Because the problem remains the same year in and year out but the coach and GM remain constant. The problem is that the GM goes into each and every year with holes in the roster hoping that his All Pro quarterback covers these glaring weaknesses. 2015 we went into the season weak at TE, ILB, and OL depth and youth at CB. What will 2016 bring to us? You don't need to just use the draft, free agency and trades are an option as well. Thompson is running out of time with Rodgers, and I'm sure Rodgers is getting a little peeved having to play against stacked teams all the time with inferior talent on his team.
Is it realistic to believe the GBP are going to have a 3rd All Pro quarterback fall into their lap so we waste another couple decades not winning super bowls?
Originally Posted by: DakotaT
I never said nor implied that McCarthy and Thompson were not a part, or a large part of the team's struggles. My point is, it's simple-minded to lay all the blame on one or two factors, and imply that we'd be able to waltz into a super bowl victory because we have Aaron Rodgers.
Injuries have been a big issue on and off for this team for years. This year in particular, if Thompson would have brought in a top-5 WR there are zero guarantees he would play up to his contract, make a huge difference for the team (with Rodgers being erratic), and/or not get injured himself.
I'm not saying that he wouldn't or that we wouldn't have been playing yesterday if we had brought in some top-end talent. I'm just saying that implying that we'd be in a dramatically better position to win a SB if we brought in one or two additional people is about as useful as saying "We would have won that game if we wouldn't have had x or y bad calls go against us!". None of us have a crystal ball - past performance is not indicative of future performance, and you can't just swap out a player on a team and assume nothing else around him is going to change versus the player you swapped out. This isn't madden, where performance is all just based on numerical variables. You can't just assume that if you replaced Thompson and/or McCarthy with the best that this league has to offer that the Packers would be in a notably better position to win, considering their various unrelated issues over the years..
Some problems remain constant (Thompson being too conservative with free agency, McCarthy playing scared), some don't.
Rodgers had a really bad year this year. He's been great in years past. Rodgers' lost time via broken collarbone and his hamstring issues made a big difference to the Packers.
Special teams, prior to last year were borderline embarrassing (including our super bowl season). Crosby had that year where he was struggling mightily.
Our defensive play has varied dramatically in the last six years. Our super bowl year, we gave up madden-level yards but those issues were masked by a ton of takeaways. This year (end-of-game collapse notwithstanding) our defense played much better fundamental football and were excellent in the red zone. We did not do a good job at generating takeaways, I recall 3 easy drops in our playoff loss, a couple of which would have been huge for the packers and very well may have cost them the game.
Injuries have been a huge problem pretty much every year but two years ago.