Green Bay Packers: Best players that were traded away

Continuing with my three-part series assessing the best players traded away from each of the professional Wisconsin sports franchises, I will look at the best ones traded from the Green Bay Packers.

In my opinion, the list of Green Bay Packers traded away is the least painful of the three. Trades are not as common in the NFL as they are in the NBA or MLB, so it is less likely that a big player is traded away. There have been some that hurt and we’ll be discussing those today.

Now, before we get into the truly egregious losses through trades, there’s usually a few categories that don’t quite make the list but deserve to be mentioned.

There are two special categories, in particular, for the Packers and they both showed up in the Milwaukee Brewers article as well, the too early to tell category and the Brett Favre category.

Damarious Randall is the sole member of the too early to tell category. After three seasons in Green Bay, not playing his natural position of safety, he was traded to the Cleveland Browns for DeShone Kizer, who has since been cut by the Green Bay Packers. Last year, he had arguably his best season, being allowed to play safety, shattering his career high in tackles and tying his career high in interceptions with four.

The Brett Favre category is players that had great careers in Green Bay but were traded late in their careers, so them being traded was warranted because of their age. For the Packers, it includes three Hall of Famers. They are Jim Taylor, Herb Adderley, and, of course, Brett Favre. Jim Taylor was a five-time Pro Bowler for the Packers and won the MVP award in 1962 when he led the league in rushing yards. After being traded to the New Orleans Saints, he only played one more season and rushed for only 390 yards on 130 carries, an average of 3.0 yards per carry.

Adderley and Favre did have some bright spots in their careers after Green Bay, but neither was quite the same.

Herb Adderley played three seasons after being traded to the Dallas Cowboys before the 1970 season. For the Green Bay Packers, Adderley was an absolute force in the secondary as a five-time Pro Bowler and four-time All-Pro selection. He led the league in interception return yards two different times and scored seven interception touchdowns in his career. His approximate value, a stat made by Pro Football Reference in an attempt to get every player performance down to one number, was 21 in 1962 which led the league. His seasons in Dallas weren’t bad, but he didn’t make a Pro Bowl after being traded. His final season, in 1972, was the only season that he did not record an interception.

And now the man after who this category in named, Brett Favre. Arguably the greatest player in Green Bay Packer history, he made 11 Pro Bowls, won 3 MVPs, and won a Super Bowl. Everyone remembers his ongoing retirement saga that followed seemingly every season near the end of his career. Finally, the Packers went with Aaron Rodgers and traded Favre.

Favre had a chip on his shoulder and that was not a good thing for teams playing against him. He made the Pro Bowl the next two years, once for the New York Jets and once for the Minnesota Vikings. He also threw a career low seven interceptions in his Pro Bowl year in Minnesota. He did make the NFC championship game that year but ended it with a patented heartbreaking interception near the end of the fourth quarter, which led to the Saints scoring in overtime. Favre will forever go down as one of the best of all time, and the fact that ended his career in Minnesota will always hurt a little bit.

So with that, we will split the players on the list into two categories: Traded before the year 2000 and traded after the year 2000.