because so many players with less talent have done so much more than him simply because they played with more heart and determination. While I hope he gets over the hump, it's not likely, and I don't get why anyone's a hater for looking at his track record and acknowledging that something different than recent history is a long shot...
I don't know why everyone is trying to make it so difficult. All you had to do was watch the game and see he wasn't giving much effort at all. Here was a guy that could blow thru a double team and make contact in the backfield and was now being pushed 3-4 yards or more down field by a single blocker and all he had to do was shed and make a tackle and he'd just watch them run by. no chase down the line, no nothing. He looked like a slug.
