Here's how Packers' failure at the trade deadline went down and what's next | Opinion
GREEN BAY, Wis. – On Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays, the responsibility for winning football games lies mostly with Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur and quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The rest of the week, it’s on general manager Brian Gutekunst.
The last major opportunity to add talent came and went on one of Gutekunst’s days. With the NFL’s trading deadline passed, the Packers head into their game against the Detroit Lions on Sunday the same team they were on Monday.
Gutekunst did try to improve the offense with a trade, a person familiar with their front office said after the deadline had passed Tuesday afternoon.
MIDSEASON GRADES: Eagles, Bills among highest scores; Raiders, Texans both failing
NEVER MISS A SNAP: Sign up for our NFL newsletter for exclusive content
They offered a second-round pick for Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Chase Claypool, the source said, but the Steelers decided to take the Chicago Bears’ offer of a second-round pick because they thought it would be the better of the two picks.
According to another person, the Bears wanted to give up the second-round pick they had just gotten from Baltimore for linebacker Roquan Smith, but the Steelers demanded it be the Bears’ own second-round pick. The Steelers expected the 3-5 Bears to finish with a worse record than the 5-3 Ravens.
And when it came to evaluating Green Bay’s offer, they expected the 3-5 Bears to finish with a worse record than the 3-5 Packers. How much worse likely dictated what the Steelers wanted from Green Bay in draft choice compensation to make up the difference. The additional pick presumably would have had to be commensurate with whatever difference the Steelers thought there would be between where the Bears pick and the Packers pick.
So, if they thought it was a 10-pick difference, for example, the Packers would have had to give up an additional fourth-round pick.
The source said the Packers turned their sights on Claypool after a deal they thought they had for another offensive prospect – one not mentioned much in trade rumors – fell through when the other team pulled out at the last minute. The source said the Packers wouldn’t want him to divulge the name of the player so he would only say it was someone who could have helped the offense greatly.
In addition, the Packers checked in with the Lions on tight end T.J. Hockenson before he was traded to Minnesota and had a brief but not serious discussion about Denver’s Jerry Jeudy, according to a pair of league sources. They also showed interest in New York Giants wide receiver Kadarious Toney before he was traded to Kansas City, another source said.
Brian Gutekunst's decisions led to precarious situation at receiver
Regardless of how good the anonymous player was or how close the Packers came to any deal, the bottom line is that they came away with nothing. They have not added any wide receiver help to the 53-man roster since the draft.
There’s always a chance someone will get waived – that’s how Green Bay's Super Bowl XXXI team got Andre Rison late in the year – and the Packers will evaluate free agent Odell Beckham Jr.’s surgically repaired knee once he’s actively shopping for a team. But it all could be too late given the distance the Packers have to make up just to get into the playoffs.
Most likely, they would need to go 6-3 the rest of the way to get a wildcard bid. Last year, the Steelers had the worst record of all the playoff teams at 9-7-1. There were five teams at 9-8 who did not make the playoffs.
The NFC isn’t very good this year and so even at 3-5, the Packers are only one game behind in the race for the eighth playoff spot.
Blaming Gutekunst for not coming up with a player at the trade deadline isn’t as fair as it is for blaming him for leaving the Packers in this precarious situation at wide receiver through a lack of attention the past three years.
As long as he had Davante Adams, he wasn’t under as much pressure to address the receiver position and so he passed up tapping a very good receiver class in 2020 and guessed wrong in 2021 that Amari Rodgers would be a better receiver prospect than Nico Collins or Amon-Ra St. Brown.
He quickly addressed the receiver position in the 2022 draft and hit on fourth-rounder Romeo Doubs, who leads the team in receiving, and may have found a diamond in the rough in Samori Toure, who caught a 37-yard touchdown on a veteran move late in the Buffalo game.
If the Packers stick to the game plan they had against the Bills, emphasizing a power running game with Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon, they will have the foundation of a good offense. If they could ever get their defense to perform, they could win games the way the Tennessee Titans have done with Derrick Henry.
More:Packers' offensive pulse is weak but it showed some signs of life against Bills
But they will have to pass the ball at some point.
The return of Allen Lazard – possibly as soon as this week – and Randall Cobb in a couple of weeks, should help if LaFleur and Rodgers don’t fall back into the habit of leaning more heavily on their passing game than their running game.
Rookie Christian Watson has the tools but can he stay healthy?
The Packers’ biggest need on offense is someone with speed who can stretch the field.
Their only hope may be second-round pick Christian Watson, whose season has been derailed by injury. The Packers made a questionable decision with Watson to address a minor knee injury with surgery before the start of training camp, forcing him to miss most of camp while recovering. It’s possible he could have gotten through the season and had surgery afterward.
A hamstring injury suffered in Week 3 cost him three games and upon his return against the Bills he suffered a concussion.
There’s a decent chance he will return this week for the Lions game, but he still must work through the concussion protocol and the Packers won’t know anything for sure until later in the week.
It will be a minor miracle if Watson can have a productive season because once a rookie gets hurt, he falls behind, and rookies can’t afford to fall behind. Somehow, they must get something more out of him in the final two months of the season or find someone else.
At least they know that Rodgers will throw him the ball if Watson is on the field. They couldn’t guarantee that with anyone they brought in through a trade. Watson showed early on that he knows the offense and Rodgers has praised him for keeping up with the adjustments while on the sideline.
It took Rodgers half a season to trust Toure, who showed during training camp that he had a good understanding of the offense and was a reliable target. But unless Rodgers throws him the ball in practice, no one knows exactly what he can do.
Everyone found out in the Buffalo game, so there’s a chance he could develop as a complement to Doubs. He has 4.44-second speed in the 40-yard dash.
More:The Packers defense did a lot of tough talking, but the offense actually played that way
But Watson is an elite athlete. His score on the “relative athletic score” (9.96 out of 10) is comparable to Calvin Johnson and Julio Jones and blows away the score of any other Packers receiver. It doesn’t mean he’s going to be a great receiver, but it indicates what kind of potential he has if he can stay healthy and learn the finer points of being an effective pass catcher.
If his season is a wash, the Packers will have to find some other way to improve their offense. If they can’t, then Gutekunst will have to explain how it is he left the position so vulnerable in a season the Packers thought would end with a Super Bowl title.