I think we overpaid Shields.

I don't even know if that's very controversial. It looked like the FO mis-calculated the market last year prior to FA and gave him too much, simple as that. I really hope he's able to live up to the contract next year. It honestly seemed like he didn't progress this year at all, and backslid if anything.

I think we are overpaying for Peppers.

Probably, on a pure $ for quality of play basis, but that'll happen when A: your state has relatively high taxes and B: He signed a somewhat team friendly deal that was in realistically a two year deal if the team wanted it to be. When he was being signed I think both sides of the negotiating table knew he could probably get a "safer" deal elsewhere (more guaranteed or more years where he'll realistically be on the team) and you have to make up for that with more potential cash. I think he's overpaid, but I also think it's okay to overpay sometimes, if that makes sense.

We should let Kuhn walk.

Do you see the roster spot as that valuable? He's not going to cost very much...

TT is human, many of our recent top tier defensive draft picks have been misses and it seems like we frequently have been getting in situations where positional groups just suck for a long time for one reason or another (again, specifically on the defensive side of the ball).

I think that's just one of the cons of the Packers strict draft and develop philosophy: weak position groups can stay that way for a long time. Every approach to running a team has it's pros and cons, and this is the major con of Thompson's method. I'll take that over the alternative most of the time.

and any time we play a team with a top notch front four the offense seems to struggle mightily.

They hung 30 points on the Lions and rushed for over 150 in week 17 despite a gimpy Rodgers in the second half. That's definitely a strong defensive front- look what they did to the Cowboys in the playoffs. I don't think it's that "whenever" we play a great front we struggle, it's just that the only gameplan that has any hope of consistently slowing down the Packers offense requires a great front four.

Regarding this:

Hell, even going after Knighton, Wilfork, Williams, or Paea would be awesome. We need to address this spot.

The truth is it seems there aren't many true 0-tech guys left around, and the ones that are left will probably be overpaid as a result of the scarcity. Knighton and Wilfork would never happen IMO (too much money and too old). I'm not going to be surprised when this doesn't really get addressed this offseason.