I never said that Ted didn't take risks. I didn't even say he didn't take big risks. What I said was that he doesn't take big risks when it comes to veteran free agents. Not like Wolf did.
As to why Reggie White was a risk? He was 32 years old. How many times have we heard regarding big name free agents over the age of 32 that its too risky to overspend for them?
Consider Julius Peppers, but not Julius Peppers in 2014. Consider the Julius Peppers of free agency in 2010. The Julius Peppers that was only thirty years old when the Bears signed him. THAT was the kind of move Wolf made with Reggie White, and a 32-year. DE probably brings more risk than a 30-year old one.
Be clear, I'm not saying here that Peppers in 2010 was worth the salary he got from the Bears. What I'm saying is that Ron Wolf was willing to take bigger risks and more risks in veteran free agency than Ted Thompson is.
And I don't you can just explain it away by the restrictions of salary cap management.
I mean, look just at the D-Line on Wolf's championship team. How many veteran free agents were there? White. Jones. Dotson. (Arguably Gilbert Brown, though to me that's not the same kind of veteran pickup since unlike Jones and Dotson and White, Brown never did much of anything before coming to GB.) Add Eugene Robinson and Mike Prior and you have 5 of the top 12 defensive players coming via veteran free agency.
And on offense: Jackson, obviously. But there were also Winters, Wilkerson, Rison, and another backup OL I can't remember.
And lets not forget Desmond Howard.
Every GM takes risks.
But GM Thompson takes different kinds of risks than GM Ron Wolf.
Originally Posted by: Wade
Wade you put together a nice argument; but you’re comparing between 2 dissimilar eras!!!
The repercussions of a bad move for Wolf paled in comparison to a bad move for TT. Note how as the cap took greater effect through the 90’s, Wolf signed less and less expensive FAs because the risk got much higher.
Wolf’s risk on Reggie was ZERO!!!! ZERO!!!! In 1993 White signed a contract for 4 yr 17M/4.5M SB and 1.5M roster bonus; BUT, all bonus money was EXEMPT from Cap [which started in 1994] if contract was signed b4 December ’93. If the Pack cut White the day after signing or any other time the dead money would be ZERO!
If Reggie didn’t work out Wolf could have just cut him and got someone else, But if Reggie was signed last year and cut; the dead money from that cut would have cost us Bulaga, Cobb, Daniels and/or Hayward.
(Note: in my research noticed Todd Boles was on Player personnel staff)
So, White, Winters, Taylor, Galbreath and Prior signed in 93 or before were ZERO risk.
Sean Jones, probably signed a decent contract in 94, that would have been a risk.
Dotson: was 4th DT behind, Sapp, Wheeler and Culpepper so he was just a notch above scrap heap. Little risk if any.
Robinson: in 96 was in 12th year; was a starter but tackles declining; he was a notch above scrap heap. Little risk if any.
Rison-was cut by J’ville. Scrap heap –no risk
Howard, scrap heap no risk.
That other OLman was Gary Brown was like Gilbert Brown, drafted in '94 by another [Pitt], but only made roster in GB [94-96].
Wilkerson, scrap heap no risk Note: signed as a back-up but maybe we don’t win SB if he’s not on the team. Wolf in his book talks about how the cap will prevent teams from having experienced vets as back-ups because you can’t afford to pay them and they block the development of the younger players. And Wolf wrote this long before practice time was reduced by 80%, so it is even harder for youngsters to get reps than Wolf imagined.
Beebe, scrap heap no risk
Landeta, scrap heap punter
Again, you must imagine the situation Wolf was in 1994. Imagine if cap started in 2015.
ONE: ALL the guys on our roster have bonus $$ that doesn't count against cap.
TWO: The Cap will go up 50% in 5 years and double in 8. Comparatively, in 5 years the Cap will be 215M in 8 it’ll be 286M.
THREE: [1994 was year zero there was no dead money from previous year] We have no dead money on books.
FOUR: [Teams didn’t experience dead money until guys w/ bonuses money from contracts signed in ‘94 or later were cut. Ergo, dead money was minimal for the first 2-3-4 years of the Cap] We wont have any dead money for 2 years and very little years 3-4-5
FIVE: Imagine Ted Thompson signing Aaron Rodgers and CM3 in 2014 to LT contracts and their bonus $$ wouldn’t count against the Cap. Look at how much easier it'd be to sign FAs and if one got hurt or turned to suck you could just cut ‘em and see no dead money.
AND SIX: AND this is a Biggie-There was collusion. Wolf didn’t pay as much for his FAs. The Packers wanted to pack bonus $$ in Reggie’s contract reducing the base pay that would count against cap. Even w/ this artificial boost of bonus money only 26% of Reggie’s contract was guaranteed for 10.3% of cap; Suh's contract: 13.3% of cap and 52% fully guaranteed. Plus, mediocre players only got a small relative fraction of the cap back then, no way House gets over 4.5% of cap in the 1990s and accomplished player like Keith Jackson only got 2.5% of cap.
Wolf was not a gambler; he was just a stellar TT-like GM. And yes the ’92 Favre trade surprised me too; but just because we were flummoxed by it doesn’t mean the move was risky. We just didn’t know Wolf had Favre rated a by far #1 and a 1 in 10 year player. Any GM that had a chance to trade a clear #1 player in the ’91 draft [a 1 in 10 year player] for a #19 in 1992 and didn’t would be called stupid; not conservative; Right? If you call that a risky move; then you’d have to say that the Giants trading their #19 pick in 2013 for Andrew Luck would be risky. The Giants would have done that in a heartbeat and the front office of Indy would have been immediately jailed.
No one can evaluate Ted Thompson against Wolf, Lombardi or any other GM outside of the Cap era [late 90’s to present day]; you have to compare Ted Thompson to a real live cap era GM not a fictitious/imaginary one named Harvey.