I was wondering where you were the last few days.

He put Favre in a dryer? He wrung Favre out and slipped him back on his foot with a grimace?

It’s folks like you who lack the vision to stay competitive because you’re so shackled to the past. Ted Thompson is imperfect, but if we are going to enjoy a relatively successful transition from the Favre era into the next phase (as opposed to sinking into Siberia-like obscurity for two decades like the last time a great era came to an end), we need someone who does not share your impairment.

Sorry dude, but you’re on the wrong side of history.

You’re absolutely right in recapping Favre’s impact on the team from 1992 on. Brett Favre was one of the main reasons for the Packer’s success from 93-07, and I love him for that.

Was.

As they say, all good things must come to an end, and it was coming to an end last offseason. Favre knew it, that’s why he retired. He can’t play forever; he even said, “I know I can still play…but I’m not sure I want to.”

So there you go. If you’re Ted Thompson, how can you not take that as a sign that it’s time to move on to the next phase of rebuilding the team (elevating Rodgers to the starting role)? And if Thompson immediately jumped ship the minute Favre decided he might want to return, how would that look? He would be a worse coddler than Mike Sherman was and would lose all credibility, not to mention the complete unravelling of the Packers’ relationship with Rodgers.

Was it a great situation? No. Could it have been handled better? Absolutely. But the most important question is this. Who’s going to have more wins in the next decade: Brett Favre or the Green Bay Packers? The Packers.

Nobody gets the right to dictate anything to management; that’s why management is hired to make decisions. Favre was a great player, but no player can take over the GM’s office, especially when the team is precariously balanced between mediocrity and success. The team is and always shall be more important to the player, no matter who the player is.

Now, we’re at a serious risk that players don’t want to come to Green Bay because of the way TT treats the players.

Ridiculous. B.J. Raji and Clay Matthews seem happy about being here. Players who perform well get good money in Green Bay, and good players will go where the money is. Charles Woodson got a nice contract. Aaron Kampman got a deserved extension. Ryan Grant got himself a contract, even if he has fallen off. Hell, Brady Poppinga got a somewhat undeserved extension. And you can bet that Jennings and Collins will be getting their extensions in time.

Plus, is Favre the only player that deserves consideration? How about the way he treated Rodgers? Thompson stood by him, supported him, and stuck with him throughout the whole mess. What about Koren Robinson, who Thompson was willing to take a risk on, and was only let go when the WR corps weren’t improved by his presence?

Thompson lets go of players that are past their prime and can’t perform at the level the coaches need. Rivera, Wahle, KGB, etc. are all examples of this. You think that players won’t want to come here because management keeps them accountable? I disagree; real players that want to win will come here because management will keep them accountable. And if you want the players to run the team, then you can be sure that the team will be going nowhere fast.

Make a serious run at winning one last SB with Favre, and then Favre could have retired as champion and we wouldn’t have this mess.

Well…what about 2007? The team was built for the both the future and the present and we made it to the NFC Championship game and Brett threw it all away with an inexcusable pass.

First, Aaron did make comebacks and the defense blew it as time expired. Remember? Carolina? Tennessee? Jacksonville? Houston? How about Minnesota, when the kicker missed the field goal? Or how about earlier in that MN game when Rodgers put them up by 10 points with 5 minutes remaining only to have the touchdown called back due to a penalty? This is a team sport, not one quarterback vs. another.

Secondly, I’ll take your advice and not tell you that Brett would never had led any of those teams to a last second comeback victory, but I certainly wouldn’t guarantee he would either. You’re in the land of speculation and conjecture – who know what would have happened? The bottom line for me is that I see the forest for the trees, and we have a promising young talent at the most important position of the game, and I’ll wait and judge him against a hall-of-fame quarterback when he’s played at least more than one freaking season.

Finally, no one of those games were lost solely because Rodgers played horrible for the entire game. I watched that last game the Jets played against the Dolphins with the season on the line and Brett was the sole reason they lost the game and a opening round home playoff game. And believe me, I was rooting for Brett and take no enjoyment in that fact. And if it was due to his injuries, then Brett should do the right thing and sit down. Because no one gets credit for playing hurt when the injury was so severe that the player was an actual detriment on the field.

Bart Starr was an absolute legend for the Packers at the QB position. What if, and it’s a big what if I’ll grant you, Bart Starr decides he wants to return and be the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers? Let’s just say that during a commercial for the Rawhide Boys Ranch he starts to feel that “itch” again. What should Thompson do then? I mean, Starr has earned the right to play QB in the NFL, and the Packers orginization and the city of Green Bay owe him an awful lot. How should that be handled?

The only logical answer to that illogical question is for Ted to say something like, “Bart, I appreciate everything you’ve done. I have no doubt that you still posses the ability and drive to be an elite QB in this league. However, acting in the interest of the Green Bay Packers, a job I have been hired to and will some day be fired from doing, we are going to move in another direction.”

That’s how it would be handled, and I challenge you to find a Packer or Thompson quote to the media that is anything but respectful to Brett. At some point, and this point is already like 9 months ago by the way, you are going to have to let Brett go. It’s Rodgers’ time. It just is. Maybe Rodgers won’t amount to anything. Maybe Thompson will fail to build a good team and be fired in the process. Maybe Brett has 10 years of good football left in him with 8 Pro Bowl selections mixed in. Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is, Brett is gone, he’s not coming back, he had a questionable commitment level to playing football in Green Bay, he might play elsewhere, Rodgers is here for the foreseeable future, and without getting into a “who’s better” debate I’d say it’s fairly reasonable to suggest that both Favre & Rodgers posses comparable talent today on 5/8/09. Fair? I think so.

I never understood the fascination with the Favre backers out there in so much as to hate Thompson. He’s not Fidel Castro. He’s not Stalin for Christ’s sake. He isn’t holding Lambeau Filed and the city of Green Bay hostage and ruling as a mad dictator. He’s been hired to do a job, he’s doing it as he sees fit, and if the B. of D. don’t like the results he will be looking for work at some point.

I just wonder: If Thompson would be fired today, what cross would the Favre crowd carry then? Who to blame?

The run games were far from equal. Jones was the leading AFC rusher for most of the season.

Verno, yes the 2007 season ended on a Favre int in the NFC championship game, but it was not Favre who only rushed for 28 yds that game, I was not Favre who let Plaxico catch 17 or something passes for a 140 + yards in that game, the Packers got outplayed by the Giants, the team that went on to beat the 18 -0 Patriots in the SB.

Well, you have missed the point again. You said that TT should have made an effort to win a Super Bowl for Brett so he could retire and then we wouldn’t have this mess. I was pointing out that TT did, in fact, do just that and put together a team that had a chance to get to the Super Bowl. And while, yes, the Packers abandoned the run way too soon and they refused to give Al Harris help when he was being shredded by Plax, to say that they were outplayed by the Giants is a bit of a stretch IMO. They were in OT after all. Kinda hard to get to OT while being outplayed the whole game.

All I’m saying is TT has pushed Favre towards retirement since the he took over as GM, and that I think he should have tried a little harder to both make a serious run with Favre and rebuild for the future

The effort was made to both make a serious run with Favre and rebuild for the future. If you can’t see that then your Favre-colored glasses are whats getting in your way.

The Titans game

The Vikings game in Minnesota

I would say the play calling at the end made the field longer than it should have been. Two runs back to back from the 40 that picked up a total of 3 yards didn’t help out Crosby at all.

The Panther game.

We thoroughly outplayed the Panthers in the second half but every time we scored Delhomme simply heaved the ball in the air and Smith ran underneath it and brought it to the one. I guess Rodgers didn’t motivate the defense properly, huh?

The Texans game

With a 1:49 left the defense allows a drive from the Houston 3 to the Green Bay 22.

The Jaguars game

The defense gives up two TD’s in the fourth quarter and the game ends on a Rodgers INT.

The Bear game in Chicago

Facing a short field the defense gives up another fourth quarter TD to send the game to OT where we don’t get a chance with the ball cause the defense allows a drive from the Chicago 33 to the Green Bay 20.

All of these games show the weakness in the defense that was present in the end of the year. I wasn’t a big of fan of trading Corey Williams either but he didn’t have the greatest season in Cleveland either. Losing Jenkins and Barnett, the demise of KGB, the injury that slowed Hawk down to an average LB at best last year, and the injuries in the secondary all contributed to the collapse of the defense. Simply having Corey Williams wouldn’t have solved the problems.

“Did the Packers win any of those games ? No, so they are NOT comeback wins. I don’t remember extacly the scoring sequense in all the games you mentioned,”

Yeah, why would you want to go and actually investigate the evidence you point to as support for your thesis that Rodgers was worse than Favre last year.

For instance, this gem: “the running game for the Jets and Packers were pretty even.” Did you even do basic research while making this baldly false assertion? For gawdsakes, Thomas Jones was the pro bowl starter last year, scoring 13 TDs to Grant’s 4. Plus, while I would agree that the Packers WR corps is more talented overall than the Jets’, Laveranues Coles and Jerricho Cotchery are pretty damned good.

I guess you’re just going to see what you want to see regardless of reality. You exhibit all the symptoms of a true believer and your cause is dual: Favre is infallible and Thompson cannot do anything right and has a personal vendetta against Favre.

Oh, and how has Ted done “a horrible job with the very foundation of the team, the offensive and defensive lines”? What evidence do you have of this? You do understand that injuries occur in the NFL, right? The Packers lines are young and unproven, but you cannot say with a straight face that Ted has done “a horrible job” with either. Let me guess, the sum of your evidence is drafting Justin Harrell.

Other things, Rodgers did while a head in score, or early in games, snap the ball with 5+ seconds left on the play clock, Favre damn near all the time snaps it at 1 (unless his team needs a quick score in the 4th.) let’s look at that 5 sec difference, if the offense runs 50 plays while the clock is running, this times out to 4 min 16 sec in time of possesion in a game, that is HUGE, but ofcourse it’s high speculations, since there are a lot more factors affecting the gameclock, but still it helps having a QB who by keeping the ball dead, helps minimize time of possesion for the other team. Now, you also need to go back and look at how opposing defenses played vs Jets / Packers, after about game 5, (and in the Cowboys game) teams started to challenge Rodgers to beat them, there were oh-so-many times he did not see and take advantage of that, by chaning to either short or deep routs, depending on what they gave him.

I never thought I’d hear a Favre defense that was grounded on the play clock.