It’s easy to overreact to a small sample of three games, but I don’t think the title of this post is an overreaction. One of the reasons I don’t think it’s an overreaction is that I still believe the Green Bay Packers have a high number of extremely talented players on their team. I do not think this is just a team of bums. However, I also think that doesn’t matter because they have an unfixable, massive problem on the offensive line, and specifically the interior (though the tackles are no great
shakes either).
When I’m projecting a team’s fortunes for the year, there is, in the back of my mind, a sort of “worst-case scenario” status I think about on every position group that is aligned with the concept of the “replacement player.” The replacement player is a baseball concept which sets the baseline for production as “the best guy you can acquire freely right now in a pinch.” Basically, the best guy not on any team. Philosophically speaking, you should not have players worse than that guy on your team, and certainly not starting for you, which brings us to this.
and this:
The problem, and excuse the yelling, is that YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE A POSITION GROUP THAT CAN POSSIBLY BE THIS BAD. If there was just one weak link on the line, that would be something. If the Packers had successfully drafted for offensive line depth over the past several seasons, maybe they could weather this, but they just can’t. It’s impossible. Most of their monetary capital is tied up in Zach Bako-Bewele, who may never play again after a full patellar tendon tear. They also gave a lot of money to Aaron Banks, who is both injury-prone and terrible. In terms of draft capital, Anthony Belton is a former second-rounder and appears to be terrible. The shining star of the group, Jordan Morgan, appears to be “maybe ok.” I’m not even entirely sure what Sean Rhyan is yet, but no one is approaching average.
You cannot spend this much on a position and be this bad at the position. It’s almost not possible, and it’s made worse by pure depth backups like Donovan Jennings and Jacob Monk offering nothing. I don’t expect much from late-round picks and afterthought free agents, but some base level of competence would be nice. You should not employ football players with no ability to play football!
The only rational move right now is to fire Luke Butkus, the incompetent offensive line coach who may very well be a sleeper agent. Or maybe it’s just that his dad used to eat meat grilled on burning newspaper.
Anyway, these players may all be terrible, but it’s also clear that no one has taught them to be anything other than terrible. If I were a position coach and my guys put up stats that said they were three times worse than the worst unit and also maybe one of the worst of all time, I would expect to not work there anymore. There are no new players to hire; the only choice is to teach these losers to play better.
Or, alternatively, to just laugh at what we’ve become, accept our fate, and move on. I’ve never seen anything like this outside of an expansion team. There is a real risk they turn Jordan Love into David Carr/Tim Couch at this point, and some grown-up in the room needs to put a stop to it.
