I'm going to focus almost all of my attention on the draft. FA is important. I think he made 1 mistake with Wahle but other than that he has been very solid. So far I give him a B but that is only a small portion of the overall grade. The majority will come from the draft.



For each one Thompson hits on we can give him 1 point. If he gets 13-15 we'll be well on our way to a superbowl. If he gets 10-12 we have a solid base but need to have a special thing or two happen down the road. Anything less than 9 and I am completely out of Thompsons corner. I'm not backing him because I think he's average. I'm backing him because I think he's going to be one of the best in the league.

1. Rodgers pans out
2. Rodgers pans out
3. #5 is a star
4. #5 is a star
5. #5 is a star
6. Murphy pans out
7. Collins develops into a borderline probowler like McKeinzie
8. The remainder of his 1st draft become a solid base and depth on the team
9. The second pick this year is a borderline probowler like Mac
10. The latter portion of this years draft is solid
11. McCarthy is a good coach
12. McCarthy is a good coach
13. He doesn't have any bad contracts signed that hurt the team
14. He either uses or carries over most of the cap space in creative ways
15. He finds more good players like Gado and Lee out of no where

After this year we should be starting to get a general picture of what Thompsons grade is. It's definitly going to take a little more time than two season but these are the things I'm looking for that will be signs of our chances of a great team within the next 4-8 years. If some of this doesn't look to be materializing I will back the hell out of his corner faster than you can say polar-bear. There are no real signs that Thompson has done a bad job yet but he has put himself out there and he better have a great draft this year or his time will be pretty short served.

I'm by no means backing out of his corner yet but I'm just stating that I'm not blind to the possibility that he falls flat on his face. He sure isn't taking the safe route I'll tell you that much.