Surviving Sunday: Packers News, Notes and Links for the Football Deprived
Surviving Sundays with no Packers Football
I finally got around to watching “Last Day at Lambeau, the excellent film that chronicles Brett Favre’s painful separation from the Packers. Even though I am probably the last Packers fan on Earth to see it, it still brought back all the memories I thought it would, plus a few more.
There are many things we will never know about the Favre soap opera, but there is one thing in particular I wish I had the answer to: Why didn’t the Packers just trade Favre to the Vikings? I kept asking myself that question as the drama unfolded in real-time back in 2008, and while I was watching “Last Day at Lambeau.”
Apparently the Packers didn’t want to trade Favre within the division, especially to a division rival like the Vikings. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Ted Thompson should have been sitting by the phone, rubbing his hands together and sneering like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons while he waited for the Vikings to call.
It was obvious the Vikings wanted Favre, so much so that they broke league rules and tampered to try and make it happen. The Vikings are the same franchise that traded a billion draft picks for Herschel Walker. It’s also the franchise with a fanbase that hates the Packers more than they love their own team, and would enjoy nothing more than to get Favre on their team simply out of spite.
The Vikings were a team desperate for a quarterback, and drooling at the possibility of that quarterback being Brett Favre.
The Packers ended up trading Favre to the New York Jets for a measly conditional draft pick, which ended up being a third-rounder. Ted Thompson had no leverage in dealing Favre, except with one team: the Vikings. Who knows what Thompson could have extracted out of the Vikings for Favre. One first round pick? Two first round picks? A first and a third? We’ll never know.
The “you can’t trade him within the division, especially to the Vikings” theory doesn’t fly with me. Why? Because if you didn’t think Favre was good enough to help the Packers win a Super Bowl, why would he be good enough to help the Vikings win a Super Bowl?
Why not try and get the upper-hand on your rival by fleecing them in a Favre trade?
Of course, you never know how these what-if scenarios would play out in real-life, but that’s never stopped me before. So, what if the Packers traded Favre to the Vikings for first-round picks in 2009 and 2010?
That would’ve taken away Minnesota’s 2009 first-rounder, robbing them of the chance to take Percy Harvin 22nd overall.
Let’s assume Favre would have improved the Vikings by a win or two and the Packers would be getting Minnesota’s pick in the mid-20s instead of the early 20s in 2009. Maybe that means Thompson doesn’t have to trade into the first round to nab Clay Matthews (he actually used the third-rounder from the Favre deal as part of the package to move up) and just takes him with the pick he got from Minnesota for Favre.
Or maybe Thompson, in a trade-up mood in 2009, takes Matthews, then trades for a third first-round pick and grabs Vontae Davis (No. 25). Hakeem Nicks (No. 29), Louis Delmas (No. 33) or James Laurinatis (No. 35).
Minnesota ended up with the 30th overall pick in the 2010 draft (they traded it to the Lions). The 30th pick would have given the Packers a chance at taking Rob Gronkowski (No. 42).
We could do this all day, but I think you get the picture. Yes, things turned out well for the Packers after Favre’s departure, but I’ll always wonder what the Packers would have done if they sent Favre to Minnesota for a haul of draft picks.
Packers news, notes and links
- Ted Thompson held his pre-draft news conference this week and, predictably, didn’t reveal much. Whenever the tight-lipped Thompson speaks publicly, I always wonder how much money it would take for him to write a book or do a long television interviewing revealing everything that happened behind the scenes during the Favre divorce.
- Most mock drafts are just fodder for us to kill time before the draft. But this Packers-centric mock at Cheesehead TV takes a really deep look at what the Packers might do with their selections. You will be smarter after reading it. Or maybe you won’t. Who knows.
- Here are a few scenarios where the Packers could trade out of pick No. 21 in the first round. In this draft, I can see Thompson trading down and gathering more picks instead of trading up in the first round.
- Thompson has had success in the second round recently. The folks at Lombardi Ave. has prepared a list of possible second-round targets for the Packers.
- Just when you thought the podcasts at PackersTalk.com couldn’t get any better, they book Mike Freeman and Wes Hokiewicz as guests. The nationally-known Freeman appeared on the Out of the Pocket podcast and Holdkiewicz, a local beat writer, shared his knowledge on CheeseHead Radio. Last but not least, Old Bag of Donuts preview secondary prospects in the NFL draft.
- Jay Hodgson is the newest scribe at ALLGBP.com and continues cranking out useful pieces that focus on the X’s and O’s of the Packers and football.
- Aaron Rodgers reported former Packers TE Tom Crabtree to PETA over Twitter this week.
Non-Packers Links and Other Nonsense
We’re only days away from the NFL draft and a temporary reprieve from offseason boredom. Unfortunately, once the draft is over, we still have to wait a long time for training camp to open, then we have to slog through an agonizingly boring preseason before finally getting actual football in September.
You’re going to need something to keep you occupied through these down periods. That something should be Action PC Football (APC).
APC is a single-season replay football simulation game that makes you the head coach of your favorite team(s). Like Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP), which I profiled last week, APC makes you use your brain, not your thumbs, to achieve success.
Unlike OOTP, APC is not a general manager simulation. You don’t progress from season to season and sign free agents, manage a salary cap or draft rookies. Instead, you play individual NFL seasons on a game engine that challenges your football knowledge while generating incredibly realistic results.
Do you think your coaching acumen can take the 2011 Packers to the Super Bowl instead of fizzling out in the divisional round? Are you cocky enough to take one of the lousy Packers teams from the 1970s and 80s and try to make them into Super Bowl champions? You can try it all with this game.
You can also create what-if scenarios (try putting Bart Starr on the 1995 Packers or insert Reggie White onto last year’s Packers) or play games and leagues made up of franchise all-stars or players from different eras. And like OOTP, the game is customizable. You can set up the game exactly how you want to play it.
In other words, this game is a football junkie’s dream.
Oh, and I completely forgot to mention that you can also play college football seasons!
The game comes with the 2013 season and a set of championship teams. Other individual seasons, franchise all-star packs and decade sets are sold separately and are frequently on sale, allowing you to stock up at a reduced rate.
If you need even more of a reason to check this game out, developer Dave Koch is a lifelong Wisconsin resident and Packers fan. If you buy Dave’s game, you’re supporting one of our own. Dave also makes a baseball, basketball, hockey and golf game and has been making these types of games since 1992.
He also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you buy the game and aren’t satisfied for whatever reason.
Yes, games like Madden are fun and serve their purpose to meet the football fix for a mainstream and casual audience. If you’re reading ALLGBP.com, there’s a good chance you’re more than just a casual fan. You probably know more about the game than the typical pimply-faced 13 year old who smashes buttons and constantly throws deep post patterns while playing Madden online.
APC is a real football game for diehard football fans. Check it out.
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