Bringing things up to speed

Rather than make all of the previous little posts about what happened since, I decided to just bring this blog up to speed in one post.

The Packers have:

1) Tagged Ryan Pickett.
2) Tendered offers to all restricted free agents except for Kapinos and DeShawn Wynn.
3) Let Chad Clifton, Mark Tauscher, and Aaron Kampman test the free agent market today.
4) Have yet to make any free agent signing news of their own (big surprise right?)

My thoughts on all of these situations:

1) Good move. Pickett hasn't signed the offer sheet (as far as I've heard) so that means both sides are still trying to work out a long term deal.  Pickett and Raji give some good depth at the keystone position of the 3-4 defense.

2) All good moves.  High tenders on all the right guys.  Kapinos is probably getting a little too much blame for the lackluster special teams performance last year, but he wasn't special enough to hang on to.  Not tendering Wynn could have a few implications.  Either they feel he isn't recovering well enough, financially it doesn't make sense, or we'll be seeing Ahman Green, or a veteran FA in the backfield next year.

3) These were all poor choices. Clifton is in Washington right now, with a coach and team looking for an experienced, zone-blocking LT.  Washington's own, Dan Snyder also has some deep pockets and will probably over pay for him if Shanahan wants him. This is terrible with the news today that Julius Peppers and Kyle Vanden Bosch just entered the NFC North.  Not having a solid LT will more than likely mean more of Aaron Rodgers running around trying not to get crushed. I don't see any logic in Ted's thinking here. I bet Clifton is a Redskin by the end of the weekend.  As for Kampman, I can't see him resigning with the Packers.  He has too many teams that want him at his natural position. And Tauscher has probably had it with the Packers front office.  I don't blame him.  He has been solid and came back from injury well. Things are not looking good for the Packers OL this year.

4) Not really surprised here.  Ted never seems to play the game on the first few days.  Truth be told, there isn't much out there that would help the team anyway that would be worth the price.