For the past 9 seasons Green Bay Packers General Manager Ted
Thompson and Head Coach Mike McCarthy and his coaching staff have been living a
lie. They have taken credit for the Super Bowl victory and recently the playoff
appearance streak, but is was actually just one man and one player alone who
achieved all of that and for the next 10 games everyone will finally find out
that Aaron Rodgers was the sole reason and they were riding his coattails.
Thompson has been given credit for building the Packers
third Super Bowl team since the Vince Lombardi era and he deserves it. He
drafted the key members of that team, Aaron Rodgers, Brandon Jackson, Greg
Jennings, Jordy Nelson, James Jones, Jermichael Finley, Daryn Colledge, Josh
Sitton, Bryan Bulaga on offense; Clay Matthews B.J. Raji, Desmond Bishop, Frank
Zombo, A.J. Hawk, Nick Collins on defense; and Mason Crosby on special teams.
He also signed Charles Woodson, Ryan Pickett, Tramon Williams, Charlie Peprah
and Howard Green as free agents,
Thompson took over in 2005 and hired McCarthy in 2006. It
took just six years to become Super Bowl champions with a future Hall of Fame
quarterback, three excellent receivers, two Pro Bowl guards (Lang had already
been drafted, but hadn’t become a starter yet) on offense; the future all-time
leading scorer as a kicker, the future all-time sacker, the future all-time
tackle leader, a future All-Pro free safety, a solid corner, and a future Hall
of Famer off the trash heap in Charles Woodson.
The 2010 team was just the beginning of a dynasty led by Rodgers
many felt and still feel as the best quarterback in the history of the game as
well as in the present. With a NFL record 13 championships in the bag and 4
Lombardi Trophies on display the next five years were going to rival the
Lombardi Packers of the 60s, the Steelers of the late 70s, the 49ers dynasty of
the 80, the Cowboys of the early 90s and the Patriots of the 2000s.
This was going to be the third Golden Age of the Green Bay
Packers rivaling 1959 to 1968 or surpassing it, but alas that was not to be.
Ted Thompson went off the rails with his draft strategy and Mike McCarthy
started to over coach taking the ball out of Rodgers’ hands in the second half
of games and being cautious going for ties and hoping to win in overtime
instead of riding the Rodgers horse to victory.
And then there is Dom Capers. Even with the mismanagement of
the team in the front office and on the offensive side the Packers would have
been in at least 3 Super Bowls if the Packers had a decent and reliable
defense. The Packers have been vulnerable to passing up the middle and can’t
get off the field on 3rd downs, especially 3rd-and-long since 2011.
However with all of that Aaron Rodgers made up for it all
hiding all the warts and insufficiencies of the roster on offense and scoring
enough points to make up for a very flawed defense by personally, putting the
team on his shoulders like running the table last year and winning the game
last week and throwing “Hail Mary’s” and knocking the Bears out of the playoffs
after coming back from another broken collarbone in 2013 to keep the Packers
playoff streak going. The prized 8 year playoff streak has been all Aaron
Rodgers, in spite of Thompson and McCarthy.
Even an outside observer, Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk
said this a few weeks ago, “If the Packers lose Rodgers they won’t win a game.”
Well it’s happened and we’ll all find out. Thompson’s
offensive line reserves have been found lacking, his secondary reserves have been
found lacking and now we’ll find out if his quarterback reserves (Brett Hundley
and Joe Callahan) are up to the task to keep the Packers above water if Rodgers
can return or will he have to sigh or trade for a veteran like he did in 2013
when Seneca Wallace and Scott Tolzien weren’t up to the task and he had to
re-sign Mike Flynn.
The names being bandied about are Colin Kaepernick and Tony
Romo along with Eli Manning. Manning would be costly and I would be very
surprised if he makes a trade. True to form Thompson will find the cheapest way
to cope with the situation.
If it all falls apart and the Packers miss the playoffs
because one man was lost then I would hope the Board of Directors would
consider firing CEO Mark Murphy for declaring Ted Thompson could stay for as
long as he wanted to because he is doing a great job because Thompson is not
doing a great job. He has left the roster ill-equipped to handle injuries which
are year in and year out reality for the Packers that everyone knows about,
except Thompson because he knew he had Aaron Rodgers to pull it out.
Mike McCarthy should be fired for not firing Dom Capers, who
has been incompetent since the Super Bowl. Thompson has been here 13 years,
McCarthy 12 years and that leaves them in second place behind Curly Lambeau in
length of term for the Packers. They have become complacent and stale.
Thank god for Aaron Rodgers. Packer Backers have been lucky
to have 2 of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the game back-to-back,
which hasn’t happened since Steve Young took over for Joe Montana.
Thompson wasted away the last 3 years of Brett Favre,
especially his last season in 2007 when the Packers rebounded from 2 terrible
seasons in Thompson’s 1st 2 seasons at the helm (4-12-0 and 8-8-0) missing the
playoffs each year. Favre put the Packers on his shoulders and turned it all
around to finish the season 13-3-0.
Like Rodgers today Favre had put the team on shoulders and
felt he needed Randy Moss, who had talked his way out of Oakland after the Vikings had got rid of him
earlier for being a pain in the ass. However, Favre and Moss were friends and
wanting to play together. It would have worked on a personal level. Favre begged
Thompson to acquire Moss, but he just laughed in his face and did nothing as
Eli Manning and the Giants beat Favre to win their 1st Super Bowl.
I said at the time and still contend that no matter how much
the Packer Backers and Thompson hated Moss he would have been the difference
maker and Favre and the Packers would have won the 2007 Super Bowl.
I think Thompson didn’t do it for 2 3/4 reasons. 1. He will
never make a midseason pickup (beyond Howard Green) because that is admitting
he was wrong. 1/2. Thompson also won’t pick up character players, which Moss
wasn’t one at that time of his career but he was a disrupter because signing
with the Raiders was a mistake. He would have been a great 1 year pickup at
least because he and Favre were friends and he would have wanted to be here and
he would have won a Super Bowl. 1/4. If the acquisition of Moss worked, and it
would have, the Super Bowl win (in just his 3rd year of Thompson’s tenure)
would have blamed on Favre and Moss and not Thompson’s great move, while in
fact people would have been calling him a genius 3 years earlier. But Thompson
is an egotist, no matter how much he wants you to believe its all about the
team and not about him being recognized. 2. If Favre won the Super Bowl in 2007
then it would have been impossible to get rid of Favre since Rodgers was to
take over in 2008. At least Thompson was thinking that. Favre may have wanted
to retire with his 2nd Super Bowl victory to wipe out the stain of the 1997
loss to the Broncos. However, it was all preordained because Rodgers was
entering the final year of his rookie contract and he was to be paid big money
on the hope he was what he turned out to be and Thompson couldn’t justify 2
big-money quarterbacks on the roster. (as it turned out Favre had 1 big year
left in him almost leading the Vikings to the Super Bowl in 2009. Thompson did
have a big dilemma since Rodgers blossomed in 2010 winning the Super Bowl.). To
sum this up Thompson isn’t the “awe shucks” every man he pretends to be. He
loves the adulation of him being constantly named 1 of the best General
Managers in the history of the game because of signing undrafted gems and
drafting future Hall of Famers nobody was looking at. Thusly “The Great
Evaluator”.
Like I said, if worse comes to worse and the Packers miss
the playoffs then the only silver lining would be a fresh start for the Packers
front office and coaching staff. Losing Aaron Rodgers, no matter how much I
hate it, could be the catalyst for the change I’ve been pushing for since 2007
(firing Thompson), 2011 (firing Dom Capers), since 2012 (firing Mark Murphy for
accepting the “just good enough” philosophy of being happy to make the playoffs
and not being unhappy of not even making the Super Bowl with the greatest
quarterback of the game. Since Murphy took over the Patriots have been to the
Super Bowl 4 times wining 2) and since
2015 (firing Mike McCarthy or bringing in a bonafide offensive coordinator to
call the plays).
I will hate not the rest of the season until Rodgers returns
for the final 2 weeks of the season to knock the Vikings and the Lions out of
the playoffs to extend the playoff streak to 9 straight years proving he is the
reason and the reason alone Packers have been so successful over the past 10
seasons.
This is Aaron Rodgers’ team and Thompson would hate that and
I would love it.
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