No chance that is accurate. The Panthers traded a 2nd and a 4th for Sam Darnold who was already a proven failure and older. Lance is still an unknown due to injury and a team can easily argue he’s still effectively a rookie. Lance will command more than Darnold if they trade him. Two seconds is very possible and maybe more.
The Aaron Rodgers trade appears to be final, finally.
The Packers agreed Monday to deal quarterback Aaron Rodgers and their 2023 first-round pick (No. 15) and a 2023 fifth-round pick (No. 170) to the Jets for New York’s 2023 first-round pick (No. 13), a 2023 second-round pick (No. 42), a 2023 sixth-round pick (No. 207) and a conditional 2024 second-round pick that becomes a first if Rodgers plays 65% of the plays this season, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday.
Basically a 1st round pick swap (13 for 15 overall), a 5th/6th reverse pick swap (207 for 170 overall), a 2nd rounder and a future 1st or 2nd depending on games played. Pretty cheap price really.
Agreed; for what the Jets are (or at least, hope to be) getting, they didn’t have to pay a whole lot. Mostly, two 2s, one of which might become a 1.
OTOH, there’s a pretty good chance that this is a rent-a-player deal for a single season, and Rodgers’ mercurial statements about his playing future undoubtedly didn’t help in that.
I think it’s pretty clear that the Packers were well and truly done with dealing with Rodgers, and while they might not have gotten a large haul in return for him, they may well be happy that they found someone to take their problem off of their hands, and actually give them something more than a ham sandwich in return.
Parenthetically, knowing the Packers’ luck, I anticipate Rodgers suffering a broken collarbone for the third time in his career at mid-season, and is out for long enough that he doesn’t trigger the upgrade to the first-round pick from the deal.
Compared to most other teams in the league, including your Bears, no, I don’t. I was mostly referring to how things have just generally gone south related to them and Rodgers in the past couple of years.
But, they only managed one Super Bowl appearance in his fifteen seasons as their starter, and lost four times in the NFC Championship Game. I don’t know to what extent that’s being unlucky, or just not being quite good enough, or bad coaching, etc. (Frankly, I don’t put much stock in “luck” as an actual thing, anyway.)
Stumbling into 35 years of HOF QB play pretty well neutralizes all claims of misfortune in my book. Both Favre and Rodgers propensity to flame out in the playoffs is simply the football gods throwing the rest of us a bone.
One man’s “stumbling” is another man’s great GM and coaching. Both Favre and Rodgers could have been had by almost any team in the NFL. Yet it was the Packers who were smart enough to trade for/draft and develop both of them. That’s not luck, anymore than the drafting and flaming out of Trubisky, Grossman, and McNown is just “stumbling” into them.
I am amused that the Vegas odds on Will Levis being drafted #1 dropped drastically (from 50-1 to 5-1) after an anonymous redditor posted that Levis was telling people he was going to the Panthers. Gotta love the impact of unattributed rumors on gambling.
In other news, my sister’s hairdresser’s second cousin said she waited on Ryan Poles and heard him say “Tank. You?”, which means the Bears are drafting Houston WR Tank Dell in the first round.
Levis is also now the odds-on favorite to go #2, so you’d like to think there’s something else behind that movement besides a Reddit comment, although admittedly I have no idea.
The Bears are in dire need of a Center. One of the top 2 Centers is Joe Tippmann out of Wisconsin. People keep bringing up the fact that he’s 6’ 6" which borders on comically tall for a Center. His tape is pretty great, and I don’t see any mobility issues, but the pundits seem to view this as a pretty strong negative trait. Does that make any sense?
Taking a snap behind a 6’ Center and a 6’ 6" Center can’t be that different. In a down position the player’s keister isn’t going to be more than 1 or 2 inches different. The height of the QB will be a bigger factor. Maybe he’ll struggle in goal line and QB sneak situations because he’s not able to get low, but in general the guy snaping the ball can’t easily be the lowest man no matter his height. It’s a kind weird outlier than I can’t parse.
On the other hand, if a center is too small, that is a problem.
Case in point, Joey Hunt is a center for the Seattle Seahawks. Reportedly he is very smart and talented, but at 6’2" and 299 lb, he is considered a bit small for the position. At least, that’s the only real criticism I’ve heard of him. He is too easy for a defensive lineman to move.
He has spent most of his career as a practice squad guy or reserve guy. Seattle cut him for a while, and he went to the Colts, but then went back to Seattle. And again, the only negative thing I’ve heard about him is his size.
It is the difference between 98/99th percentile for centers and 64th percentile, so maybe a slightly bigger deal than it seems.
I think it’s an issue, but the guy already plays the position pretty well. I would look at it like a short quarterback or a lightweight running back; things that measurably do not help but can be overcome. Struggling to get leverage in interior blocking is something that could be a problem on more than just goal line situations. If you’re enough of a physical freak it doesn’t matter because you’re still explosive and flexible enough not to get pushed or turned. I don’t know if he is or not, but it’s not just random happenstance that there aren’t a lot of 6-6 centers.
I stumbled on that link as well. With there being a bunch of 6’ 6” Centers already in the league, it’s weird that this is a topic of conversation. Granted none of those tall Centers are what I would call stars, but Tippmann certainly doesn’t feel like an outlier.
Assuming the Panthers are staying at #1 and picking a QB, who do you think is the one they should select? Earlier in the process I would have said Stroud, based in Frank Reich’s history. Prototypical size, etc. Young’s size concerns me more than it seems to concern them. Who would you pick for them?