These are the kind of threads you will enjoy looking back at next off season after the Packers win 9 in a row

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I'm all for that. I'm sure Ted will do everything to keep Hawk.

Depends how this season ends. If they get desperate they could do it. Hawk is indeed cheap because he took a pay cut, so that would make him valuable to keep. Though I don't wanna replace Hawk because it's been successful before, I would do it because there is possible improvement from him which imo there can be a huge improvement from him. But that's just me.

Say Hawk gets replaced as a starter in the preseason. Would it be in the best interest to release him or use him as a backup? I was kind of thinking about this before this season. Because I thought Bishop was coming back, use him in the back up role with Bishop and Brad Jones starting. We could do that next year but with someone else. Don't know if Hawk would be pushed back to a backup role though, like what happened to Double D.

It is really very interesting. I'm a big Ted Thompson fan, overall. However, I do think he holds too rigidly to his draft and develop mantra. What we had in 2010 was a team that featured the top S in the NFL at the time in Collins, one of the top DL in the NFL in Jenkins in terms of versatility and overall impact, and one of the best players ever to grace a secondary in Woodson. To date, all of those positions are still vacant, and those lost players have not been replaced with like ability.

This points to the real value of Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers has kept us in games, helped us to win many of them, despite these losses in personnel. Now, we have spent weeks throwing lesser talents out there at QB, far lesser talents, and we have gone 0-3-1. Couple this with the players lost to injury, and this Packers team we are running out there is not looking like a very good team.

I do think Hawk, while he has lost some weight, and improved his speed, seems to be taking a step or two backwards in overall effectiveness. He's still a good player and a great leader, but he seems to be having some trouble with consistency. This makes me wonder if Lattimore wouldn't be a better player to have in there on a more regular basis alongside Brad Jones. Hell, I'd rather have Lattimore in there than Brad Jones, who is making some great plays, but then making some equally bad ones, negating his impact on our D. We've got a problem in the middle of our D.

Datone Jones has not really shown up yet. Shields being out has really exposed some shortcomings in Hyde's game, and we're having to play Jarrett Bush too much. Mike Daniels has had similar success/failure issues as has Brad Jones. Some great plays, then some stinkers where he whiffs on arm tackles. Raji looks to be playing better, but Pickett's injury is really affecting his speed and his play. Mike Neal looks improved overall in his play. CJ Wilson didn't do much to help this defense, and now he's out. Davon House missed on two golden opportunities to help us get a win yesterday with both of those missed picks. He needs to finish on those.

Should we talk about Safety? Seems we are counting on a UDFA from Vanderbilt with a recent C5-6 fusion to be our savior, along with Worthy coming off ACL. MD Jennings is horrendous. We've never found that replacement for the Pro Bowler Collins, and I think we could have tried a little bit harder there. Morgan Burnett seems to be regressing because of the lack of talent opposite him. Maybe Richardson does make an impact opposite Burnett. It would be a remarkable story. I just can't believe how deficient we are on D. We've got holes all over the place. Thank God we didn't get rid of Tramon Williams. Altogether, this makes me wonder what, if anything, we can do in the playoffs.

I haven't even addressed the coaching issues, but that staff has not shown up ready to post a Win in more than 1/4 of our season. How do we overcome that? Really! How are you as a coaching staff not ready for 4-6 of your games? For instance, how did our staff allow 40+ passing attempts v. PHI, with Seneca Wallace and Scott Tolzien as their QBs, and not a single carry for Jonathan Franklin, a 100 yd rusher? And, they've got these guys, true scrubs, passing on 3rd and short… Where has our defense stepped up to compensate for the loss of Rodgers, to help the team win? Where are our game changing plays and schemes? Instead, we're getting 12 men on the field-type stuff, twice! And, why go for two? Knowing the probability of two TDs and two 2-point conversions is really, really low? What the hell? Coaches! That's on you! wow! We would have won yesterday had we kicked the extra point!

Now, we do have to win out, and for that to happen, we're going to need everyone's best efforts, players and coaches alike. Maybe we can catch lightning in a bottle again, because that's what it is going to have to be… How good is this team Ted Thompson has assembled? We will soon find out.

All i can say is welcome to mediocrity folks, this reminds me of the late 90's early 2000's when we always had such high hopes but would barely get to the playoffs and lose right away. I don't really think Ted Thompson did that great of a job drafting lately and the product on the field backs my statement. Don't give me well they are injured excuse because he has a tendency to draft players with injury history. Do I say replace him? No not at this time because I can't think of who we could get to replace him.

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Replacing him would be foolish. He's a great talent evaluator. He just needs to pull a couple more triggers. Make a trade or two. Sign a good FA talent. Shore up some holes, quickly.

A closer look at his draft picks and UDFA signings shows quite a bit of talent that other teams would be envious of. The impact of Lacy, Bakhtiari, Hyde, Banjo from this year alone is pretty remarkable. Franklin still has time to make an impact, as does Tretter should he be cleared to play. Last year's Hayward pick was huge for us, and Perry, Worthy and Daniels look like they may pay big dividends. Cobb and House from 2011 were both good picks, Cobb a far better one.

Lots of whiffs in there too though… some proving left to do these next bunch of weeks. Maybe Sherrod comes in and does well.

Maybe we should be looking more at what our staff is doing with these players.

I wholeheartedly believe that is possible, but to a great extent, it illustrates my point. The ONLY way that is gonna happen is if we get Aaron Rodgers back pretty damn quick.

These four games - 3 losses and a tie, which all coulda/shoulda/woulda been wins if Aaron Rodgers was playing, shows what life would be like for the Packers if we didn't have Rodgers.

You can point to Matthews, Nelson, Cobb, and some low rounders or UDFAs and say Thompson is a "great talent evaluator", but I say if that was true, we never would have had somebody like Raji - when there are Donterio Poes out there. Look how quick the Bears rebuilt a bad O-Line; Look at even the lame-assed Vikings - Gerhart came in and did better than Peterson, why? because they had an O-Line that could block. All this talk about if we just had a decent bookend for Matthews or a playmaker in the middle or quality replacements for Woodson and Collins, well yeah, hell yeah, and why don't we have those things? TED THOMPSON!

Yeah, we certainly could win out all the way to and through the Super Bowl - with Aaron Rodgers masking the weakness on defense, running for his life with the O-Line weakness, etc. My point is simply, it could be a helluva lot better if we had better quality all around, and I blame Ted Thompson for the fact that we don't.

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It is most certainly TT's fault that we didn't have P Manning backing up ARod. And JJ Watt backing up Jolly. Clearly Ted Thompson should have signed Calvin Johnson to back up Cobb. WTH was he thinking?

I have 4 vehicles. All of them are more than 2 years old. Why? Obviously I wish I had all new vehicles. But the reality I am faced with is I can't afford 4 shiny, new vehicles (Especially with 2 teenagers driving.)
Ted Thompson is faced with the same reality. Is anyone stupid enough to think he doesn't wish he had a depth chart with proven starters going 3 deep? That he doesn't see holes in our roster?

He could have signed a free agent S last year. There was a good leader available. Think Houston or Jets are happy with free agent Ed Reed? Think MN is excited about the value Jennings brought? 10M signing bonus for 2 TD's? What about the Browns and Paul Kruger? 2.5 sacks for $6M signing bonus!

There is a common misconception that great players are out there in Free Agency. It's just not true. There is very little affordable talent in the open market. For every Charles Woodson, there is 100 castoffs that someone will overpay for.

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Great post! The cap makes every GM's job that much harder. Free agency is a big risk. One team I think plays that generally well is the Patriots. Aqib Talib was a great pick up for them when their defense needed experience back there.

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Our Oline is pretty good too. How many yards did Lacy get yesterday? And we're on our 5th string T on the right side. lol.

THANK YOU TED.

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Agreed, Hawk has helped his reputation by having one or two really good games, but he has been sorry for a couple of years no. Even Aaron Nagler said he wanted to see the players have heart and determination. It is sad when I am excited to see Bush in the game because of this reason.