Packers hire Brian Gutekunst as GM

[pbmax]

Tom Silverstein @TomSilverstein
Gutekunst, 44, was hired by Ron Wolf as a scouting intern in 1997. Left for one year and returned as a college scout. Has been with the #Packers ever since. He is steeped in the Wolf way of running football operations. Not unlike Schneider, Dorsey, McKenzie.

Why does everyone write as though 2000 was just yesterday? Gutekunst worked with Wolf for three years. With Ted for 13. Mike Sherman and Hatley for four.

Russ Ball worked with Schottenheimer and Loomis for 13 years but everyone treats him like he is Ted's son.

[Bretsky]

Tom Silverstein @TomSilverstein
Gutekunst, 44, was hired by Ron Wolf as a scouting intern in 1997. Left for one year and returned as a college scout. Has been with the #Packers ever since. He is steeped in the Wolf way of running football operations. Not unlike Schneider, Dorsey, McKenzie.

Why does everyone write as though 2000 was just yesterday? Gutekunst worked with Wolf for three years. With Ted for 13. Mike Sherman and Hatley for four.

Russ Ball worked with Schottenheimer and Loomis for 13 years but everyone treats him like he is Ted's son.

Brother...lol

[pbmax]

Demovsky:

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Here’s how one highly placed source at Lambeau Field handicapped the Green Bay Packers' general manager race: “John Schneider would be a grand slam, but Brian Gutekunst would be a home run.”

Who is this source? The people in the best position to judge this were interviewed. Do scouts actually know who will be the best? I think scout worship has gone a step too far.

http://www.espn.com/blog/green-bay-p...estions-linger

[pbmax]

Same article:

The internal reluctance to hire Ball was rooted in the idea that he would be a continuation of the Ted Thompson way, i.e., largely ignoring free agency and relying heavily on the draft. In fact, Ball has had a large role in the Packers’ roster-building efforts the past two seasons as Thompson, 64, aged and cut back his schedule. It's believed that Ball actually made the call on whether to re-sign free agents Julius Peppers and Micah Hyde last offseason.

The most Ted thing to do is to sign your own (that would have included Hyde and maybe Peppers) and ignore free agents.

So they did not sign their own and singed free agents.

But some boneheads in the org see Russ Ball's hands on the two least popular decisions last offseason and Demovsky doesn't mention 3 FA signings that happened while Ball supposedly had this larger role. But the fear of FA still makes it into the piece despite the logical inconsistency.

Does anyone else sense a concerted effort to undermine Ball here?

There has been a lot of public jockeying for this job going back a couple of years. We have had a few Eliot Wolf write ups and one about Gutekunst over a year ago. Ball got a profile at the beginning of this year and it contained no comments from the Packers or the Saints. Has all the media about this event been arranged by their agents?

It might have been that Ted's greatest achievement was to get them all to shut up and concentrate on football for 12/13 years. Favre's exit was the exception.