Hope for Green Bay Packers
The only player on the Packers who has ever played for another team is Julius Peppers.
That strikes me as unbelievable. Except for Julius Peppers the Packers pay no attention to free agency.
It also helps explain the unusual loyalty of the fans. Of all the NFL football teams in the league, the Packers do not confront their fans with a major roster shift every year. Until a player is expendable for reasons of playing ability, and is replaced in house, the player remains a Packer.
While the Packers only once (regarding the current team) have brought in a free agent, they never tend to lose a major free agent either. Players are just as caught up in the significance of money as the general population but they too, like other employees, see value in job security. Cobb is a good example, he obviously knows he can be productive with Aaron Rodgers heaving the ball his way, but who can predict how productive Cobb would be with a different quarterback? Green Bay seems to be aware of that uncertainty with their own free agents and has mastered the art of coming reasonably close to a salary figure the player can get elsewhere but never attempts to match or beat it. Greg Jennings is a good example. He was an excellent receiver at Green Bay but was beginning to age and it would cost a lot of money to keep him. So the Packers let him go, he was not an outstanding star at Minnesota, who paid him a lot of money, and now has been simply released by Minnesota.
The management at Green Bay doesn't change. Their is no wealthy owner who can change management according to their whim at the time. Things are pretty stable at Green Bay at all levels. Fans and others spend a lot of time talking about locker room chemistry. This is mostly just inane banter. Every player in the locker room knows their own future with the team depends almost entirely on their own stats unless they manage off the field to create a public outcry. Some of the worst characters by anyone's definition are the richest players in the league because their stats are great---a guy named Suh being a good example.
Green Bay uses stability, security, fairness, good fundamentals in training, and a community atmosphere which provides few off field distractions. The players, for want of a better word, are more civilized and without huge public egos. What Packer is in the news all the time because of their personality? For many NFL franchises it is endless soap opera---a multilayered circus, with clowns everywhere from the owner down.
In previous but rather recent musings I have declared there would be no more Super Bowls for Green Bay because Mike McCarthy was a terrible play caller and adjuster during a game. To the extent this was true---that seems to have been corrected, not by firing the Coach, but just arranging to have some other coach handle those aspects of the game. It is not only amazing that this would be handled in this fashion, but that a head coach would accept the humiliation that comes with it. If the General Manager can be believed, McCarthy himself suggested it. Self sacrifice for the good of the team. In this day and age? Actually for any day and age.
So I need change my mind about no more Super Bowls for Green Bay. There is hope. Of course we are all dead in the long run.
