Even with Jimmy Graham expected back Bryan Bulaga Jersey , Green Bay heads into yet another offseason wondering how to fill the hole at tight end."Over the next two weeks, Acme Packing Company takes a look at each position group on the Green Bay Packers and provides grades and insight on how they performed in the 2018 season. Today, we examine the tight end position heading into free agency.Ever since Jermichael Finley¡¯s unfortunate, career-ending neck injury, the Green Bay Packers have been a revolving door of sub-standard tight end play. After attempting to make do with mid-round picks and undrafted free agents, in 2016 Ted Thompson signed Jared Cook who was excellent in an injury-shortened season. His agent botched a potential return and the Packers signed Martellus Bennett while Cook¡¯s agent tried unsuccessfully to get a better offer than the one Green Bay made. How did that go? In the words of Pete Campbell, ¡°Not great, Bob.¡± Last offseason, it was Jimmy Graham, making the third consecutive spring the front office took a big swing with a free-agent tight end. They also signed Marcedes Lewis, added Robert Tonyan after a late-2017 stint on the practice squad and kept Lance Kendricks from the Bennett offseason. It was supposed to be the great fortification of the position the team needed. Narrator: It wasn¡¯t. Lance KendricksNFL Experience: 8 yearsFA Status: Unrestricted free agentExpiring Contract: 2 years, $4 million 2017 Stats: 16 games, 25 targets, 19 catches, 170 yards, 1 TDWhen Kendricks joined the Packers in 2017, he was to be the move tight end to complement Bennett¡¯s dual abilities as a blocker and receiver. Instead, he caught just 18 passes, never became part of the offense even after Bennett¡¯s departure, and struggled overall with Brett Hundley at quarterback. Having Aaron Rodgers didn¡¯t improve things much for him in 2018. Some dreadful drops gave way to a second half of the season in which Kendricks began to find a meaningful role as a dump off tight end and security blanket. Kendricks¡¯ blocking isn¡¯t horrid, but he¡¯s not good enough next to Jimmy Graham to make up for Graham¡¯s deficiencies, nor is he so dynamic as a pass catcher a team can just live with that. Graham is coming back, which means Kendricks can¡¯t be. Marcedes LewisNFL Experience: 13 yearsFA Status: Unrestricted free agentExpiring Contract: 1 year, $2.1 million 2017 Stats: 16 games play, 4 targets, 3 catches, 39 yardsThis one is on McCarthy. One of the best blocking tight ends in football? Nah Kyle Murphy Jersey White , Graham will be fine there. A 6-foot-7 monster who caught five touchdowns a year ago? Meh, throw it to him ... like whenever. What was the plan here? How did McCarthy, Philbin, et al look at this player and think, ¡°We can¡¯t use him?¡± Lewis played just under 18% pf snaps last season and was an afterthought in both phases of the offense. Why? How? For all the consternation about Aaron Jones not getting enough touches, the lack of Lewis in this offense may have been equally puzzling given how poorly Graham and Kendricks played most of last season. Free agency is difficult to predict. Lewis¡¯ old coordinator in Jacksonville will be Matt LaFleur¡¯s OC in a scheme that requires a quality blocking tight end, so there¡¯s reason to think Lewis could be back. He also flamed Mike McCarthy in an interview with Martellus Bennett and admitted Rodgers just calls whatever plays he wants. Is that a betrayal of the team¡¯s confidence to tell tales out of school? And would it prevent the front office from bringing back a player who could still help this team? Robert TonyanNFL Experience: 1 yearFA Status: Exclusive rights free agentExpiring Contract: 1 years, $480,000 2017 Stats: 16 games played, 6 targets, 4 catches, 77 yards, 1 touchdown The amount of Big Bob stock being held on Packers Twitter is enough to cause a run on the banks in the near future and it¡¯s not difficult to see why. The 54-yard bomb he caught against the Seahawks (Rodgers said he thought he was throwing to Graham) was the biggest play a tight end has made for the Packers since Richard Rodgers caught the Hail Mary against the Lions. Tonyan showed excellent receiving skills in preseason, along with body control and athleticism as a former college receiver. He has the frame to get better as a blocker, something he must do if he wants more playing time and there¡¯s an enormous opportunity in front of him to do grab those snaps. But for now, he¡¯s Tight End Janis, a player with estimable promise who has limited regular season success to go with excellent preseason production. Relying on him to be the TE2 for a team hoping to compete for a Super Bowl is a tough ask, but he could be a useful player down the line if he keeps progressing. Given his status as a ERFA, the Packers will almost certainly offer him the one-year tender, which he can either accept or sit out. Even if the Packers draft a tight end this spring, Tonyan will have a huge advantage at a position notorious for slow starts due to the learning curve. We will learn in 2019 if Tonyan is Janis 2.0 or something more. Look around the league at the top offenses in football and you¡¯re unlikely to find deadweight coaches trudging alongside the innovators. Andy Reid doesn¡¯t employ stragglers. Matt Nagy packed his staff with young offensive minds. Doug Pederson might just have had the best offensive staff in football when the Eagles won the Super Bowl last season. And Sean McVay just had one former coach hired for a head job. Zac Taylor may be next. Hiring Joe Philbin to a major offensive position like coordinator doesn¡¯t represent the way the modern NFL works. For whatever benefit there may have been to having a respected coach already in the room, he¡¯s not the guy to push the offensive forward in a way it so desperately requires. The Green Bay Packers theoretically didn¡¯t hire LaFleur for continuity¡¯s sake. They did it to blow things up on a certain level. That leaves Green Bay in search of an offensive coordinator, someone who the team reportedly would like to have ties to the Shanahan-McVay offense. Remember, for all the plaudits McVay rightly receives for his offense, the bones of it are Shanahan the elder¡¯s, while the younger Shanahan and McVay have developed their own modern wrinkles. Any job coaching Aaron Rodgers will be desirable, but not having the chance to call plays could limit the field of candidates for LaFleur and the Packers. The most obvious choice is a name many fans considered before LaFleur got the job: Rams quarterback coach Zac Taylor. Some suggested a Vic Fangio head coach with Taylor running the offense represented the best option for the Packers offense. But while McVay let LaFleur go to Tennessee because he was going to get to call plays Womens Vince Biegel Jersey , it appears unlikely he¡¯ll do the same for Taylor ¡ª precisely because he won¡¯t. That signals LaFleur will, indeed, call plays for the Packers which may potentially complicate the search. Green Bay could run into the same issue with Rams passing game coordinator Shane Waldron, who has garnered some head coaching buzz, including reported interest from the Bengals. McVay appears to be a coach who, like McCarthy in Green Bay, wants to see his coaches go off and succeed, but only in the right situations. The playcalling problem once again crops up. But there are two Rams coaches who make sense and could view the Packers OC as a step up for them, assuming McVay agrees to let them leave. The first is Aaron Kromer, a veteran offensive line coach who coached on Sean Payton¡¯s Saints staff as part of their Super Bowl run. He also served as Bears OC and line coach for two seasons. His teams consistently maximize their talent along the offensive line and he would be an excellent coach to make sure the franchise quarterback stays clean. The other possible option is the peripatetic Jedd Fisch who, because he¡¯s moved around so much, has worked for coaches like Steve Spurrier, Brian Billick, Mike Shanahan, Pete Carroll, and Jim Harbaugh. Still, Fisch is just 42, comes with that diverse background in multiple offenses with college connections, and could be the kind of coach who offers unique suggestions to a coach like LaFleur, who has really only ever coached one type of offense. Another intuitive choice would be Matt¡¯s brother Mike, the 49ers¡¯ receivers coach and passing game coordinator. He checks the requisite boxes in terms of experience and relationship, but according to NBC Sports in the Bay Area, would prefer to remain in San Francisco. Working with your brother is certainly different than working for him, plus it¡¯s not hard to see why a young candidate like the 35-year-old LaFleur the young would view an OC job without playcalling as a lateral move. This speaks to the difficulty the Packers might have filling this void. LaFleur, at 39, has been around myriad quality coaches, but many of them have also graduated to bigger roles. Even though a coach like Gary Kubiak expressed interest in returning to coaching as a coordinator http://www.packerslockerroom.com/authentic-josh-jackson-jers ey , that kind of move doesn¡¯t fit with Green Bay¡¯s vision moving forward. LaFleur may lack the kind of longstanding relationships with coaches to come in just to be an offensive consigliere. When Mike McCarthy wanted to revamp his offense, he had coaches he could call, including Philbin. While ultimately that turned out to be insufficient, at least he had a cell phone with legitimate names on it. Looking at the Titans staff LaFleur put together, there¡¯s no name that jumps out from the usual places. The quarterbacks coach, Pat O¡¯Hara, spent most of his career coaching in the arena league and before Tennessee was in Houston as an offensive assistant. Receivers coach Rob Moore has only ever filled that role, going back to 2013 with the Bills and Raiders.The most intriguing name on the list of potential candidates is Mike McDaniel, a name to watch in the coming days. A former receiver at Yale, McDaniel has climbed all over the Shanahan tree along with LaFleur. The two coached together for a season on Gary Kubiak¡¯s staff in Houston. Then, while LaFleur coached the QBs in Washington, McDaniel served as an offensive assistant and receivers coach. The two once again reunited in Atlanta for the Matt Ryan renaissance, before LaFleur went to LA and McDaniel to San Francisco with ¡ªwait for it ¡ª Kyle Shanahan.Experience in the Shanahan offense? Check. Previous coaching connection and relationship with LaFleur? Check. Sharp, up-and-coming coach who won¡¯t be afraid to adjust on the fly? Check. One outside-the-box choice would be Shane Steichen, the Chargers quarterbacks coach. He¡¯s said to be well-respected inside the Packers organization and although he¡¯s not a Shanahan disciple, he worked under Frank Reich and Mike McCoy in San Diego (before the LA move) and survived McCoy¡¯s firing. His experience with Philip Rivers could dovetail nicely with an offense built around Aaron Rodgers as his physical tools inevitably decline as he ages. He was set to be the OC for Josh McDaniels in Indianapolis before the infamous pull-out, which confirms he¡¯s seen as a future OC by at least one smart offensive coach. Ultimately, the Packers must find a coach they see as able to both challenge LaFleur to keep the offense fresh, while working with him to revamp it from the ground up. There likely won¡¯t be the sexy, splash hire like Zac Taylor, but there are quality options available to the Packers. Getting the OC hire right won¡¯t be nearly as important as the DC hire, and the entire organization seems sure that¡¯s been taken care of by keeping Mike Pettine. Still, a first-time head coach has to find someone who can keep the ship steady even if he¡¯s not calling plays, while balancing the desire to innovate and create anew. That mantra is the story of the Packers 2019 offseason, so why should such an important hire be any different?