Poor Man’s Packers Podcast

The #1 Packers Podcast in the state of our minds. The Packers are the device we form our shitty takes around, all of which, are subject to change.

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

PMP POD: 2026 ULTIMATE DRAFT REVIEW

🧀 Packers Draft Breakdown
🧀 Number Reviews
🧀 DDS Nicknames
🧀 “Smack That”
🧀 UDFAs Overview
🧀 Jayden Reed Extension
🧀 Ed Policy’s Interesting Comments 🤔

https://t.co/kXYV9mhEEU

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

Last time the Packers “overpaid” for a receiver that didn’t have a 1,000 yard season was… Davante Adams

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

ESPN sources: Green Bay WR Christian Watson and the Packers reached agreement today on a four-year, $110.5 million contract extension that includes a $31 million signing bonus.

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

People who think the Watson deal is an overpay must have forgot about this.

[Bruce Irons @BruceIronsNFL]

Christian Watson has a higher ceiling than Justin Jefferson.

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

@StevenCheah Leave it blank. He is the top guy

[Tom Silverstein @TomSilverstein]

Not a crazy amount of money given the escalation of wide receiver salaries. Puts Watson ($27.5M) about 15th in the NFL in average receiver salary. If total guarantee is $31 million, then it ranks in the 20s among receivers. #Packers have about $70M in guarantees spent on WRs.

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

One less thing to think about. Rather pay him now than after the season. Looks to be getting less than Alec Pierce

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

ESPN sources: Green Bay WR Christian Watson and the Packers reached agreement today on a four-year, $110.5 million contract extension that includes a $31 million signing bonus.

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

@Brad_Deuster Agreed. Now the super important linebacker playing running back play is ruined.

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

Micah Parsons NFL running back? Parsons revealed on Jay Mohr’s podcast that the Packers have a package for him at halfback. The play is called “One Dive”.

[John Miller @JohnMillerNBC26]

Center Sean Rhyan spoke today about his 3-year, $33 million extension to stay with the #Packers. He reflected on how far his journey has come from getting suspended his rookie year, to getting benched last year, to being the starting center.

"I'm f*cking grateful, man."

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

Wilde put it out there today that in the past, Rodgers turned down being a Madden cover boy.

[Bryce DeGroat @NFL_Convo]

Aaron Rodgers (0 Madden Covers)
4 MVPs
1 Super Bowl
12 Playoff Wins
10 Pro Bowls
4 Time First Team All-Pro
Made The 2010s All Decade Team

Caleb Williams (1 Madden Cover)
0 MVPs
0 Super Bowls
1 Playoff Win
0 Pro Bowls
0 All-Pros
Not Even The Best QB In The Division

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

@packers

[Matt Schneidman @mattschneidman]

Micah Parsons on Lukas Van Ness: “I think by the end of this season, if Luke stays healthy, I think he’ll probably be the (fan) favorite.”

Over you?

“I’m already a favorite, but I definitely think I’m going to have my hands full with Luke on who’s going to be the best.”

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

Mike Smith reading this

[Sam Monson @SamMonsonNFL]

Pressures vs sacks, let's talk about it.

I was dismissive yesterday, let's actually break it down as a valid discussion.

A sack is almost always a better play than a pressure in terms of results. A pressure CAN lead directly to a turnover, forcing an errant throw for an INT etc, so it's not always, but generally, a sack on the play is a far better result for the pass rusher than a pressure would have been.

BUT, that doesn't mean it was qualitatively a better rep from the pass rusher.

There's a wide range of quality in the pass-rush reps that can end in a sack (same thing is true for pressures). You can whoop the LT in 1.5 seconds and smoke the QB in a way that the play never stood a chance, or you could have been dominated by your blocker, but the QB tripped over as he went by you and you touch the guy down for the stat. Box score shows those two plays as the same, but obviously, they're not.

This is where the subjectivity that people hate has some power. It's subjective, placing a distinction between those 2 plays, but clearly it's directionally more correct than acting like they were the same quality of play from the rusher. That's why PFF grades have some predictive power that other stats don't have. They can capture some of that lost info.

That range in quality of rep, added to the small sample size, is largely why sacks aren't a great measure of actual pass-rushing performance.

A rusher can play 1,000 snaps over a season. The difference between a solid season and an All-Pro season is 10 sacks to 20 sacks. 10 snaps. 1% of his season. Intuitively, we know that's just a bad sample size to be leaning on.

This is why people lean on pressures so much. The guy with 10 sacks may have 80 pressures. We're upping the sample size almost by an order of magnitude, which is in turn reducing the impact of outside variables. This is why the better indicator of FUTURE sacks is pressures, not current sack totals.

But pressures are just 'almost' plays.

Sure. But those almost plays aren't necessarily an indication of any failing by the pass-rusher. I can find you dozens of pressures over a season that are qualitatively better reps from a pass rusher than some sacks.

If you whoop the LT instantly, but the QB gets the ball out quickly against a CB who got roasted off the line, you may only end up with a pressure. Hell, if you even bury the QB with a hit but he manages to blindly fling the ball out of his grasp forwards, it's an incomplete pass and your sack becomes a pressure, even if the play was wildly risky by the QB.

The point is that you don't always control the outcome of the play as a pass-rusher, certainly less than people want to ascribe when they're dismissing players with high pressure totals and lower sack numbers.

People like to think of elite pass-rushers as 'finishers', but in reality I think that's pretty rare, and a much lower factor in finishing than the other influences outside of the rusher's control.

There ARE some players who 'finish' pressures into sacks at an unusually high or low rate over a few seasons, but they're rare. Most players regress back to the mean in either direction after an outlier season.

None of the top 10 edge rushers over the last two seasons in terms of pressure to sack rate had an overall pass-rush win rate over 20%. And basically the only guy to rank very highly in both is Myles Garrett, arguably the best single football player in the game.

The bottom line? You want as much data as possible when you're evaluating edge rushers. As big a sample size as you can find.

High pressure totals are a pretty good indicator of pass rushing ability. High pressure rate has signal. PFF pass-rushing grade has power.

Combine as much as you can to build the best picture of a rusher you can get, but sacks would be a few steps down on the list of data points i'd focus on if i was trying to evaluate how good a pass-rusher was.

Sacks are the goal, not the best measure of performance.

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

Well I heard it was "Howie vs. Gute"

[Ian Rapoport @RapSheet]

This has gained some steam on social media, so just to provide some clarity:

#AZCardinals edge rusher Josh Sweat is not being traded. Not to the #Packers or anywhere. Carry on…

[Ian Hartitz @Ihartitz]

Feel like Jordan Love gets a bit unfairly criticized on this one. 4th and 8. Had to make something happen. Threw a one-on-one jump ball at the last second, Doubs didn't go after it b/c he had already stepped out of bounds. Probably should've at least tried to play defense.

[Dominique Yates @RealDYates]

MarShawn Lloyd on his mindset heading into this season with the #Packers:

"If I want to change that narrative, prove it."

[weston hodkiewicz @WesHod]

John Williams getting center snaps with the twos

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

McManus was almost perfect in training camp last year. You'd think this year it would be similar and he'd outkick Smack in camp.

But Mcmanus had a bad regular season and god awful post season. You'd think McManus was cut because come January, Smack will be the better kicker.

[Bill Huber @BillHuberNFL]

Smack goes 5-9 on FG. Two ugly misses. Hit from 47 and 48 to end the period. It is windy, FWIW.

[Poor Man’s Packers Podcast @PMPPod]

He lives

[weston hodkiewicz @WesHod]

MarShawn Lloyd is doing team today

[Rob Demovsky @RobDemovsky]

Different look to the No. 1 OL this week. Rookie fifth-rounder Jager Burton opens at right guard, while Anthony Belton kicked out to right tackle.

On defense, another rookie — third-rounder Chris McClellan — was with the first group at DT next to Javon Hargrave.

[Dominique Yates @RealDYates]

Josh Jacobs is back with the team for #Packers OTAs.