Trade Deadline Targets

[Deleted member 6794]

If Jones isn't starting then the Packers have already determined if he can be a starter; maybe that changes next year but if he can't beat out Brice then I doubt it.

Jones might be able to take away snaps from Burks or Morrison but he's not a fit to replace Brice.

HHCD has been pretty good in coverage this year (4th highest coverage grade among safeties by PFF). Let HHCD play safety behind some corners that the DC trusts (doubt the team fully trusts King, Jackson, or Alexander yet) and he'd probably be a very good free safety. If you let HHCD walk, you save $3m (just a guess, obviously I have no actual knowledge of the future) and need to find a starting free safety, a starting strong safety, and a pass rush...or you could spend $3m and only need a starting strong safety (the cheaper safety position) and a pass rush. That extra $3m isn't going to be the difference between signing an elite pass rusher and not signing an elite pass rusher but the extra draft pick might be the difference between finding a guy and not finding a guy.

I highly doubt Clinton-Dix agrees to a deal averaging only $3 million a year next offseason. While he has been pretty good in coverage he doesn't excel playing single high safety. I'm not convinced the Packers are in dire need to improve at strong safety moving forward.

Gute needs to be on the phone with JAX offering them Deshone Kizer and a 3rd for Dante Fowler Jr. They guy can get pressure with speed (watch HOU game) and has put up some numbers to consider (check last year's sack totals) despite not being a full-time starter for the Jags. He wouldn't solve everything by himself but could be a piece that gives us just enough to actually improve the defense. The move makes sense for JAX due to their QB situation/possible locker room internal issues.

I would be fine with the Packers acquiring Fowler for a reasonable price but doubt the Jaguars are interested in trading him.

 

[McKnowledge]

Of course it's un(mc)knowable, but I have zero doubts in my own mind when I give the opinion that Mack would never have done that. The whole reason he wanted out of Oakland was that they weren't willing to pay him the going rate for a player of his position and quality.

I respect your opinion. True, he wanted out of Oakland, because he was not going to get his worth from Jon Gruden and the Oakland Raiders. However...what does that have to do with the Green Bay Packers? Green Bay had the picks, and (contrary to detractors) could've cleared out the cap space to get him a deal.

Oakland was not going to pay, because much like our team, the previous 2-3 draft classes have not performed as advertised, forcing Oakland to overpay in free agency.

In Gruden's mind, he didn't want to spend the money required to secure Mack's services. His choice, because it certainly wasn't Reggie McKenzie's, who's has been effectively muzzled as GM. Gruden is rebuilding the team in his image, getting ready for the move to Las Vegas. He has carte blanche. 10 years worth of it.

 

[Dantés]

I respect your opinion. True, he wanted out of Oakland, because he was not going to get his worth from Jon Gruden and the Oakland Raiders. However...what does that have to do with the Green Bay Packers? Green Bay had the picks, and (contrary to detractors) could've cleared out the cap space to get him a deal.

Oakland was not going to pay, because much like our team, the previous 2-3 draft classes have not performed as advertised, forcing Oakland to overpay in free agency.

In Gruden's mind, he didn't want to spend the money required to secure Mack's services. His choice, because it certainly wasn't Reggie McKenzie's, who's has been effectively muzzled as GM. Gruden is rebuilding the team in his image, getting ready for the move to Las Vegas. He has carte blanche. 10 years worth of it.

This might sound conspiratorial, but I think the reason why the Raiders wouldn't pay Mack is that Mark Davis either wouldn't or couldn't. He's the "poorest" (relative term) owner in the league and the Raiders are the lowest revenue franchise in the league, and will be even lower for a time in Oakland as local fans check out (knowing that the team is leaving). On top of that, they're gearing up to build a stadium that will probably still cost the team at least~700M$ even after the 800M that the state of Nevada (or city of Las Vegas? I can't remember) is kicking in.

They just gave a 100M$ contract to a coach, and a 125M$ contract to Carr. In the NFL, guaranteed money has to be put in escrow when you sign a player. So ~70M$ had to be placed in an account when Carr signed that deal (I believe-- unless it's just the gtd at signing figure, which would be 40M). In other words, Davis couldn't just come up with the money as it was owed. The Mack deal that Chicago gave to him would would have required Davis to come up with another 90M (unless, again, it's only the "gtd at signing" figure which would be 60M).

With all that was going on, I just don't think Davis had it. My guess (and that's all it is) is that Davis told his FO, Gruden included, that he could escrow X amount of dollars, and that "X" was far below market for the guarantees that Mack was expecting, and that Mack's camp totally balked and they were at an impasse.

But to the original point, I just see no reason to believe that Mack would have accepted a discount to play in Green Bay. I respect your opinion as well-- I just don't see evidence to support that idea.

 

[McKnowledge]

The idea that the Packers would trade for Mack actually bordered on the absurd.

So you wouldn't want Khalil Mack on the Green Bay Packers? Interesting...

Exactly. And he would have taken less from the Packers? There's no reason to believe that.

I'm fairly confident that after Gutekunst had preliminary discussions with Oakland as to what they were looking for and preliminary discussions with Mack's agent as to what he was looking for, Gutekunst said, "F that." My confidence derives from the cap situation while also giving up those valuable draft picks that Gutekunst would have especially needed after draining the cap.

Those picks aren't as valuable as one might have you believe. I actually think the NFL draft process is hit or miss. Most players don't work out. If these future picks do hit, barring any trade before the deadline, I'll stand corrected.


I'm just really getting frustrated with a lot of Packers fans that are content with only winning the division and beating our rivals.

We've been dealt an ace at QB and we keep throwing in good hands for year after year of folding. Many fans will say, "well you can't win it every year", which is true. But it doesn't hurt trying. Patriots in it every year. Steelers contend every season. Rams going all in. Vikings looking to knock us out. Why can't the Packers be more proactive?

A trade for Mack would've been a double, signing him; a home run. But can we at least make some singles? Lot of players from that underrated 2014 class in the last years of their rookie deals. Lot of vets in their contract year. Hell, even the Lions are making moves. Can't hit if you don't swing.

 

[McKnowledge]

This might sound conspiratorial, but I think the reason why the Raiders wouldn't pay Mack is that Mark Davis either wouldn't or couldn't. He's the "poorest" (relative term) owner in the league and the Raiders are the lowest revenue franchise in the league, and will be even lower for a time in Oakland as local fans check out (knowing that the team is leaving). On top of that, they're gearing up to build a stadium that will probably still cost the team at least~700M$ even after the 800M that the state of Nevada (or city of Las Vegas? I can't remember) is kicking in.

They just gave a 100M$ contract to a coach, and a 125M$ contract to Carr. In the NFL, guaranteed money has to be put in escrow when you sign a player. So ~70M$ had to be placed in an account when Carr signed that deal (I believe-- unless it's just the gtd at signing figure, which would be 40M). In other words, Davis couldn't just come up with the money as it was owed. The Mack deal that Chicago gave to him would would have required Davis to come up with another 90M (unless, again, it's only the "gtd at signing" figure which would be 60M).

With all that was going on, I just don't think Davis had it. My guess (and that's all it is) is that Davis told his FO, Gruden included, that he could escrow X amount of dollars, and that "X" was far below market for the guarantees that Mack was expecting, and that Mack's camp totally balked and they were at an impasse.

But to the original point, I just see no reason to believe that Mack would have accepted a discount to play in Green Bay. I respect your opinion as well-- I just don't see evidence to support that idea.

I understand. The plight of Mark Davis, struggling NFL owner. It hurts. Oakland deserves so much better. I hope they win the rights to retain the colors and name. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nf...to-sue-the-raiders-over-relocation/ar-BBOrewr

Now, having said that. Green Bay isn't facing the same struggles as the Oakland Raiders. Bottom line, Green Bay was not willing to deal their picks for Khalil Mack. That does not mean that they could not have gotten everything done, including clearing the cap space to secure a long term deal. That's all I have to say.

 

[Firethorn1001]

Bottom line, Green Bay was not willing to deal their picks for Khalil Mack.

Green Bay, along with 29 other teams, were not willing to beat Oakland's preference of the Bears offer of picks. 'Do whatever it takes' isn't really a good bargaining position to take.

 

[HardRightEdge]

So you wouldn't want Khalil Mack on the Green Bay Packers? Interesting...

The Packers could not afford him. Not by a country mile. I don't now how many times I have to repeat it.

 

[Dantés]

I understand. The plight of Mark Davis, struggling NFL owner. It hurts. Oakland deserves so much better. I hope they win the rights to retain the colors and name. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nf...to-sue-the-raiders-over-relocation/ar-BBOrewr

Now, having said that. Green Bay isn't facing the same struggles as the Oakland Raiders. Bottom line, Green Bay was not willing to deal their picks for Khalil Mack. That does not mean that they could not have gotten everything done, including clearing the cap space to secure a long term deal. That's all I have to say.

I agree— they could have gotten it done cap wise if they absolutely wanted to. But if you recall, this conversation started over your suggestion that Mack might have taken a 5-6M discount for Green Bay. That’s what I disagree with.

 

[Dantés]

The Packers could not afford him. Not by a country mile. I don't now how many times I have to repeat it.

How do you square that with the report that the Packers made an actual offer for him?

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

Not sure why we are still discussing Mack and really not sure HOW someone still thinks the draft pick deal the Bears traded away would have somehow been the same deal the Raiders would have accepted from the Packers. Each and everyone of the picks the Bears traded away, at the time of the trade, were considered to have a lot more value than the same picks from the Packers. Only way the Packers could have come close to that value was to up the deal to 3 of their future first round picks.

So please stop saying the Packers messed up by not trading for Mack and using the thinking that all it would have taken was the Packers offering up the same picks the Bears traded for him.

I have a feeling every time the Packers lose or don't win a Super Bowl, someone is going to say "If we only would have traded for Mack".

 

[HardRightEdge]

How do you square that with the report that the Packers made an actual offer for him?

I doubt that. Or shall I say they might have made an offer to Oakland and one to Mack's agent, neither of which would have been accepted, especially the latter.

 

[HardRightEdge]

I have a feeling every time the Packers lose or don't win a Super Bowl, someone is going to say "If we only would have traded for Mack".

The Bears would need to finish better than their current 0.500 to get that argument even in the ballpark.

 

[Dantés]

I doubt that. Or shall I say they might have made an offer to Oakland and one to Mack's agent, neither of which would have been accepted, especially the latter.

It was pretty widely reported (not confirmed by the team, of course-- as these things never are) that the Packers made an offer to the Raiders. I have a hard time believing that they did so without knowing how much Mack would cost and having a plan for extending him.

I don't have an issue if you doubt that, but given that most Packers fans know that the FO tried to acquire Mack, I don't think you're going to find much traction in convincing people that they couldn't have afforded him.

 

[Dantés]

Not sure why we are still discussing Mack and really not sure HOW someone still thinks the draft pick deal the Bears traded away would have somehow been the same deal the Raiders would have accepted from the Packers. Each and everyone of the picks the Bears traded away, at the time of the trade, were considered to have a lot more value than the same picks from the Packers. Only way the Packers could have come close to that value was to up the deal to 3 of their future first round picks.

So please stop saying the Packers messed up by not trading for Mack and using the thinking that all it would have taken was the Packers offering up the same picks the Bears traded for him.

I have a feeling every time the Packers lose or don't win a Super Bowl, someone is going to say "If we only would have traded for Mack".

Because we're coming off a bye week.

 

[Mondio]

The Packers could not afford him. Not by a country mile. I don't now how many times I have to repeat it.

They could have afforded him like I can afford this piece of property i'm looking at now. small bit of hunting land not connected to 100 feet of waterfront with small home on it. just under a million. We could get it, but man if anything went wrong we'd be looking at dumping 2 places. Not a good position to be in. Especially when in a couple years it will be a fairly easy purchase if everything goes well. Of course car trouble here, new roof needed there, sewer back up etc and we'd be barely treading and a hospital bill could sink us.

Knowing what the Bears gave up and what we'd have had to give up, I'm more than fine having not. Toss the contract on top of that and I'm perfectly content not having him. I still believe you don't give that much money to non QB's. You can scheme your *** off against Rodgers and the only thing that keeps him from being great is him most times. On the other hand, 2 teams now have effectively made Mack a non-factor 2 weeks in a row. He's great, I know it. But he's no QB and can't affect a game like one.

 

[HardRightEdge]

It was pretty widely reported (not confirmed by the team, of course-- as these things never are) that the Packers made an offer to the Raiders. I have a hard time believing that they did so without knowing how much Mack would cost and having a plan for extending him.

I don't have an issue if you doubt that, but given that most Packers fans know that the FO tried to acquire Mack, I don't think you're going to find much traction in convincing people that they couldn't have afforded him.

Oh, the Packers might have made an offer to the Raiders contingent upon an extension agreement with Mack, with a "we'll think about it" from Oakland pending final offers. Coming to agreement with Mack was the problem.

A player on the trading block can be granted permission to negotiate with other teams, an exception to the anti-tampering rule. That would certainly have been granted in this case because there is no way Gutekunst or any GM would have executed that trade without first getting contract terms nailed down with the player.

I don't care whether the argument gets traction around here or not...Chicago's contract offer was too big to match in Green Bay. By a country mile.

 

[Dantés]

Oh, the Packers might have made an offer to the Raiders contingent upon an extension agreement with Mack, with a "we'll think about it" from Oakland pending final offers. Coming to agreement with Mack was the problem.

A player on the trading block can be granted permission to negotiate with other teams, an exception to the anti-tampering rule. That would certainly have been granted in this case because there is no way Gutekunst or any GM would have executed that trade without first getting contract terms nailed down with the player.

I don't care whether the argument gets traction around here or not...Chicago's contract offer was too big to match in Green Bay. By a country mile.

Well, I said that because you were lamenting how often you've had to repeat yourself-- no amount of repeating yourself is going to convince some people whose perception of the situation is that the FO was ready to pay him if they could get Oakland to accept a deal. I happen to be one of those people.

No one knows if the Packers were making an offer contingent on working out a deal, or if they had a deal figured out in principle before they were offering. And if they made a contingent offer, no one knows if their contract offer to Mack would have been comparable to what the Bears paid him. In any case, I don't buy that they were unaware of basically what it would have cost to extend him. It makes no sense to me that a FO would get that far down the road of trying to acquire a player without understanding the financial implications. And it's doubly hard to buy the argument that they could have never done it, seeing as how they could have handled Mack's ~23M in additional cap cost in 2019 and still had around ~17M left-- more than the Steelers, Eagles, Vikings, Jaguars, and Saints.

But we can agree to disagree on it. It's moot at this point anyhow.

 

[HardRightEdge]

They could have afforded him like I can afford this piece of property i'm looking at now. small bit of hunting land not connected to 100 feet of waterfront with small home on it. just under a million. We could get it, but man if anything went wrong we'd be looking at dumping 2 places.

That's an imperfect analogy in that an NFL team can't take out a 30 year mortgage against the salary cap.

Look, I've been over this several times before. If the Packers had cut Matthews and signed Mack to the same contract he got from the Bears then the Packers current cap space would be $3.4, not much to carry over and it will likely shrink some before the season is out with one or more players going to IR. OK, right? Live for today!

Well, the problem begins next season. The Packers current cap committments for 2019, if we add in Mack's $22.3 mil Chicago cap number for next season, would come to about $173 mil!

To belabor the point yet again, that cap number does not include any of the following players (minus Matthews who was cut in this scenario) or their replacements:

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/green-bay-packers/

To make matters worse you would have given up those two first round picks next season.

So, now you have little cap to work with and no high picks come 2019.

The cap + picks made Mack unaffordable.

Now, I'm sure there are some who think Mack would be the missing piece in getting to the Super Bowl. I'm not convinced of that, to put it mildly, and that is not some fresh assessment.

The aspect of your analogy that would hold true is that if the Packers didn't get to the Super Bowl in 2018, then the lack of picks and cap would be the "something went wrong" or more rightly "everything didn't go right", with the roster building is set back a couple of years or more.

Where Mack would make sense is if the roster was chock-o-block with stars, budding stars and solid starters with a couple years to go on cheap rookie deals. This is not that.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Well, I said that because you were lamenting how often you've had to repeat yourself....

It's not lamentation. I'll leave that to the woulda-shoulda-coulda Mack-ites. I'd characterize it as frustration. The numbers don't lie.

 

[Dantés]

It's not lamentation. I'll leave that to the woulda-shoulda-coulda Mack-ites. I'd characterize it as frustration. The numbers don't lie.

Fair enough. I've said my piece.

 

[HardRightEdge]

But we can agree to disagree on it. It's moot at this point anyhow.

Fair enough back atcha. But I must say I don't do "agree to disagree". I might agree, I might disagree, but I don't do both simultaneously. Where we do agree is that it is a moot point. But it keeps coming up nonetheless without consideration of the costs.

 

[Mondio]

That's an imperfect analogy in that an NFL team can't take out a 30 year mortgage against the salary cap.

Look, I've been over this several times before. If the Packers had cut Matthews and signed Mack to the same contract he got from the Bears then the Packers current cap space would be $3.4, not much to carry over and it will likely shrink some before the season is out with one or more players going to IR. OK, right? Live for today!

Well, the problem begins next season. The Packers current cap committments for 2019, if we add in Mack's $22.3 mil Chicago cap number for next season, would come to about $173 mil!

To belabor the point yet again, that cap number does not include any of the following players (minus Matthews who was cut in this scenario) or their replacements:

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/green-bay-packers/

To make matters worse you would have given up those two first round picks next season.

So, now you have little cap to work with and no high picks come 2019.

The cap + picks made Mack unaffordable.

Now, I'm sure there are some who think Mack would be the missing piece in getting to the Super Bowl. I'm not convinced of that, to put it mildly. And the aspect of your analogy that would hold true is that if the Packers didn't get to the Super Bowl in 2018, then the lack of picks and cap, that "if something went wrong" or more rightly "if everything didn't go right", the roster building is set back a couple of years or more.

Where Mack would make sense is if the roster was chock-o-block with stars, budding stars and solid starters with a couple years to go on cheap rookie deals. This is not that.

i wasn't going for perfection. Just making a point, the same point you did. and yes we could have fit him under our cap, at a big cost to everything else.

 

[HardRightEdge]

i wasn't going for perfection. Just making a point, the same point you did. and yes we could have fit him under our cap, at a big cost to everything else.

I did point out how the analogy does apply, so there's that.

 

[Deleted member 6794]

We've been dealt an ace at QB and we keep throwing in good hands for year after year of folding. Many fans will say, "well you can't win it every year", which is true. But it doesn't hurt trying. Patriots in it every year. Steelers contend every season. Rams going all in. Vikings looking to knock us out. Why can't the Packers be more proactive?

The Packers have mostly spent close to the cap to win another championship over the past few years. Unfortunately they have overpaid for some veterans not performing up to their contracts and didn't draft well enough to have several core players still on their rookie deals.

They have definitely tried to bring home another Lombardi Trophy though.

 

[PackerDNA]

There is also the aspect of having the two highest paid players in the game in Rogers and Mac. You're talking about 1/3 of your cap tied up in two players. You might end up with the bizarre situation of having the best defensive and best offensive players in the league and missing the Playoffs because you couldn't afford to do much else