RIP Ted Thompson

[yourout]

Thompson obviously drafted Rodgers, but he also drafted Bhaktiari and Adams, and his final class included Aaron Jones and Williams, as well signing Tonyan undrafted.

 

He was such a great evaluator of talent that it may have been his biggest flaw - he overestimated his prowess there and thought he didn't need much else. And still won a Super Bowl basically doing that.

 

 

I think that's a fair criticism. He was a great drafter, and didn't like to add via FA. He added the occasional piece here or there, it seemed when absolutely necessary, and the critics of the criticism will point out that "free agency doesn't usually work out in the NFL", but I think it's fair to point out that it sure felt like Thompson had a pretty narrow minded view of team building mechanics at times during his stay in GB.

 

That being said, while I didn't necessarily agree with Thompson the GM, I did feel for the guy when it seemed like he was in declining health, and am sad to hear the news. 68 is still too young. RIP Ted.

 

You are right. 68 is way too young. I'm 58 and hope I got more than 10 years left in the tank.

[adambr2]

I'm not understanding how the opinion of Rodgers as prospect has been exaggerated. He was very much in the conversation for going #1 overall. If the Packers really had some great insights, they likely would have traded up to get him. In fact, Rodgers was the favored #1 until pretty late in the game when a bunch of teams flipped on him.

 

They really just got lucky. I know Thompson did scout and loved Rodgers, but if you go back and look at the draft that year, it was definitely in the air that the guy who didn't go first would drop a lot, just because at the time, a bunch of teams had QBs or had their future QB.

 

Time has made people forget how the Woodson acquisition was viewed at the time. The consensus was that they overpaid an old vet to convince Favre to stick around. It was total nonsense of course. Thompson loved Woodson from before he was drafted. There was some story years ago of Thompson showing Woodson tape to scouts and basically saying "this is exactly how I want my CBs to play."

 

I think Rodgers as his "best move" is a fair argument, I just think Woodson was a far less obvious move. Favre was old, not playing particularly well, and a top 5 talent had dropped into his lap. Nobody really wanted Woodson to play CB anymore.

 

And if we really get down to it, Sam Shields is up there too. An undrafted CB who played that position for a single year in college. They don't win a Super Bowl without him, and he was probably one of the most underrated Packers of all time. The Shields, Starks, Tramon moves of his tenure are more impressive to me than hitting on 1st rounders, I guess, but that's totally subjective.

 

Seems to me that you're differentiating best move from shrewdest move. If we are talking which move had the most positive impact on our franchise, it's obviously Rodgers hands down (Woodson was a great move, no doubt).

 

Was Rodgers a "lucky" move too? Sure, but there were still 23 other GMs who chose not to make that move, and Ted did. And I don't think it was the slam dunk obvious pick at the time now that we see it as in retrospect. I think there were a lot of people upset at the time that we didn't use that pick to build immediately around Favre for the last few years of his career and instead took a future pick.

[BrewersSuperCollector]

I'm not understanding how the opinion of Rodgers as prospect has been exaggerated. He was very much in the conversation for going #1 overall. If the Packers really had some great insights, they likely would have traded up to get him. In fact, Rodgers was the favored #1 until pretty late in the game when a bunch of teams flipped on him.

 

They really just got lucky. I know Thompson did scout and loved Rodgers, but if you go back and look at the draft that year, it was definitely in the air that the guy who didn't go first would drop a lot, just because at the time, a bunch of teams had QBs or had their future QB.

 

Time has made people forget how the Woodson acquisition was viewed at the time. The consensus was that they overpaid an old vet to convince Favre to stick around. It was total nonsense of course. Thompson loved Woodson from before he was drafted. There was some story years ago of Thompson showing Woodson tape to scouts and basically saying "this is exactly how I want my CBs to play."

 

I think Rodgers as his "best move" is a fair argument, I just think Woodson was a far less obvious move. Favre was old, not playing particularly well, and a top 5 talent had dropped into his lap. Nobody really wanted Woodson to play CB anymore.

 

And if we really get down to it, Sam Shields is up there too. An undrafted CB who played that position for a single year in college. They don't win a Super Bowl without him, and he was probably one of the most underrated Packers of all time. The Shields, Starks, Tramon moves of his tenure are more impressive to me than hitting on 1st rounders, I guess, but that's totally subjective.

 

Seems to me that you're differentiating best move from shrewdest move. If we are talking which move had the most positive impact on our franchise, it's obviously Rodgers hands down (Woodson was a great move, no doubt).

 

Was Rodgers a "lucky" move too? Sure, but there were still 23 other GMs who chose not to make that move, and Ted did. And I don't think it was the slam dunk obvious pick at the time now that we see it as in retrospect. I think there were a lot of people upset at the time that we didn't use that pick to build immediately around Favre for the last few years of his career and instead took a future pick.

 

Favre just lost in the NFC Championship game and the Packers used their 1st rounder on Rodgers. I was pissed, and I can admit that. I thought at the time they should have used that move to help the team right away.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Not quite. The Packers hadn't been to the NFC Championship since 1997 when they picked Rodgers in 2005. They were more or less stuck in 10 win purgatory mode, and Favre had really developed a reputation for being turnover prone. They had just been to the playoffs, but the feeling that off-season was that a reckoning was coming soon and the team was about to decline precipitously. Thompson was THE reason that only took a couple of seasons. But they were 4-12 in Rodgers rookie season.

 

I was personally done with Favre by that time and wanted to move on. I didn't think they would ever win a title again with a QB who played like that.

 

He had a nice rejuvenation later, but I really disliked having Favre lead a drive at the end of a game. Rodgers gives me a confidence in those situations that I never had with Favre.

[MrTPlush]

It’s a boring pick for “best ever move”...but it is. Aaron Rodgers is the greatest decision and most impactful that TT ever had. Nothing else is even in the same universe.

 

Now if we want to debate his second best move...that would be a fun one. Though that may be, not only picking Rodgers, but committing to him by trading Favre. He dumped Favre after a solid year (for Favre) and the team going 13-3 while losing the conference championship in OT.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

It wasn't quite dumping Favre as much as just having a backbone and telling Favre to stick with his decision but it was awesome. I'll never forget "Favre can come back, but he'll be the backup to Aaron Rodgers."

[Fear The Chorizo]

It’s a boring pick for “best ever move”...but it is. Aaron Rodgers is the greatest decision and most impactful that TT ever had. Nothing else is even in the same universe.

 

Now if we want to debate his second best move...that would be a fun one. Though that may be, not only picking Rodgers, but committing to him by trading Favre. He dumped Favre after a solid year (for Favre) and the team going 13-3 while losing the conference championship in OT.

 

A big part of that decision to trade #4 was watching game tape of that nfccg and realizing Favre was probably the biggest reason they lost.

[PinaMadness]

It’s a boring pick for “best ever move”...but it is. Aaron Rodgers is the greatest decision and most impactful that TT ever had. Nothing else is even in the same universe.

 

Now if we want to debate his second best move...that would be a fun one. Though that may be, not only picking Rodgers, but committing to him by trading Favre. He dumped Favre after a solid year (for Favre) and the team going 13-3 while losing the conference championship in OT.

 

A big part of that decision to trade #4 was watching game tape of that nfccg and realizing Favre was probably the biggest reason they lost.

And in 2001, and in 2003 (yes, even more so than 4th and 26), and in 2004, and later on with the Vikings, 2009.

[HiAndTight]

Wolf made some splashier moves and then TT's final few drafts weren't that great. So that hurt his legacy a bit..

 

I think the narrative regarding the 'last few drafts' is widely accepted, but I don't know if I agree. If the mark of a successful draft is getting '2-3 legitimate NFL players' as I believe Ron Wolf once put it, then 2015 is an admitted disaster. But 2016 brought Clark and Martinez, and contributors in Lowry and Fackrell. 2017 brought King, Williams, and Jones.

 

I think there's a lot of bad feelings about the '17 draft because of passing on Watt, letting Biegel go without really having a chance to contribute, and King's early injury problems, but there's three legit NFL players there, including a dynamic play-maker.

 

I don't fault him for going with King over Watt, but that's likely part of it. We were really struggling to get help at CB at that time. I remember starting a thread asking people how they felt then about passing on Watt and MOST people were happy we got King and Biegel, or at least not upset about it. I didn't see TJ Watt becoming this type of player.

 

I'm talking about Randall, Rollins, Josh Jones, and then he also seemed to struggle on the DL with Kyri Thorton, Adams and Worthy is probably going too far back, but I think people were frustrated with how bad the defense was and even when you talk about some of the hits, Martinez was pretty maligned by fans. A little unfairly...and I would guess most people don't really associate Jones with TT since he really broke out after Gute took over. This doesn't mean it's fair, it's just how people view him. The Packers as a team really dipped at the end of his tenure. But that shouldn't take away from what he did in rebuilding the Packers after they were in cap hell.

[MrTPlush]

The first half of TTs tenure was so ridiculously good he, somewhat unfairly, really could only go down. The last handful of years were unfortunately a bit rough.

 

In all honesty he built two Super Bowl teams. It’s too bad Bostick and HaHa Clinton-Dix blew the second one when it was literally on the doorstep to a trip to the Super Bowl.

 

It’s easy to say he wasted Rodgers career, but getting to the Super Bowl a bunch isn’t that easy even in today’s NFL climate when looking at it. Outside of Brady it’s not like any other QB is going to the Super Bowl consistently or even often. Russell Wilson has only been to the two and as mentioned the second should have never happened. Those are his only two conference championship years so far too.

[HiAndTight]

I'm not understanding how the opinion of Rodgers as prospect has been exaggerated. He was very much in the conversation for going #1 overall. If the Packers really had some great insights, they likely would have traded up to get him. In fact, Rodgers was the favored #1 until pretty late in the game when a bunch of teams flipped on him.

 

They really just got lucky. I know Thompson did scout and loved Rodgers, but if you go back and look at the draft that year, it was definitely in the air that the guy who didn't go first would drop a lot, just because at the time, a bunch of teams had QBs or had their future QB.

 

Time has made people forget how the Woodson acquisition was viewed at the time. The consensus was that they overpaid an old vet to convince Favre to stick around. It was total nonsense of course. Thompson loved Woodson from before he was drafted. There was some story years ago of Thompson showing Woodson tape to scouts and basically saying "this is exactly how I want my CBs to play."

 

I think Rodgers as his "best move" is a fair argument, I just think Woodson was a far less obvious move. Favre was old, not playing particularly well, and a top 5 talent had dropped into his lap. Nobody really wanted Woodson to play CB anymore.

 

And if we really get down to it, Sam Shields is up there too. An undrafted CB who played that position for a single year in college. They don't win a Super Bowl without him, and he was probably one of the most underrated Packers of all time. The Shields, Starks, Tramon moves of his tenure are more impressive to me than hitting on 1st rounders, I guess, but that's totally subjective.

 

 

I'm not suggesting they had some great insight on him, I'm saying all the questions that came with Rodgers(which might not have been fair) and I think this idea that he was this almost sure thing at QB is a little bit revisionist. He was viewed as 1A to Smith, but it wasn't really looked at as a strong QB class(again, I've seen a couple of scouts say both would have gone around 20 in a normal year).

 

So I don't think Thompson knew he was going to be this good, but he gets credit for taking him while everyone else passed. It wasn't lucky in my opinion. It made Thompson's life hell a few years later when Favre retired and then unretired and kinda tore the fan base apart and it wasn't a popular pick when it happened either.

 

I think you're just ignoring the pressure on a GM who has a HOF QB and their teams in the playoffs and he picks...a QB. When you clearly need help elsewhere.

 

Ask Gute how the fans felt about him. And then instead of coming back and going 13-3 and hosting HFA in the playoffs, you go from the playoffs to 4-12 the following year(8-8 the next).

 

I just don't think it was as easy a call as you're inferring. It took a lot of conviction and he knew he'd take a lot of heat for it and that's ignoring what would happen in a few years.

 

Charles Woodson, that was a great move, but it was a contract that didn't have a lot of guaranteed money. That's the easier call for me.

 

They're both historically great moves in Packers history, so of course, it has to come down to splitting hairs and kinda nitpicking. Otherwise, you just say they're equal and that's not as fun in a debate!

[HiAndTight]

The first half of TTs tenure was so ridiculously good he, somewhat unfairly, really could only go down. The last handful of years were unfortunately a bit rough.

 

In all honesty he built two Super Bowl teams. It’s too bad Bostick and HaHa Clinton-Dix blew the second one when it was literally on the doorstep to a trip to the Super Bowl.

 

It’s easy to say he wasted Rodgers career, but getting to the Super Bowl a bunch isn’t that easy even in today’s NFL climate when looking at it. Outside of Brady it’s not like any other QB is going to the Super Bowl consistently or even often. Russell Wilson has only been to the two and as mentioned the second should have never happened. Those are his only two conference championship years so far too.

 

 

I'm convinced now more than ever Thompson's single greatest failing....

I think a little of the criticism Ted gets should go to McCarthy and his coaching decisions.

 

 

Was keeping McCarthy around as long as he did. I'll admit, I thought this was a Andy Reid like situation, McCarthy had just been here too long and things had gotten stale. No...he was just a terrible NFL coach. The talent he had in Dallas, he should have won that division easily, even with Andy Reid Dalton.

 

Meanwhile, Rodgers is 26-6 with MLF in the regular season and is playing his best.

 

Also...Aaron Jones, how many times were fans complaining that we were getting 5 yards a carry and only ran the ball X number of times in the 2nd half?

 

So Bostic and Clinton-Dix...and Peppers telling Burnett to go down and Capers going cover 0 on back to back 3rd downs in OT, all the things that went into it, it's hard not to think about how hampered Rodgers was with McCarthy as his HC all those years.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I actually thought this past year made McCarthy look ok, that last game not withstanding. His trademark slow start, losing the franchise QB, whispers he has no control over the team, and they suddenly rally to play pretty solid down the stretch and fight to have a shot at the division. I can't make a real judgement on a first-year coach whose starting QB goes down.

 

I think McCarthy is decent. I doubt McCarthy's scheme ever included Rodgers checking out of runs and sitting in the pocket for 9 seconds. Rodgers played worse relative to his career the last several years, there are no two ways about it.

 

I just think it's super rare for a QB/HC tandem to work out for 13 years. If I had to place blame on the Packers lean years, I certainly look at McCarthy, but Thompson isn't innocent there. They wasted a lot of time not signing Matt Flynn in 2013 and just refusing to acknowledge glaring holes on the team for years.

 

McCarthy is a good leader, I think. He's a good game planner. He's leave a lot to be desired with in-game adjustments, however.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Towards the end I feel like McCarthy's initial strength as a playcaller was hamstrung by the Packers' offense being limited by a lack of skill position talent/depth. Some of that was self-inflicted based on how his offenses evolved over time, though.

 

Early on in his tenure, McCarthy's offenses were well known for utilizing multiple personnel groupings and formations that kept defenses guessing even within a series, let alone a full game, of what they were trying to do. They seemed to identify mismatches on opposing defenses and find multiple ways to create favorable matchups. He always stressed breaking tendencies to make it difficult for teams to gameplan against them.

 

Later in his tenure, Green Bay seemed to go more towards a single personnel grouping for entire drives and longer depending what they felt gave the offense the biggest advantage - but even moreso to create that sugar huddle tempo that often saw Rodgers playing games with snap counts and trying to get free plays during attempted defensive substitutions. At times it looked like they were too focused on creating those free plays, and creativity on offense suffered - when there weren't free plays the offense was predictable and often devolved to playing sandlot football, almost holding the ball until a pass rush materialized that led to the play breaking down and had Rodgers creating on his own. The seasons where he was injured left the offense without an identity because it became so reliant on his ability to make plays outside the structure of a game plan. Towards the end, opposing defenses were frequently quoted saying they knew what Green Bay was going to do on most plays with how predictable their offense became.

[homer]

I'd be curious to know how many passes were thrown and the success of those passes from the pocket vs outside the pocket under McCarthy

[Fear The Chorizo]

I'd be curious to know how many passes were thrown and the success of those passes from the pocket vs outside the pocket under McCarthy

 

Or an even more accurate measure would be "on time" vs secondary routes/after the designed play broke down. There were always some designed rollouts baked into a game plan that got Rodgers outside the pocket by design...but there were also pocket throws on free plays where it was either a home run or an accepted 5 yard penalty for offsides/too many men. I always rolled my eyes when broadcasts would slap Rodgers' gaudy passing stats on "free plays" on the screen and opine how great they were - that's because if he threw an incompletion they'd just take the 5 yard penalty and the play would cease to exist.

[HiAndTight]

Towards the end I feel like McCarthy's initial strength as a playcaller was hamstrung by the Packers' offense being limited by a lack of skill position talent/depth. Some of that was self-inflicted based on how his offenses evolved over time, though.

 

Early on in his tenure, McCarthy's offenses were well known for utilizing multiple personnel groupings and formations that kept defenses guessing even within a series, let alone a full game, of what they were trying to do. They seemed to identify mismatches on opposing defenses and find multiple ways to create favorable matchups. He always stressed breaking tendencies to make it difficult for teams to gameplan against them.

 

Later in his tenure, Green Bay seemed to go more towards a single personnel grouping for entire drives and longer depending what they felt gave the offense the biggest advantage - but even moreso to create that sugar huddle tempo that often saw Rodgers playing games with snap counts and trying to get free plays during attempted defensive substitutions. At times it looked like they were too focused on creating those free plays, and creativity on offense suffered - when there weren't free plays the offense was predictable and often devolved to playing sandlot football, almost holding the ball until a pass rush materialized that led to the play breaking down and had Rodgers creating on his own. The seasons where he was injured left the offense without an identity because it became so reliant on his ability to make plays outside the structure of a game plan. Towards the end, opposing defenses were frequently quoted saying they knew what Green Bay was going to do on most plays with how predictable their offense became.

 

 

That's kinda the whole thing for me. When he had several WR'ers capable of beating their man, McCarthy was fine. With Driver, Jordy, Jennings, Jones, Adams, Cobb.

 

When he didn't have a great core of WR'ers, his offense relied on Rodgers and waaaay too many back-shoulder throws.

[HiAndTight]

I'd be curious to know how many passes were thrown and the success of those passes from the pocket vs outside the pocket under McCarthy

 

Or an even more accurate measure would be "on time" vs secondary routes/after the designed play broke down. There were always some designed rollouts baked into a game plan that got Rodgers outside the pocket by design...but there were also pocket throws on free plays where it was either a home run or an accepted 5 yard penalty for offsides/too many men. I always rolled my eyes when broadcasts would slap Rodgers' gaudy passing stats on "free plays" on the screen and opine how great they were - that's because if he threw an incompletion they'd just take the 5 yard penalty and the play would cease to exist.

 

Right, but it's also pretty damn impressive just how often Rodgers was able to get those free plays, recognize that he got the flag, and then take a shot down the field. You see a lot of other QB's checking down on those plays whereas Rodgers is always looking for a big play on a free shot.