Yes, of course you are right. But sometimes you might go with a player just because he is who he is. They have to do what they think is best for the team. But sometimes maybe you take a chance and pay the player early. A contract like Ekeler's of San Diego does not sound out of line at all. I just like Jones. Would like him to stick around.
Well, yes, we'd like Jones to stick around. I think we'd like Bakhtiari and Clark to stick around as well. By the end of the year King might be on that list if you don't have him on it already.
Notice they reached for a RB with questionable vision, while not drafting an OT until the 6th. round, a couple of guys who may not even project there, while RT is a stop gap and the backups don't exactly inspire confidence. No CBs or DTs at all in this draft, nor anybody of note in free agency. And it's not like those other positional picks would not be useful. There's no corner or DL depth to point to. There's a base D starter position which could use an upgrade. Sullivan is an open question once you plug him into 700+ snaps and there's nobody you can point to as a serviceable backup behind the top 3 CBs.
To make matters worse, RB is the position where transition to the NFL is the easiest and where second contracts are the riskiest. Among the key 2021 contract year guys, the replacement that could best have been waited until the 2021 draft would have been RB.
Of any of the contract year priorities you could identify, I believe the Packers are telling you Jones he is low on the list.
The logic of the 2nd. and 3rd. round picks is a "win now" approach in a bizarre kind of way. OTs, CBs, DTs are evidently being viewed in the same way as WRs--they need seasoning and no matter how high an upside you might see in one or the other possible alternative picks, the ones available at any place on the board after reaching for that future QB might not provide anything more
in 2020 than a lesser talent with a couple of years of experience
.
The approach would have been compounded if the Covid-19 impact had been anticipated which would not have been hard to do on April 23. Ordinarily you might play an upside rookie or two and take some lumps in their on-the-job training, in the hopes that by the back half of the season and the playoffs they will have worked out enough kinks to be a net add. If your crystal ball was showing truncated OTs, training camp and possibly preseason, the chance of getting a rookie up to speed with dividends later in the year is sharply diminished.
So, you add a complement to what you have already--a power runner who may not find the optimal lane in an unfamiliar zone scheme while not having jump cuts or block set-ups in his arsenal, you at least buy a guy who can move the pile when push comes to shove, pun intended, with a 3rd. round H-back leading the way if Dillon can manage not to run up his back.
There may be a surprising irony in all of this. 2nd. and 5. Dillon and Deguara in the backfield, forcing the opponent to pull their nickle hybrid ILB for the run stuffing base guy or forcing the SS to come up leaving single high. Play action and bombs away!
But I digress. Given what was done in the draft, do you realistically think that the Packers have Jones at the top of their extension list going into 2021 without pile of cap space? That's hard to see.
I could be wrong about Dillon. Maybe he takes to it like a fish to water, his evident deficiencies a function of poor college scheme fit and sub-par surrounding college talent. What if he is the second coming of Derick Henry as the most optimistic analysis would have it? Then maybe it's Jones who gets traded, not Williams. Clearly this is a front office that doesn't care about public opinion, which is a good thing if they get it right. Yes, you can trade Pena and Giambi, LOL, if circumstances warrant.
