Okay, serious post:
Originally Posted by: Mucky Tundra
Fantastic post, sir. You said almost everything I was planning on saying, only you put it better than I could have. I've been secretly rooting for the Packers to take Love ever since the idea first started being floated a couple months ago, but I kept my wish to myself because I don't feel qualified to talk intelligently about college football.
In any case, I've been wanting the Packers to take a quarterback high for a couple years now, and I'm absolutely loving this pick, mainly because I think it will help reveal Rodgers' true colors. If this makes Rodgers rise to the occasion, take a few more risks in key situations, and give all of the tools at his disposal the benefit of the doubt, great—the Packers have the potential to sweep through the NFC like the Mongol horde. If he chooses to sulk or pout and turns all passive-aggressive on management and coaching staff like he did with the previous regime, then some of the shine and mystique surrounding him will wear off, and he'll punch his ticket out of Green Bay. There will always be another team willing to take a flyer on him for the right price.
Meanwhile, as disappointing as it might be not to have brought in a top-flight receiver, maybe it's not such a great loss. With Rodgers' increasingly risk-averse (and some might say entitled) mentality, drafting an elite pass catcher have turned out to be casting pearls before swine, especially in a year in which rookies are going to get effectively no offseason reps. This way the Packers get their quarterback of the future for the same price as they would have paid for an inexperienced—and likely underused—wide receiver. I don't see it as any great loss, and it could turn out to be a great gain, particularly if another team comes knocking with a tranche of valuable picks on offer. All of which is to say that taking a receiver in the first round could easily have turned out to be just as much of a waste in the short term as taking a quarterback appears to be right now.
For those of you wishing for a receiver, tight end, or linebacker, can you think of any teams who might be on the market for a win-now quarterback and could have quality receiving or linebacking talent they'd be willing to swap?
As for all the Packers fans on Twitter whining that Green Bay is disrespecting Aaron Rodgers and threatening to stop watching games, they're idiots and can be dismissed out of hand. This is a business, a brutal, coldhearted business, and there's no room for sentimentality. When the time comes to move on from Aaron Rodgers, which based on the terms of his contract probably won't be for another year or two, tear the Band-Aid off quickly and be done with it.