He has a little more arm strength than Flynn, but I don’t see Cousins being physically superior to Flynn in any meaningful way. To me they’re in the same “tier” of arm strength and are both far from what guys like TJack and Whitehurst offer in that category. And I don’t how Flynn’s ability to make pre/post-snap reads would be somehow unfit for Seattle’s scheme.

I saw the tweet, before it was posted here. I know you’re in the know, and figure there has to be some substance to the info you received.

Yet I remain skeptical. I’m unsure how certain it is, how certain Carroll & Schneider would be about scratching Flynn completely from their considerations, and I know an oft-used tactic among sports franchises is to feed ambiguous, conflicting, misleading, red herrings of information through various channels, sometimes even truthful information, to either test the waters or maintain the general plausibility of the information leaks at large. So I’m sure it’s what you’ve heard, but whether that’s the actual truth is another matter.

There is logic to it, I have to say. They’ve proven themselves to be significantly more choosy than nearly all other teams I’ve ever seen that had the kind of QB need they’ve had for the duration they’ve had. They’ve publicized their basic QB profile they’re looking for, and Flynn lies outside the core of that profile. How far out is a matter of debate.

It’s definitely believable, but I’m the sort that tends to receive & acknowledge developments like this, but then just sit back and wait to find out whether it was legit or not.

Of course you always want to get compensation if you’re going to lose a substantial piece, but trying to assemble a trade of Flynn is pretty complicated for GB. He’s a pure FA. Franchising him, signing him and trading him holds its own challenges, but it would also substantially complicate the contract situation of Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers is signed for 3 more years but he’s significantly outperformed it, and the current paradigm of QB salary management — not to mention the fact that they’re going to retain him and extend his contract at some point regardless of his outperforming it — means he’s going to get a reworked deal at some point. It could even be this offseason.

That means Rodgers is going to get a lot more money. That means he’ll get a big signing bonus, a lot of guaranteed money, within the next 2 years. That increases his chunk of their cap size, for one thing, but if they Franchise Flynn, he gets a big bone, which amounts to forfeiting plenty of leverage in negotiating with Rodgers. If Flynn gets a big bone off that Detroit game, then Rodgers, who is already at a minimum, going to be a new member of the $100m QB club, is just going to cost that much more.

If Flynn were better trade bait, like Schaub or Kolb, he’d command a 1st round pick. By draft value chart, a late 1st. Hasselbeck was also better trade bait, and cost comparable value. If he were lesser trade bait, like Whitehurst, he’d still cost the equivalent of a late 2nd. The expected contract and starting time he’ll get from another team gives GB a 3rd compensatory. So they could get up to a round & a half better if they could successfully pull off a complicated trade, but it’s pretty unlikely and really not worth the cost.

I feel comfortable saying that the likelihood of Flynn to Seattle is “slim-to-none” but that’s because the local media’s (O’Neil, Williams, Sando) have been saying it for months.

I’m so confused right now.

Fact.

So, yes, they’ve got a bunch of good pass-rushers, but they’ve also invested all over the defense.

Which I don’t think is true. Giants had a lot of clear ideas, including the four-DE look that Spags invented and still implemented in St Louis (you might remember me talking about it when I looked at our offensive line following the Rams game), and using Kiwanuka as an LB. They’re very good at this whole scheme-and-scout the pass rushers, though.

In a base, traditional 3-4, the nose is right on the 0-tech and the DEs tend to be lined up as 4-techs (on the tackles) or close to, which pushes the OLB, who are often lined up on the line, into more of a 9-tech spot. But comparison, our current 4-3 over kind of knocks the big three towards the strong side and isolates the Leo on the LT, when possible, though our defense doesn’t really switch a lot if they decide to put a TE on Clemons.

A few differences would be:
- The blitz OLB would be free to blitz because everyone else 2-gaps. Clemons has a big rungame responsibility in our system. There is no 3-4 system, Phillips, Nolan or traditional, that does not have the OLB shooting a gap our outside.
- The OLB position always lines him up for outside rush on a single guy, whereas Clemons nudges further inside to shoot the B. If rarely.
- Even when blitzing on most snaps, any 3-4 also depends on the OLB covering the flats. Williams was an exception because he doesn’t have the skills, just like you didn’t see Aldon Smith drop into the flats for the Niners. But it’s a necessary skill for the long term.

The difference in our gap responsibilities also have a huge impact on what our LBs can do, and that would be significantly different in any kind of 3-4 too. Our front four personnel is significantly more 3-4ish than our linebackers.

No hate—sorry if that sounded too harsh….its all good.

That said, I presented reasons why playing in the Phillips 3-4 does not give Mario Williams “scheme versatility”. He’s never played a traditional 3-4 role, he doesn’t particularly look like he could (maybe 3-4 end if he bulks up). Listing him as versatile is based on a misunderstanding, one that does annoy me a little bit. If you have reasons to believe he can actually be moved around the line, please feel free to offer them, otherwise there’s nothing to discuss here.