Packers will once Again rely on Youth
Building one of the youngest rosters in the league may eventually has its perks, but it also has a variety of disadvantages.
Ted Thompson's story since he became the Packers' general manager in 2005 has been to consistently restructure a solid group of young, skilled players. It's been over a decade and that tune still hasn't changed.
It didn't take long for his once-contentious philosophy to kick into gear. From 2006 through 2009, Green Bay housed the youngest roster in the NFL. That included two years at the culmination of Hall of Famer Brett Favre's Packer career, and two years of the sprouting, soon-to-be Hall of Fame career of Aaron Rodgers.
Even as recently as 2015, the Packers went into their opening weekend as the third-youngest team behind only the Rams and Jaguars. The Rams, meanwhile, have taken over the previous role the Packers adopted at the end of the last decade, now entering their fifth-straight year as the youngest squad.
Of the 41 non-rookies currently on the team's roster, their total years of experience averages out to 4.82. The other 12, of course, consists of either undrafted free agent signings or the team's draft picks. Two of those 12 will be starting in the team's front seven group this Sunday in Jacksonville.
While building a young arsenal isn't exactly something that should be frowned upon, it captures the true chagrin of fans who each off-season face the same redundant devastation of their general manager refusing to target an impactful player. Two of the last three off-seasons, however, have brought those same fans together in unison. The signing of Julius Peppers in the spring of 2014 followed by Jared Cook almost exactly two years later ceased the pitchfork-wielding for now.
Back to that front seven — arguably the weakest part of the entire roster.
The defensive line poses questions. Questions that the undeniable force of nature that is Mike Daniels may not even be able to answer. With first-round defensive tackle selection Kenny Clark still hampered a back injury, but so far, has been cleared to play and the suspension of Mike Pennel, the Packers are running on fumes on the front line. Even if Clark were at full speed for Sunday's inaugural game, relying on a rookie to fill a void straight out of the gate is a long shot. Especially when that rookie is backing up another rookie.
The Packers released their depth chart this past Tuesday, and Dean Lowry — another one of the team's rookie draft choices, is getting the start at defensive end. Getting starting repetitions on the line occupied by Letroy Guion and Daniels poses some inquiries as well, such as whether this opportunity speaks more of Lowry's progression in camp and through the preseason than it does the Packers wearing thin on the defensive line.
On the newly-released depth chart, Blake Martinez was also listed as as the starting inside linebacker. This comes just days after the 53-man roster was finalized and the realization that the Packers were keeping just three inside linebackers began to set in. A decision that will likely be attributed to the subtle strides safety Morgan Burnett has taken as the hybrid inside linebacker.
Martinez, who will even now have the radio dialed into his helmet to communicate with the coaches, is proving to be the steal of the Packers' 2016 draft haul. The coaches love him. The fans love him. The players are presumably gaining an absurd amount of respect for him. Still, Martinez is a rookie and as a rookie, mistakes are bound to happen and when they do, will likely serve as learning experiences. Learning experiences that Martinez can take in stride and prevent from happening again. It goes hand-in-hand with the growth and maturation that he'll look to undergo in Green Bay.
It's safe to say we may not know what we have in Jake Ryan, who now pairs up with Martinez on the inside. After just 260 defensive snaps last year, just barely beating out Joe Thomas' 250, he served as Nate Palmer's backup who was also backing up Clay Matthews. The former Michigan Wolverine leaps into his second-year with high expectations weighing him down, now with Sam Barrington out of the picture and an expanded role.
If it weren't for Clay Matthews anchoring the edge, this front seven would leave a lot to be desired. Peppers will be on a pitch count in 2016 given his 36-years of age, so there may be some heightened reliance on Nick Perry, whose brilliance comes in inconsistent flashes. Even with Matthews in the lineup, not much can come to the defense of this group, no pun intended.
Even despite this evident weakness, any sort of pressure via pass rush will help the up-and-coming secondary have a field day with the opposing quarterback. Unless that quarterback is Carson Palmer or Andy Dalton, who were two of the best against stacked blitz packages in 2015. Fortunately, for now at least, the Packers likely won't be seeing Palmer until January and they won't see the latter in Dalton until the AFC North comes into the NFC North's schedule rotation next year. You're welcome for that useless information.
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Zachary Jacobson is a staff writer/reporter for Cheesehead TV. He's the voice of The Leap on iTunes and can be heard on The Scoop KLGR 1490 AM every Saturday morning. He's also a contributor on the Pack-A-Day Podcast. He can be found on Twitter via @ZachAJacobson or contacted through email at [email protected].
Comments (33)
Chad the white Scandinavian
September 08, 2016 at 03:13 pm
I almost like this new attitude from Ted Thompson and Co. For years it feels like they were letting players get away with not giving 100% because they knew they under no pressure. The prime example was how Mason Crosby never faced any competition for years, but clearly needed it. And what happened when he finally had to fight for his job? Well, he became one of the best kickers in the game, and hasn't looked back. After very suddenly cutting Josh Sitton, and then cutting your 6-year punter, It feels like the management in Green Bay is starting to turn up the heat. Which is good because after 11 years, some things have got to change if the management really is learning new things.
Did that have to happen with Josh Sitton? As it stands, almost everyone will universally say no, and for the time being I'm inclined to agree. But if Rodgers only has 30 or less sacks, if the run game prevails, I think losing Sitton will have had little impact, other than of course telling the other players it's time to start giving 110%, because we've should have won another Super Bowl by now, I'll say that Thompson had the right to do what he did.
Thompson can't afford to sign too many big name free agents, and when he does, he has to be extremely careful and smart about it. And since he can't sign enough of the necessary players needed to upgrade certain positions, he'll have to stick with his young and very inexperienced player approach. Since that hasn't worked as well as he has probably hoped, my theory is that he is now showing them that while he'll be patient with them, he won't be nearly as patient as before. This will result in better play from all positions/players regardless of years of experience.
Put it this way. If Thompson had cut Sitton and Masthay last year, would Damarious Randall have let Larry Fitzgerald that wide open? Would Brandon Bostick have swayed away from his assignment on the onside kick, if he was even still on the team? This crap has GOT to stop already!!
And can I say one more thing? I feel like this article takes slightly too pessimistic view on the defense. The D has been above average for the last 2 years now, and Perry, Datone Jones, Randall, Rollins, all look like they're ready to step up their game. You really ought to have much higher hopes than what you imply in the article.
Sorry for all the run on sentences, maybe I shouldn't write things at 4 in the morning.
dobber
September 08, 2016 at 07:40 am
"But if Rodgers only has 30 or less sacks, if the run game prevails, I think losing Sitton will have had little impact, other than of course telling the other players it's time to start giving 110%, because we've should have won another Super Bowl by now."
I would love to see less than 30 sacks, but ARod has only been sacked UNDER 30 times in a full season one time (2014), and even then he was pretty close (28). And that was WITH Josh Sitton playing with a torn tendon in his foot.
jeremyjjbrown
September 08, 2016 at 07:55 am
Yeah, I'm sorry that most won't like it but I have to say that the biggest cause of Rodgers sacks is Rodgers. He needs to stop holding the ball and start hitting the checkdown guy. Once he does that and they don't win a Super Bowl, we can start talking about the offensive line being the biggest issue.
Tundraboy
September 08, 2016 at 08:30 am
I agree. He is such the opposite of Farve to an extreme. That should change with Cook. Always thought it was because he also didn't trust the RBs to catch the ball, but then again what do I know.
staffordsneckfat
September 08, 2016 at 08:33 am
This is why looking at the number of sacks the Packers give up is really meaningless. Rodgers holds onto the ball longer than just about any quarterback; many times extending the play allows him to make throws nobody else in the league can, but sacks are always going to be a byproduct of this style of quarterbacking.
ray nichkee
September 08, 2016 at 09:24 am
So true neckfat, just like favre with his interceptions. Some of the best plays are the result of extending the play. Does it always work? No. Is it exciting? Not all the time. What do you want, vanilla? I want entertainment and always with the good must come some bad. Those who demand perfection are setting themselves up for disappointment or are just plain idiots.
Ferrari Driver
September 08, 2016 at 09:27 am
Certainly the OL isn't the biggest issue on this team.
I hate QB interceptions and Rodgers guards against that more than any quarterback. Favre was exciting and fun to watch, but when I think back of those critical interceptions, especially in the playoffs it makes me appreciate Rodgers not throwing a prayer up for grabs all the more.
ray nichkee
September 08, 2016 at 10:53 am
Um, most of those interceptions were the same as a punt but on third down. Rodgers takes sacks and mathsay punts for a net of 38 yards. Favre chucked it and sometimes came up with things like the oakland game and the freeman vikings catch etc. I'm not arguing which is better I'm pointing out the extension of the play vs wasting a down throwing it away. Without either extending the play some great plays would not be in our memories.
Bearmeat
September 08, 2016 at 11:09 am
Sorry Ray,
Favre DIRECTLY ended 02, 04 and 07 seasons with ATROCIOUS INTs. Then the Vikes in 09.
He threw careless, stupid, choking passes at critical junctures. I will be forever grateful that AR doesn't do that.
ray nichkee
September 08, 2016 at 03:59 pm
Bearmeat, I cannot disagree about the playoffs. He ended his tenure on each team with an interception too. How does that take away from all the awesome plays he made? Like I said with the good comes bad. Sack or interception on third down. They both suck. Maybe I'm one of the few that think throwing the ball out of bounds is chicken shit. I do understand avoiding bone crushing hits however.
sheppercheeser
September 08, 2016 at 05:37 am
My biggest concern going into the first game is how well Lane Taylor plays. As for the concern about the defense, I'm not as worried. I think we ALL have high expectations with Blake and we have enough pieces to the puzzle to plug in players as needed. I don't see the same options on the OL, at least until Linsley is back.
L
September 08, 2016 at 12:05 pm
I'll be very interested to watch how both the offensive and defensive front lines for the Packers play regarding preventing pressure and applying pressure during passing situations; plus creating holes and filling holes during run plays. I think L.Taylor will be okay in the run game, but how will he do in pass protection? I think D.Lowry in particular will be okay at getting some pressure from inside on pass plays, but will he be a weakness in stopping the run? There are others who I'm concerned about on defense with regards to stopping the run too, but D.Lowry is the new guy starting so he'll get the most attention from me.
TKWorldWide
September 08, 2016 at 06:26 am
One of the commentators on the NFL network recently said that most teams now consider their nickel defense to be their base defense, so I am trying to get used to that idea. If that is true, I guess carrying fewer DL on the roster makes sense.
What I am eager to see is whether or not GB can consistently stop the run out of their 3-4 alignment. I think we'll have a good idea about that after the first two games this season.
croatpackfan
September 08, 2016 at 06:39 am
Article is very good, it reflects most how fans feels about roster and possibilities of young players. Also, it shows concern about guard position. Guard position? Oh, well...
ZacharyJacobson
September 08, 2016 at 08:22 am
I asked about Lane Taylor and whether or not he would be able to sustain the left guard position yesterday. I already have how my reader's feel on that, why continue to write an article on Taylor and Sitton that, at this point, seems extremely redundant considering you can find 50 of those across the internet just in the past week. We know Taylor could struggle. We know it's a huge drop-off from Sitton. I'll dwell over it if the Taylor Experiment falters on Sunday, but for now, I'm playing the waiting game before I draw more judgement.
Bear
September 08, 2016 at 12:11 pm
Zachary, another side of the story is to figure out who the Packers kept when sitton was cut and how well he does over the next few years. That player may not be a offensive player but a Dman.
Thegreatreynoldo
September 08, 2016 at 07:34 am
I'm not a fan of these articles. Rankings are often stupid. The difference between 5th youngest and 17th is 0.33 years. Replacing Peppers with a 22 yr old rookie would decrease our average by .26 yrs, or adding an old FA Vet to back up somewhere would move the 5th ranked team to 16th.
At some point it starts to add up, I grant. See the link for the raw numbers. I think there might be a better way to do this for those sportswriters who aren't completely math challenged. How about median age? How about average and median ages of players expected to start? Or one could note the experience at each position group: ILB has 510 NFL snaps between Ryan (260), Thomas (250), Martinez (0) and Bradford (0) and just 7 games started.
http://www.phillyvoice.com/ranking-nfl-teams-age/
zeke
September 08, 2016 at 07:31 am
I'd rather see an article that explains the correlation between age/experience and wins/losses, if there is one.
dobber
September 08, 2016 at 07:41 am
"I think there might be a better way to do this for those sportswriters who aren't completely math challenged. "
Standard deviation is the fallback for most statistical analyses.
marpag1
September 08, 2016 at 04:37 pm
I agree, TGR, that the raw numbers usually don't mean squat . But I also feel that even an apparently small difference in average age COULD be hugely significant. The key thing to remember is that this is an average age spread across every player on the 53 man roster.
To illustrate, let's use the link that you provided (which is from 2015). It shows that the youngest team (Rams) had an average age of 24.94 years. The oldest team (Colts) had an average age of 27.17 years. That's a difference of 2.23 years PER PLAYER on average.
It doesn't sound like a lot. But on a 53 man roster, that adds up to a total age difference of just over 118 years.
If you were able to take 23 Colts players - more than a full set of starters on each side of the ball - and miraculously slash the age of those 23 players by 5 years each, the Colts would still not be as young as the Rams.
Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, of course, is debatable... but it does seem pretty darn significant.
TKWorldWide
September 08, 2016 at 05:28 pm
Wait! Are you saying there is a player that is 118 years old? I bet Lane Taylor could pancake him!
Thegreatreynoldo
September 08, 2016 at 10:58 pm
Sorry, TK, Malik ain't 118 years old. We'll see how that goes.
Marpag, I don't think we are communicating (or agreeing?) at all. My main point is that rankings are stupid, as too often the difference between being 3rd and 15th is an insignificant amount. The raw numbers are all I would look at, not the ranking. Thus, I don't agree that the raw numbers mean squat, I think they mean everything.
2nd. 118 years (or expressed as 2.2 yr difference in average age) is a lot (again, that is the raw number, not the useless ranking), and that level of difference is significant. I read the article I put in the link - their example is dumb. There is no reason to use the 118 yrs over the entire 53 man roster and then apply it to just the 22 starters. TK reduced it to the absurd by applying it just to one player. [Did you know you were doing that TK, or is it just a natural, unconscious ability? Either way, keep it up.]
What matters is where the age is located. Do you have an old punter or kicker, old back-ups who don't play anyway and are just okay but can be replaced with only modest difficulty? For ease, tell me the average age of the 22 starters and compare that to other teams. Then I might learn something.
TKWorldWide
September 09, 2016 at 05:35 pm
Hey TGR,
I take my absurdity very seriously.
Ha!
Razer
September 08, 2016 at 07:30 am
While it could be a philosophy (younger is cheaper), I suspect that the Packers are turning over the roster to find talent. Picking at the bottom of the draft, isn't loading us will real talent. No point keeping guys who can't play at a high level. We are bound to be young. Thankfully, TT is moving on from projects, UDFAs and draft picks that aren't panning out.
Packer fans tend to think that we are loaded with depth and talent but the turnover suggest a less rosy picture. Our OL, DL, MLB and even our WR positions all have enough talent to field a starting lineup but get thin really fast. Let's hope that some of the UDFAs pan out - because we are going to need them.
dobber
September 08, 2016 at 07:48 am
By season's end, the Packers have in the past usually been sporting at least one rookie starter...last year it was Ryan and Randall. The year before, it was HHCD and Corey Linsley. The difference is that they're starting rookies up front this year.
"While it could be a philosophy (younger is cheaper), I suspect that the Packers are turning over the roster to find talent."
That bottom third of the roster is loaded with projects and special teamers, just as you say. TT and Ron Wolf both had been pretty good at turning those players over...Wolf would make changes during the regular season more than TT appears to. But that's what should be happening with the last 10+ players on your roster: make a statement or make for the door. How many UDFAs haven't made it for every one that has? While many have been critical of TTs drafting in recent years, it really doesn't matter where you find players. Draft 'em or sign 'em, just find 'em.
Packmaniac
September 08, 2016 at 09:27 am
Extremely young or not, a team's depth is always key. Barring significant injuries or other unpredictable moves, what do you think will happen when Pennel returns? With nickel looking more like the base D these days, do you stay with 5 and remove Ringo? Keep 6 on the D line and waive a player from elsewhere on the 53?...One note of D line depth: I don't see it mentioned much, but all three of our "elephant" backers -- Peppers, Perry and Datone -- can play with a hand in the dirt in a pinch.
PackEyedOptimist
September 08, 2016 at 09:48 am
I for one, am excited about this year's roster. We aren't just "young," the roster is full of players with major upside: Martinez and Ryan could both be FAR better than any recent ILBs; Perry, Jones, and Fackrell all have upward pointing arrows, Lowry, Clark, Ringo, and Pennel are all young and improving; ALL of the young DBs have tremendous potential--I particularly see a "young Nick Collins" in Kentrell Brice.
On offense, I think Lane Taylor is holding the spot for either Linsley or Tretter. Most seem to think Tretter will go to guard, but I think it's equally possible that it will be Linsley. In the meantime, the team has a young, strong, guard that will be able to PRACTICE (which Sitton missed a TON of last year, disrupting team practices), and who is almost certainly a better run blocker than the current back-plagued Sitton. Taylor may not pass protect as well, but that's just half of the job. Our back up OL is way better-looking than last year. The WRs are a question mark, but ALL of them look like they will be better this year than last year! If Montgomery gets his wheels back, he and Abbredaris could have a big impact. I'm really curious to see how Cook, Thin-Rodgers, and Improved-Perillo impact the offense. With two, talented backup QBs, I actually think this roster COULD make the playoffs even if AR went down for the entire season, but as always, injuries will be the biggest threat.
Turophile
September 08, 2016 at 02:27 pm
Murphy might be decent as a guard as well. In some ways its a pity he only played tackle in preseason, but I do understand it. You give a guy too much to handle as a rookie and very likely he learns too little, because his head is spinning with everything he is trying to absorb.
I liked what I saw of Lucas Patrick (6'3", 313, currently on the Packers PS). Even the PS Aussie, Blake Muir, is an interesting guy, he is 6'5" and 315, so he has the size.
EdsLaces
September 08, 2016 at 10:13 am
My biggest concern is on the d line for sure. Pennels suspension can't end soon enough !
al bundy
September 08, 2016 at 06:07 pm
Young and gifted with talent and speed is one thing. Young and undrafted from a small div II school is another.
Its cheap ball. Ted is playing cheap ball.
Trying to get by with the least salary as possibile.
NickPerry
September 08, 2016 at 06:55 pm
Look around the NFL. Just about EVERY roster has a few players that cost lots of $$$ followed by a few more middle of the road, followed by a whole lot of cheap. Your Vikings haven't had to pay Bridgewater yet and I'm sure don't have a clue what's going to happen now that he's been injured. If Bridgewater doesn't look as good next year, lost a few steps, or just can't go he's gone. It's a cold, cold, business. Hey maybe we'll trade you Callahan for a two 1st, two 2nds, and 2 3rd round picks. He's already been as impressive as Bridgewater. You know, lots of 5 yard passes.
PETER MAIZ
September 08, 2016 at 07:04 pm
The D line is a great concern. Let's face it, rookies just don't have the experience. It may seem we can't stop the run again.
TKWorldWide
September 08, 2016 at 10:15 pm
We will soon find out.
I also think that even if the run defense struggles early in the season, it may improve later on as the youngsters gain experience and the unit starts to mesh.