For me to continue my support of Thompson........

[RashanGary]

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.

[Partial]

They will have a chance to add two or three really good players in this draft. The problem is I don't think they're at super important positions.

What they should do is trade that 4th to the browns for Faine. That is an incredible deal in my eyes.

They should trade down in the 2nd and acquire and extra 3rd. They should then take Davin Joseph.

The addition of Joseph and Faine solidifies the offensive line. They can let all the other prospects duke it out for the open starting spot.

They should draft Brandon Williams wherever they can get him. He is a special teams demon!!

They should also try and address the DE spot. You can never have too much depth there. Hopefully KPeterson and MMontgomery can stop the run and be solid on running downs.

[Fritz]

Good thread, and I'm glad that I'm not the only one defending TT. I'm with you - the jury's still out. But that's the point. It's too early to be as critical as some people are, I think. Yes, I wish he'd have re-signed Wahle, but let's say he did. What might last year's record be, then? 6-10, maybe? Is Wahle alone worth two victories? If so, then would people exonerate TT? Probably not.

I think TT inherited Sherman's lousy drafting for what, the past four years? Kampman and Barnett on defense and Walker on offense; that's the sum total of four years worth of drafts. Injuries to Poppinga and Murphy damaged the chances of many rookies contributing, so we'll have to wait and see if others (like Coston) pan out.

Two years from now, if they still suck, then I'll be right in the middle of the mob. But for now, I think he's going to be fine.

[swede]

Nick, you, like your namesake, are the up-and-coming man.

The thing I like about your post is that, in a sense, you are acknowledging TT has gone about this off-season exactly the way we thought he would. The only indication we've ever had is that TT would build through the draft and not Free Agency. (And, if in someone's opinion TT didn't do enough last year to win you may examine Blue Dawg's weasel theory in which TT hangs Shermy by his own rope, letting him play out the string with the talentless team Sherm himself had put together. Weasely, perhaps, but all within the long range plan.) We must measure TT's success by the combined performance of last year's draft, this year's draft, the contribution of the new free agents, and the new coaching staff. You really can't rip on TT for whom he didn't pick up. Judge him by how well this year's players perform. If this team wins ten games with Favre or nine without him I'd say we're back on track and looking up. If we only win 5-7 games there will definitely be some heated deliberations and TT hating.

This is one of the best posts I've seen in a while. Give me a day or two. I'll going bend my mind around this and come up with a similar post to pop into this thread.

[Fritz]

You're on the mark, methinks, Swede. I say TT has two years to turn it around. If in April of 2008 we're stuck in neutral, then TT has failed. But you've got to give him the next two seasons to see how his first couple of drafts will turn out.

[swede]

One other quick point. Somehow we need to rebuild an offensive line through spare parts. Can we get another Tauscher-like sleeper in the draft? Is there another decent body left in FA? I think addressing the offensive line is worth another couple of points.

[Fritz]

What I find interesting is that no one seems to have considered that Whitticker and/or Wells and maybe even Coston might pan out. Rivera didn't even start his first year; Wahle sucked his first year as he was rather immature. It may not be likely but it's possible that two of those three guys could become very solid starters. Decent this year, then good after that.

I think Coston's going to be a player in this league.

[LEWCWA]

I agree. I think Wells is going to be a very good player for a lot of years. Coston has high expectations and well I just don't know about Whitticker(sp). He seems to be very talented and very lazy! White has some raw potential as I hear it as well....You have to give these guys a chance to play and not keep bringing in other teams leftovers. We will find out soon enough if they are players....So this we haven't done anything in FA is total BS. We resigned some of our own guys, and brought in a couple players to compete, REGGIE wasn't in this FA class....

[woodbuck27]

[quote="Partial

"What they should do is trade that 4th to the browns for Faine. That is an incredible deal in my eyes."

woodbuck27:I agree He is young experienced versatile and plays the Zone blocking Scheme. This fella was a 1st Round pick I believe as well.

"They should trade down in the 2nd and acquire and extra 3rd. They should then take Davin Joseph.

The addition of Joseph and Faine solidifies the offensive line. They can let all the other prospects duke it out for the open starting spot."

woodbuck27: Nice option there too.

"They should draft Brandon Williams wherever they can get him. He is a special teams demon!!"

woodbuck27 : Draft a WR or CB that also is a gifted kick returner as a priority. We may have lost T.Murphy

They should also try and address the DE spot. You can never have too much depth there. Hopefully KPeterson and MMontgomery can stop the run and be solid on running downs.[/quote]

woodbuck27 : What is best avail. at the pick? but . . yes generally to another DE.

I tried to address the same things in my draft selections (excluding a trade down)

[HarveyWallbangers]

Wood,

We have to learn ya how to use the quote functionality properly.

[Bretsky]

I agree. I think Wells is going to be a very good player for a lot of years. Coston has high expectations and well I just don't know about Whitticker(sp). He seems to be very talented and very lazy! White has some raw potential as I hear it as well....You have to give these guys a chance to play and not keep bringing in other teams leftovers. We will find out soon enough if they are players....So this we haven't done anything in FA is total BS. We resigned some of our own guys, and brought in a couple players to compete, REGGIE wasn't in this FA class....

You are relying on way too many unknowns here. We have three wide open positions on the OL, which is way too many. Depending on guys like Coston and White to develop into starters when they were not good enough to suit up last year is somehting I disagree with. The staff hyped up Atlas Herrion last year as a guy on the practice squad who would compete for a starting position. He was cut. Wells is no guarantee, and Coston and White don't even deserve 50-50 odds at this point.

We were a 4-12 team with 35MIL under the cap so resigning our own, sitting on excessive cap space, and replacing

Grady with Pickett
Roman with Manuel
Diggs with Ben flippin Taylor

doesn't cut it

[Partial]

Thats why we should trade our 4th for Faine, a proven comodity. We should draft Joseph in the bottom of the second via trade down for extra third, who steps in as an immediate impact starter. Let the other guys fight it out for the spot.

Viola! Line fixed.

[motife]

don't get a viola mixed up with a magdalin.

I doubt Vince Lombardi, Ron Wolf or Bill Parcells would ever pull a magician's cloth off their team and say "Voila!" but it's a great image.

[RashanGary]

I read somewhere that this is one of the deepest interior line drafts in a long time. I think we'll get some players between rounds 3-4. Also, the zone blocking scheme is easy on OG's.

I think we'll get at least one player out of Coston, Whittaker, Wells and White. We should get 2 out of there acctually. So we're one solid piece missing for sure. Hopefully the draft pans out in a way that there is a valuable OG sitting there for us in the 3rd round. We do need a little luck to hit rich quick you know. The natural path is a slower process but it can speed up quickly if value meets need which it rarely does.

[gex]

Very interesting read and alot of spot on posts.