Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member
14 years ago

I am getting really weary of these artificially set benchmarks set by sports writers and impatient fans. Last year, people (including lots of fans on this forum) were saying that Ted Thompson "had" to win a playoff game, or he should be gone. Now this year people are talking "Super Bowl or bust," as if Super Bowls are commodities that are handed out to a bunch of teams on a regular basis.

What nonsense.

Let's interject a little reality into this discussion, shall we?

Every year, a grand total of ONE team wins a Super Bowl. That means 31 teams do not. Should 31 managerial teams be relieved of duty every five years if they do not win the big dance? That would mean we'd have, guaranteed, at least 6 front offices being relieved every year! What patent absurdity.

Moving on. Since the Packers last won a Super Bowl in 1997, a grand total of 9 teams have won a Super Bowl. That's less than 1/3 of the league in 14 years. By the standards of this board and various sports writers, that means 23 front offices should have been relieved during this period for the gross negligence of having failed to notch a ring. Or perhaps they believe a different team should win the Super Bowl each year, in which case only 18 front offices "should" be on the chopping block. Again, obviously absurd.

Before we move on, read that again: only 9 teams have won a Super Bowl since the Packers last won one. Nine. A whopping 28%. This isn't something that happens everyday for every team, folks.

Since the Packers last won a Super Bowl, 18 teams (including the Packers in 1998) have played in the big game. Now that's a more impressive number -- 56% -- and perhaps makes a more reasonable benchmark of front office success. Still, it shows how difficult Super Bowl victories are. If it were as easy to reach the Super Bowl as some of you seem to think, on average, 28 teams (88% of the league) should have made it there in the past 14 years. But that's obviously not the case.

Now let's move on to the NFC Championship Game. Since the Packers last won the Super Bowl in 1997, 11 teams (including the Packers) have won an NFC Championship Game. That's 69% of the conference. If a new team took the crown every year, that would mean on average, 88% of the conference should have won one in the past 14 years. So it looks to me like the conference isn't all that terribly unbalanced. Interestingly, however, only 13 teams have played on the NFC Championship Game in the past 14 years: that means that with the exception of the Vikings and 49ers, every team that has played in the NFC Championship Game more than once has won it at least once, including the Packers, who've been there twice in the past 14 years -- including once in this current front office's tenure.

That bears repeating: The Packers have already been to the NFC Championship Game once in Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy's tenure here. Since Ted Thompson took the job in 2005, only 9 teams (56% of the conference) have made it to the NFC Championship Game. Two of those teams were the Seahawks and Packers, both of which he had a hand in assembling.

Finally, let's look at record: Last year, the Packers went 11-5. Only 4 teams in the league (13%) did better than that, and only two other teams equaled it. Fans of over 20 other teams would have killed to have the same record the Packers had last year, not to mention a playoff appearance.

Did I mention the Packers have been to the playoffs twice, including an overtime NFC Championship appearance, in their tenure?

The men are doing fine. Get off their back.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:



I'm too lazy today to check etymology, but IIRC "fan" comes from "fanatic." And fanatics are, by definition, unreasonable.

And besides, when I say my standard for this year is "Super Bowl", I'm saying Thompson will have had five...sorry, six years. It isn't failure to perform at level X over one year that is the standard. It's failure to perform at that level over any of the years of his tenure.

Especially since it's six years in now and we are STILL talking about potential on the fucking OL.
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)
Zero2Cool
14 years ago

Especially since it's six years in now and we are STILL talking about potential on the fucking OL.

"Wade" wrote:



We are? I recall reading and hearing about how the OL needs to improve, that the musical chairs is no excuse and that he needs his assistant coaches to make his players more accountable. I've heard things like that. I don't recall hearing 'our OL has potential to be' ... blah blah.


We know our OL sucks. So do you. What next?

I say, if you want to keep the blended ZBS scheme, fire Campen and bring on someone who's an expert in the field. If you want to go full power o, I say keep Campen, get some fatties and PUNCH'EM IN THE MOUTH!!
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IronMan
  • IronMan
  • Veteran Member Topic Starter
14 years ago
I must have read a different article, but Bedard said he thinks the Packers should make a "deep run" into the playoffs. No where did he say, "Ted needs to win the Super Bowl this year or he should be fired"

Someone show me where he says that. Nonstopdrivel, show me the person who said, "Super Bowl or bust." Show me who said this. Thank you.

As for my own personal lofty expectations, I work my ass off every year, logging hundreds of hours of overtime, just so I can attend a few games a season. And to me, one playoff win in five years isn't good enough. If you don't like that, tough shit. I don't like excuses. People who make excuses never accomplish anything in life.

So, to summarize the article I posted, if the Packers don't make a deep run into the playoffs, there should be no excuses. Thats. All.

No where did it say anyone is going to get fired if we don't.

I should have known that linking to this article would bring out the "Leave Thompson alone! " crowd.
Nonstopdrivel
14 years ago
Wade, I didn't look at one year of performance -- I looked at the past five and 14 years. :P

Speaking of a single year of performance, however, I do have a couple of additional comments to make here.

First, though our defense has been made the whipping boy of our team's failings last year (I should know -- I've excoriated them a few times myself), and rightly so, we shouldn't let ourselves be blinded to the fact that the Packers were #2 in the league this year in scoring differential (+164 points!), a mere 5 points behind New Orleans. Think about that for a second: Despite their five embarrassing defeats, the Packers outscored their opponents by an average of 10.25 points per game. Yes, that's partly because we had a high-powered offense (to our front office's credit, I might add), but it also shows our defense generally did a pretty damn good job keeping the Packers' opponents off the scoreboard.

Something else to consider: In the Packers' five losses, their opponents averaged 34.8 points per game. The Packers' opponents had to score almost 35 points last year to beat them.

Which leads me to the Packers' playoff game, which was the highest-scoring playoff game in NFL history. Arizona had to score 51 points to beat the Packers! Yes, that was a colossal collapse on the part of the Packers' defense, but think about how rarely a team scores 51 points in the NFL, and ponder the fact that they had to in order to secure that victory.

That doesn't even go into such facts as Aaron Rodgers being the first quarterback ever to notch consecutive 4,000-yard seasons his first two years as a starter; or the Packers' offense being the first team in league history to have a 4,000-yard passer, two 1000-yard receivers, and a 1200-yard rusher; or the Packers setting the team scoring record this year; or the fact that our defense dominated the league in takeaways; or the fact we had the NFL Defensive Player of the Year on our squad; or any of a number of other outstanding features from last year.

Is this team perfect? No. Is there room for improvement? Of course. The offensive line and secondary are still question marks, but looking at recent history, I'm not too worried: Ted Thompson has methodically shored up the deficiencies of this team over the past several years, resulting in marked improvements. So to call for the head of a front office that has taken us to overtime the NFC Championship Game and one of the most exciting playoff games in league history borders on asinine, in my opinion.

One last thought: Many of the same people calling for the demise of Ted Thompson and company are praising the job the Vikings' front office has done. Yet their performance in the NFC Championship Game was downright pathetic (I mean, come on: six fumbles, five turnovers??). There's an obvious lack of consistency here. Does the performances these teams turned in during the playoffs mean changes need to be made? Probably, but on the squads, not in the front office. Both front offices have done admirably in getting their teams to where they are.
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IronMan
  • IronMan
  • Veteran Member Topic Starter
14 years ago

Nonstopdrivel, show me the person who said, "Super Bowl or bust." Show me who said this. Thank you.

"IronMan" wrote:

Still waiting.

One last thought: Many of the same people calling for the demise of Ted Thompson and company are praising the job the Vikings' front office has done.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

Who are these people?
Nonstopdrivel
14 years ago
I forgot to add that these offensive accomplishments were made in spite of the fact that the offensive line gave up more sacks than any team in the league. That makes it double impressive, I think.
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dhazer
14 years ago
I am with Bedard on this one, we are on year 6 of TT's famous 5 year plan that RP and a few others kept talking about. I don't see the great team yet, I am not sold on the o-line and i think people are really over hyping our defense seeing we got to play the likes of the the Lions twice the Brownies and Rams and oh ya the Bears twice, also throw in the high powered Tampa team. When we finally played against teams with a good offense we got torched.

So our we in the new 5 year plan for Ted Thompson seeing we got into the playoffs and got our butts handed to us.
Just Imagine this for the next 6-9 years. What a ride it will be 🙂 (PS, Zero should charge for this)
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go.pack.go.
14 years ago

I didn't see any Reggie White on NO's team that was a determining factor in their success.

"warhawk" wrote:



Technically, you could put Darren Sharper in that category.

But don't get me wrong, I agree with you. I think all the Ted Thompson haters need to get over losing their precious. Need I bring his name up?
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IronMan
  • IronMan
  • Veteran Member Topic Starter
14 years ago

Nonstopdrivel, show me the person who said, "Super Bowl or bust." Show me who said this. Thank you.

"IronMan" wrote:

Still waiting.

One last thought: Many of the same people calling for the demise of Ted Thompson and company are praising the job the Vikings' front office has done.

"IronMan" wrote:

Who are these people?

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

go.pack.go.
14 years ago

I am with Bedard on this one, we are on year 6 of Ted Thompson's famous 5 year plan that RP and a few others kept talking about. I don't see the great team yet, I am not sold on the o-line and i think people are really over hyping our defense seeing we got to play the likes of the the Lions twice the Brownies and Rams and oh ya the Bears twice, also throw in the high powered Tampa team. When we finally played against teams with a good offense we got torched.

So our we in the new 5 year plan for Ted Thompson seeing we got into the playoffs and got our butts handed to us.

"dhazer" wrote:



So you're saying that we're not good enough to contend for a title?

Do you realize how much better this team has gotten since Ted Thompson first got here? Look at how high-powered our offense is...look at how highly ranked our defense is.

You see, you say that we played nobodies, so our defense's stats are distorted. However, you somehow forget how bad our defense was last year. We were ranked something like 26 the year before. This past year, we were 2nd. That is a huge leap forward. We did bad against those same teams that you are saying are nobodies 2 years ago.

Compare the 2 Cowboys games from the past two years if you want to see a difference.
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