Umm...yeah?
Green Bay answered the QB question in Aaron Rodgers (not to mention the emergence of Greg Jennings, Jermichael Finley, Ryan Grant, etc) and got those guys valuable experience. The team also established what holes they needed to fill on defense which they largely did in the the following draft by adding Clay Matthews and their NT. The following year with said defensive additions and more experience they went 11-5 and now are the among the favorites to win the Super Bowl in 2010. So 2008 wasn't a good year but hardly a lost one for GB especially after the uncertainty surrounding Favre's departure. Everyone associated with the Packers would tell you it was definitely something to build on and they did.
I'm hoping we see something similar here. Despite your denials we do have a lot of young talent both entering and in the primes of their careers. Whiz probably sees this season as a transition year to establish what he needs going forward while simultaneously trying to catch lightning in a bottle and extend our playoff run.
And I think that you can have a good/bad season
if you discover that you have your quarterback with that season. Also, the Packers have been the youngest team in the league for like three seasons running, despite having ancient guys like Rod Woodson and Donald Driver on their roster as well as their tackle tandem.
I guess if we go 6-10 this year, we're going to look at our roster and see 28 year old Derek Anderson with 55 starts under his belt and all we'll be able to say is that we know that he's not the answer. We'll look down the depth chart and see... Max Hall, who looked good against a Washington team who didn't dress anyone who's on the roster right now (seriously, people, that game was a joke).
We're a veteran team all over the defense. Do you think Whis needs a season to decide whether we need a pass rusher? He cut the guy that we'd planned to develop, and the other guy's on PUP for two months (at least).
If anything, we're probably going to lose players like Alan Branch, Gabe Watson, and Steve Breaston who will be getting that valuable experience. Then we'll maybe be starting over again next season with a defensive back 7 a year older or totally re-done, a revamped WR corps, and a new quarterback.
I thought that we were going to take our lumps with #7 this season and then hope to sneak out with a divisional championship but know that we had a QB to compete with in 2011 (if there's a season). That would have mirrored the Packers' 2008. I wasn't happy about that plan, because I don't expect there to be a season in 2011 and I don't want to waste a rebuilding year. But now?
I think that this is a talented team. I'm not sold on Toler until teams start testing him, but I like what I've seen from Washington, Campbell, Dockett, Williams, Wilson, Rhodes, DRC (although I wish he'd work on tackling), Fitz (obviously), Doucet (I still believe), and Lutui. I think it's too talented to lose more than 9 games.
But that's not how you win in the NFL. You win in the NFL with a great QB, great pass rusher, great LT, great S, and solid cornerback play. We already know that we don't have the first two, and probably the first three. So what are we going to learn if we have a bad season?
You could be right. CKW was in Pittsburgh when they went from 23-8-1 the previous two seasons to 6-10 and then went 15-1 and 11-5 with a SB win the next two seasons. I'd be down with that.
Except that it would be really Cardinal for the NFL to cancel the 2011 season when we were supposed to go 15-1.
Pittsburgh is great at taking a step back and then two steps forward for the next half-decade. One reason that they remain good year after year after year is that they draft one Top 10 pick every five or six years, and he becomes a cornerstone of the franchise. Everyone else get interchanged around those four or five players.
We seem to have whiffed on our last Top 10 pick in Levi Brown (really, our last three in Rolle, #7, and L. Brown). So if there's no real core in place besides Fitz, are we in a position personnel-wise to step back into prominence the next year? After Levi Brown, Alan Branch, Cody Brown, Rashad Johnson and others, do you have faith in the front office that they can invest that money the right way?
