Free agents are risky and I'm going to take a wild guess,
which could be absolutely wrong, but I encourage you to prove it, and say they work out 50% of the time, at most. I'm going to give the Packers history here under Thompson, in my admittedly
could- be-biased personal rankings and see how it stacks up.
Free agents become even more risky when you invest serious $ into a player whose never played for your team/ scheme/ locker room. See
Jarius Byrd and the league last defense in New Orleans, who an unnamed member here encouraged us to sign. While Ted doesn't sign a lot of these guys, he is batting 100% when doing so getting major contributions from (
Woodson, Pickett, Peppers).
Result: 3/3
Most fans here I think take the more level-headed approach of looking for cheaper, lower profile second or third tier guys to sign. Even in this case, these can go wrong, just look at the Patriots signing of
Brandon Spikes this past year, who said member also encouraged us to sign. While the long term ramifications have obviously been negligible in this case, I think we can all agree the BB/TB organization/ locker room is a special one and that signing was still a mistake. While it has worked out for the Packers in the case of
Samkon Gado,
Brandon Chillar, Tim Masthay, Tramon Williams, and
Letroy Guion. Though I really hestate to even include most of these guys here as most were bargain-bin free agents whose careers could have been over if not signed such as
Cedric Benson who I grade out as neither helpful nor exactly hurtful but also with no one better in the wings behind him which ultimately warranted him a spot in neither category. Thompson has missed on these more often than not with the bad play, and taking of roster spots and playing time that could have been used by a younger player with more upside and most likely at least equal, if not better current play. Examples are
Matt O'Dwyer, Adrian Klemm, Marquand Manuel, Ben Taylor, Frank Walker, Anthony Hargrove, Philip Merling, Daniel Muir, Jeff Saturday and Jeremy Ross.
Result: 5/15 \1
*Disclaimer: I'm not including UDFA's here as I feel they fit better within the drafts peramiters, as well as waiver wire pickups as I feel they are equally separate. The same goes for signing our own free agents, as they've already been in our system, and could be considered an added moritorium of our own signing period.
Also:
The case of Jeff Saturday remains an interesting one as he was a high profile free agent, but an aged one at that. Not exactly a highly priced free agent at 2 years and 7.5 million, but not nearly at the veteran's minimum either. In hindisght, he was on his last legs, literally, the day we signed him and while I think his heart still wanted to play football it was obvious his body would not cooperate at a high level. While I think this signing remains quite the opposite, and a little pricier of the Cedric Benson "filling a major plug" signing it is still tough to decide where to classify all of this.
My point here in conclusion, is for pricey free agents, I'd rather have a GM who finds exceptional value, and treads carefully with caution, which Thompson has, hitting on every single one at 3/3.
Quality > Quantity when the stakes are high. Though when it comes to second and third tier free agents, especially as of late he hasn't had the success, even at the money invested I think you would hope for at 5/15 and 1/6 as of late. Has to do a better job solely for the roster spot that could be used elsewhere positively for the reasons stated above, and time invested. While I likely am grading Thompson out harsh here, with his ability to sign top of the line UDFA's to compete with these exact players, I'm hoping my point stands. Ultimately I think he grades out below average here with a negative grade in recent history. If your going to ask Ted to sign more of these second and third tier guys on the market, maybe the current pro-scouting department should be analyzed first.
Overall at 8/18 my 50% theory has held up though I am open to what I could be obviously overlooking as I tiredly write to finish this up, spending way too much time on this tangent. Though I hope some find it useful to why I find myself agreeing with Thompson's general premise for the most part, at least in his circumstances, or at the very least a spark to a counter argument in which I can better learn myself. I'm just going to stop typing here...
