Thompson coming up short on top picks

[Lurker64]

Ron Wolf used to saya draft was solid if you got three starters--I'm assuming three solid starters. It also depends on draft position.

Which is interesting, especially when you look at this year's draft. Certainly Raji and Matthews are being groomed to be starters at key positions, and T.J. Lang and Quinn Johnson are likely to compete for starting roles down the line, and by many accounts Meredith was a 2nd round talent taken in the 5th who has NFL LT skills and physical ability. So it's not entirely implausible to say that we might end up with FIVE starters from the 2009 draft. Does that excuse a couple of bad ones before?

I also think that when grading a draft, if you do land on a truly great player, it doesn't really matter what you did anywhere else, it was a good draft. Who cares whether or not Hawk is as dominant as we hoped, he's a good player and Greg Jennings is one of the NFL elite at his position. Who cares whether Sidney Rice, Marcus McCauley, and Brian Robison are any good, the 2007 draft was a success for the Vikings because they got Adrian Peterson; if they had stopped there, that one would have been a resounding success in retrospect.

[packerbacker1234]

We have flopped with top picks lately. People forget rodgers was selected like, 5 years ago.

Harrel is a complete bust, brohm is disapointing (being beaten out by a QB picked much later), AJ Hawk hasn't been impressive. He's been... ok, at best. Not worth a top 5 pick.

BJ Raji looks like a stud, but base don our recent history I'll hold.

[Patler]

I just read the article again, and the premise is really kind of dumb. The title implies an indictment of TT's overall work in early rounds; yet it acknowledges that TT did well in 2005 and 2006. It ignores 2009, for the most part. It is an analysis of an injured 1st rounder, and four second rounders, two of which (Lee and Brohm) were not intended or expected to be early contributors.

2005 - Rodger, Collins Murphy. No real misses there. Murphy's injury came out of no where. Rogers could turn out to be a very big "hit" for TT.

2006 - Hawk, Colledge, Jennings. Three starters, one emerging star. Could he have done better than Hawk? Sure, but Hawk filled a huge need on the team at the time and has been a starter from day 1.

2007 - Harrell, Jackson. Harrell counts as a miss. The injury history was known. Thompson took a chance (which I agree with) and came up short, so far. Jackson is a contributor, but not a big one. How much TT failed in this draft really depends on who else was taken in those rounds. Who could he have taken? Not guys who came from no where, but the guys with 1st and 2nd round grades that were available for Thompson. If the article had addressed that question, it would have more value, in my opinion.

2008 - Nelson, Brohm, Lee - Kind of early to judge this, but again the real question is who else was available with 1st or 2nd round grades? Should he have traded out of the first round? In essence, his first round pick that year along with his fifth round pick were used for Jordy Nelson and Jeremy Thompson. Nelson seems like an OK pick. Thompson is an unknown so far. Neither Brohm nor Lee were expected to contribute yet, and haven't.

2009 - Raji, Mathews. Who knows? Expected to be two starters as rookies. If Mathews is a "miss" eventually, it bears a bigger value because he cost multiple picks to get.

Looking at the list, I would like to see more out of 2006 and 2007; but I can't say that his overall performance is bad.

[SkinBasket]

Both of you two weiners knock it off with the bullshit propaganda. You both know what your saying is complete and utter bullshit, so just stop. K?

I'd appreciate it if you didn't reply to my posts, K?

Hey, I'm not the one posting asinine things and thread crapping, now am I. As you can see, my response was fair. Yours and the other guys are both off topic and assbag-esque.

Partial, your lame insult of two posters was a bigger reach than anything in this article. They were both talking about Thompson. What the fuck other direction do you think a thread about Thompson was going to take? Chill the fuck out.


As far as the article, I agree with Wallbanger. You judge a draft in it's entirety unless the team is in financial trouble due to big rookie contracts paid out to failed picks.

There's been a lot of injury involved in those picks. A few could have been foreseen but the upside was there. Others are just bad luck. I would think it takes a trip to the playoffs to keep Ted's job safe this season though. I have no idea who you replace him with who would be clearly better, but change for the sake of change seems to be the industry standard these days.

[sheepshead]

Come on.

[PackerTimer]

I just read the article again, and the premise is really kind of dumb. The title implies an indictment of TT's overall work in early rounds; yet it acknowledges that TT did well in 2005 and 2006. It ignores 2009, for the most part. It is an analysis of an injured 1st rounder, and four second rounders, two of which (Lee and Brohm) were not intended or expected to be early contributors.

2005 - Rodger, Collins Murphy. No real misses there. Murphy's injury came out of no where. Rogers could turn out to be a very big "hit" for TT.

2006 - Hawk, Colledge, Jennings. Three starters, one emerging star. Could he have done better than Hawk? Sure, but Hawk filled a huge need on the team at the time and has been a starter from day 1.

2007 - Harrell, Jackson. Harrell counts as a miss. The injury history was known. Thompson took a chance (which I agree with) and came up short, so far. Jackson is a contributor, but not a big one. How much TT failed in this draft really depends on who else was taken in those rounds. Who could he have taken? Not guys who came from no where, but the guys with 1st and 2nd round grades that were available for Thompson. If the article had addressed that question, it would have more value, in my opinion.

2008 - Nelson, Brohm, Lee - Kind of early to judge this, but again the real question is who else was available with 1st or 2nd round grades? Should he have traded out of the first round? In essence, his first round pick that year along with his fifth round pick were used for Jordy Nelson and Jeremy Thompson. Nelson seems like an OK pick. Thompson is an unknown so far. Neither Brohm nor Lee were expected to contribute yet, and haven't.

2009 - Raji, Mathews. Who knows? Expected to be two starters as rookies. If Mathews is a "miss" eventually, it bears a bigger value because he cost multiple picks to get.

Looking at the list, I would like to see more out of 2006 and 2007; but I can't say that his overall performance is bad.

As usual Patler's analysis is better than those who get paid to do it.

[Deputy Nutz]

One just has to look at tt's record of bringing super bowl wins to the teams he's ran. I mean just look at Seattle's ______ super bowl wins and now all the playoff appearances/super bowl wins he's brought to GB in the 4+ years he's fail....erm... been here.

Seattle went to the Super Bowl mostly with the talent that Thompson brought in. Green Bay was an errant Brett Favre pass from making the Super Bowl.

Really??? Just one Favre pass? I gues you just watched overtime of the championship game. Being such a big Packer fan, and a football fan I would have expected you to watch the whole NFC Championship game of 2007.

[Deputy Nutz]

I just read the article again, and the premise is really kind of dumb. The title implies an indictment of TT's overall work in early rounds; yet it acknowledges that TT did well in 2005 and 2006. It ignores 2009, for the most part. It is an analysis of an injured 1st rounder, and four second rounders, two of which (Lee and Brohm) were not intended or expected to be early contributors.

2005 - Rodger, Collins Murphy. No real misses there. Murphy's injury came out of no where. Rogers could turn out to be a very big "hit" for TT.

2006 - Hawk, Colledge, Jennings. Three starters, one emerging star. Could he have done better than Hawk? Sure, but Hawk filled a huge need on the team at the time and has been a starter from day 1.

2007 - Harrell, Jackson. Harrell counts as a miss. The injury history was known. Thompson took a chance (which I agree with) and came up short, so far. Jackson is a contributor, but not a big one. How much TT failed in this draft really depends on who else was taken in those rounds. Who could he have taken? Not guys who came from no where, but the guys with 1st and 2nd round grades that were available for Thompson. If the article had addressed that question, it would have more value, in my opinion.

2008 - Nelson, Brohm, Lee - Kind of early to judge this, but again the real question is who else was available with 1st or 2nd round grades? Should he have traded out of the first round? In essence, his first round pick that year along with his fifth round pick were used for Jordy Nelson and Jeremy Thompson. Nelson seems like an OK pick. Thompson is an unknown so far. Neither Brohm nor Lee were expected to contribute yet, and haven't.

2009 - Raji, Mathews. Who knows? Expected to be two starters as rookies. If Mathews is a "miss" eventually, it bears a bigger value because he cost multiple picks to get.

Looking at the list, I would like to see more out of 2006 and 2007; but I can't say that his overall performance is bad.

As usual Patler's analysis is better than those who get paid to do it.

The one thing that I disagree with is that Murphy had a predisposed spinal condition that I believe was brought to the GM's attention at the Combine of that year.

[Partial]

Ron Wolf used to saya draft was solid if you got three starters--I'm assuming three solid starters. It also depends on draft position.

Which is interesting, especially when you look at this year's draft. Certainly Raji and Matthews are being groomed to be starters at key positions, and T.J. Lang and Quinn Johnson are likely to compete for starting roles down the line, and by many accounts Meredith was a 2nd round talent taken in the 5th who has NFL LT skills and physical ability. So it's not entirely implausible to say that we might end up with FIVE starters from the 2009 draft. Does that excuse a couple of bad ones before?

I also think that when grading a draft, if you do land on a truly great player, it doesn't really matter what you did anywhere else, it was a good draft. Who cares whether or not Hawk is as dominant as we hoped, he's a good player and Greg Jennings is one of the NFL elite at his position. Who cares whether Sidney Rice, Marcus McCauley, and Brian Robison are any good, the 2007 draft was a success for the Vikings because they got Adrian Peterson; if they had stopped there, that one would have been a resounding success in retrospect.

The Adrian Peterson point is good. Would you trade an entire draft to get an elite super star top 5 player in the NFL type talent?

[Deputy Nutz]

Ron Wolf used to saya draft was solid if you got three starters--I'm assuming three solid starters. It also depends on draft position.

Which is interesting, especially when you look at this year's draft. Certainly Raji and Matthews are being groomed to be starters at key positions, and T.J. Lang and Quinn Johnson are likely to compete for starting roles down the line, and by many accounts Meredith was a 2nd round talent taken in the 5th who has NFL LT skills and physical ability. So it's not entirely implausible to say that we might end up with FIVE starters from the 2009 draft. Does that excuse a couple of bad ones before?

I also think that when grading a draft, if you do land on a truly great player, it doesn't really matter what you did anywhere else, it was a good draft. Who cares whether or not Hawk is as dominant as we hoped, he's a good player and Greg Jennings is one of the NFL elite at his position. Who cares whether Sidney Rice, Marcus McCauley, and Brian Robison are any good, the 2007 draft was a success for the Vikings because they got Adrian Peterson; if they had stopped there, that one would have been a resounding success in retrospect.

The Adrian Peterson point is good. Would you trade an entire draft to get an elite super star top 5 player in the NFL type talent?

Well the Saints did if for Ricky Williams. It was probably a huge mistake because you are putting all of your chips into one player regardless of the talent of that player coming out of college you never know what type of pro they are going to turn out to be. Lots of people probably would have thought it a good idea to trade their entire draft for Reggie Bush. Doing something like that would really deplete your roster depth. I guess if the team had a big free agent spending spree, but still never a great idea.

[pbmax]

The one thing that I disagree with is that Murphy had a predisposed spinal condition that I believe was brought to the GM's attention at the Combine of that year.

Nutz, do you have a link for that? I know at this point its unlikely, but I don't remember reading Murphy having "stingers" in college or camp. And repeated stingers and loss of feeling/functionality in your arms are what usually triggers an MRI and the diagnosis (spinal stenosis). At least in the cases I recall.

[Cheesehead Craig]

Murphy's spine condition wasn't found out until after the injury per Packers.com

http://www.packers.com/news/stories/2007/06/05/1/

[Fritz]

Some of Ron Wolf's early rounders:

Antwan/Antoine/Antuan Edwards

John Michels

Derrick Mayes

Jamaal Reynolds

Robert Ferguson

He seemed to do better early on in his GM career, rather than later....

Therefore, Ron Wolf = Ted Thompson.

Or something.

[TheRaven]

A GM's drafting ability shouldn't be graded on his top picks. Everyone knows what a complete crapshoot the process is in the first round. There is so much hype on the wrong attributes that it can be difficult to wade through the BS.

The true value of a GM comes from finding the hidden value in those that others could not see. Sure, it can be classified as luck. But the best GMs find flawed players that match up well with their system and exploit their strengths.

[bobblehead]

I can't be bothered to judge a GM by his success in X rounds...Look at the body of work.

I was huge on TT's bandwagon as I like his approach to building a team. I have gotten off it slightly for a handful of reasons, but I still like his approach. We improved over 3 seasons as he rebuilt the roster, then took a big step back last year. His drafting on the defensive side SEEMS inadequate to me at this point. Nevermind where players were drafted, our defenses best players weren't procured by TT. Some of that is because he has focused more on offense, but some is that his guys haven't worked out.

Hopefully this will be the year of Tramon, Bigby and whoever else looks promising of "his" guys. Hopefully our kicker won't miss 2 makeable game winners. Hopefully there won't be phantom holding calls in clutch moments and mind reading ref's calling intentional grounding cuz they know what rodgers saw and what he didn't. I'm hoping for 11 wins, or I will be somewhat disappointed, but if we get 10 and win the north I will still be standing behind TT.