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I voted for 9-7. My philosophy is simple, and most of you have probably already heard it: Give me wins over draft picks every time. Draft picks are consolation prizes that usually do nothing but deliver false hope to perennial losers.

Besides, we all know what a crap shoot the draft is. Are the odds of getting a good player affected that much by nine draft slots? I'll say no. In fact, I'll go one better and say Hell No. The damned useless combine (unfortunately) determines the top ten more than anything else anyway.

Like aadp said above, "Success breeds success". The confidence of the team has more influence on the outcome of a football game than the pedigrees of its individual players. Nothing brings wins like a winning attitude.

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+1.
Well said.

Detroit has had plenty of early picks. They're now the best team in the NFL. By far. Any year now, they're going to win Super Bowl after Super Bowl. I'm scared. No other team in the NFC North has a chance. We shouldn't even try. We should be gunning for Wild Card if we're even going to make the Playoffs.

It's a given we're going to be swept the Lions. Same with da Bears. Same with the Vikings. They'll go 19-0 next year fo shizzle.

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I'm still going for 6-10. The only reason I'd like to see a winning season would be because of Rodgers, he played hias ass of every game, playing through injury, yet, he gets a horrible season.

I'm not going for the succes breeds more succes part though. I mean, obviously you can put in the Lions or the Patriots, but what about the Rams (14-2, 7-9) (12-4, 8-8) Or right this year, The Packers, the Falcons and the Dolphins.

I understand it's a big motivator, but I think I prefer a new defensive coaching staff and some critical words to get a better season next year.

I don't see what pride there is in going 9-7. I don't even see how it can be considered all that "successful." It's the barest margin possible over mediocre. My definition of success includes more than slightly-better-than-.500 record.

I'd rather go 3-13 one season and 13-3 the next (Colts) . . . or 1-15 one season and 11-5 the next (Dolphins) . . . or 4-12 one season and and 11-5 the next (Falcons) than go 9-7 two years in a row (Buccaneers). All four teams I mentioned have one thing in common: they each went to the playoffs once in those two seasons. But while the first three teams went through deeper troughs, they also experienced more radical changes. The Buccaneers arguably made few notable changes, and they missed the playoffs this year with the same record.

Packer fans of today are completely spoiled by the chain of mostly winning seasons we've had over the past decade and a half. They're used to going to the playoffs almost every year, but they fail to remember that one of the main reasons we've made it to the playoffs so often is we play in one of the most consistently pathetic divisions in the league. I'm so tired of reading, here and elsewhere, "Losing isn't acceptable on a team that's used to success." Well, guess what? It's going to happen now and then. You're not going to get a winning season every year just because you think losing is unacceptable.

It's cliche (but true) to say you cannot know true joy unless you have known true sorrow. As much as it may suck in the short term (taking medicine is never fun), it may be what Packer nation needs right now. This 6-10 season may not have been the most joyful seasons we can remember, but as one of our local radio hosts pointed out awhile back, it was certainly the most entertaining seasons -- in terms of the sheer number of close, riveting, dramatic, down-to-the-last-second games -- we've had in many years.

A team that consistently went 9-7 or 10-6 wouldn't be successful, as far as I'm concerned, and it wouldn't be fun to watch either. It would be boring.

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Well, you could easily say that going 8-8 in 06 wasnt by any means successful, but you'de be hard pressed to argue against the idea that winning the final four in 06 to go from 4-8 to 8-8 contributed largely to the continued success in 07.

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I would argue that it was entirely irrelevant. There's no way to demonstrate causation. Sheesh, there's an 8-month time lapse -- not to mention personnel changes -- between the end of one season and the beginning of the next. I don't buy the idea that players sustain some mystical sort of euphoria the entire off-season that buoys them into the next regular season.

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Doing good one year is no guarentee that you will do good again next year. ALOT can change in that time.
Also, doing lousy one year is no guarentee you will suck next year.

What is done to make your team better in the off season is what will make the biggest difference.
JMO

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One point I forgot to add in my post above was that I don't fully buy the cliche that "losing easily becomes a habit." While there's no doubt some merit to that concept, I think mediocrity is far more addictive than losing. It's the well-established statistical concept of regression toward the mean . In other words, it's much easier to hover between 7-10 and 9-7 for years on end (like the Texans or Bills) than to dwell in the basement between 1-15 and 4-12 for more than a year or two in a row.

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