ZeroZCool--You have to remember the Reggie White deal, in context of the days of 1993, The salary cap and free agency had just come into effect in 1993. Therefore there was no Free Agency and salary cap problem at that time. The Packers could very easly sign Reggie White to the huge contract at that time needed to get Reggie White in to a Green and Gold uniform.
The new Century is a completely different era from 1993 and pre 1993 era. It took a few years after 1993 for the true effects of Competitive balance (Salary cap anf Free Agency) to have its full effect to be felt. It took 2005 season with loss of Wahle, Rivera, & Shaper due to salary cap considerations and also the loss of many key offensive players due to injuries which ended the Packer's streak of 13 non losing seasons. Remember the Packers had the best winning record of any NFL franchise from 1992 to 2004. No small accomplishment considering the Packers had been drafting in late rounds of the NFL draft for most of those 12 years and been successfully balancing salary cap considerations and for years, in order, to keep their core players.
Some Packer fans haven't a clue how fortunate they were to see 13 years of non losing football presided over by QB Brett Favre. We, long time Packer fans had to endure the 1948-1958 era of bad losing Packer teams. Also the very long time era of 1968-1991 of most losing Packer teams. Fortunately the conditions, that caused these two losing eras to occur, no longer exists. A NFL team can turn its losing record around in one season .
Hopefully the Packers will be able to do this in '06!
