Thompson's penny-pinching ways (has anybody heard me say that before) came home to roost this season in spades. And who would have thought the Packer roster was dependent upon one player when Jordy Nelson went down in the preseason?
To his credit Thompson got James Jones when he fell into his lap during the final cuts. I thought at the time it was somewhat of a desperate move because he was cut twice despite leading the Raiders last year and the Giants in the preseason in receiving.
However, during the first 6 games he was as good as Nelson, but over the last 12 games he turned out to be what the Raiders and Giants thought he was - washed up. While he still could catch anything near him he couldn't get separation and for some odd reason that malady spread through the wide receiving corps like a rash, especially to Randall Cobb.
The injuries to right tackle Bryan Bulaga and left tackle David Bakhtiari highlighted a major flaw in Thompson's philosophy. He has always short-sheeted the offensive line when it came to backups. He has never signed or developed a true backup tackle, either right or left, except for Don Barclay.
Before his knee injury last season Barclay had taken over for Bulaga when he went down with a knee injury in 2013 and started the last 14 games. He did a good job. But this year he was a shadow of himself being unable to pass block on either side.
He was adequate at right tackle when Bulaga was out in weeks 3 and ,4, but absolutely horrible when he played left tackle in the first Cardinals game. He was so bad McCarthy moved Josh Sitton to left tackle the next week against the Vikings.
J.C. Tretter turned out to a good acquisition as a 4th round draft pick in 2013. He was supposed to be the replacement for Evan Dietrick-Smith, but suffered a knee injury opening the door for Corey Linsley last year.
This year Tretter proved to be a solid player at center when Linsley was hurt and did a decent job at left tackle when the Sitton experiment didn't pan out. A little aside to that was not that Sitton did a bad job it was more that Lane Taylor was not up to the task at left guard.
Most of the time Thompson's offensive line backups over the years and especially this year with Barclay, Taylor and Josh Walker have been cheap undrafted free agents. In addition, the two offensive linemen on the practice squad are also undrafted free agents, guard Matt Rotheram and tackle Jeremy Vujonvich.
I have been a broken record about signing veteran offensive linemen as backups. Rodgers would have loved to have had an Ernie McMillian (1975), Tootie Robbins (1992-93) or Bruce Wilkerson (the starting left tackle after injuries on the 1996 Super Bowl team) this year when he was being beaten to pulp.
To be fair Thompson does hit the mark on some undrafted free agents on this roster like cornerbacks Sam Shields and LaDarius Gunter, linebacker Jayrone Elliott and defensive tackle Mike Pennel, but putting the health of your All-Pro quarterback on the shoulders of people nobody wanted borders on criminal liability.
McCarthy's weekly proclamation that we know what's wrong and will fix it before the next game got tired. We found out he had no idea what was wrong and never fixed the offense after week 3. McCarthy acted as if he was overwhelmed by the situation. McCarthy was a liability not an asset this season.
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