A Sneaker Broker posted:

If it helps you sleep any better, I dread that the Bears may hire the Passing Game Coordinator of the Seahawks as their next offensive coordinator. Pair him up with Caleb Williams and possibly Nabers/Odunze, and sheesh.

WoodrowSkillson posted:

I think our secondary will eventually just be too exploitable to hang with the 9ers and we will lose the shootout. I don't care though we can fix it next year.

I don't even want to dream about a SB yet.

Dexo posted:

Lions were the Lions until they were no longer the Lions.

ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:

Win the division? Check. Win a playoff game? Check. Whatever happens from here is gravy

Gonz posted:

ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:

Win the division? Check. Win a playoff game? Check. Whatever happens from here is gravy

Roseo posted:

And all it really took was new management at the top. That's going to be happening to the Bears soon enough; I'm not looking forward to it.

Gonz posted:

I found about this place in Mesa, AZ a week ago from some old dude with a Michigan hat at a grocery store last week.

https://michiganmarketplaceaz.com

I just spent 45 bucks here.

They also have a restaurant that sells coneys and pasties.

Push El Burrito posted:

How were the coneys and pasties? Might have to stop by.

Hot Diggity! posted:

Pasties rock and I wish we had a reliable source in Chicago.

At least we have a ton of good empanada places / people.

Hand Row posted:

Saying it’s all gravy is weakass cope talk.

Hand Row posted:

Saying it’s all gravy is weakass cope talk.

Kevlar v2.0 posted:

My favorite empanada place in Chicago burned down a few months ago

surf rock posted:

Call me crazy, but I'm PSYCHED for this Jordan Love pick.

Since he's a first-round pick, he's effectively on a five-year contract if we want. We're locked into Rodgers contract-wise for the next two years, but at that point he's going to be entering his age-39 season, and he's already been off his peak for a couple of years now (with injury issues). The timing here seems perfect to give Love time to develop and time for the team to evaluate his progress and whether we struck gold again or whether we need to take another stab at it. We'll have two bites at the succession apple, if we need it. Not to mention that next year's QB class isn't shaping up well outside of the top two guys, and the Packers aren't going to be bad enough to have any hope of landing either of them.

Our biggest short-term needs entering the draft were WR and ILB, and while I obviously wouldn't have complained about a first-round pick for either of those positions, we can grab one each on Day 2 (or one and an OT) and we should be fine. It's a famously deep WR draft, and history shows you can get a starter-caliber ILB on day two.

And let's not forget the Rodgers-needs-a-motivation factor: if anything is going to arrest his recent decline (overblown as I think it is), it's that. If he becomes truly elite again, terrific, we'll get that for a few years and then we'll have to relive the Favre BS where our hero goes off and plays 1-2 years somewhere else. If he plateaus or declines more, well, thank god we've laid our stores in advance for that scenario. Better to be one year too early than one year too late.

Last thing: I trust the GB scouts; I think they've made a lot of good decisions recently. Them not only picking Love, but moving up to pick him, indicates that this wasn't a "oh gently caress this guy who's technically high on our draft board fell to us, uhhh, I guess we take him" situation. They had to go out of their way to do it; that is exciting.

Relevant Gute quote from before the draft:

“Ron (Wolf) traded a first-round pick for a quarterback that nobody wanted,” Gutekunst said, referring to Favre. “Ted (Thompson) drafted a quarterback when he had a hall-of-fame guy sitting there who was going to play at least three more years. That’s kind of how I’ve seen it. My first 10 years in the league, it was Hasselbeck and Brooks and all those guys. Ron was able to turn those guys into picks down the line.

“I just think the quarterback position is so important that you can never not address it if you think you have an opportunity to take a player that can play in the league.”

surf rock posted:

BEAUTIFUL throw, Love! Great zip, maybe a tenth of a second behind, but catchable and caught. I'm so happy that he got at least one big play off tonight; this offseason must've been a fuckin' nightmare.

surf rock posted:

I definitely did not feel like Jordan Love looked very promising this preseason.

At best, I thought he wasn't the disaster I feared based off of last season's training camp reports

surf rock posted:

The one thing I'll say about the Love pick is what I said at the time: drafting him so early and getting him through multiple years of practices will mean the Packers have a *lot* of information about him after his first season as a starter. They should have seen enough at that point to know whether he's good enough to stick with. If they think he's a bust at that point, they might move on after one season and give us a second shot at finding a QB of the future faster than would've otherwise happened. Take Zach Wilson for example; the Jets are going to give him 2-3 years to prove it even if he barely improves from his current dreadful play.

As blessed as the Packers have been for the past, well, 30 years, I also don't think Green Bay can really afford another stretch like the '70s and '80s as such a small-market team in the modern NFL. A few bad years would be fine, but decades of futility would open the gates for the Jerry Jones and Bob Krafts of the world to come after you.

surf rock posted:

I'm legitimately getting stoked to watch Love play today. Odds are that he'll be bad or that LaFleur will make the offense safe enough that the results are inconclusive, but... I don't know, it feels like scratching off a lottery ticket. What if he's good? One way or another, I'd much rather know now than next offseason!

surf rock posted:

As for Love...

Pros:
- He threw his first NFL touchdown. That's cool!
- He only made two really bad decisions, and both actually worked out (the heave that Cobb caught deep, and the sack-avoiding toss that Lewis caught for -1 yard). The interception wasn't a bad decision; it was a bad throw.
- He executed his portion of the running plays smoothly.

Cons:
- The Chiefs defense is arguably a bottom-three unit, and it still looked great in pass defense against him. They blitzed repeatedly and Love never got better at anticipating/handling it.
- His ball placement was off for probably half of his throws, although almost all of those were caused by those blitzes.
- He didn't scramble as much as he ought to have.

Overall, the cons obviously outweighed the pros.

surf rock posted:

Do I believe in Jordan Love?

No.

surf rock posted:

This was a better game from Love. I'd say that he looked like a 2/10 last preseason, a 3/10 in the Chiefs game, a 4/10 last week, and something like a 5 or 6/10 today.

Sure would be nice to see him look like a potential NFL starter, but at least he's improving and might be a bit more competitive in spot starts this season if Rodgers gets injured or COVID.

surf rock posted:

I know folks here like to meme on Packers fans who are eager to see Rodgers gone, but... like, he's really not the same dude anymore. Jordan Love is probably also bad, but at least he's cheap and isn't devoted to constantly poo poo-talking his teammates and spreading conspiracy theories to a mass audience.

surf rock posted:

Very happy to see Love put together some nice plays and Watson continue his hot streak. We'll see what they can do over the rest of the season. If it's even just OK, I'm guessing that was Rodgers' last game as a Packer and that he's traded in the offseason.

surf rock posted:

I'm also predicting that Rodgers has a Favre-like trajectory with New York: he looks great for half of the season, picks up a bad injury, and then flops in the divisional round of the playoffs. He retires after two seasons with the Jets.

Finally, I'm predicting a 6-11 record for the Packers where Love looks OK™ after the first third of the season, but not good or bad enough to make the extension decision easy.

surf rock posted:

From what I've seen, Love's three biggest struggles are:

1.) Decision making with pressure in his face
2.) Not being a willing runner when the play breaks down
3.) Deep ball accuracy (really small sample size on this in particular, admittedly)

It's probably not possible to know whether he's improved on those until the season starts, and even if he's on the right trajectory, it's gonna take time.

Looking at Rodgers in 2008, I felt it was pretty clear during his first season that he was going to become an above-average starting QB. Ultimately, he went for 28 TDs, 13 INTs, about 4,000 yards passing, and a completion rate of 63.6%, rushing for another 200 yards and 4 TDs. There were some very underwhelming games during that stretch, though.

We'll see what Love can do. I'm skeptical, but he seems like a great guy and I want to root for him. We got our championship out of Rodgers and we're not getting another one from him, let's move on.

surf rock posted:

Okay, pretty happy with how Love looked!

- As far I could tell, all of the reads were decent-to-good.
- Wasn't afraid to take deep shots.
- Wasn't fixated on a single receiver.
- 70% completion rate, with the three incompletions being a batted pass, a deflection from a safety, and an overthrow. The last one was definitely Love's fault, but the first two were good plays by defenders (although possibly also avoidable).
- Nice throw on the touchdown.

It's a small sample size, it's the preseason, and he faced very little pressure (which has been a major problem for him in the past). So, major caveats abound! Still, I feared total disaster so I'll take it.

surf rock posted:

What would y'all put the odds of Love's potential outcomes at? We've seen a couple of spot starts and several preseason games over the past couple of years, so I feel like we have a bit of information to work off of.

- 10% odds of becoming a terrible bust (wash out of the league)
- 30% odds of becoming a normal bust (career as backup)
- 25% odds of becoming a disappointing starter (below-average)
- 15% odds of becoming an okay starter (average)
- 10% odds of becoming a good starter (above-average)
- 5% odds of becoming an elite starter (top-8)
- 5% odds of injury-ruined career (true for basically every player)

surf rock posted:

- I feel like there's a pattern developing of Love starting slow and then heating up.

surf rock posted:

Love's stats don't jump off the screen, but that's because they're OK rather than great or terrible. I'm glad to see him lead a comeback given how last week's game ended, and it looks like he was starting to dial in that deep ball in the second half. The interception was roughly an arm punt given it was third-and-long and he went deep, so it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

My biggest concern at this point is his weirdly low completion rate, but I'm happy to ignore that for the time being with a 2-1 record and two games without his top two skill position players or his top two offensive linemen.

surf rock posted:

Setting that aside and looking at the game from the "the only thing that matters this season is figuring out if Love can be the guy" lens, I think it remains an open question. We've confirmed that Love won't thrive with poor protection, which isn't really a surprise since that's a trait limited to the tippity-top elite QBs. Other than that, I think this game looked a lot like the prior three. I thought his deep-ball accuracy looked a little better today in the rare cases where he actually had the time. Love has thrown a few potential picks in previous games, so it's not shocking those ultimately came through. I still see a lot of potential for this offense to grow and mature over the next couple of seasons.

surf rock posted:

Hard to blame anyone but Love for that loss. The protection was fine and Dillon played alright. It's possible there were fuckups by the young pass-catchers that we can't tell because we don't know the routes, but whatever, Love looked loving terrible.

surf rock posted:

*steps up to podium, taps mic, and leans forward*

The Green Bay Packers hereby enter the Caleb Williams sweepstakes.

surf rock posted:

I don't think it's outlandish to believe that Love could be a winning quarterback in the right situation (healthy RB, healthy line, pass-catchers out of diapers), but it's feeling pretty clear to me at this point that Love isn't elevating what he's got. It feels like his ceiling would be leading a 10-7 team and his floor is like a 3-14 team. Part of being a franchise QB in the NFL is setting a reasonable floor for an offense even when you've got things working against you, and Love is failing to do that so far.

I'm not out on him yet because the sample size isn't large enough, but it's not promising. I'm assuming he starts through next year because of that contract extension, but unless there's a big improvement he's gone after that.

surf rock posted:

I thought that one was the most egregious misfire by Love too, but I just saw an article in the Journal-Sentinel where that specific play came up. Musgrave said he didn't start the route correctly, so he was behind where the ball was supposed to go and it ended up just out of reach.

Watching it back, it was a super-quick play but it wasn't a no-look pass, so I still think Love could've adjusted. I wonder how much of the struggling is coming from Love having blind faith in the offense. I remember seeing some commentary about that horrendous pick to the Raiders linebacker and it was another case where Love threw the ball where it was "supposed" to go rather than trusting his eyes and adjusting to avoid compounding someone else's fuckup.

surf rock posted:

The stat line doesn't pop, but this was a solid game for Love. 20/26 for 228 yards and a touchdown, and half of those incompletions were drops.

Of the 11 drives the team had before the clock-killer at the end, there were four killed by fumbles or stupid offside penalties (thanks Runyan, you dipshit) on what would've otherwise been conversions. Of the remaining seven drives, there were two touchdowns, three field goal attempts, and two punts. I think the Rams defense isn't great this year, but it's not horrible either, so I'll take that. Build on it, Jordan!

surf rock posted:

I'm happy with Love's improvement recently. One weirdly consistent thing about him: the number of big plays where the receiver ends up on the turf instead of being able to get any yards after the catch. The pass is a little high that the receiver has to jump, low enough that the receiver has to dive for it, behind so that they have to halt all their momentum to haul it in, or over the wrong shoulder so that they lose their balance.

It's probably an accuracy thing, but I wonder if some of it is from these receivers not running their routes super-crisp or not being on the same page as Love during scramble drills.

surf rock posted:

Does Love know that he's allowed to leave the pocket

surf rock posted:

Total production through their first 11 games as starter:

Aaron Rodgers: 2,761 yards, 21 touchdowns, 12 turnovers.

Jordan Love: 2,819 yards, 21 touchdowns, 10 turnovers.

Packers record both seasons: 5-6

Did I fact check this? Does it mean anything? No to both.

surf rock posted:

Man, I have been mainlining all of the Jordan Love hype train content for the past week, and I just know that Kansas City is going to annihilate us on Sunday night.

surf rock posted:

Met up with some friends at the bar to watch the game, fully expecting the Packers to get humiliated on national television after the sloppy blowjob that Love has received from the national media (and me, let's be clear, I've very happily been involved) since the Lions game, but...

We won?

After leading the whole game?

And Love arguably looked better than he did against Detroit?

surf rock posted:

The big concern is that Love looked pretty terrible. Huge regression game for him. I don't know that there's a single play I can point to where I felt good about how he played.

surf rock posted:

Looks like Love has continued his second-half-of-the-season pattern of largely clean football with some good aggression and a few missed throws. When you score 33 against the Panthers, it shouldn't be a close game. That's on the defense.

surf rock posted:

Great season for Kirk before he got injured. Also, to give out some copium for my fellow Packers fans: if you limit the stats to the second half of the season, Love is #4 in EPA/play (Goff is #10, Fields is #20) and #2 in CPOE (Goff is #12, Fields is #11). I dunno how to limit the other stats to specific games rather than the whole season.

surf rock posted:

HOLY loving poo poo WE MADE THE PLAYOFFS

THE SKILL-POSITION PLAYERS ARE GOOD

THE DEFENSE DIDN'T gently caress IT UP

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY

WE BELIEVE IN LOVE

Gonz posted:

Surf Rock you need to tell me about these Mega Millions lottery tickets I just bought.

surf rock posted:

THEY'RE GONNA HIT BIG!

*five minutes pass*

they're worthless, just throw them away!!! i hate them!!!!!!

*five minutes pass*

but... maybe...?

*five minutes pass*

no, it's hopeless

*five minutes pass*

GONZ, YOU'RE RICH!

Dr. Lunchables posted:

I’m not a packers fan so I don’t care about any of that

Acebuckeye13 posted:

Given how relatively weak both the Eagles and Bucs appear to be, I think the Lions could very easily make to the NFC Championship against the 49ers or Green Bay. And if it's against Green Bay in Ford Field...

Bird in a Blender posted:

Wait which one?

Cognac McCarthy posted:

I think Love is clearly the guy. Packers should extend him and even if they end up with a high draft pick, they should just trade back or get the best punter or fullback on the board to really round out the roster

Paint Crop Pro posted:

Listen this is a young team, with a 1st year starter. Better to lock him in now before the market gets reset by the next big QB contract.

Kevlar v2.0 posted:

Sabe a Zulia on Division. There's another one on Fullerton, but that's a lot further from me.

Dr. Lunchables posted:

Matt Patricia still calling defense is so loving dire. Where will he fail upward next?

FAT32 SHAMER posted:

The patriots lol

Bird in a Blender posted:

Pats already have a coach though right? Best he can do is sideways for now.