ESPN 

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Rather hard to improve on 15-1.

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Reading the Packers' fans comments under that are not delightful at all. As a Packers fan you should know that the Packers never really do much in the off season in terms of free agency, which the media always over-analyzes in the first place. Shouldn't be butt hurt over an off-season grade.

A "C" is a decent grade as the Packers are banking on 2-3 rookies to bump up our 32nd ranked defense.

And as CaliforniaCheez said, its pretty hard to improve on a team that held a 15-1 regular season record...

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I don't think a grade of a "C" is fair at all, although of course I understand grades aren't actually rating the players, just an initial individual interpretation (opinion). Sure, all the players the Packer's drafted could bust, but it is likely that they get 1-3 potential starters are strong contributors this season (Perry, Worthy, Hayward, and perhaps even McMillian). In addition, there are others than be good special teams players and perhaps compete for the top backup spot, such as Manning, Daniels, and even Datko and Coleman.

I read something the other day that the Packer's are likely to pursue a veteran backup QB is Harrell flops in training camp because they wouldn't trust a first year 7th round draft pick to be the #2 QB. All I could think about while reading that was Matt Flynn. I understand he was an exception, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Harrell and Coleman as the backup Qb's for the upcoming season unless one of both really sucks throughout training camp.

Overall, the Packer's likely got one immediate starter and multiple players that will contribute and be key factors in sub packages and special teams. Those same players also have the ability to mature into starters in a few seasons. I can imagine at least 2-3 players developing into quality starters in the future. For a team such as the Packer's, that's about as good of a draft they could hope for with the late picks.

Okay, I was confused here. This title needs to be fixed. It should be NFC North OFFSEASON grades. I took the title as the grade of the teams in the NFC North, which puzzled me. But okay, sure a "C" why not. The Packers had the 32nd ranked defense and still won 15 games. If just one of the off season moves, via draft or free agency, starts, I think that's an easy B or possibly an A. The offseason move of releasing Nick Collins hurts, but the Packers played most of 2011 without him so its not like 2012 will be much different in that regard.

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More evidence that the talking heads haven't been paying attention to recent history.. rookies and young players can contribute to winning football.

Look no further back to the Giants last season.. or the Packers the year before.. that rookies and young players can play vital roles in winning football.

Basically.. this instant grading culture to have something to print can only focus on free agency.. rookies are too much of an unknown entity to predict. Look.. the Packers threw everything and the kitchen sink and giving Capers and company something to work with this season to develop a pass rush to help a solid secondary. Yes I said a solid secondary.

Not to mention.. having struggled last season on defense did us a huge favor as a franchise.. it kept in core a defensive coaching staff that proved in 2010 that they can coach up players and win football games.

Couple that in with a full offseason for players that played vital roles in 2010 to take that next step and improve.

IMO, it is things of that nature that talking heads are too lazy to dive into.. mark it down.. this will be a top 10 defense if not better this season. We will be a more complete team in 2012 than we were last season.. a more dangerous team.

But continue to focus on bullshit of just looking at player moves than the whole picture.

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As for Harrell, he's far more likely to get injured than to flop, imo. (Not to jinx him of course.)

What these people fail to realize is how much talent this team has. Yeah, we have a couple of spots available on defense. But Ted's never been a guy to make some blockbuster trade. Much less when he doesn't need to.

Ted's stocked this team FULL of talent, whilst doing the same thing every offseason. So if they want to call doing that a "C" I'll take it every time.

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Without even looking at who he picked, Thompsons trading alone increased the value of his picks a great deal. He really took the teams he was trading with to the cleaners. He squeezed a great deal of value out of his trades.

Several of the players he took were much higher ranked than where they went. The first, but not only example being Worthy.

I personally think it was a masterful draft in which he always took the best available player while at the same time hitting right on an area of great need.

On top of that, I thought he picked up some great depth in the ranks of the undrafted FAs.

I am very impressed with Dale Moss and Nic Cooper. Since WR is incredibly deep for the Packers, both are unlikely to make the final roster. I hope we can hang onto them as PS players.

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I really like this draft as well. I think it could go down as being a great draft, especially if guys like Manning and McMillan pan out (which I'm confident Manning will, eventually). If Datko or Coleman are able to contribute anything to the team, even as backups, than that would definitely solidify this draft as a solid A.

When a team is as talented as the Packer's are, it's easy to overlook rookies. In 3-5 years though, I'm fairly confident the 2012 draft class will be viewed, at worst, as "good", and very likely, much better. But, I'm high on Nick Perry, as I have described before. If nothing else, he should develop into a nice pass rusher, which is exactly what the Packer's need and will allow them to better utilize CM3's flexibility. Situational pass rushers like Worthy and Daniels are becoming extremely valuable in the league. Finding big run stuffer guys is easier to do than a great pass rusher, which is another reason why I like those picks.

Naively, I'm relating the feel of this 2012 class to how I felt about the 2009 class.

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