Packers Sign Free Agent TE Raymond Webber
Webber looks to make the transition from former wide receiver into a tight end with the Packers.
The Green Bay Packers announced on Thursday that they have signed tight end Raymond Webber, a second-year player out of Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
Webber last spent training camp with the Calgary Stampeders of the Candian Football League in 2013, although never played in a regular-season game. Prior to that, he spent time with the Arizona Rattlers of the Arena Football League.
Entering the NFL as an undrafted free agents with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2011, Webber spent the entire season on injured reserve. Then in 2012, he was with the New York Jets in the preseason, but again, never played in a regular-season game.
It appears Webber is trying to re-invent his career as a tight end after previously being listed as a wide receiver at his other stops. The Packers list him as being 6-2 and 237 lbs., although as Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes, Webber was 218 lbs. and ran 4.52 seconds in the 40-yard dash coming out of college.
As a collegian, Webber made 180 catches for 2,376 yards (13.2 avg.) and 16 TDs.
Webber does not qualify as an unrestricted free agent. Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, it's highly unlikely the Packers signed him for much more than an NFL minimum salary.
In essence, Webber qualifies as a low-risk option that the Packers can easily cut if he doesn't pan out and will not impact the team's salary cap.
Comments (39)
February 13, 2014 at 04:32 pm
must mean finnly gone for sure and quarless ?
Brian Carriveau
February 13, 2014 at 04:33 pm
Signing Webber adds depth to the position, but this move will have no impact on whether Finley or Quarless come back.
February 13, 2014 at 04:40 pm
I question bringing back Finley. Neck injuries are difficult to overcome, e.g. Nick Collins. While Finley's is not as severe as Collins's, I still think the Packers might be better off financially to let him go.
Load up on players with incentive to perform. Ted Thompson is headed on the right path.
Evan
February 13, 2014 at 04:42 pm
Nice size and speed for a WR. Not sure about as a TE.
February 13, 2014 at 07:19 pm
6'2 237 now...or at least in that range.
Evan
February 13, 2014 at 07:33 pm
Yeah, he's getting up there. I wonder how much of that 4.5 speed he's maintained.
February 14, 2014 at 07:26 am
Probably more of a tweener. Probably more in the mold of a Delanie Walker type of player.
February 13, 2014 at 06:15 pm
Fuck that shit probably our big free agent signing for the spring,christ teddy you fucking kidding me
February 13, 2014 at 09:59 pm
Most eloquent.
February 14, 2014 at 06:31 am
Agree. Almost harkins the days of the great bard Shakespear himself.
February 14, 2014 at 06:47 am
LOL
or at least SQ (snicker quietly)
February 13, 2014 at 06:16 pm
Why don't we just go to high schools and see what we can find
February 13, 2014 at 10:24 pm
Or how about you never comment again? That be even better!
February 14, 2014 at 07:51 am
Ha not happening
February 15, 2014 at 08:51 am
Maybe they can hire Dudley Dawson to be their high school scout. He likes to look for talent there.
February 13, 2014 at 06:27 pm
Another out of position signing, way too small for TE, he won't make the squad.
February 13, 2014 at 08:00 pm
Sounds more like a James Jones replacement/possession WR than a TE. No risk.
February 13, 2014 at 08:49 pm
Where the hell does he find these guys? Hurt, small, couldn't make the Bucs and hasn't played forever. Typical signing by the most overrated GM in the league. Rumors floating around the Pack will spend some of that $30
million in cap money on a few key FA's. What a crock of shit! He'll just develop this project and troll for more. Draft badly, develop poorly and offer BJ Raji $8 million. Go home to mommy Ted!
February 15, 2014 at 09:09 am
Bobby,
You sound like this is one of the first offseasons you've been through as a fan of American football. Welcome to being a fan of a great game.
The offseason roster limit is 90. With Practice Squad guys, 61 will be around next Sept when the regular season starts. That means 29 guys are being signed for the offseason only. Some will not be huge prospects or stars. Some will not even make it all the way to training camp. These kinds of signings happen every year with all 32 teams.
The big name free agency signings don't start until the new league year officially begins in early March. The only exceptions are guys that are recently cut by their teams for salary cap reasons.
I hope this helps you understand the American football offseason a little better.
February 13, 2014 at 10:50 pm
Its about time TT starts bring in FA, like Wolfe did in the past! At least for a look!
This could be the most telling of times for TT, on Draft, FA, etc!
A- Rod's window is only a few yrs open!!!!
February 14, 2014 at 04:09 am
I figured it out at one point. TT gets good value on about 31% of his picks. Which isn't bad, NFL GM's range anywhere from 26-32%. He's even better if you take into consideration that he gets more picks out of his picks than other GM's. So not only he batting a good percentage he's getting to the plate more than most. TT get's more than his share of hits. While we've strung together a lot of hits, other teams have been hitting more homeruns. It is vital to hit on early round picks, but TT hasn't capitalized as much on his Top Picks.
TT needs to do better with Top-flight draft picks, But he's still doing well overall in the draft. In free-agency he's made a few decent to good additions, while avoiding almost any bad contracts, but has glaringly come up short at certain positions of obvious need, like safety.
If Rogers doesn't fall into TT's lap everything would be very different. Heck if Rothlisberger aims his 2 minute drill at hawk & bush instead of tramon & Collins everything might be different. TT has made too many big mistakes. He may be an above average NFL GM but not nearly as untouchable or unquestionable as most homer packer fans seem to think. Yes, I could do better.
February 14, 2014 at 06:08 am
By "Yes, I could do better" , do you mean you could do a better job overall than TT?
I'm just going to get some popcorn and enjoy the responses.
February 14, 2014 at 07:29 am
Change Popcorn to Whiskey... Hell at this point Busch light sounds good too...
February 14, 2014 at 07:34 am
I hope you were trying to be funny. Because it is kinda funny. Between you and 'ol Pooch this thread is really on a roll.
February 14, 2014 at 11:29 pm
Thanks Bert
February 14, 2014 at 08:18 am
Well it would look a lot better at the top of the drafts if Bulaga and Sherrod had not been on IR each of the past 2 years. Not to mention that Perry has only full played one season. That's 3 of 4 1st rd picks set back by injuries. Perry and Jones need to take a good step forward this year to be sure. But 34 OLB and DL in general take a couple years to develop. That's not even taking into account that Worthy and Hayward missed the entire season as 2nd rd picks!
I would say hitting on Lacy, Cobb and Hayward in the 2nd, not too mention Jordy, Jenning farther back.
Our 2 biggest holes are positions that suffered from CAREER ending injuries to Collins and Bishop. Injuries are the only thing hurting the Packers.
BTW don't you think you could at least spell
R O D G E R S, correctly?!
February 14, 2014 at 11:43 pm
Don't you think you could at least spell S T R A W correctly?
February 15, 2014 at 12:15 am
Thanks again for paying homage to me! It is appreciated.
February 15, 2014 at 07:55 pm
Your welcome to try anytime you like! Bring it on you little POS panty waste. I'll slap the bitch right outta you!
In the meantime all your doing is paying homage to STROH!!
February 15, 2014 at 10:29 pm
Not kidding in the least. Be happy to knock the bitch outta you and see if we can't make a man out of you yet, instead of the pathetic POS you are now!
February 15, 2014 at 09:35 am
Stroh,
You're underselling the 2nd round, TT's most productive.
In baseball terms, he's had a foul ball (Terrance Murphy), 2 whiffs (Brohm, Pat Lee), 3 singles (Colledge, Brandon Jackson, Neal) and 6 extra base hits (Jennings, Collins, Lacy, Nelson, Cobb, Hayward). That's one heck of a batting average.
Jerel Worthy hasn't settled into any category yet, IMO. Worst case is he busts and it is still one hell of a draft record in the 2nd.
February 15, 2014 at 02:59 pm
I was just throwing a couple names out w/o even thinking. I don't know if I would call Jennings, Nelson, Cobb, Collins and Lacy singles tho. Those are more like Home Runs!
February 15, 2014 at 05:17 am
Roethlesburger and Pittsburgh did make a huge mistake by not targeting Hawk......lucky for us. Huge blunder on the part of steelers. In 2011, attacking Hawk was 80 percent of every packers opponents game plan. They were like lions targeting and attacking the slowest wildebeest.
Hawk quit lifting so much, lost weight and now he's not the slowest wildebeest. But now he's just an old wildebeest that had to take a paycut.
February 14, 2014 at 08:58 am
I'm gonna one-up the Ted-haters...not only do I call out TT for bringing in a non-team-saving street free agent in February, I would like to scold Brian for not issuing a "grade" for the totality of the off-season, based on this move.
February 14, 2014 at 10:46 am
There were similar posts when the team signed s "similar" prospect, Bostick who was groomed for a year on the practice squad then became a contributor his second season. If he continues to progress, he can be a solid 3rd down and red zone threat for Arod, not many guys that size have the speed to run the seam routes. The Packer TE's should be named after a solid TE from the past, Ed West )"Tool Box" because all of them do one thing really well but none (Finley included because of his blcoking) enough to be a solid full time starter. It can work though, we won it all with Lee & Quarless alternating. Don't count the new kid out day one as pointed out in reference to Williams & Shields who became Pro Bowl type NFLers.
February 14, 2014 at 06:41 pm
Lee? As in Donald Lee?
February 15, 2014 at 04:24 am
Yes, we won the SB with Quarless and Donald Lee as our TEs...mostly Quarless.
February 15, 2014 at 04:53 am
If you re-watch the Atlanta playoff game from SB year, quarless was on the field for most of the TE snaps. Crabtree played just a little. I don't remember Donald Lee getting any snaps....not sure if he was even active. Maybe he was. I'd have to look.
Donald Lee didn't play so well in XLV (abysmal) and was cut almost as soon as the plane from Dallas landed in Green Bay (slight exaggeration), but they clearly were upset with D. Lee.
February 15, 2014 at 01:07 pm
Lee for the record played one more season with the Bengals starting a half dozen games to end a decent 9 year tenure in the NFL that included 6 years with the Packers, mostly as the starter. He was an over achiever and well liked, Thompson called him a "salt of the earth type guy" when they extended his contract.