He's a free agent and age 29 http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000113506/article/greg-jennings-doesnt-see-a-packers-return-in-2013 As with many free agents he'll be over paid. But, I don't see him as a dominant impact WR; nor getting that kind of money as his productivity has been down this year. He also has had some tough injuries. But, he's been very productive when healthy. He obviously would be a great fit in the Dolphins offense. Personally, I think landing Jennings plus adding a WR in the 1st two rounds of the draft would be a great get. In my view, we need two additional WR's. None of the WR's on the team are legit starters. They are at best 3rd and 4th WR's on a team with good WR's. There are young kids (Rishard Matthews, for example) who could still improve and become bonafide NFL WR's. Nevertheless adding two WR's in this way would really set up the Dolphins for some good WR play next year and also Jennings would be a huge help to both the WR's and to Tannehill in this offense. Barring severe injury he has 2-3 more quality seasons in him, imo.
Account me not a buyer of the theories that Greg Jennings is "done". He's 29 years old, not 39 years old. His injury issues in years past have all been kind of minor dings and scrapes, an ankle sprain here, hamstring there, etc. No major injuries. This year has been the first year he's had to deal with a major injury and it looks to me like a fluke-ish type of injury...the type that doesn't necessarily have long term effects but can have devastating short term effects. He had a tear in his lower abdominus. They tried to let it heal without surgery but you can't do anything day to day, even just move around, without straining it...so it didn't heal. Eventually he had the surgery as they were tired of waiting for it to heal but in the mean time any time he was out on the field you have to imagine both his speed and agility were severely hampered by the injury. If your core is hurt like that I don't know how you can play the position to be honest. He had the surgery and now he's just coming back from it, and obviously that's been a process over the last three weeks. There are systemic issues in that passing game anyway, as evidenced by Jermichael Finley's suddenly becoming a bad player, and Jordy Nelson's being far off his pace from a year ago. With Jennings gone I think Rodgers has had to feel his way out on how to operate the passing offense and you can't just re-insert a recovering Greg Jennings and immediately think the offense is going to snap back to 2011 form. Greg Jennings is not just a great route runner that gets separation and catches the football, he's also a fast and physically impressive player that ran a 4.42 at the Combine at 5'11" and 200 lbs. Again I emphasize his injury issue this year is essentially a hernia, not some kind of devastating knee tear...so I'm not sure why people would expect he no longer runs fast.
I think it's actually pretty fortunate for the Miami Dolphins that Jennings has gone through an injury plagued year while at the same time it not being an injury that has lasting longer term effects. It makes him cheaper without making him a worse player. It's also fortunate that Jordy Nelson is going through a down year because they can point to that and say how do we know that Jennings' production over the years hasn't been overinflated by one of the best QBs in football, and when that guy starts playing worse suddenly Green Bay has a bunch of good-but-not-great players. The irony of that argument of course would be that there's a strong possibility that Jennings unavailability and health may be one of the big factors in that offense suddenly stumbling all year.
I'm all for Jennings or Wallace. Getting a WR in FA would just make everything else so much easier. But of course, it's unlikely given some of the articles that have come out recently
I agree with your draft philosophy DFin, but not with your overall evaluation of Jennings.. I have for years taken a stance for this guys talent, only to see him emerge as a top 8 player at his position in his prime..his prime is still in play, maybe off a hair...
There are enough needs on the Dolphins to make it a priority to address one of them with a quality player and it might as well be Jennings. Not everything is going to immediately be answered with the draft. Immediate answers are going to be found with a trade or free agency.
I'm torn on him. I'm philosophically opposed to signing 28+ yr old players from other teams. They are typically past their prime, not valued enough to be re-signed, and looking for one last big contract before the clock expires on them. Over the life of a 5-6 yr deal there will be diminishing returns as the player ages. It's much safer to build through the draft and sign FAs on in the 26-27 yr range who will see there prime years during the life of the contract we sign them to. OTOH we are so friggin bad at WR that we almost have to take a risk we wouldn't normally take. Because expecting to find a play now WR in the draft is unwise and we dont need just one, we need two of them. A good compromise would be signing a younger FA WR and using the draft to compliment the signee. Dwayne Bowe and Mike Wallace aren't as good a fit, but we are much more likely to get their best play during the life of the contract, Jennings' best days are most likely behind him.
Sign Jennings, resign Brian Hartline, draft a receiver in the 2nd or 3rd round (unless the BPA in the 1st happens to be a receiver) and take your chances.
I like Wallace because e is a burner and can stretch the field and draw a double/safety help. If he gives us a handful of big plays great. But his real value will be allowing our other WRs and backs to run free. Hopefully with a guy like that, the Bess and hartlines can start gashing teams for 20-30, not just 7-10.
FWIW one of our commentators has been in GB for a week making a documentary about the way the Packers are owned and I asked him to ask GJ about coming to Miami. He said that he was very happy in GB, that he enjoyed the lifestyle of Milwaukee but had heard a lot of great things about the life in Miami. It means nothing beyond being more grist to the mill. That said, with the emergence of James Jones and Randall Cobb, I'd be very surprised if he's not a Dolphin.
^This. With this scenario, you keep our best receiver from this year who has built up a lot of chemistry with Tannehill, you add a veteran guy who not only provides Tanny with a solid #1 option, but who can also serve as a leader/mentor to the rest of the WR corp (probably the whole offense really), and you add a young guy to sort of groom under Jennings. Greg Jennings Brian Hartline Rookie Davone Bess Rishard Matthews Marlon Moore Looks good to me! (at least on paper)
Huh? Rodgers has a 104.7 passer rating and is on pace for 4100 yards and 36-37 TDs. His 2011 season was unprecedented and anyone who actually thought he would duplicate that was delusional. Rodgers' season this year is better virtually across the board than it was in 2010 with Jennings. And when Jennings was out last year that passing offense hummed along even with Matt Flynn. That passing offense has been effective regardless of who is in there at WR or TE.
And maybe your boy Tavon Austin as well. I tell you I was just re-watching his performance against Oklahoma. Watching that game is like watching the Dolphins unleash the Wildcat for the first time on a totally unsuspecting New England defense. You could see the train wreck developing slowly because how the Sooners decided to defend the look was just plain atrocious, and if they kept up with it, it was only a matter of time before Tavon roasted them thoroughly. Sure enough, 21 carries for 344 yards with 4 catches for 82 yards and one of the most thorough single-player shellackings I've ever seen done to a big time program. The thing is, you have to feel for the Sooners here. What do you do? You can't afford to treat Tavon Austin as a real tailback when you march your personnel out on the field. You have to be in nickel. And if the offense lines Austin up as the single back in the backfield with two bigger bodies overloaded out on the wing to one side, you create easy screen opportunities. Yet if you bring more bodies out to the wing to defend it, you've fewer and smaller players getting chewed up in the meat grinder in the middle where the OL is, opening up big highways for Austin. It's no wonder even with Iowa State's fantastic defensive coaching staff and linebacker A.J. Klein having a week and a game of tape to figure it out, they still couldn't stop it. Austin had 14 carries for 74 yards (5.3 YPC) with 6 catches for 99 yards and 1 TD. You know if Miami doesn't take this guy New England will, lol.
I think it would be folly to sign an early WR for the heck of it. The talent has to be there. IMO Tavon Austin is a great talent and fit that could be available in 2nd, but beyond him, I don't see many WRs I'd be salivating over. Maybe I'll find another one I like in that range as I we get closer to the draft, but until then I see it as foolish to advocate taking a WR in a certain round. It's all about picking the right player.
I'm not upset at all. I'm laughing at the absurd notion that Rodgers 104.7 passer rating season is indicative of his stumbling because he hasn't had Greg Jennings for much of the season.
I bet so. They had to be completely dumbfounded. Credit to Dana Holgorsen though. They go on a four game losing streak where suddenly they can't score points (unheard of for that offense) in large part because there's no ground game and Geno Smith can't handle having to do it all himself even if he does have Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey. Dana Holgorsen comes up with a new scheme and bam, they're off to the races again. Sure they still lost to Oklahoma by 1 point but they scored 49. And they've won two in a row since.
Get any combination that is 2 of Wallace/Jennings/Bowe, consider adding Cook at TE, and draft a WR and TE. Go all the **** out on those positions IMO.
Alright. I'll take you seriously for a moment. You're reaching. It's pretty obvious what I was referring to and I think you actually know better. The Packers started off the first 5 games this season scoring only 112 points, only 105 of which were actually on offense (punt return TD). That's 22.4 points per game if you don't adjust, and 21.0 points per game if you do. Things started to pick up a little better with 42 points against the Texans and 30 against the Rams. However against the lowly Jags their once-juggernaut offense only scored 17 points. They only scored 17 against the crappy Lions defense as well, only 10 points against the Giants defense, 23 against the Vikings, again only 20 points against the Lions, and 21 points against the Bears. For the season that's a 22.6 point per game average of offense. If you want to pretend that's humming along satisfactorily for a team that averaged 31.9 points of pure offense a year ago, have at it hoss. LOL.
Those are all divisional games your referring to.... New England only scored 23 on us. Your always getting lost in your silly formulas that mean nothing. Talk about reaching. All i hear is numbers from you anymore. People who dont watch refer to the stats. Meanwhile... Continue ignoring their issues at tailback, TE, Wr, and the whole philbin thing."lol hee hee hee"
Damn I must have missed when the Giants, Seahawks and 49ers joined the the NFC North. I guess I also missed when the Packers played an entire season in 2011 without ever playing a game against the rest of their division. Is that an exemption that a team can file for in advance? Can we send a request to the schedule makers in 2013 not to play New England twice? That'd be cool. It's curious to me whether you actually feel you have a point here, or whether you know you don't. I always wonder that whenever I see the whole "Blaarrgh, records of events that actually happened are baddd, you've got to feeeeeel the game, blah blah blah eyes, blah blah blah stats" thing.
Signing Jennings would be a blessing for our franchise. He is a playmaker and has the physical skill set that none of our WRs has. He would instantly open up the field more for our other WRs and give Tanny a great option to throw too. I'd be ecstatic if he ends up here! That being said, I'm not holding my breath he ends up here.
Great to hear from you Boomer (since I've got two kids in college, one getting married, I've had to drop Club Level for a period - always good to see your perceptions).
I wouldn't force a "reach" at WR in round 1. Depends where we draft and what some of these guys do in the off-season to a degree. But, there aren't any real top 10 talents at WR since Marquis Lee cannot come out. So, I'd likely trade down. That said, when the WR talent is a bit thin, that tends to make teams in need reach. SO some of these 2nd round talents could go in the 1st. I've seen a mock that has 4 going near the end of round 1 (assumes a couple of JR.'s in the mix). It would likely be trading down. Unless there is a stud we love at a need position I would be fine to do this.
I thanked your post because it entertained me. Not because it made sense. Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk 2
This is why I think it's pretty important the Dolphins get one of the big 3 WR free agents, or trade for an impact WR. I think there are things to like about some of the WR prospects at the top of the draft, but you don't have anyone (at least right now from my POV) that impresses you enough that you feel comfortable saying he is going to be your #1 WR next year and will significantly improve your passing game from day 1. Because I believe the Miami Dolphins and Ryan Tannehill need someone that can do that. I believe Jennings, Wallace, and to a lesser extent Dwayne Bowe will do that.
Harvin was the 22nd pick in the draft. Ireland wanted him but Settled for Vontae. Anyways I would love to have tavon, but his frame makes me wary. Now if he was available in the second, I would be all over it in a heartbeat.
Jennings states that he doesn't want the packers to put the franchise tag on him.... Cool...discontent..I'll take it..get the fu&$ out of that place and come down here brother.
