Clemons is a 265 pound DE, maybe convertible to OLB - NOT a Safety. Clark, maybe, but he is 34 years old, and not all that good.

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All hell would break loose if the Packers and Patriots switched situations right now. Patriots who have a QB whos window is closing have done nothing but lose good players.

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Wrong Chris Clemons. Clemons is a 28 year old safety

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How about that! There are two of them, and apparently both FAs. I was talking about the guy the Seahawks just released. Yeah, I guess the Dolphins' Chris Clemons is a possibility - how good I don't know.

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I could see the Vikings signing Clemons the safety thinking it was Clemons the LB.

😆 😆 😆 😆

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Porforis, here's the problem I see with your "FA when 1-2 players away, not if more" analysis: Unless you are sufficiently confident that you can draft well-above-average every year, you now have to chalk 2014 up as a "rebuilding, not-seriously-contending" year.

Now, if Ted had listened to you when the team didn't have more than 1-2 holes, we might not have got to this point. There I agree with you.

But if you wait until that "close enough to taste it" point, and then swing for the big FA action, you now have to be "above average" at FA that one year, even though you haven't been practicing it for however many years you've focused on building near-exclusively on draft-and-develop. And free agency success as a one-off practice is probably as risky as it gets.

If you can turn on UFA expertise as easily as you change temperature at a tap, it would be one thing. But you can't. I don't expect Thompson to hit homeruns every time as a free agent. That's part of the reason I object to people bringing up the Woodson/Pickett examples. Just because he had one real good year with his approach to free agency doesn't mean he's going to succeed like he did that one time in nine years even if he does so in year 10.

IMO, it doesn't matter what reason you use for not playing in free agency most years. If you only play once in a while, you can't have Dave Kingman being the pinch hitter; he strikes out too much and he's a Cub. You have to be an all-world pinch hitter like Manny Mota (lifetime 0.304)was.

Ted's batting average in free agency has been, let's be charitable, 2 hits in 9 years. That's .222. That's Dave Kingman territory. He brings that to bear in years when he needs 1 home run and what happens?

Manny Mota has two World Series rings and 5 NL pennants.

Kingman? He won two home run titles (one despite batting just .204). For the Cubs and the Mets.

Be more active in FA when only one player away? That I agree with. But unless you are the world's greatest at one-off dips into FA (as well as being the world's greatest at drafting-and-developing, which Ted Thompson arguably isn't either), it isn't enough.

I believe that 2014 is unlikely to see the Packers be a serious championship contender even if Ted Thompson goes Woodson/Pickett type playing in FA this year. FA isn't a magic bullet. But I don't see this team getting there within three years if he doesn't either (i) start playing FA differently now or (ii) have hall-of-fame drafts for two of the next three.

He'll improve the team with the draft. He is above average at that, after all. But he is no more likely to fill all the holes in one (or even two) drafts than he is to fill them in one (or two) UFA periods.

I seriously hope I'm wrong. But I fear that contention for any championship bigger than the NFC North is highly unlikely for the next few years. Might get there under a "getting hot at the right time" or "any given Sunday" bit of luck. But IMO that's the wrong model. The way you become a true championship contender, one that careful observers are going to see as one of the 4-5 best teams in the league for several years running, is not by hoping to get hot or hoping the other team doesn't bring their A game. It doesn't come from finessing your way. It comes from seeking to dominate every game for 60 minutes, and from finding away the personnel that CAN dominate for 60 minutes with regularity for more than a few games at the end of the year.

That is not the current Packers.

Not IMO.

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Oh, I agree that DL is a bigger problem than safety.

Then again, I don't see us solving that DL problem either.

Unless you believe that one draft can pick up enough to improve those 40 starts?

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Packer Fa's signings on final roster 2013.

DE/NT Ryan Pickett (UFA-StL)
CB Tramon Williams

LS Brett Goode

LB Robert Francois

C/G Evan Dietrich-Smith
P Tim Masthay
CB Sam Shields

LB Jamari Lattimore

The verdict still out on these guys
G Don Barclay
TE Brandon Bostick
WR Jarrett Boykin
RB DuJuan Harris
CB James Nixon
S Sean Richardson

To say ted has only hit on 2 Fa's over the past 7 years just isn't true.

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When were the above signed? Were they signed during the March/April free agency period? If so, I stand corrected.

My understanding was they were signed either: (i) off the street before the opening of full UFA or (ii) after the draft either right out of college or with little or no actual active-roster experience, much less starting level experience.

My 2 in 9 years (not 2 in 7, by the way) was referring only to the period of UFA between beginning of March and the draft.

Pickett was one of my 2 successes (the other was Woodson).
Tramon -- signed undrafted by Houston, released in final cuts. Picked up midseason by GB. Zero active roster experience.
Brett Goode -- signed undrafted by Jacksonville. Released, re-signed next offseason, released again. Zero active roster before coming to GB.
Robert Francois -- undrafted, signed by Minnesota. Released in August. Signed by Detroit. Released. Zero active roster experience before coming to GB.
Dietrich-Smith -- undrafted, signed by GB. On roster for a year. Cut, signed and played a whole month for Seattle before being cut. Resigned on December 31, 2010. One month playing for another team. IMO a stretch counting him, and he never saw March/April UFA before this year.
Masthay -- undrafted, signed by Colts, released pre-season. SIgned to a reserve contract in January. Zero active roster experience prior to GB.
Shields -- undrafted. Obvious home run by TT, but also zero NFL experience prior to GB.
Lattimore -- undrafted. Zero NFL experience prior to GB. Not even pre-season.
Barclay, Bostick, Boykin. Undrafted. Zero NFL experience prior to GB. Not even pre-season.
Dujuan Harris -- Undrafted, signed by Jacksonville. On roster one year, released next preseason. Signed by preseason and released before season started. Picked up by GB for practice squad several weeks into season. Made active roster in December of 2012. One whole year of non-GB active season experience.
James Nixon. Signed undrafted out of college by GB. One year on PS. Active roster until went to IR last year. Zero non-GB NFL experience.
Sean Richardson. Signed undrafted out of college by GB. Zero non-GB experience.

So, out of the other 13 "free agents", they had a total of year and one month of NFL regular-season experience outside of GB. Or, on average, one month each. With the exception of Dietrich-Smith, who was a GB player for all but a month of his NFL experience, only Harris had any NFL experience outside of GB at all.

This discussion is about whether Ted Thompson should be more active in going after players with NFL experience. No one is criticizing his approach to college players, drafted or undrafted, except insofar as we say he needs to be farther above average if he's not going to rely more heavily on picking up NFL experience gained from other teams. Indeed, I don't know of anyone anytime who has criticized his record for picking up undrafted free agents at all.

I stand by my claim. If you want to claim that "free agent record" should approach "everyone not drafted by GB" as equivalent actions for counting "free agent success"? Fine. It does have the virtue of simplicity, I suppose.

I must, respectfully, disagree.

For the kind of FA action I (and I believe others) have been advocating, he has had two big successes. Pickett and Woodson. Both in 2006. And we just started his 10th UFA period. For me, it is 2 in 9. Admittedly, two home runs. But still only 2 in 9.

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And, just those two. Hasn't done anything of note since 2006 in FA, the FA we are talking about here. That's 8 years...

UDFAs and street FAs don't count in this discussion IMO. We are talking about adding experienced veteran talent. 2 players thus far, in 8 years.