Well you got to factor in the draft that year which ironically I think is an A. Of course the draft didn't get any big contributions until really this season with Rodgers finally getting his shot, but none the less, the draft makes that off-season for Thompson seem much better especially where the Packers are right now.

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When exactly was it that Ted took control of the Packers......

Was it the year that he let Rivera and Whale go?

I am trying to remember how long he had been G.M. and, what was the exact day he took control of the Packers?

R.P.

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wiki says Jan 14th 2005 so yeah that was the year he released Sharper and I think Wahle. Rivera was a free agent and he chose not to resign him.

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I thought we offered Sharper more money than he signed with for the Vikings? I thought it was his choice? I know we wanted him to take a paycut, but I think we released him, offered him a contract and he ended up taking less with the Vikings.

Longwell fled the coup too. He wanted to play in a controlled climate. He said he wanted to finish his career in a fair weather city or a dome team.

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I'd have to go year by year. I'm so far giving him an A in '09 but in '08, he got either a C- or a D+.

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plus having the choice of restaurants other than applebee's. what kind of douche needs more choice than what applebee's can provide?!?!

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I know this is going more off topic, but Greg Jennings went to Applebee's. 🙂 If it's good enough for Greg, it should be more than good enough for Ryan "Benedict" Longwell.


I would have liked us to have kept Longwell. I think that was out o Ted's hands though.

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I don't think it was so much that he chose not to resign Rivera as it was he had extremely limited resources to do it. The only reason he was not over the cap was by letting those three go. My recollection was after letting Sharper, Wahle, and Rivera go the Cap came out of the red to $1.9 mil.

The only way he keeps Rivera would have been to free cap space by cutting ties with other players salaries to get what he needed to sign him. To me thats just treading water and that's not what he was brought in to do.

I think Thompson realized the talent we did have here was getting old, the roster was paper thin, and the cap was horrendously bad off. The triple whammy.

I remember back then when that roster did not have any young players being developed that were going to be starters one day and would contribute. Wells. He's the only one I recall that would develope into a starter one day.

I also remember a high "wasted cap" number on salaries of players that were no longer on the team and a high number of players being paid the minimum to offset those numbers.

The DIFFERENCE in what Thompson has done is now the lower paid players are DRAFT PICKS with potential being compensated off of their rookie contracts VS. players picked up to fill the roster because the draft picks weren't good enough to stick.

Now we have a much more balanced Cap and a player developement program where younger talent can work themselves up and be ready to take over for a player that retires or leaves vs. looking up one day and saying "geez, what are we going to do about that?"

And if that player we need to fill a hole doesn't develope enough or fast enough Ted Thompson always has some tucked back now if he needs to fill a void.

Some tough decisions had to be made to get it to that point, or, he could have just fooled himself, and believed we were SB ready back in '05 and held off doing what was going to have to be done anyways.

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