After watching Pickett and Collins make key contributions in our victory over the Ravens I started to realize that we have a lot of key contributors eligible for free agency. This made me nervous, but after doing some research, I began to feel a lot better. I know a lot of you will give me the response, "We need to be worried about the Bears game and the play off hunt right now....Blah Blah Blah.... etc." But c'mon! This is a legit topic. It's up to the mods, but it might be fun to make a sticky thread with news on our guys or where we can post about guys from other teams that GB should be looking at this offseason.


I could be wrong on a few things. Please point anything that is incorrect out so we can be better educated on what's in store for the offseason.

Let's banter.

Here is a full list of Packer free agents in 2010. Our eight starters are in bold.

RB DeShawn Wynn RFA
FB John Kuhn UFA
OG Daryn Colledge UFA
C Jason Spitz UFA
DL Johnny Jolly UFA
DL Ryan Pickett UFA
LB Aaron Kampman UFA
CB Will Blackmon UFA
SS Atari Bigby UFA
FS Nick Collins UFA
FS Derrick Martin RFA
OT Mark Tauscher UFA
[b ] Tramon Williams UFA?[/b]
LB Brandon Chillar UFA

With no CBA in place, the free agency system will be radically changed. Before you panic about widdle, old Green Bay not being able to keep up with the big market team you need to fully understand the new rules of free agency.

Here's a good article that discusses the changes, if no CBA is in place.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d80864e15&template=with-video&confirm=true 

3 Changes to Free Agency

1. Free agency will require six years of service (instead of four years in 2010 and five years in 2011)

Packers eligible for UFA:

Chad Clifton
Mark Tauscher
Ryan Pickett
Brandon Chillar
Ahman Green

Packers eligible for RFA:

FB John Kuhn UDFA
OG Daryn Colledge 2nd
C Jason Spitz 3rd
DL Johnny Jolly 6th
CB Tramon Williams UDFA
SS Atari Bigby UDFA
FS Nick Collins 2nd
CB Will Blackmon 4th
FS Derrick Martin 6th
RB DeShawn Wynn 7th

These gentlemen do not qualify for UFA (due to less than six years of service). They will be restricted free agents that we can tender at
3 levels:

Tender amount Compensation required
$2.562 million First- and third-round
$2.017 million First-round
$1.417 million Second-round
$927,000 Determined by RFA's original draft status (see round selected next to name)

We should able to keep Jolly, Collins, and Williams if we tender at the highest level (1st and 3rd). Our defense is 10X better with Bigby on the field, so I think he should get at least the 1st round tender.
Spitz and Colledge should get the the second round level, because they have experience. I'm not sold on either man as the longterm answer on the o-line. Tendering them at at least the second round level may even facilitate a trade with a dumb team that could let GB net some valuable returns (who here wouldn't take a second round pick for Colledge or Spitz if offered?) Blackmon should get the lowest tender, which would net us a 4th rounder, if someone were to sign him.

2) Teams will have three tags to use to restrict free agents instead of one tag, as they do now. 1 franchise tag (paid as top 5 at position) and 2 transition tags (paid as top 10 at position). Compensation remains the same I believe (2 1st round picks for a franchise player, a draft pick equal to where the tagged players was drafted.

Options for Franchise Tag (x1)
Ryan Pickett

The franchise tag would keep the 29 year old Pickett in GB for one year with a fat contract ($6,058,000 in 2009). I don't think any team in the league would pony up the 2 first rounders required to sign Ryan Pickett. We could always franchise and then trade him for a more reasonable pick (see Corey Williams in 2008). With Raji developing, it might be hard to take him off the field. It might be worth getting a second rounder for Big Grease that we could use to address the o-line or get cheaper depth behind Raji.

Options for Transition Tags (x2)
Ryan Pickett

Same reasons as above, except the one year deal would pay Big Grease the same as the top 10 DTs in the NFL ($5,450,000 for 2009). If a team signed him to an offer sheet, GB would have a chance to match fro be entitled to a first round pick (where Pickett was drafted). It would be tough to consider Chillar, Tauscher, and Clifton here considering the transition tag for either guy would be over $7 million for one season.


3) Teams that go deep in the playoffs could have some spending restrictions to avoid Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder trying to buy championships every season like the Yankees.

Not sure on the details, but this may hurt the Pack if they make a deep run this year.

BIG PICTURE:

DON'T PANIC! We will be able to keep our young studs this offseason despite their being no salary cap. The only problem I can see might be keeping potential depth guys like Tauscher, Clifton, and Chillar who might get offered a lot more money to be a back up in Dallas or D.C. than GB can offer.



ALSO:

It is important to consider the impact of these restricting tags. Franchise tags and restriction make players upset. They feel like the team is preventing them from reaching their max-earning potential. Having 6-7 starters with tags and not contracts will probably create a lot of dissent in the locker room towards the front office and towards guys on the team with long term deals. Just something to think about.

Good post, I love discussing off season moves.

For the reasons above I'm kind of hoping no new CBA gets done.

It would allow us to keep hold of a good number of our free agents and sign them all without having to worry about cramming them under the cap.

Otherwise we'll have to wave goodbye to quite a few of them.

But I don't see us just dishing out tenders to the RFAs, that would just piss off a lot of them, especially Collins.

I see the Packers using the RFA status of many of the players as leverage to get long term deals done. Certainly Collins, Tramon and Jolly could be extended. (I don't see Jolly getting the 1st and 3rd round tender - I can't see any team trading a 1st round pick for him).

But the biggest problem is that after 2010 we're looking at a lock out and work stoppage. Teams are going to be wary of handing out long term, multi million dollar contracts to players that may not be playing.

I hope the threat of a work stoppage helps the Packers to get good value and re-signs the guys we want, in the hope something is sorted out in time for the 2011 season.

Another thing to bear in mind is that if there is no CBA then the free agent pool is going to be drastically reduced.

Don't expect Ted Thompson to bring in a stud LT in free agency, there isn't likely to be any out there with all the UFAs becoming RFAs and those that do make it to free agency can be tagged with the extra tags teams have at their disposal.

Snyder and Jones may be keen to splash the cash but there won't be many players for them to buy.

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I very much enjoy this type of thread as well.

For me, the problem this year is the humongous variables that are created by the rules regarding free agency.

We know the rules, kinda, but we do not know the parties that are most impacted by them, or how those parties might operate under the auspices of the restrictions.

For example, it appears at this point like Boy Wonder will be able to "splash cash", but (as of this writing, anyway) Jerry Jones might not. I use those two because of their "like" reputations, not so much as most likely to be impacted the most.

We don't know how the Pack will or will not be restricted, either. [Feel free to insert Tightwad Ted commentary here if it is your desire.]

This landscape may change yet during the season, if Ted Thompson gets one or more deals done, chews up that 15mil, etc.

It will kick off in earnest in the national consciousness just as soon as the final "rankings" of the various teams are known at the end of the season.

Do you know if there is a deadline for signing guys to contract so that we can use some of this years cap space?

The Saturday prior to the last game of the season.

If we wanted to "cram" a signing bonus into 2009 without pro-ration throughout the rest of the life of a contract, we would have had to do so prior to the Monday subsequent to the 10th week of this season.

An example would be what we did with Aaron Rodgers.

Although I strongly dislike the Cowboys part of me hopes they make the last 8 so that Jones' big free agent spending will be restricted.

However I don't see there being much for him to snap up anyway, so I'm no longer concerned.

If we stay without a cap and without free agent spending restrictions then someone may be able to buy a championship in 5 years time. But with the small pool of free agents available no one will be able to buy a championship in 2011. (I also see the Cowboys missing out on the playoffs, or going 1 and done if they get there).

As for Ted Thompson I suspect he'll have a similar approach to free agency as previous years. If he sees value there (Pickett, Woodson, Chillar) he'll dabble, but I don't see him blowing the Packer's reserves on a guy. (But I didn't see him trading half his draft for CM3 so who knows).

Ive read Ted Thompson saying that free agency is there to fill needs, the draft is used to build quality and depth (and avoid having needs down the road). By that thinking Ted Thompson should bring in some kind of LT before the draft. Relying on a rookie (and maybe not even a 1st round pick) to guard Rodgers blindside looks like madness.

I expect Ted will use the cap freedom to re-sign his own UFA and RFA. I dont think getting to the last 8 stops a team from re-signing their own free agents, so he could use this offseason, while many key guys are restricted, to lock them up long term.

I like how we have some young key players in place (Rodgers, Jennings, Raji, Matthews, Finley,). I would love to add Collins to that list.

Even with Collins signed Safety remains a need area with nothing behind the inconsistent, but useful, Bigby.

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Franchise Tag makes someone upset?


Anyone want to franchise me? I'll take the average of the top five paid website admin's in the business guaranteed for a year.

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Agreed, Kapman or anyone else will probably snap our hands off if we franchise him.

The franchise tag won't make anyone upset, but dishing out restricted free agents tenders to players like Collins probably will.

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Although I don't see it happening, this is why I really want us to re-sign Chillar:

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What's been the deal with him lately, injury bug or Hawk stepping up?

The way I see it,

Chillar
Pickett
Kampman
Clifton
Tauscher

are guys we might have trouble retaining. Our of all of those guys, Pickett is the only one that I think we must keep.