Preseason thoughts so far...

[rpiotr01]

Let's keep this real... we played the Browns who are rubbish( a lot of college teams can beat them) and the Raiders who just are not that deep.

I can't get any kind of feel for this FB team yet. Team still has a funky feel to it..and no I can't put a finger on it or explain. It just still has a lot of the same vibe as last year.

How well can anyone really judge when your starters play so sparingly? The starting OL has essentially done nothing but run block against base defenses. Starting QB has not played, backup has thrown all of 6 passes. The D doesn't hit in practice and only tackles a big fluffy donut and the guys get to land on a mattress when they do tackle players. I trust the coaches have a very detailed metric for evaluating players but I don't know what it is.

 

[realitybytes]

I trust the coaches have a very detailed metric for evaluating players but I don't know what it is.

it really makes you wonder how they can properly evaluate the team when virtually none of the starters are doing much of anything that approaches real football.

 

[Budman]

it really makes you wonder how they can properly evaluate the team when virtually none of the starters are doing much of anything that approaches real football.

Probably go off last year's tape

 

[realitybytes]

it really makes you wonder how they can properly evaluate the team when virtually none of the starters are doing much of anything that approaches real football.

from tom oates at wisconsin state journal: "It grows increasingly difficult to evaluate the Green Bay Packers’ readiness for the regular season based on exhibition games that are becoming a bigger joke — and ripoff — every year."

full article: http://host.madison.com/wsj/sports/...cle_980ad5ba-a9ce-5723-8b84-9de292a900bb.html

 

[TW]

I've given up on preseason. I no longer see any real evaluation process as to who is better on the field, under game conditions. If they change the agreement down the road, and cut the preseason games in half, it's going to be a guessing game as to who the better players are. Some darned good players could be axed, and never play in the league. With so few contact practices allowed every year, they're never going to know who should go or stay.

 

[rpiotr01]

See, I still think the exhibition games are useful for weeding out the guys who can't play. The danger is in overvaluing the good stuff. I mean, I remember even back in the Favre days, before the 2004 and 2005 seasons Favre would march those guys down the field, throwing bullets to Walker or Driver or Robert Ferguson and they looked like world beaters, then the season rolls around and they start out 1-4, or in 2005 they won 4 games all year. Or geez look at last year when the Eagles came to Lambeau game 3 and torched our D. How'd that go for them come regular season? You have to take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Cheesedog]

Pre season doesn't tell you much as a team overall.. But it does let you evaluate players specifically in an as close to game situation as you can during pre season. If a rookie can't read/react against an opponent it's probably a bad sign. If he looks like a world beater in practice when he basically knows what's coming but can't beat the coverage of the opposing teams 3rd stringers its probably not a good sign.

Pre season seems to be more about the bottom of the roster and PS now. Totally useless for starters and team eval. Packers will start out slow with a lot of rust come regular season. Just have to win enough games to keep you competitive down the home stretch.

 

[Crease Creature]

Just a hunch, but I can't shake the feeling that MM, Rodgers, et. al. look at that first part of the schedule and see the opportunity to use the first three games as their warm up, get to the bye week, and then hope to be rolling coming out of that?

Sounds silly, but I have a feeling that this mentality is lurking somewhere at 1265 Lombardi Ave.

 

[Pugger]

With the second game being in MN I don't think we can look at the early games as a warm up. After our struggles last year I suspect the offense will be more focused and eager to show the world 2015 was an aberration.

One thing this preseason is showing me is how deep this roster truly is. Even tho Oakland kept their starters in for most of the first half of the game they couldn't do much even against our backups. Once they removed their backups we took control of the game and the final score looked closer than it was because of a blocked punt. You can be sure there will be more than a few GMs watching the waiver wire for our final cuts at the end of August.

 

[57packer]

I don't think you can come away with anything in the preseason as far as how good or bad the "team" is. About all you can see, as was suggested above, is how certain individual players handle themselves, especially the rookies, UDFA's and bottom of the roster guys. Do they understand the assignments or are they not handling the mental part of the game. Bigger concern might be if some guy is getting whipped. Maybe he just doesn't have the physical ability to get it done. OL guys who are getting destroyed tell you they need to be cut. CBs who can't cover because they are too slow and don't display other coverage skills get themselves cut. Everyone can come up with their own examples. I almost think the games are there more to show you who needs to be cut rather than who needs to be kept, if that makes any sense.

Of course, in the end you will still end up with more than 53 guys and you need to decide who should stay of the guys who don't "lose" their spots in games (and practices). That's probably where it's important to not over-evaluate the games and also consider what you see in practice. Not an exact science, so good players get cut sometimes and it won't matter how many pre-season games there are, that won't change. It's just a shame fans pay good money to see crummy football by design. The players need to figure out a way to compromise with the owners to cut the pre-season but keep the revenue flat.