this is OUR free agency!

[Sunshinepacker]

The Pack beat them for 55 minutes in the NFC championship game, they just have to close the deal. I think GB is actually the better team at this point.

I couldn't help but noticing that the "Legion of Boom" took another hit, as Maxwell is set to sign with Philly. Piece by piece, they're coming apart.

I'm not saying the Seahawks are better, just want to point out that it's probably not realistic to expect Wilson to throw four interceptions again. Also, Pete Carol is known for coaching up corners. Maxwell will be a loss but don't be shocked if someone else just steps in. Seahawks are to corners what the Packers are to receivers.

Packers had the better team in the playoff game (coaching staff can be debated) but I wouldn't say the Packers are certainly better or worse at this point. I mean, as of now, who exactly is covering Graham? Packers don't even have their starting linebackers or corners figured out.

 

[TJV]

Man......maybe a lineman or two has done well elsewhere but not one time can I think where the guy leaving wasn't replaced with someone here that filled right in.

Marco Rivera and Mike Wahle...

IMO captainWIMM’s suggestion that Cullen Jenkins is a much better example.

There were extenuating circumstances regarding Wahle and Rivera. Thompson had just been hired as GM and he found a team with salary cap problems and a roster in need of repair. Wahle’s contract contained a poison pill which gave Wahle all the leverage in negotiations: He was due a $6M roster bonus and his salary for 2005 was $5M. So he would have cost the Packers $11M in cash and cap. According to espn.com, the cap that year was $85.5M. In order to keep Wahle, they would have had to guarantee him $11M or more on an extended deal and how could Thompson fix the cap and begin re-making the roster with that kind of money and cap space invested in an OG?

From everything I read and heard back then, I believed Thompson intended to keep Marco Rivera. When Marco hit FA, he was 33 years old and still playing well. Jerry Jones offered him a $20M, 5-year contract with a $9M signing bonus. Again considering the circumstances it would have been foolish for Thompson to match that offer. BTW, Marco did not do well in Dallas but it wasn’t his fault. He injured his back before the season and had surgery. He still played all but the last two games of the 2005 season when a neck injury ended his career. After injuring his back, he offered to tear up his deal with Dallas and return the $9M signing bonus. Jones refused but that made me respect Marco all the more.

 

[PFanCan]

... After injuring his back, he offered to tear up his deal with Dallas and return the $9M signing bonus. Jones refused but that made me respect Marco all the more.

I didn't know that! Definitely a classy move by Marco. Amazed that Jerry turned it down...

 

[Helmets]

Man......maybe a lineman or two has done well elsewhere but not one time can I think where the guy leaving wasn't replaced with someone here that filled right in.

When I quoted Rivera and Wahle, I was referring to the statement by tynimiller of how "the guy leaving wasn't replaced with someone HERE..." - not what those players did after they left Green Bay.

If you recall, both Rivera and Wahle were both very athletic linemen. The Packers made a living running screens and sweeps with two very athletic guards who could get out and block. When both were lost, Ted tried to replace them with two fat schlubs that couldn't pass block or run block. The screen and sweep were dead, and so was,the Packer offense that season...

 

[adambr2]

Well, I certainly don't think he had the intention of replacing them with guys that couldn't block. It didn't work out, but 2005 was inevitable. We were loaded with so many bad contracts from the Sherman era that the bottom was eventually going to fall out. It did in 2005, and we were lucky it wasn't a longer rebuild. Sherman was an atrocious GM, and one of the few mistakes that Wolf ever made was passing the GM reins on to Sherman.

As a coach, he had some things that were likeable about him, some weren't. But he was much more suited for that role. He was completely out of his league as a GM.

Part of what makes the MM/TT duo successful is that each has one particular focus and job and neither is looking for the other's job. Some coaches do want it, but there are very, very few coaches that can successfully pull off the coach/GM dual role.