Bruce said:
I have not got time to jump into this thread with a complete response, but I though it important to remind you that Wahle claims that Ted Thompson would not engage in talks with his agent (they called several times in the months and weeks leading up to his leaving for Carolina) and only made a token offer after releasing him and waiting for Carolina and several teams to call with offers that made Ted's token offer look like the face saving joke that it was. Wahle has consistently said that he never thought for a second that he would not need to renegotiate before his signing bonus and thought for sure it would be keep him or Rivera -- he never for a moment thought GB would let both leave.
GB offered TT a contract. Wahle said so himself. It was with an interview with Wahle last year as the Packers were getting ready to play the Panthers on Monday Night. Wahle and I quote Wahle said "The contract GB was offering was a "joke" compared to what Carolina was offering."
Green Bay made an offer. It just wasn't near in the range as Carolina. If you need to dig up the article it's from the Green Bay Press Gazette.
It is too early to see if Ted recklessly throws money at players -- we have not seen Woodson and his huge contract at any of the workouts and it sure has had a negative effect upon Harris's attitude and work ethic. Further Kampman (knock on wood) has yet to take a snap with his new mega-contract. Remember everyone thought Joe Johnson (who was only 28 at the time) was a top 5 DE when Sherman rolled the dice and signed him. An injury can change things quite fast. Some would argue that signing Driver to a new contract while still under contract set a bad precident and involved risk given his age.
While this is true, Sherman did give poor money to Robert Ferguson, Cledius Hunt, and KGB. The Joe Johnson signing wasn't a bad move, it was just unfortunate that Johnson got injured every other week.
Thompson has rewarded, Donald Driver who in my opinion is worth every penny. Donald Driver is what I would say is the best ro model on the Packers along with Favre. He gives you everything on the field and goes about himself well off the field.
He did give Aaron Kampman a big deal and Kampman again is another hard worker, not known to be lazy and might not be very productive, but gets the job done one way or another. Those 2 signings aren't reckless in my opinion, they're solid signings to two proven players. He also signed a lot of one year deals this year. The one deal I question is Charles Woodson. Time will tell with him.
We went from a playoff team to 4 - 12 under Ted, I am willing to give him time, but think he should be judged by his decisions and the teams performance -- like any GM. So far it has been far from impressive.
That wasn't Ted Thompson's team. He had 14 or 15 players that he brought in to compete. It was mainly still Mike Sherman's players and Mike Sherman's team. Blaming Thompson for a 4-12 team is uncalled for. Should he be part of the reason. Yes a little but for half the fans on this board just despise Thompson for last year and then call him out for not signing any big name players. Then when he does sign big name players, those very same fans then criticize the signings. That’s hypocritical and plain ridiculous. (not you Bruce but they're are some on this board)
If GB goes 8-8 this year, I think that tells you more about Mike McCarthy's ability as a Head Coach than Ted Thompson‘s as a GM. Next season (as in 2007) is the year to judge in my opinion. Thompson will also be approaching the end of his contract. So he'll be fighting for a new one.
Every GM deserves a 3 to 4 year run with a team to get they're players set and ready to work. We now have about 50-50 in Thompson’s guys and still Sherman's guys. It won't surprise me too see a lot of guys brought in by Sherman get cut come training camp and in the next year. Every GM cleans the previous mess so they can bring they're own mess or genius (whatever you want to call it) into play. It's too early to praise him although on paper this off season does look nice and it's too early to rip him apart.
Oh and when Thompson took Rodgers in rnd 1 last year, he put his job along with it in my opinion. Amazing how important a QB can be but Aaron Rodgers is the future of this team and if he's a hit, GB will be as well. If not then I would expect changes.
