There is a big range of approaches to free agency between Ted Thompson (never go after high tier names and never never go after them early) and Daniel Snyder (always go after them and always go early).
I think what Wayne is saying -- and if he isn't, then I'll say it -- is that the Packers would be better if he *occasionally* took a Tier 1 kind of risk. No one is arguing he should start acting like Snyder or Jones or the idiot in Miami.
But look at that list again. The only two names on that list that were Tier 1 players were Woodson and Pickett. And they were
seven years ago. And if Tampa hadn't had its head up its ass (another idiot owner/management team), Woodson wouldn't even have been sniffable with Ted's approach.
Pickett was an amazing pick up, and so was Woodson. That kind of quality is almost never there late in free agency. Look just at 2006 ("two home runs in one year, Ted!") and its amazing judgment on his part. But look at the long term ("twice in eight years") and you see there just isn't going to be much there. Role players, yes. But Tier 1 impact. You might as well leave it to the craps table.
You want to add that quality to your team, you gotta take more risk and you gotta take it earlier in the process.
Everyone keeps saying that Wolf and Thompson were different eras. Sure. Get that.
But you don't think doing what he did to get Brett Favre and then Reggie White wasn't a major risk? Forget Jones, Dotson, and all the other FAs. Assume they had never happened. If Wolf hadn't taken the Favre and White risks, we'd be talking about 40 years in the desert not just 30. And salary cap or not, White's contract would have hamstrung the Packers' budget for years.
People here will say, I predict this, that "no OL is worth the contract Jake Long or Ryan Clady just got from team X." But you know what, not a single lower tier "affordable" OL free agent Ted has picked up in eight years has been worth the contract. Not one. And with the exception of Josh Sitton, not one Packer OL drafted in the fourth round or earlier in the Thompson era has yet realized a potential that would make him worth his contract either. We're still holding out hope on some of them, but as yet its still about potential rather than about proven value.
Ted, you're fantastic at skill position drafting. But you're mediocre at best at drafting OL. Maybe that Shilts OLOLOL! guy's been wrong. Maybe what you need to do this year is go skill position instead of OL in the high rounds. Instead go after and get one of those stud OL that will be available for a couple days in March.
Maybe its time to take a Reggie White risk on a free agent for that left side. Put a second proven stud there to protect the franchise and let the rest of those servicable lunch bucket brawlers do what we know they can rather than hope for this year to be different from all the other eight and potential to finally be realized.
Never happen of course.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)