A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. ~Shelby Foote

Monday, February 05, 2007

#4 Returns!

While most of the football world was watching and dissecting some game down in Florida, Packer Nation was rejoicing that we will have one more year of Brett Favre before the inevitable. Now, Favre is not the QB he was five years ago, but he's still well above average, and with an improving team around him... well, expectations are considerably higher for next year than they were for this year (when I thought Green Bay would be lucky to win six games).

On top of Favre's return, and a year's seasoning for many of the youngsters that were the core of the new Pack, Green Bay has a lot of available money-- roughly $20 million-- to make moves in free agency. And most of the good free agents this year are on defense-- which is an area that Green Bay improved in, but where they can definitely use another top-notch player. Or even two.

We shall see, but it will be good to have Brett back for one more season. He's no longer a premier quarterback, but he's still better than 2/3rds of the guys our there. Don't think so? Look at this list of starting QBs (roughly in order of quality-- I spent almost no time on this):

1. P. Manning
2. Brees
3. Brady
4. Palmer
5. McNabb
6. Bulger
7. Vince Young
8. Hasselbeck
9. Romo
10. Vick
11. Rivers
12. E. Manning
13. Rivers
14. Delhomme
15. Green
16. Leinart
17. Leftwich
18. McNair
19. Pennington
20. Cutler
21. Roethlisberger
22. Grossman
23. Losman
24. Carr
25. Kitna
26. Simms
27. Brooks
28. Frye
29. Campbell
30. Harrington/Culpepper
31. T. Jackson/B. Johnson

Looking at that list, you would certainly take a few of the young guys, like Leinart, Rivers and Cutler, before Favre long-term, but for one more season, I'd take #4 over all but the first six or seven. So, one more good year out of Brett with an improved cast around him and a coach that seems to have a clue-- yeah, playoffs are a definite possibility next year.

Big question marks-- what will the Packers do at RB, and will they add a WR or TE to the mix? Personally, I think Tony Gonzalez would look good in Green and Gold for one or two years.

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