Disaster is waiting in the wings. So let’s frame things for a moment.

For the six years prior to Dan Snyder owning the team, the Redskins averaged 6 wins.

Under him, they’ve averaged a game and a half better, at 7.6.

In those prior six years, their average Offensive ranking was 16, their average Defensive ranking 20 (both points, not yards — I personally think yards deceive, because it’s points that really matter).

In ten years under Snyder, their average Offensive ranking was 21, their average Defensive rating 15.

In other words, all that’s happened is that the units have flipped. One side got better, the other side worse. The six years prior to Snyder’s arrival had a better offense than we remember — an average offense — and the past ten years they’ve had a defense ranked in the top ten half of the years he’s owned the team (six times if you measure it by yards, but again, I don’t).

This year, the Redskins have an Offense ranked 29th in points scored, 24th in yards. They have a Defense ranked 6th in points allowed and 7th in yards allowed.

In other words: as bad as it seems, this is really par for the course: a below average Offense has become a terrible one, and a Defense has remained a top ten entity.

A top ten defense coupled with a terrible offense makes for a solidly below average team. This is all the more frustrating when you consider that the defense is primarily composed of free agents (only four out of eleven current starters were drafted by the team), while the reverse is true of the offense, a majority of which was drafted by the team in the person of Mr. Vinny Cerrato, a yes-man caricature of a disastrous front office man, whose incoherent style has translated to a misbegotten mashup of players, none of whom fit the offensive scheme the Redskins currently run.

The lesson of the past few years, as told via the Worldwide Leader and countless commentators, is that Defense Wins Championships. This is actually, upon further inspection, a lie — the Baltimore Ravens of old are the exception that proves the rule. There are plenty of examples of top ten defenses, including the Redskins teams of the past decade, that have missed the playoffs or made no mark in them. The truth is that you can’t win without a defense — that Balance Wins Championships. A top flight offense without a capable defense is chewy fodder for better teams in January, but everyone needs to be able to manage the clock, control possession, and score points.

So how do you fix this terrible offense? There are two solutions, both of which the Redskins, in my opinion, are likely to follow: a new scheme (which means a new head coach), and a new front office (which means a new GM).

Let’s take the front office first. This week has, for Redskins fandom, been primarily focused on the injury to left tackle Chris Samuels. Arguably the best and most consistent Redskins player of the past decade, Samuels has consistently faced some of the best attacking talent in the NFL in recent years. What is amazing, if you pause to consider it, is the list of Redskins quarterbacks he’s protected in that time.

• Brad Johnson
• Jeff George
• Todd Husak
• Tony Banks
• Kent Graham
• Shane Matthews
• Danny Wuerffel
• Patrick Ramsey
• Tim Hasselbeck
• Rob Johnson
• Gibran Hamdan
• Mark Brunell
• Jason Campbell
• Todd Collins

There’s something you’ll notice about this list, and it’s not good: only two of these quarterbacks could ever have been considered in the top tier of passers in the league, and only one of them — Johnson — had his best season in a Redskins uniform (in 1999, Johnson threw for 4,005 yards, 24 TDs, 13 INTs, and a 60.9% completion percentage). The next best single season is the veteran Brunell’s, in 2005, when he threw for 3,050 yards, 23 TDs, and 10 INTs — a shadow of his former self, but good enough in a run heavy offense. Both, as you might expect, were playoff years.

There’s something else you may notice here: very few if any of these quarterbacks have the same skillset or similar talents. A consistent offense demands a consistent passer. While Campbell has proven himself to be an acceptable if limited pro-caliber passer in the past two seasons, the rest of these players are backup quality at best. Consistency demands a signal caller who has the capability to make a variety of throws, limit turnovers, lead a two minute drive, and force defenses to stay honest. Surveying the league, this can be said to be true of, by my count, 22 out of 32 franchises — the exceptions being the Raiders, Bills, Dolphins, Buccaneers, Jets, Lions, Browns, Niners, Titans and yes, the Redskins.

Collectively, no team in this grouping has more than three wins, several are winless, and most are at the bottom of their divisions. Only two teams with terrible records — the winless Rams with an injured Marc Bulger, and the one win Chiefs with an injured Matt Cassel — have quarterbacks who have proven themselves to be in the top tier of quarterbacks in the NFL in the recent past.

Under Snyder, the Redskins desperately need someone who can build, run, and sustain an offense. That means adopting a mentality, drafting players who fit that mentality, and going from there. Most importantly, it means having a quarterback who fits your system: there’s a perfect example of system-shock in the circumstances in Chicago, where Jay Cutler’s inability to adapt to Ron Turner’s offense is proving disastrous, versus those in Denver, where the previously mediocre Kyle Orton has shown himself to be an excellent fit in Josh McDaniels’ system.

It does not require years of effort to build a consistent above-average offense with acceptable personnel. One need not look at the Colts, Patriots, Eagles or Saints as the model here: instead, look at a team like Houston. The Texans have built a showstopping offense around the solid Matt Schaub (seeing Schaub several times at UVA, I always believed he’d be an excellent quarterback at the pro level, but even I am amazed at his skill at this point in his relatively young career), a field-stretching receiver, a relatively light but agile line, and a quick athletic scatback in Steve Slaton.

These pieces fit together well, after being assembled in essentially three years, in ways that contrast notably with the schizophrenic pursuits of the Redskins — a team which has shifted from Norv Turner’s Dallas attack, to Martyball, to Fun-and-Gun, to Gibbs’ Smashmouth 2.0, to Al Saunders, to a hybrid West Coast attack all in less than a decade. Inconsistent offensive schemes make for inconsistent offensive drafts, and while the Redskins’ defensive scheme is for the most part unchanged, and the consistency there has proved rewarding, the back and forth nature of the demands and requirements of the offense has resulted in a soup of ridiculously unmatched talent, with an aging offensive line nearly bereft of depth and aging skill players backed up by a mix of mediocrity and outright busts.

The front office has to take the blame for this circumstance, and in this team’s arrangement, that translates to the aforementioned Cerrato. Cerrato is not the worst personnel head in the NFL, and he deserves credit for his strong, defense-focused first round picks — he ignored pleas from the fanbase in taking Sean Taylor over Kellen Winslow, Carlos Rogers over Mike Williams — none of whom were embarrassing busts (which cannot be said of nearly any team in the NFL over the past several years). The worst first round pick arguably happened in the one year he was absent (Rod Gardner). That said, Cerrato fails not on the big questions, but on countless little ones — his drafts have failed to produce the cheap raw talent in the middle rounds that grows into starting caliber players.

In my opinion, entirely from the outside, Cerrato now understands his destiny is tied to Coach Jim Zorn’s. His recent statement of support for the coach is just the last domino in a long chain of events — particularly Cerrato’s notable failures in the 2006 free agent period and the 2008 draft, both of which had wide-ranging ramifications for the franchise — which has put his head in the stocks. If this season doesn’t turn around for the Redskins — and a turnaround, ridiculously unlikely at this point, would mean a better than .500 season — it is altogether too convenient for Snyder to send a signal to the fans by dismissing both Zorn and Cerrato, and starting anew: a new scheme, and a new front office to fuel it.

Snyder is not an awful owner. There are clearly worse ones in the league — in my opinion, I’ll always favor an owner who’s willing to take the money gained on a team and re-invest it, as opposed to one happy to stand pat with below average personnel and a system proven not to work — and Snyder is clearly a fan of the franchise, not merely a money-grubbing businessman looking to benefit himself. Unfortunately, it’s clear that Snyder has many of the same weaknesses as Jerry Jones in Dallas: a tendency to meddle, to waste money on subpar or over-the-hill talent (Dallas tends to overspend for young while Washington overspends for old — the Cowboys trade a third round pick for Drew Henson and hands him $3.5 million guaranteed without playing a down, the Redskins trade a second and sixth round pick for Jason Taylor), and to make excessively petty moves. Snyder has more playoff wins in his tenure than Jones, of course — but otherwise, their teams are remarkably similar: they make a great deal of money for their owners, they dominate the offseasons, and their fans are watching someone else in January.

If Snyder truly wants to change that, he’ll hand the reins of the front-office to a proven GM — there are a solid five or six names in the market this coming year — who will select and approve a proven offensive-minded head coach, and allow him the time to build, run, and sustain that offense. That’s the only way you’ll achieve balance on this team, and in my opinion, it’s the only way the Redskins will ever be a real contender.

Football teams have windows of opportunity in the NFL. They have a handful of years to make a run, usually tied to the tenure of an established quarterback paired with a solid defense. Pittsburgh is in the middle of their window right now, as is San Diego and Baltimore — for the Colts, the Eagles and New England, those windows may be closing. Looking at the Redskins of 2009, it’s hard to feel like this is a team that has several good years ahead of it. While the defense is young and solid, the offensive line is one of the oldest groups in the league, and it’s thin to say the least — young talent like RT Stephon Heyer and RG Chad Rinehart look more like backup quality players than starters. Stud running back Clinton Portis likely has only two more years of life, if the 30-year mark for RBs in this NFL holds true, wideouts Santana Moss and Antwaan Randle El are aging, and last year’s crop of second-round pass-catchers has failed to impress thus far. Once again, this looks like a team that will hold opponents to low scoring outputs, but be frustrated from putting points up on the board.

Prediction: Mediocrity! But at least it’ll be entertaining mediocrity.

Slingin Sammy Baugh – the greatest two-way quarterback who ever lived – has died at age 94.

The only quarterback to ever lead the league in touchdowns, defensive takeaways, and punting (he still holds the NFL record for highest career punting average), Sam Baugh once threw four touchdowns and intercepted four passes (he was the first to ever do that) in the same game. The skinny Texan (6′2, 175) with a heavy drawl had famous tilts running the double wing against the Bears – he once left the Championship Game with a concussion after a particularly brutal tackle of Sid Luckman – was the sports rivalry of the forties. He played for 16 years, all without a facemask. He won the passing title six times, a record that has only been tied once, and never beaten.

After returning home in 1952, he got a few coaching jobs, then retired to his 6,000 acre ranch. His wife Edmonia died in 1990, after 52 years of marriage. In the years since, he welcomed hundreds of passersby to his home, regaling them with tales of the old days of the gridiron.

Sam Baugh’s number, 33, remains the only one the Redskins have ever officially retired.

(Read an on-scene account of Baugh’s style from 1937 here.)

Past rumors are now confirmed as absolute truth in the wake of the slobberknocker comeback in Philly: Redskins Owner Daniel Snyder is, in all actuality, Michael Scott’s long lost twin brother. Well, but maybe with a little more of that John Henderson fire (from an old WaPo profile):

“Hey, turn on ESPN!” he says. “They got the Redskins! Turn it on!” I turn on the TV in my room so now we are both watching ESPN. “They’re showing us losing to Dallas!” he mutters. The Dallas Cowboys have now beaten the Redskins nine consecutive times.

“I hate Dallas,” Snyder yells. “. . . Would I cut off a finger to beat Dallas?”

“I don’t know, Dan,” I reply, “you might.”

“I would,” he says.

The original evidence is provided by Mr. Irrelevant.

Pearlman writes that Michael Irvin, incensed that tackle Everett McIver, in mid-haircut, would not leave a barber chair at training camp in 1998 so Irvin could get his haircut first, stabbed McIver in the neck. McIver was rushed to the hospital and survived, but not without losing a lot of blood. Irvin’s silence on the charge has been deafening. I asked a Cowboy who played on that team if the story was true. “Absolutely,” the Cowboy said. “I’m surprised it was kept quiet over the years.”

More from Jamie Mottram.

My predictions for the way the season turns out (made before the Brady injury – I’d stick the Titans in there instead):

Coach of the Year: Ken Whisenhunt

MVP: Drew Brees

Offensive POY: Terrell Owens

Defensive POY: Julius Peppers

Offensive ROY: Chris Johnson

Defensive ROY: Keith Rivers

AFC East: Buffalo Bills

AFC North: Pittsburgh Steelers

AFC South: Indianapolis Colts

AFC West: Denver Broncos

Wild Cards: New England Patriots, San Diego Chargers

NFC East: Philadelphia Eagles

NFC North: Green Bay Packers

NFC South: Carolina Panthers

NFC West: Arizona Cardinals

Wild Cards: Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints

Super Bowl Matchup: Steelers v. Panthers

Super Bowl Victor: Pittsburgh Steelers

It’s finally arrived.

Eight sports: Fantasy Football. Baseball. Basketball. Hockey. NASCAR. Golf. NCAA Football Pickem. March Madness.

Ten players: Tom, Emily, Jeff, Ellis, Brad, Kevin, Chris, Leon, Andy (the pro), and me.

One league: The Ultimate Fantasy Sports League.

Yeah, we know.  It’s crazy.  But we’re doing it.

Because this is America. And we can.

I‘m sure many of you who love 1) football and 2) video games with the obsessive passion I do are fully familiar with the much-debated EA Sports monopoly – thanks to a ginormously expensive arrangement, they are the sole licensee of the National Football League, and use it to produce a handful of games – NFL Street, Head Coach, and of course Madden, all of which make them a ton of money. Biggest dog on the block. Have been forever. Inspires a huge following. Now if only the games they made were…more fun to play.

My top five favorite sports games regardless of console, in order, are: NCAA Football 06 (see! I don’t hate EA! This is about as close to perfect as a College Football game will ever be), MLB 08 The Show, Tecmo Super Bowl, NBA Jam, and Madden 64. None of these really get it right – Patrick Hruby had an excellent piece on why – but they were realistic enough to be true to experience, to reward the right decisions and punish the wrong ones, and fun to boot. (Remember fun? It’s what we had before setting a simple run-stopping defense required 14 button pushes).

Here’s the problem: last year’s Madden release was the first iteration of the game in history to sell significantly fewer copies than the prior iteration of the game. Like, almost THREE MILLION fewer games sold. EA lost 1/5th of their revenue, just like that. Now THAT’s gotta be fun.

I have more respect for EA – if you can call it that – than a lot of other gamers. Gamers look down on EA for feeding the sheep machine of beer drinking NFL fan frat boys, while gamers wear black drink Bawls and babble about how nobody appreciated Psychonauts. But it really is hard to put out a fully updated game every year on the clock, an ever expanding franchise system (run up to 30 years of simulation, imported draft classes with stats from NCAA games, realistic player performance, etc.) with all the marketing entailed and the vastness of the NFL property encompassed in one label. But when you get a quality experience – ESPN’s College Basketball game is a great example – it really is amazing how realistic these sports sims can be. The baseball games are just phenomenal now – when I have The Show running, the call of the game sounds so pitch-perfect that you’d think you’re listening to a radio broadcast of a real MLB game.

The EA designers really do respect the game, and they try hard. They’ve even gotten online at Operation Sports’ Forums to answer questions and gather glitches. And they’ve already put out an initial patch. But there’s no question that the most recent two games – the games since EA signed the deal to have a monopoly on NFL video games – have had major issues. Major issues as in, such a collection of glitches and problems that the games just don’t work as accurate simulations of the NFL.

I passed on last year’s game, along with roughly three million other people who’d bought Madden in 06. But I bought this year’s edition, primarily because I don’t have a single pro football game to run on 1080p (yeah, I know this one’s upscaled from 720 still), and it’s been 2+ years, so I figure this has to contain more than just a roster update. So I played a few games online, messed around with some of the new systems, and start a franchise. And here’s what happens:

Game one, week one. This is the game scheduled for right before McCain’s convention speech, opening night at the Meadowlands. They’ve got some great opening shots. The new voiceovers are decent. A lot more of a cinematic feel to the game, right from kickoff. The playbooks still suck in terms of a general lack of accuracy, but the play stats seem more accurate – nothing’s ridiculously exaggerated. It’s a close game, back and forth. The Giants pass rush is accurately fearsome, but their secondary is weak, and they get burned on the playaction. It’s 16-10 Giants at the beginning of the 3rd, but then a long drive, heavy ground game, for a TD. It’s 17-16 Redskins with minute left.

The CPU Giants get the ball back. They’re driving. The video game crowd is getting louder. Manning gets sacked, twice, but then they’re making long passes to the slot receiver, picking on the SS (starter got injured in simulated preseason). But time is running out, and they don’t have any timeouts left. Tick tick tick. It’s 4th down, they have to go for it. And then with 10 seconds left, they hit Burress along the sideline. Landry knocks him out of bounds at the 32. Only enough time for one 50+ yard attempt in the windy Meadowlands. It all comes down to this. Get read for the wide cinematic shot of a nervous Lawrence Tynes.

And then the CPU sends out the punter.

I started laughing. There is, of course, no earthly reason, no acceptable reason, NO freaking POSSIBLE reason that the AI would ever do this. EVER. It’s not even like it was fourth down and they were giving up – or the CPU couldn’t tell what time was on the game clock – it was just ridiculously bizarre. They have ten seconds and a 1st down on the 32. They can chuck it toward the endzone. They can kick it. I cannot believe what I am seeing. It is a travesty. As the kangaroo said: WTF, Mate.

They punt. Pooch kick through the endzone. Game over. Win.

I love football. So I hope, against all hope, this game bombs.

According to the latest report from Fox’s Jay Glazer, Brett Favre has been traded to the New York Jets.

Consider: From 1968 to 1991, the Packers had a total of five winning seasons. The lack of star talent and terrible facilities kept them in the bottom rung of team earnings. But Ron Wolf and Favre changed that fundamentally – his jersey was a top seller every year, and many people became Packers fans nationally simply because of his style of play (they don’t have a footprint rivaling the Steelers, Cowboys, Redskins, or Patriots, but it’s still huge). This is one of the most public breakups in history, rejecting the runner up in MVP voting from the previous year who threw for 4000+ yards and led his team to an improbable 13-3 record. In the minds of many Packers fans, you just were given an enormous gift – the opportunity to shed an untested, injury-prone young QB (who only your GM ever wanted anyway) in favor of one last run at another championship with a Hall of Famer – and the Packers management was too wedded to the idea of creating their own form of victory to suck up their egoes and welcome him. The only comparison I can think of off the top of my head in terms of having one individual divorce have such a massive effect on an entire state’s attitude toward a team is if the Rangers or Astros had given the public finger to Nolan Ryan when he offered to be team president.

One of the key things that Green Bay has gone through since Favre’s decision in March is a rising shedding of jobs. The ticket market has collapsed. The announcers who had stayed in Green Bay hoping to call one more Super Bowl have retired. I think this could end up having enormous ramifications in terms of lost money for the franchise – and exactly the kind of financial decision you would expect from the only publicly owned franchise in professional sports, with 111,000+ shareholders.

This season ought to be very interesting for Green Bay, particularly after Aaron Rodgers inevitably goes down to injury this season (if we learned anything last season, it’s that the NFL still has karma, people). Get ready for the Brian Brohm show.

One of the interesting dynamics of the slow car accident of the Brett Favre unretirement saga is the unique yet unremarked upon status of General Manager Ted Thompson. As Peter King noted in a surprisingly astute point in his most recent column, Thompson, unlike every other GM and head of player personnel in the NFL, does not work for a sole owner. He and the team’s board of directors instead report to a small sample of the thousands of stakeholders who own the Packers franchise. Because the shareholder meetings aren’t exactly daily activities and not everyone is included, Thompson gets to fend for himself on most decisions without any significant input from an owner – there’s no Jerry Jones, no Robert Kraft, and certainly no Dan Snyder looking over his shoulder. And since Thompson picked the current Packers head coach, Mike McCarthy, for the team (McCarthy, a former coordinator with the lackluster Saints and 49ers offenses, wasn’t getting any serious looks for head coaching gigs from other teams at the time he was hired), he’s not going to get any guff from the HC’s office, either.

So unlike every other GM, when it comes to the personnel moves of the Packers franchise, the buck really does stop at Thompson’s desk and no one else’s. Which is why I think it’s safe to say that, lacking any excuse of owner bias or a powerful coach, Ted Thompson is quite possibly the worst General Manager in pro football.

Yes, I know that’s an extreme statement. But I believe it’s Thompson’s moves – and his mangling of his 34 draft picks, the most of any GM in the NFL over the past three years – that provoked the current status, where the Packers are embarrassing themselves to a ridiculous degree by offering a Hall of Fame Quarterback $20+ million to stay retired.

Consider the following facts, arranged chronologically:

2005

Thompson was hired in 2005 after a rather brief front office run under the tutelage of Mike Holmgren in Seattle, and wasted no time putting his mark on the team. While the Packers were only slightly over the salary cap, and were at that point a veteran team (winners of three straight division championships), built around Brett Favre, with Ahman Green and Javon Walker as their chief playmakers, and one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, Thompson declined to resign or sufficiently replace several key members of the team.

-Thompson outright released safety and defensive leader Darren Sharper, who promptly defected to the Minnesota Vikings (and has had two Pro Bowl seasons, including leading the league in interceptions from his position, since being released).

-Thompson declined to resign either of the Packers Pro Bowl Guards, Mike Wahle and Marco Rivera. As any veteran QB knows, not resigning two of your primary protectors has to be a bad sign for your health. A worse sign? Thompson did not draft a single Offensive Lineman to replace Wahle or Rivera in the first day of the draft, and instead signed low priced guards – and, most considered, career backups – Matt O’Dwyer and Adrian Klemm. At the time, Thompson praised both to high heaven, saying that they had solved the offensive line problems and saved money at the same time.

In what would become a pattern for the players Thompson singles out for praise, O’Dwyer was cut in training camp, and Klemm was eventually benched. Thompson’s other free agent pickups included RB Samkon Gado, TE Donald Lee and WR Rod Gardner. Today, all but one of these free agents Thompson acquired in 2005 are “out of football” – including Gado, O’Dwyer, Klemm, and Gardner. In other words: they couldn’t even cut it in the league for another two seasons.

Instead of drafting O-line help, Thompson chose QB Aaron Rodgers with his first pick overall. Rodgers was a controversial choice: he had been expected to go as high as first overall, but dropped to the bottom of the first round, as many teams viewed him as a product of a college system with a bad reputation in pro football (having also produced Joey Harrington and Kyle Boller, two first round busts at the pro level), and had injury concerns as well. But Thompson’s choice to pass on O-line help to draft Rodgers after so many other teams had passed on him, and the nature of the contract he signed as a first round pick, clearly showed that the GM did not anticipate Brett Favre being the quarterback for the Packers beyond one or two more seasons.

Thompson did attempt to bolster the defense after letting go of Sharper, choosing safety Nick Collins and linebacker Brady Poppinga on the first day. Both Collins, a small school safety considered a huge reach even at the time, and Poppinga are now in danger of losing their starting jobs after two full seasons in the league. Both have also had injury issues.

2006

The 2005 season was an incredibly rough one for the Packers. They lost several key players to injury, including Walker, Green, TE Bubba Franks, and backup RB Najeh Davenport. They finished 4-12, their worst showing since 1991. Usually, in a season this injury plagued and his first with a losing record, a coach with as much success as Packers HC Mike Sherman would get a pass, especially after re-signing a contract at the beginning of the season. Sherman’s offense was extremely successful and consistent prior to the decimation of injuries. Under his leadership, the Packers had won three consecutive division titles for only the fourth time in team history (Lombardi and Holmgren were the only other coaches to do it). Sherman’s Packers teams had been 2-4 in the playoffs, yes – but it was still a surprise to many that Sherman was summarily fired.

It’s interesting to read that linked story considering the current crashing disaster of Favre v. Thompson – in it, Thompson notes the following:

Thompson said Sherman, who signed a two-year contract extension in August, was surprised and disappointed when he learned of the decision early Monday morning…Thompson also spoke to the players Monday morning, calling the meeting “very quiet and somber.” But Thompson said he had not discussed the decision with Favre. The three-time MVP is mulling retirement and has said he might be less willing to return if he had to learn a new offensive system and work with a new coaching staff.

Thompson said he wants Favre back, but he needs a coach who will bring the team long-term success. “Eventually Brett Favre’s going to retire and go back to Mississippi,” Thompson said. “But that didn’t have any sway in this particular decision.”

Thompson brushed off Favre’s concerns about learning a new offense: “He’s a pretty bright guy.”

Thanks to Thompson’s el cheapo decisions from the prior year, the Packers entered the 2006 offseason with more money available under the salary cap than any other team: a full $32 million, a king’s ransom in NFL terms. But to amazement of the entire league, Thompson refused to spend a significant amount of money. He was content to go low-dollar, and again ditched veteran players in favor of amassing young, cheap draft picks.

Thompson passed on re-signing Pro Bowl kicker Ryan Longwell (who’d kicked more clutch field goals in windy Lambeau than anyone since the era of Starr, and followed Sharper to Minnesota) in favor of the erratic Dave Rayner, and also ditched All-Pro center Mike Flanagan and reliable LB Na’il Diggs.

Thompson did re-sign Pro Bowl DE Aaron Kampman and RB Ahman Green (in a move that raised eyebrows coming off an injured season), as well as guard Kevin Barry (another questionable move) and FB William Henderson. He also signed Marquand Manuel away from the Seattle Seahawks, brought over DT Ryan Pickett from the St. Louis Rams, LB Ben Taylor from the Cleveland Browns, and cornerback Charles Woodson from the Oakland Raiders. Of Thompson’s free agent acquisitions from 2006, only Pickett and Woodson have played well – Manuel was an unmitigated disaster, and several others (Barry, Henderson, Taylor, and several other minor players) are today, less than two seasons later, all listed as “out of football.”

In the 2006 draft, Thompson made 12 picks, including LBs A.J. Hawk and Abdul Hodge, WR Greg Jennings, and (perhaps overcorrecting for his mistake the previous year) guards Jason Spitz and Daryn Colledge. Hawk, a much studied pick, has been steady if not a game changer; Jennings has had flashes of brilliance, but also caught the injury bug and has failed to consistently produce for a second round pick; the rest have been fair at best, with Colledge being benched for poor play and Hodge, a third rounder, never getting close to winning a starting job (he has 10 tackles after two seasons).

After opening the season with a 26-0 loss at home to Chicago, the first time in 15 years the Packers had been shut out, Thompson signed troubled WR/KR Koren Robinson, who had been released by the Vikings after his second DUI in two years. He spent most of his time with the Packers bouncing in and out of league suspensions, and was released at the end of the following season.

2007

So what do you do, as Packers GM Ted Thompson, after an 8-8 season under rookie coach McCarthy in 2006, missing out on the tiebreak and the playoffs on the last day of the season? What do you do when you’re in need of those handful of critical free agent moves to put you over the top, with a veteran quarterback who’d thrown for close to 4,000 yards in the prior year, ripped off four straight wins to close the season, saddling up for one more run at a championship?

Well, if you’re Ted Thompson, you take your hands, put them on your chair, and then sit your ass firmly on top of them.

For the second year in a row, the Packers led the league in available money under the salary cap – a full $21 million. With this money, the Packers targeted and obtained exactly one free agent prior to the start of the season: NY Giants DB Frank Walker, a career backup. Walker would finish the year with one (1) pass defensed.

Despite all the available cash, and a plethora of mid round draft picks, Thompson declined to part with a fourth rounder for disgruntled yet immensely talented Oakland WR Randy Moss, who greatly admires Favre. Favre personally lobbied Thompson to make the move, but Thompson told the press that the team had no need of another WR (though he would later draft not one but two WRs). Moss instead went to the New England Patriots for a fourth rounder, setting up a record-setting tandem with Tom Brady that propelled the Pats to an incredible offensive season.

In the 2007 draft, Thompson chose Tennessee DT Justin Harrell with the #16 overall selection. The choice was met with shock and dismay; Harrell was widely viewed as a reach, and not a position of need for the Packers. Thompson was loudly booed by the fans at the Packers Draft Day party, and again when the choice of WR James Jones was made in the third round (though Jones turned out to be a decent selection, but how his 676 yards for a third rounder beat Moss’s 1,493 for a fourth, I don’t know). Harrell was coming off of an injured bicep, and ultimately contributed very little. Nebraska RB Brandon Jackson, Thompson’s second round selection, was intended to be the team’s starter and replacement for Green – but Jackson never seemed capable of owning the position, and ultimately finished the year with only 267 yards rushing. Ultimately, out of the long list of choices, Thompson’s best selection turned out to be kicker Mason Crosby, a solid choice who replaced the skipping-stones style of Rayner.

In September, Thompson made one more move: he traded a 6th round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft for New York Giants’ running back Ryan Grant. Thompson had no idea of Grant’s ability, and in fact chose the player because of his size and special teams experience – he was merely looking for another back to fill in following injuries to other backups. But luckily for the Packers, the Giants didn’t know either: to Thompson’s good fortune, Grant exploded in Green Bay, developing into an incredible player and propelling the Packers to an incredible 13-3 regular season record.

The Packers ultimately made it all the way to the NFC Championship game, losing 23-20 in Overtime to the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants.

So what does this all add up to?

Consider this for a moment: exactly four players out of Thompson’s ridiculously high number of draft selections (more than any other team over the same period) in any of the three years he’s been Packers GM have contributed anything significant to the success of the team. This is: Jennings, Jones, Hawk, and kicker Mason Crosby. An equivalent number of his most high profile picks – first rounder Rodgers, second rounder Collins, second rounder Colledge, and first rounder Harrell – have all proven to be fragile underperformers. Collins, Colledge, and Harrell have all been benched and missed games with injuries in their young careers, and Rodgers is a total question mark – not just because he’s been Favre’s backup to this point, but because of fears that he may be the most injury prone of all of Thompson’s selections.

Even in very limited regular season action, Rodgers has had his left foot broken and torn a hamstring, in both cases missing the remainder of the season. Rodgers gets testy when he’s asked about this, but the point is that the Packers are coming off of a QB who’s been, let’s just say, hard to kill. With Rodgers, the reverse may be true. It seems that the Packers are eager to find out if Rodgers can take them beyond the 13-3 Favre delivered last year – hard to do if Rodgers turns out to be, like so many other QBs, mortal.

With Rodgers at the helm, Thompson’s strategy for the Packers will be complete: he’ll have total ownership of the season to come, whatever happens. The GM decided, in almost every area, to go for the cheap, injury-prone player over the tested, higher-dollar veteran. He chose to adopt a long term strategy in an increasingly short term league. And now, he chose to pass up on the desire of a Hall of Fame QB to play one more season in favor of an untested young QB (but one he’s personally invested in).

Thompson’s up to his old tricks again in other areas, though – despite plenty of room under the cap, Thompson is currently low-balling Ryan Grant, leading to the RB holding out and skipping training camp. For all the sound and fury about Favre, this may turn out to be the decision that seriously impacts the team this year (Note that the Packers have complained regularly that Favre’s decision affected their offseason moves – but an examination of their draft shows that really only one pick, that of QB Brian Brohm in the 2nd round, was changed – and Brohm is still a great developmental prospect who will almost certainly end up the 3rd QB, with 7th Rounder Matt Flynn on the Practice Squad).

I can’t tell you what’s going on in Brett Favre’s head, or how this whole thing is going to end. But I can tell you this: we’re all about to find out if Ted Thompson is as horrible a GM as I suspect. Packers fans should hope I’m wrong.