Randall Cobb
In the yearly competition to see who can sign or trade the best players that were no longer wanted by their previous team, the Seattle Seahawks were the clear winners.
This is honestly my favorite part of the offseason because Packer fans sit and complain about general manager Ted Thompson’s willingness to sit back and let other teams overpay for mediocre players. He rarely dips into the free agent pool because Thompson is all about a value. There is no value to paying $6 million for a player who will likely end up taking up a roster spot and never playing up to the contract (cough, cough, Davon House). Value is drafting younger players and hoping they pan out while taking no real risk. Re-signing Randall Cobb, a proven player, for $10 million has value because he has shown that he can be relied upon as a top receiver in this league. Re-signing Davon House, a promising player who has never been able to crack the starting lineup despite being given every opportunity to do so, for over $6 million a year is the definition of a low value contract.
Keeping players that fans have grown accustomed to seeing isn’t splashy; it isn’t something that stirs the fans’ imagination. Think about it like this, Randall Cobb and Bryan Bulaga are significantly more vital to the success of the Packers than Julius Peppers is, yet when the Packers announce that both players will be returning there is no mass hysteria, no jubilation. When an aging Peppers signed with the Packers last season internet memes and Facebook statuses exploding with excitement were unavoidable. Just look at the reaction of Seattle fans after they traded for Jimmy Graham, look at the countless headlines proclaiming Seattle as the NFL’s “juggernaut”. Distraught Saints fans are calling for the head of their general manager. Did we all forget that every NFL team is only trying to get better? Nobody put a gun to Saints general manager Mickey Loomis’s head and forced him to make that trade, he chose to. Maybe Graham is a locker room cancer, or maybe Loomis was scared away by how Graham has been injured more often than not lately. Several Seahawk players have already called Graham out in real life and on Twitter, maybe they know something that we don’t, or is not possible that the players playing the game know more about other players than fans do?
Let us keep turning on the general manager that has restored the Packers to a perennial championship contending team after the franchise was turning in lackluster season after lackluster season before Thompson came around. He hasn’t proven that he knows what he is doing and is certainly one of the best general managers in the league. He doesn’t deserve credit for drafting Aaron Rodgers, Nick Collins, Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, Josh Sitton, Bryan Bulaga, Clay Matthews, TJ Lang, and Eddie Lacy. Those are all players who are considered to be one of the best at their respective positions. He doesn’t deserve credit for not missing on one major free agent signing, saving the Packers from sinking millions into a player they get nothing from. He doesn’t deserve credit for letting Greg Jennings, Darren Sharper, Mike Wahle, Mike Flanagan, Marco Rivera, Brett Favre, and Ryan Longwell leave the Packers when they wanted more money for less play at the end of their careers. Other than those moves, what has he really done to prove himself?
If you want to crown the Seahawks then crown them, but teams don’t let great players go for a center and draft pick, keep that in mind.
