Sure, free agency hasn’t even opened, but that isn’t stopping a lot of Packer fans from rushing to judgement. And they’re judgement is clear: “Gute is better than Ted.”
But why does everyone say this when he hasn’t done anything yet except trade his best cornerback for a backup quarterback? Because he’s looking at players, because he’s making calls, he’s “showing interest” in free agents… but most importantly, he’s talking about it.
Ted looked at players. Ted made calls. Ted showed interest.
But he kept it quiet.
And fans assumed it mean he was on vacation or senile or both.
In actually, Ted kept his plans quiet so other teams wouldn’t know what they were doing. And fans, for some reason, thought that was a bad idea. Now that Gutey is here to save the day and let everyone know what he’s doing, fans seem to love it.
Gute *dials Allen Robinson’s agent*: “Hey, what are you guys looking for contract-wise?”
Allen Robinson’s agent “We’re looking at 3 years, $42M.”
Gute: “Oh never mind.”
*click*
Packer fans: “Hooray, Gute showed interest, this is so much better than Ted!”
Ted showed interest and looked into all sorts of deals. He had an agreement in place for Tony Gonzalez and the Chiefs tried to change the terms at the literal last minute, but Ted stood firm. Ted reached out to Julius Peppers, got him in and signed, and let him get home before anyone knew he was interested. Charles Woodson was a long game pursuit where he showed interest and signed him, but there was no fanfare during the quiet process.
Now, if you think those were the only three moves he ever tried, if you think he didn’t look into dozens of players a year without it leaking all over the media, I think you don’t understand how Ted worked, which is probably why you hated him so much.
Gute isn’t stupid. He said thinks like “we’ll be as aggressive as we can in free agency” but that doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to throw money around like an idiot. Until he actually does something (or goes a few offseasons without doing anything) we’ll never know how different he will be than Ted.
For now, though, there’s no reason to get excited about “showing interest” or anything other noise that doesn’t result in making good free agent pickups that actually pan out.
The masked man is back! Hi Ho Silver.
In this era of instant gratification, doing something, ANYTHING is seen as a positive, particularly when we came from a gm that worked exclusively behind the scenes, and didn’t care that silence bothers the instant gratification demands of this internet generation.
Currently Unfolding Example: Our backup qb, who had never seen a meaningful NFL snap, stunk when handed the keys for the first time. People demanded to know, where is our Case Keenum? Doesn’t every other team have a seasoned playoff caliber backup? Must be Ted’s fault that we’re the only team without one.
Gute’s first move? He picked up another qb that in his first meaningful snaps, similarly spent a season TOTALLY SUCKING. Kizer bears NO RELATIONSHIP to Case Keenum as an incoming player, but you’d certainly think he does the way people are talking. I’ve got news for you all, what Gute created here is a competition at backup between two guys that played some subpar football last year.
Creating some competition for a guy that underperformed last year is a very good thing in my opinion, but lets not put Gute in the hall of fame quite yet, just because he’s willing to give press conferences.
I certainly hope Gute does great, but one trade for a backup player and a willingness to hold press conferences while publicly naming the players you’ve kicked the tires on is not what we should be judging him on. That’s just judging him on the perceived faults of TT, not judging him on whether he is doing a good job. I want to see how these free agent acquisitions work out. I want to see how he drafts. I like creating competition and I like how he moved up draft picks as a part of the trade. But even that is no good unless he makes uses those picks well. All of this will take years to judge, unless he does something colossal to get us to the super bowl this year. If he adds the missing piece, as opposed to adding a Joe Johnson, and that player carries us to the super bowl, maybe you could judge Gute in a single season, but short of that, it’s going to take years, unless all you care about is the fact that he’s willing to give press conferences.
Point is, give him time. He’s new and shiny and that’s exciting. But, trading for a backup and being willing to give an interview tells us nothing. Lets give him some time to provide real evidence, and then we’ll decide based on his body of work, not based on the fact that he isn’t Ted.
Um, somewhere in the 6.5 hours since I wrote that, I see that Gute is as anxious to establish his ‘I’m not Ted’ legacy as the fans are.
But, we might also find out a lot faster than anticipated, how good he is. If this pace continues, we’ll find out almost immediately if he’s going to absolutely flame out, or we’re about to witness a legitimate super bowl or bust-type run.
And it keeps coming. There’s so much going on, and it’s his first offseason, that it’s hard to tell what the overall plan is (if there is one).
The team had probably been building up to an offseason like this for a while. Their available cap space has been dwindling every season. People are mad about not signing free agents and retaining thw Haywards that have left, but look at where they are now cap-wise.
This feels like a “go-for-it” year before the next Rodgers contract necessitates a serious look at the team. Gute needs to nail this draft…
I’m not a fan of everything they’ve done, but there’s no major long-term cap damage (though Graham could be an small to moderate issue, depending on the structure). That makes it at least a reasonable attempt so far.
I bet Jordy is a patriot by close of business today.