The salary cap will increase minutely next year to about $121.3M. Green Bay will roll over what's left under the present cap, or $7.1M, into 2013 because all of their moves are designed to facilitate contract extensions for Clay Matthews, B.J. Raji and [Aaron] Rodgers in the next six to nine months.

Bob McGinn wrote:

I feel this way because I can't remember a single Ted Thompson drafted "star" that he has let go elsewhere.

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

Donald Driver was paid $2.3 million for the 2012 season. The Packers will not be paying Driver that amount in 2013, therefore they can re-allocate that money to another WR, Greg Jennings, who earned $7.3 million for the 2012 season. You add that $2.3 to what Jennings received during 2012 and you get $9.6 million.

The WR franchise tender is going to be around $10.357 million for 2013.



I feel this way because I can't remember a single Ted Thompson drafted "star" that he has let go elsewhere. I think Jennings is a Green Bay Packer for the 2013 season and if he shows he's over this injury bug that got him a little bit in 2011 and a good portion of 2012, I see him getting a 3 or 4 deal during the season.



Here's my source for the 2013 franchise numbers - link .


This says about ~$500k lower, but not sure ...





Edit, forgot to add that the Packers are carrying about $7 million from 2012 to 2013's salary cap.

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

I agree with this. I don't worry about what Thompson does or does not do with "stars".

Thompson's weakness is what he does with talent at the one or two tiers below "star". (Especially, IMO, with OL talent.) That is the talent he lets get away (Wahle, Wells). That is the talent he most frequently errs with in free agency (Klemm, O'Dwyer, Saturday, Hutchinson). And that is the talent he errs with over and over again in the draft (Colledge, Spitz, Moll, various starters on various other teams).

Thompson insists on not overpaying in free agency. As a general matter, that is what we should want from a general manager. And we especially want it with respect to tier 1 stars -- since overpaying a tier 1 player can restrict other opportunities for years. But overpaying is sometimes necessary.

And because he's good at assessing talent in general, and has a lot of data on his own star players that he doesn't have with other team's star players, he knows when overpaying that star really isn't overpaying at all. What might look like a risk to us, really isn't. He's not going to let Rodgers go, and he's not going to let Matthews go. And, if he believes Jennings is truly a tier 1 star, he's not going to let him go just because he is going to cost mega-gazillions.

I personally think Jennings is gone because I don't think Thompson thinks of him as a tier 1 star in the way he thinks about Rodgers and Matthews. (I disagree and I'll bitch if he goes, but when thinking rationally, on this I'll go with Thompson's track record over mine. He doesn't get the stars wrong.) But if Ted Thompson believes Jennings is tier 1, he won't be going anywhere.

I'm not as confident that Ted Thompson will do the right thing regarding the tier 2 talent that the team needs to go back to the Super Bowl. But I am confident he'll get the tier 1 talent decisions correct more than often enough.

Originally Posted by: Wade 

Jennings has had Favre and Rodgers. I don't want to disrespect the guy, but both of those guys can make WRs look better than they are. I really don't think we need to break the bank on the guy and I would rather use the money filling other needs and draft somebody at WR to work his way up the depth chart. Cobb, Nelson and Jones have carried the load quite well. I also like the idea of increasing TE focus and having a 2 TE attack as part of the offensive scheme like NE is employing.

Originally Posted by: TheKanataThrilla 

Jennings has had Favre and Rodgers. I don't want to disrespect the guy, but both of those guys can make WRs look better than they are. I really don't think we need to break the bank on the guy and I would rather use the money filling other needs and draft somebody at WR to work his way up the depth chart. Cobb, Nelson and Jones have carried the load quite well. I also like the idea of increasing TE focus and having a 2 TE attack as part of the offensive scheme like NE is employing.

Originally Posted by: TheKanataThrilla