Monday, April 27, 2020

The Packers drafted WHO in the first round???


It looks like there is something for a diehard Packer fan to talk about at this time after all. Last season, the Packers missed a chance to advance to the Super Bowl because they couldn’t stop the run and Aaron Rodgers didn’t have enough legitimate weapons to throw to. Did they address those problems in this year’s draft? Umm…not according to CBS Sports’ analysis of their draft picks. Let’s see, edge rusher Jonathan Garvin out of Miami rated a “B.” OL Jon Runyan Jr. out of Michigan rated a “B-“ as did safety Vernon Scott out of TCU. Those were the draft picks who were the “projects,” right? Ha, ha, the Packer front office and presumably coach Matt LaFleur got you fooled, don’t they? They were the highest rated players in this class.

The rest of draft saw three players graded “C+,” one a “C-“ and another a “D+” and not a single WR among them. Oh, and there was one more player, in fact the Packers very own number one pick which they traded their first and fourth round pick to move up for—Utah State quarterback Jordan “Who?” Love. His grade? “D,” the lowest graded player for the Packers. Why did they actually trade a middle pick for this guy? What was that you said? He was the “best player” left on the Packers’ wish list? The people over at ESPN are speculating that LaFleur deliberately ignored Rodgers wants and needs (perhaps taking a cue from the way the Patriots cut ties with Tom Brady), and wants this to be his team, not Rodgers’. It is also speculated that after the blowout loss to the 49ers in the NFC championship game in which Jimmy Garoppolo threw only eight passes, it confirmed his belief in the genius of his “system.”    

The problem is that we don’t really know if LaFleur’s “system” will work even if he is allowed to run things in his own fashion. His “mentor,” Rams head coach Sean McVay, seems to have little faith in the ground game; last season, McVay’s offense passed the ball 632 times and ran only 401 times, and finished near the bottom in the NFL in rushing yards.  In 2018, when the Rams went to the Super Bowl, they did a bit better running the ball, but still passed the ball 109 more times than they ran with it. LaFleur’s lone season as an offensive coordinator who actually called plays, with the Titans, was, if anything, proof that you still need a competent quarterback who can make all the throws and not make bonehead decisions.

So, how about this Jordan Love out of Utah State who CBS Sports analysts rated just above an “F”? The Packers draft brain trust can’t be that daft, can it? It appears that Love is “big” and has a “big” arm and who can make “all the throws,” and stands “tall” in the pocket and can elude the rush; so much for his “upside.” On the downside, as one analyst mused, it is simple: Love has the “tools” but not the “tool box.” One can that possibly mean? That his “tools” are all scrambled about where he can’t find them, or when he does it is too late to use them? Jeremy Meek at Fanside says this about Love: "The tape shows some cracks in Love’s game where reading defenses is concerned. In particular, he tends to read which receiver he wants to throw to, and then targets that player no matter what happens post-snap. That has resulted in incompletions and interceptions more often than anyone would like in 2019." Perhaps the Packer front office thinks someone can “mold” him into the next Brett Hundley and DeShone Kizer? 

Good Lord. They can’t be thinking that Love is the next Patrick Mahomes, because a Mahomes-type doesn’t “fit” in LaFleur’s run-first “system.” But wait, the optimist will say; Mahomes was not highly rated in the draft either; in fact Mel Kiper Jr. graded him barely above Love, a “C-.” Most draft experts regarded Mahomes as a “project” and a “reach” at best. Mahomes played in the pass-happy Big-12, and while Texas Tech was at times an offensive juggernaut with Mahomes, thanks to an awful defense the team was hardly a conference power; in fact during the 2015 and 2016 season in which he threw for almost 10,000 yards and 77 touchdowns, Mahomes was 0-8 against ranked opponents, and failed to reach a bowl game despite what was still a statistically spectacular 2016 campaign, in which despite his reputation as a Brett Favre-like “gunslinger,” he could still put the ball where he wanted it to go, with a 4 to 1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. 

On the other hand, during his peak years in 2018 and 2019, Love was 0-4 against ranked teams, including both times against Mountain West rival Boise State. Love apparently gained some notoriety during the 2018 season when Utah State was ranked as high as 14th in the AP poll, with only a close loss to Michigan State before losing to Boise State. Utah State then won the New Mexico Bowl over North Texas to finish in the top-25. But unlike Mahomes, whose final season was his best statistically, Love finished his college career on a decidedly muddled note, throwing almost as many interceptions as he did touchdowns, and didn’t have a particularly great pass completion percentage. He could still make eye-popping plays because of his arm strength, but also equally jaw-dropping mistakes. 

Many predicted that when Mahomes faced NFL defenses, his “gunslinger” mentality would lead to more mistakes, but that did not happen; he has played as well if not better than he did in college. In just his second season as a starter, the Chiefs are Super Bowl champions. On the other hand, Love made frequent bonehead plays in his final college season despite playing against non-power conference competition. It is thus a highly questionable call for the Packers to pick such a quarterback in the first round unless they “really” thought he was the “quarterback of the future.” Let’s be honest, I don’t think anyone thought that Brett Hundley or DeShone Kizer were going to be anything but back-ups in Green Bay, but this is something different. Rodgers isn’t getting any younger, but let’s take a look back—the reason why a lot of Packer fans were miffed at Rodgers replacing a legend like Brett Favre when the latter came out of “retirement” was because they knew that Rodgers had the “right stuff” to unseat their hero. I know, because I was one of those fans.

I also know something else: Rodgers had reason to be disappointed by his drop in the 2005 draft, because to be frank he was obviously the best quarterback in that draft, and he was certainly better than Love as a college quarterback. But not by a significant margin was Rodgers better than Mahomes was in college, if at all. That is the problem with the "logic" of this draft move.

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