Today’s minor moves:
Arizona Cardinals
- Signed: TE Josiah Deguara
Green Bay Packers
- Waived: WR Tulu Griffin
Los Angeles Rams
- Signed: WR Britain Covey
Josiah Deguara brings 65 games of experience to Arizona, with the majority of those appearances coming during his four seasons with the Packers. While he’s had a consistent special teams role in recent years, he’s also managed to contribute offensively. This includes a 2021 campaign where he hauled in 25 catches and two touchdowns with Aaron Rodgers as his QB.
The tight end is coming off a 15-game showing in Jacksonville where he was limited to only three catches all season. The veteran should compete for a role behind Trey McBride, with the Cardinals also rostering the likes of Tip Reiman and Elijah Higgins at the position.
Man, that Deguara pick was really off. That whole draft was just off. Dillon contributed as a backup, they got three years of mid level play from Runyan, and Love ended up being a good starter, but holy moly, to be THAT close to a championship and pick any immediate starters and not have any of your other picks on the team within four years is pretty bad. I mean, Kamal Martin didn’t even last two years, and barely played. Live, the only long term starter, took three years to get into the lineup. LaFleur is a great coach, but Gutekunst didn’t give him much to work with there.
Dillon was a good pick but yeah the rest were mostly just terrible. Deguara especially. A second round pick if I remember correctly.
That draft made it clear Gutekunst was sending a message to Rodgers that it’s his team now and they’re done catering to their QB and plan to replace him.
How’d that work out, Brian?
Pretty well actually. You rubes will never get it. TV and the internet has made you all draft experts despite not having an ounce of scouting acumen.
Pretty well? They went from contenders every year under Rodgers to struggling to make the playoffs since.
They had one of the better passing attacks in the league and then fell flat on their faces because of that draft.
They’ve yet to actually do anything under Love.
Contenders every year…did you miss the packers missing the playoffs in aarons last year?
And going to the NFC Championship twice in a row before? No, we didn’t miss it. I don’t think that they’re struggling now, but whether Rodgers is “mercurial” or not, you have to swallow your pride as a GM and make picks to help the team, not engage in an ego contest with your quarterback.
Theyve been a draft and develop franchise and rarely looked for immediate help for the better part of 2 decades. Cry of you want to, 3rd beat record since 2000 so its working.
What’s the point of developing, though? If you just develop continuously and never or rarely win a title, what are you developing? I think I’d make a move to try to win a Super Bowl or two during a competitive window.
Only 7 other teams have won a super bowl since 2000 other than the packers. Less than a third of the teams have won. So how are they not successful? They have missed the playoffs 3 years in row since 1992.
The point is over the last 25 years theyve been 3rd best regular season team and one of eight that won the super bowl. Thats elite company. And theyve never had to tear down and rebuild.
Disagree all you want but the results are there
You would give up the solid chance to win another championship(s) just to keep the train of above average going? Nobody said that the Packers are bad. They just willfully settle every year under Gutekunst (carrying on from the tradition under Thompson). I don’t-and will never-accuse a winning team of being unsuccessful solely for the sake of not winning on its own. I will, however, acknowledge when a team uses non-football reasons to make outright bad football decisions. I will make it specific, and not conceptual: do you think that the Packers had a good 2020 draft? If the answer is yes, then we cannot agree.
They were minutely separated from going to the Super Bowl for two years in a row, falling a single game short. If that wasn’t the window to add an impact player, I don’t know when that window is. The long term approach is admirable, and one that I highly respect, but you have to know when you need to push if you’re still short. Gutekunst did not, in either the draft or in free agency. The problem evidently persisted, since he just had to finally spend a first round pick on a receiver, four seasons after they lost fell one game short.
There has been bad draft picks under gute, sure. Point to his worst draft, thats fine. Think of any long teem gm, theyve all had failed picks. This isnt an exact science. You are commenting with the benefit of knowing the results.
The packers werent a wr away from beating the bucs or niners. Allen lazard was wide open for a first down on aaron rodgers last postseason pass that he threw into double coverage to adams. Lazard had noone within 10 yards of him. What would having another wr do?
Vs the bucs aaron admitted that errant throw before the field goal to eqsb was his fault. He was trying to change eqsb route with eye contact. They kick the fg. Get stop on defense. Except they call king on a pass interfernce that looked exactly like buntings interception earlier vs rodgers. A tug on the wr shirt. They let go on one play and call on the next. Mind you theres youtube videos of kenny clarke and gary being held prior to the pass. How does another playmaker win that game? Does a rookie playmaker understand aarons eye contact? Even if they scored the td and 2 point it woulda tied the game and they would have needed a stop and overtime to win.
Its a fallacy created by espn that mindless fans swarm to like its factual that the packers were a wr away from winning.
Fact is its hard to win. Fact is the packers never had a complete team to do it. Rodgers carried a ton of awful defenses further than they should have been. Drafting another wr doesnt change that.