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.