Far be it from me to rain on a 3-0 parade. But I’ve been doing some thinking this week (I know, always a scary thing) about Ted Thompson and the moves he made this off-season. Up until this point, I’ve been a pretty stalwart Thompson defender, even in the face of derision from my Podcast co-host Corey Behnke, who constantly decries Thompson’s moves, especially the letting-go of Ahman Green and the conservative nature of Thompson’s dealings with the Raiders in attempting to trade for Randy Moss. Both of those moves are no doubt going to be, and have been, debated into the ground, and for good reason.
But I think there’s another move that Thompson didn’t make that is far more egregious and that will come back to haunt the Packers on more than one occasion. This past April, at the NFL Draft, all of football fandom watched as Brady Quinn tumbled down the first round, so far that the Commissioner hid the poor kid in his own private room so as to save him further embarrassment. Then, we all saw the Browns and Cowboys pull off a trade that got the Browns a second first round pick, that they used to select Quinn. The Cowboys now own the Browns 2008 first round pick, which, if the first three weeks of 2007 are any indication, could be a Top 5 pick.
And it could have been the Packers’ pick.
That’s right. The Browns were desperate to trade up for Quinn. Cleveland GM Phil Savage called Thompson and offered the same deal the Cowboys eventually took to the Packers. According to Peter King, of CNNSI.com:
Savage got a nibble from Green Bay at 16. Cleveland offered its first-round pick in 2008, and offered to flip picks with the Packers in rounds two, three and four. “I thought it was going to work,” Savage said. “But they thought about it, called back and said no.”
Justin Harrell better turn into the greatest defensive tackle to ever put on a Packers uniform.
