Dana Point, Calif. - Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson usually tries to argue that he's willing to take part in free agency if the price is right, but on Tuesday Thompson made it pretty clear why the Packers have been less active than at any time since he took over the club in 2005.
Despite coming off a 6-10 season and being in the midst of a major schematic change on defense, the Packers are not a team with a lot of glaring needs, Thompson said. If there's an absence of conviction in Thompson's eyes that his current roster is capable of big things, you'd be hard pressed to detect it.
"I am confident in our team," Thompson said during a break at the NFL owners meetings at the St. Regis Hotel. "I think we have a fair group of players that now can play the game and play it well. I don't think we played as well as we should have last year. Notwithstanding, I think we have a good group of players who make up our team."
Thompson's commitment to building through the draft might be the strongest of any general manager's in the National Football League, and since he's holding nine picks this year, including the ninth pick overall and four in the top 83, it would be logical to think he's expecting a couple of starters out of this class. But he's not even certain he needs to do that.
"I don't know that's a particular goal," Thompson said. "It would be nice. It kind of depends on what's there when it's our turn to pick. We're pretty solid in our starting lineup."
That kind of confidence about a team that went 6-10 last season might surprise a lot of people, especially when you consider he has a roster that features more unproven young players than it does high-performing veterans. Still, the Packers lost a total of seven games by four points or less last season, including a pair in overtime, and lost seven different starters for three games or more to injury.
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