Has Ted Thompson really changed?

[Patler]

Unless you were Chad Clifton, in which case being a Left Tackle and getting literally to the brink of FA and ready to break another market value deal meant the Packers coughed up much more dough at the end for I think his 3rd contract.

I want to say there was one other example they road to the end and saw the market climbing; was it Hawk's second contract? Maybe Cobb?

Regardless, each of these occurred right before FA broke, so the Packers committed to signing them to market value before the market hit. If a player hits the open market, there is a much harder budget for them.

Good to see you back Patler.

Thanks pb. I'll likely be around from time to time.

Re Clifton - I suspect their intention always was to keep him, and to pay what was needed to do so. Getting it done just before FA hit avoided an outrageous offer. I'm sure they held out for a while, hoping for a better deal; but I'm not sure they exceeded what they pegged his value at. Maybe they did, I don't know.

The guy many say they paid excessively just to do it was Ryan Grant. He was an exclusive rights FA as I recall, yet they negotiated a pretty good multi-yeardeal for him even though his options were to sign their tender or sit out the year. That was the summer of Favre, Grant had refused to sign his contract and seemed willing to sit out. It looked like the Packers wanted to avoid that potential mess on top of the Favre/Rodgers transition, so they caved into to Grant.

[bobblehead]

Thanks pb. I'll likely be around from time to time.

Re Clifton - I suspect their intention always was to keep him, and to pay what was needed to do so. Getting it done just before FA hit avoided an outrageous offer. I'm sure they held out for a while, hoping for a better deal; but I'm not sure they exceeded what they pegged his value at. Maybe they did, I don't know.

The guy many say they paid excessively just to do it was Ryan Grant. He was an exclusive rights FA as I recall, yet they negotiated a pretty good multi-yeardeal for him even though his options were to sign their tender or sit out the year. That was the summer of Favre, Grant had refused to sign his contract and seemed willing to sit out. It looked like the Packers wanted to avoid that potential mess on top of the Favre/Rodgers transition, so they caved into to Grant.

That is exactly what happened and I predicted that the minute...second...Grant was not of use to TT and MM he was gone for leveraging the Favre fiasco like he did.