After the 2005 season in which favre was awful and thankfully the Mike Sherman era ended...Brett decided perhaps he should decide whom the next head coach should be and seriously asked THompson to interview Steve Mariucci. Not that Thompson owed brett or any player his strategy in hiring a new coach. But sure was nice of Brett to try to lend a helping hand.Brett than picked it up a notch after the 2006 season...and...By my calculation Brett decided in that 2006 offseason that he was entitled to be co-GM. For it was then that he first backed Thompson into a corner by nearly tying his retirement decision on whether Thompson traded for randy Moss. Then, as we know, this offseason following the 2007 season... he retired in March, called Thompson asking to unretire in April, Thompson schedules a charter plane for him and coach Mac to travel to hattiesburg and make it official, only to have Brett un-un-retire. So Thompson bases his whole offseason in molding the post-favre Packers only to have Brett un-un-un-retire. Thompson, possibly worried about Brett un-un-un-un-retiring again...finally puts his foot down and says "enough". With a 4th year vet and #1 pick in Rodgers and a blue chip prospect in Brohm, he feels pretty good about his work at the QB position... only to be crucified publicly when he won't tolerate brett's shenanigans any more.

Then, like a vulture looking for a rotting corpse, Ryan Grant's agent ( a nobody in the agent field mind you) suddenly decides to take his negotiations for Grant public and use ridiculous language to bash the packers more. Now mind you... Grant has started all of 9 regular season games, has been injury prone all the way back to college, has only 1 full year in the league, went undrafted, is not a good receiver and has mediocre hands, is so weak at blitz pickup that Packers have to pull him out, tipping defense that Packers will be passing... but he did have a great second half and broke off some big runs. So his agent thinks he should be paid like Devin Hester, who has 2 full seasons, been to the pro bowl, been to a Super Bowl. Again, give ted Thompson a break. If he allowed packers to give Grant $10 mil guaranteed based on half a season, that would be absurd! Thank god Samkon gado didn't have the same agent after his excellent second half of 2005... Mike Sherman would have probably given him $10 mil! I applaud Thompson for holding firm in what he believes Grant is worth.

As Thompson pointed out today in his training camp opening press conference... The Packers do have rights also... and they pay guys a lot of money to maintain those rights. Ted Thompson is truly trying to keep the team's best interest at heart. And any Packer fan who doesn't see this has #4 rose colored glasses permanently tatooed to their face! I am sure that if you ask Brett or ted privately that both of them would admit that they both could have handled some things better over the last 6 months... but THompson is not reigning GM of the Year simply because of brett favre. Pack fans should unite now behind the team, support coach Mac and Ted Thompson, and get ready for a fun season. maybe all this crap can put a chip on this team's shoulder ( kind of like last year's patriots with video-gate) and we can come out smoking!

But let's give Ted THompson a break...