As we wrap up the 2019 offseason and make all sorts of predictions on the heels of the final roster, it’s fun to look back at what we thought about past moves.
Since it takes a couple of years to get results on these moves, lets look back at what happened in 2017 and how fans were feeling.
- Julius Peppers left and no one complained… then he got a bunch of sacks and suddenly Ted was stupid.
- Everyone thought Martellus Bennett would be an upgrade over Jared Cook… whoops.
- We wanted to re-sign TJ Lang, but when we didn’t, we wanted to sign Nick Mangold and move him to Guard. Lang only played 19 of 32 games over the following two seasons and Mangold never even played. Meanwhile, the Packers have the deepest Guard unit they’ve had in recent memory.
- People wanted to re-sign Micah Hyde (me included). Hyde went on to have way more success in Buffalo than he ever did in Green Bay. The key here is that with Dom Capers running the D, Hyde wasn’t going to be effective. On the flip side, we have a DC and safety tandem with a much brighter outlook now.
- People also wanted to keep JC Tretter. Tretter received a 72.3 rating from PFF (meaning Above Average), but he was playing center. Center is his best position and we didn’t need him there. Maybe he would have been good at Guard, but we wouldn’t have needed him at all in 2017, maybe would have been useful in 2018 (but not enough to save the season), and then would have been replaced by a cheaper solution this year. At best, we would have overpaid for a year to have an insurance policy two years later.
After looking back on things, it appears, the fan reactions missed the mark.