did not attend a news conference announcing his hiring and was unavailable for comment.

Said Wolf: "That's a great hire. He's the right man for the job."

"When I would talk to people around the league, they would say there's not a lot of guys who can do this. Other people told me he (Thompson) was a real comer in this league and that they felt he would end up somewhere else."

Thompson's strength, according to Harlan, is his draft expertise. It is well known in league circles that Thompson disdains free agency and prefers to build a team through the draft.

"Ron Wolf said he was the one that built that Seattle team," Harlan said."

Mike Holmgren, then the coach and general manager in Seattle, lured Thompson away from the Packers in January 2000.

His title was vice president of football operations, and with rare exception in the drafts from 2000 through 2004 the selections were made by Thompson, according to Seahawks vice president Mike Reinfeldt.


Trading down six times and never once trading up, Thompson ended up with 46 choices in the five drafts, 12 more than the norm.

Of those 46 players, three have made the Pro Bowl, 33 started at least one game, 19 are on the current 53-man roster (two are in reserve categories) and all but 4 played in at least one game.

Interesting to note LT that Seattle seems to have seems to have taken a risk on some players with character issues while Ted was there.

That might just be because whoever had final say was willing to take a risk on players who were very talented but troubled.

I can't recall any of Ted's problems having any real character issues. Closest that comes to mind is Giacomini flipping off fans in college.

Just an interesting observation.

"all_about_da_packers" wrote: