vince
06-20-2015, 10:55 AM
Good Article (http://www.ganggreennation.com/2015/5/31/8691845/anatomy-of-a-winner-green-bay-packers)
Ted Thompson hasn't done things the easy way, but it's hard to deny the he's done it the best way to maximize chances of success. His biggest and most impactful decisions have also been his most controversial, but he trusted his evaluations and pretty much nailed each one of them in the face of public pressure and criticism.
1) Trust Home Grown Talent
The Packers focus on finding and developing their talent. They hit on early round picks. They find contributors in the middle and late rounds. They find contributors off the scrap heap. The key is they want players they can bring up and develop in their own system and culture.
Thompson Saves Packers' Dollars for Home-Grown Talent (http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/ted-thompson-saves-dollars-for-homegrown-talent-p596jen-198719441.html)
Thompson argues there is only so much money to go around, and when it's time to pay players like Rodgers, Matthews, B.J. Raji, Sam Shields and Randall Cobb, you want to have as much money as possible to keep them. Sometimes you choose not to pay as was the case with Greg Jennings, Scott Wells, Daryn Colledge and Nick Barnett.
"If you've done a good enough job of drafting and developing, you're going to have more of those at that stage than you can keep," Thompson said. "But that's, relatively speaking, a good problem to have. You have to try to make good decisions in every deal that you do.
2) Getting the Head Coach Right
One of the things I have found doing research is good teams are not swayed by popular opinion. They find the right fit, even if it does not appear to be a great move on the surface. Take Green Bay's hiring of Mike McCarthy as head coach in 2006.
McCarthy was coming off a one year stint as offensive coordinator of one of the least effective offenses in the league.
...
Yet it has worked. McCarthy has won 65% of his games, five division titles in nine years, and a Super Bowl to go with two additional trips to the NFC Championship Game. He has developed perhaps the best quarterback in the league and has assembled a staff that has implemented Thompson's vision. On good teams, finding unheralded talent by the front office and developing that talent with the coaching staff go hand in hand.
McCarthy totally buys into Thompson's program of largely forsaking free agency and focusing on developing the next set of great Packers.
3. Getting the Quarterback Right
Getting Aaron Rodgers (http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7840048/nfl-draft-war-room)
In 2005, we had approximately 20 players rated above the first-round line. When we arrived at our pick, at No. 24, the only name left above that line was Rodgers, who played the same position as one of the most durable players in NFL history: Brett Favre. (I always had a hard time signing a backup quarterback, as they wanted to have at least the possibility of playing.)
It is impossible to overstate how popular of a figure Favre was in Green Bay. The Packers decisively cut ties with him to go with an unknown in Rodgers because they were comfortable with what they had. They did not panic and release Favre to avoid a media circus. They acted deliberately and tried to get the best of all worlds, sending the legend out of the conference and getting a pick in return.
In this case, the Packers were taking the quarterback off a winning team for an unproven. These are the kinds of decisions that get front offices fired if they prove to be poor. It was another "trust the board" moment for the Packers. Their evaluation was that Rodgers could handle the job and play at a high level. Within three years, Rodgers delivered a championship.
The two decisions the Packers made with Rodgers were franchise-altering. They got both right because they didn't bow to pressure. They trusted their evaluations rather than playing it safe and letting outside forces dictate what they did.
4. Be Humble and Hedge Your Bets
NFL teams start out with seven Draft picks each year. In the eleven Drafts Thompson has run as Packers general manager Green Bay has finished selecting 11, 11, 11, 9, 8, 7, 10, 8, 11, 9, and 8 players respectively. If you are scoring at home, that makes it 10 out of 11 times Thompson has finished with more picks than he started and 0 out of 11 he has finished with less picks than he has started.
...in 14 overall [2nd round] picks, Thompson has picked 5 busts and 5 Pro Bowl players. With 36% in both categories, Thompson’s bust rate and Pro Bowl rate are significantly better than the NFL average, which again are 50%/20%.
That is impressive, but rate only matters so much. It is ultimately about the number of players a team gets. If I have two second round picks because I traded down, I only need to go 50% to get a player. If you only have one, you have to go 100%. At the end of the day, we end up in the same place. We both got one player. I just built in extra margin for error. Under the criteria they used, even though Thompson's average was an excellent 36%, he actually found a quality player 88% of the time of the second rounds in which he worked.
Ted Thompson hasn't done things the easy way, but it's hard to deny the he's done it the best way to maximize chances of success. His biggest and most impactful decisions have also been his most controversial, but he trusted his evaluations and pretty much nailed each one of them in the face of public pressure and criticism.
1) Trust Home Grown Talent
The Packers focus on finding and developing their talent. They hit on early round picks. They find contributors in the middle and late rounds. They find contributors off the scrap heap. The key is they want players they can bring up and develop in their own system and culture.
Thompson Saves Packers' Dollars for Home-Grown Talent (http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/ted-thompson-saves-dollars-for-homegrown-talent-p596jen-198719441.html)
Thompson argues there is only so much money to go around, and when it's time to pay players like Rodgers, Matthews, B.J. Raji, Sam Shields and Randall Cobb, you want to have as much money as possible to keep them. Sometimes you choose not to pay as was the case with Greg Jennings, Scott Wells, Daryn Colledge and Nick Barnett.
"If you've done a good enough job of drafting and developing, you're going to have more of those at that stage than you can keep," Thompson said. "But that's, relatively speaking, a good problem to have. You have to try to make good decisions in every deal that you do.
2) Getting the Head Coach Right
One of the things I have found doing research is good teams are not swayed by popular opinion. They find the right fit, even if it does not appear to be a great move on the surface. Take Green Bay's hiring of Mike McCarthy as head coach in 2006.
McCarthy was coming off a one year stint as offensive coordinator of one of the least effective offenses in the league.
...
Yet it has worked. McCarthy has won 65% of his games, five division titles in nine years, and a Super Bowl to go with two additional trips to the NFC Championship Game. He has developed perhaps the best quarterback in the league and has assembled a staff that has implemented Thompson's vision. On good teams, finding unheralded talent by the front office and developing that talent with the coaching staff go hand in hand.
McCarthy totally buys into Thompson's program of largely forsaking free agency and focusing on developing the next set of great Packers.
3. Getting the Quarterback Right
Getting Aaron Rodgers (http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7840048/nfl-draft-war-room)
In 2005, we had approximately 20 players rated above the first-round line. When we arrived at our pick, at No. 24, the only name left above that line was Rodgers, who played the same position as one of the most durable players in NFL history: Brett Favre. (I always had a hard time signing a backup quarterback, as they wanted to have at least the possibility of playing.)
It is impossible to overstate how popular of a figure Favre was in Green Bay. The Packers decisively cut ties with him to go with an unknown in Rodgers because they were comfortable with what they had. They did not panic and release Favre to avoid a media circus. They acted deliberately and tried to get the best of all worlds, sending the legend out of the conference and getting a pick in return.
In this case, the Packers were taking the quarterback off a winning team for an unproven. These are the kinds of decisions that get front offices fired if they prove to be poor. It was another "trust the board" moment for the Packers. Their evaluation was that Rodgers could handle the job and play at a high level. Within three years, Rodgers delivered a championship.
The two decisions the Packers made with Rodgers were franchise-altering. They got both right because they didn't bow to pressure. They trusted their evaluations rather than playing it safe and letting outside forces dictate what they did.
4. Be Humble and Hedge Your Bets
NFL teams start out with seven Draft picks each year. In the eleven Drafts Thompson has run as Packers general manager Green Bay has finished selecting 11, 11, 11, 9, 8, 7, 10, 8, 11, 9, and 8 players respectively. If you are scoring at home, that makes it 10 out of 11 times Thompson has finished with more picks than he started and 0 out of 11 he has finished with less picks than he has started.
...in 14 overall [2nd round] picks, Thompson has picked 5 busts and 5 Pro Bowl players. With 36% in both categories, Thompson’s bust rate and Pro Bowl rate are significantly better than the NFL average, which again are 50%/20%.
That is impressive, but rate only matters so much. It is ultimately about the number of players a team gets. If I have two second round picks because I traded down, I only need to go 50% to get a player. If you only have one, you have to go 100%. At the end of the day, we end up in the same place. We both got one player. I just built in extra margin for error. Under the criteria they used, even though Thompson's average was an excellent 36%, he actually found a quality player 88% of the time of the second rounds in which he worked.