Thompson vs. Gutekunst

So, let’s take a deep dive into both approaches, and see what is in store for the Packers of 2020 and beyond.

THE TED THOMPSOn APPrOACH:

ENDLESS JENGA

Ted Thompson’s approach to building a team was on immediate display in his first season in 2005. Despite fans’ clamoring for Thompson to immediately dip into free agency to upgrade the many holes left on the team by Sherman, Thompson only signed five free agents that first year, and none made it to 2006.

“Tightwad Ted” was one of many names aimed at Thompson during this chaotic time, but the makings of his approach to building a team was going to become more evident as the seasons went on.

Thompson’s approach was like Jenga: a slow, methodical, strategic game that challenges you to slowly build a tower by pulling a few pieces from the bottom and stacking them on top.

1. bUILD ALMOST ExcLUSIvELY THROUGH THE DRAFT

Thompson’s approach was simple: he analyzed the roster for not only what he needed right away, but what he could see coming up a season or two later.

In 2006, Favre began openly petitioning for Thompson to sign erstwhile wide receiver Randy Moss as another weapon, an idea that gained some traction among the fanbase (not unlike the clamor today to add a superstar wide receiver to upgrade the corps).

But Favre was spurned as Thompson stuck to his guns. Instead, he drafted Greg Jennings in the second round in 2006, James Jones in the third round in 2007 and Jordy Nelson and Jermichael Finley in the second and third rounds, respectively, in 2008. While Favre wasn’t around any longer to see this entire group come to fruition, Aaron Rodgers benefited from this group maturing in time for the 2010 Super Bowl season and beyond.

2. FREE AGENcY IS JUST TO (vERY OccASIONALLY) FILL OUT THE ROSTER

Every March, Packers fans would salivate over the list of available unrestricted free agents, and every year, they were disappointed. By the start of training camp, the Packers’ free agent list could be divided into three categories: third-tier, undrafted and street. For the most part, none of Thompson’s free agent signings lasted more than a season.

There were, of course, some rare exceptions that worked out very well for Thompson and the Packers. In 2006, Ryan Pickett was signed to a four-year, $14 million contract that turned into eight productive seasons. Later in May, Thompson snagged Charles Woodson on a seven-year, $52 million contract that produced All-Pro seasons and the Defensive Player of the Year award in 2009.

Those two players were really the only impact free agents for Thompson until 2014, when he signed Julius Peppers to a threeyear, $25 million contract that, in retrospect, was a bargain given many thought Peppers was past his prime at 32. Instead, he started 43 out of a possible 48 starts and piled up 29 sacks. But when it comes to high-impact, first-tier free agents under Thompson, that’s it.

3. WHEN THE SYSTEM IS WORkING, YOU DEvELOp FROM WITHIN AND STAY AHEAD

Thompson’s goal was to develop talent from the draft and keep costs manageable. He had a percentage of the players working under their rookie contracts, so it was important to hit on guys who could contribute in a year or two. You could see that over the years with players like Tramon Williams, an undrafted free agent in 2007. Working for negligible cap hit through 2009, Thompson used that 2010 season to evaluate Williams’ future in Green Bay, and in November of that year, renegotiated a four-year deal for $41 million. He had proven his worth, and Thompson pulled that rookie contract from the bottom of the Jenga pile and put it on the top, building the tower from within.

Contrast that with the career of Eddie Lacy, drafted in the second round in the 2013 draft. Playing under a four-year deal of a rookie contract, Lacy’s cap hits were $616,000, $771,000, $925,000 and $1,079,000. After rushing for more than 1,000 yards in his first two seasons, he tailed off, starting only eight games in that time.

In 2017, at the end of his rookie deal, he was not extended and left the team via free agency. Thompson, evaluating the likelihood of extending Lacy or not, had already built in his insurance plan, drafting two backs the previous offseason named Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams.

Not only was Lacy expendable, there were two players now working under their rookie contacts to replace him.

This continued balance of selectively knowing which players to extend from their rookie deals and which ones to let walk and replace, maintained the cap moving forward year to year to year. It’s easy to see, when you look at it through this lens, why Thompson was so cautious of free agency: his cap was always appropriately distributed for the players he had drafted and/or developed. A free agent with a monsterous deal could be a wrecking ball in his carefully balanced tower.

4. cONSTANT EvALUATION AND DRAFTING FOR THE FUTURE

Thompson’s strategy relied heavily on his scouts and coaching staff to be very successful in their roles. When you build your team almost exclusively through the draft, you can’t keep missing on your draft picks. Whether this fell on Thompson directly or his scouts, every miss in the draft has to be compensated for elsewhere.

First, his scouts needed to provide excellent recommendations of players they felt fit the mold of the team and could develop over the course of their rookie deal. Once the holes were mostly filled on the team, this created a natural and seamless replacement system that kept the team well under the cap. Leading up to the Super Bowl win in 2010 and the 15–1 season in 2011, it was pretty clear that the scouting department had given the team enough home runs through the draft that the need for free agents had been limited to Woodson and Pickett. But starting in 2011, the misses with their top picks began to pile up.

An excellent example of this is wide receiver Donald Driver. In 2010, Driver’s numbers began to decline. Seeing that on the horizon, Thompson used a second-round draft pick on Randall Cobb. The Packers fan base wondered, Why would we draft another receiver? The depth chart was already quality four-deep.

But, all was revealed: Driver was regulated to backup and inactive duty by 2012 and retired. Jennings’ contract was allowed to expire in 2012, as well.

Suddenly, Cobb was no longer a luxury but a starter in his third season. Thompson had the foresight to see Driver’s decline, and the cost-analysis of Jennings did not fit his plans after his contract expired. Those two players who were a combined cap hit of $9 million in 2011 were replaced by Cobb’s rookie deal hit of $730,000 in 2012.

The coaching staff, then, has an equally critical role to play in this process, as they develop the talent the general manager has given them. Most coaching staffs in the NFL can usually rely on the occasional free agent to come in and give the team a veteran jumpstart, but under Thompson, this rarely happened. The position coaches were constantly working to develop young guys into contributors. In the front nine of Thompson’s career, this worked to near-perfection. Derek Sherrod. Nick Perry. Datone Jones. Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix. Damarious Randall. Kenny Clark. When six seasons of firstround picks add up to one Pro Bowl appearance, it doesn’t bode well for your general manager or your scouting staff.

Furthermore, every time Thompson missed on a defensive secondary player, he used another high draft pick to remedy it...and continued to miss. Between 2014 and 2017, Thompson used five first- or second-round picks on defensive backs, successively trying to make up for the mistakes of the previous attempt.

Each miss stole another player in the cycle for another positional need. Had the Packers passed on Damarious Randall in 2015, perhaps they could have angled to take an inside linebacker like Eric Kendricks or Benardrick McKinney. Or, perhaps we could have had wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster in 2017 instead of Josh Jones?

Thompson took the axe for the failure of those draft picks to develop. In the end, his draft/develop/decide strategy is as much a winning strategy as any. It just left little room for errors, and when the errors mounted, that was the end of Thompson and 13 seasons of well-controlled cap space.

wHErE iT All wEnT wrOnG

In the mid-2010s, the Jenga tower began to wobble and, finally, fell down.

THE briAn GuTEkunST APPrOACH:

STRATEGIc MONOpOLY

Brian Gutekust is playing a different game than Thompson. For many fans, it might be a case of, Well, you wanted it, now

you’ve got it. Gutekunst didn’t waste any time in working to unload players he felt were overpaid or contributed to the negative atmosphere on the team. One of the first moves he made was cutting beloved wideout Jordy Nelson, erasing $11.5 million off the cap. He then traded quarterback Brett Hundley for a sixth-round draft pick, Clinton-Dix for a fourth-round pick, Ty Montgomery for a seventh-round pick and Randall for DeShone Kizer.

He followed that up in 2019 by allowing Clay Matthews and Cobb (who combined for $24 million against the cap in 2018) to leave via free agency and cut linebacker Nick Perry, who would have counted $14.7 million against the 2019 cap). Message sent: if you’re not playing up to your big contract or a locker room issue, you’re gone. If you’re here, you are part of the machine and you need to contribute.

But now, let’s play Gutekunst Monopoly:

1. bIG cONTRAcTS ARE REpLAcED WITH OTHER bIG cONTRAcTS

Like Thompson, Gutekunst has inherited a Hall of Fame quarterback whom the fanbase would like to see win another ring before his window closes. Unlike Thompson, Gutekunst has had no problems bringing in high-priced free agents to fill the holes left behind by the players he released.

In his first season, Gutekunst added to the cap by signing a few short term deals, among them Jimmy Graham at $30 million over three seasons. But, more importantly, Gutekunst extended Aaron Rodgers to a four-year, $134 million contract, at the time the richest contract in NFL history.

In 2019, with the departure of Matthews, Cobb and Perry, Gutekunst made his biggest splash: Za’Darius Smith (4 years, $66 million), Preston Smith (4 years, $52 million), Adran Amos (4 years, $36 million) and Billy Turner (4 years, $28 million). Combine that with Aaron Rodgers’ renegotiated contract for 2020 and beyond, and these five players presently make up over a third of the Packers’ salary cap this upcoming season.

This process has continued this offseason, with departures of free agents Blake Martinez and Bryan Bulaga and the release of Graham. Gutekunst has already signed linebacker Christian Kirksey (2 year, $13 million) and tackle Ricky Wagner (2 years, $11 million).

However, the spending splurge of 2019 has already limited what the Packers have offered their UFAs relative to the past two offseasons.

2. THE DRAFT IS LOOkING MORE AND MORE LIkE THE ROSTER FILLER

Whereas Thompson used the draft as the building blocks for the future (with the occasional free agent thrown in to help), there are going to be many holes left on this team that the draft will be looked to for immediate help.

We saw Gutekunst immediately address the needs on the team in his first draft. With holes at cornerback, he drafted two with his first two picks, with both Jaire Alexander and Josh Jackson asked to be starting-caliber sooner than later. Seeing the continued conundrum without having a quality inside linebacker playing next to Martinez, he drafted Oren Burks in the third round. With Jordy Nelson already gone and Cobb on the way out, he drafted three wide receivers in the middle rounds to try and find a replacement to line up alongside Davante Adams. All were given every opportunity to start immediately.

In the 2019 draft, with the departure of Clinton-Dix and Kentrell Brice, Gutekunst selected Darnell Savage at safety with his later first round pick. He then took Elgton Jenkins in the third round, as guard was a position of need based on a rotating door of mediocre players in 2018. Both players were starting by September. Knowing that Graham would clearly not be the player they thought he was, the Packers spent a third-rounder on Jace Sternberger. As it stands, it appears he is going to be counted on to fill Graham’s shoes in 2020.

The problem with reversing Thompson’s approach and using the draft to fill the holes that free agency does not is that, on average, only about a third of your draft picks actually live up to their draft status. In fact, while it can be easily said that Alexander, Savage and Jenkins have been able to contribute right away, Jackson, Burks, Sternberger and the wide receivers still have much to prove, if not having already busted.

3. FOR GUTEkUNST, SIzE MATTERS

When Gutekunst sees a positional weakness, he targets it fairly aggressively. Clearly the edge rusher position was addressed not only with two high-priced free agents in 2019 but a first round pick as well.

But consider the size of those three players: Za’Darius Smith (6’4”, 272 pounds), Preston Smith (6’5”, 265 pounds) and Rashan Gary (6’5”, 277 pounds). This was more than bringing in new, young pass rushers; it was sending a message that players like 6’3”, 255-pound Clay Matthews were no longer the template for Green Bay.

The tight ends Gutekunst has brought in would all have Paul Coffman craning his neck looking up at them: Jimmy Graham at 6’7”, Marcedes Lewis at 6’6” and Jace Sternberger at 6’4”. For that matter, our new wide receivers are also quite tall: draft picks J’Mon Moore (6’3”), Marquez Valdes-Scantling (6’4”) and Equanimeous St. Brown (6’5”) are all taller than the average wideout, and you can add to that free agents Geronimo Allison (6’3”), Allen Lazard (6’5”) and Jake Kumerow (6’4”).

It makes you wonder if part of the reason Randall Cobb was allowed to walk in free agency was his 5’10” height not fitting into Gutekunst’s model.

In the end, while it's clear that size matters to Gutekunst, the jury is still out on its impact. No matter how tall the receivers are, Davante Adams (6’1”) is still clearly heads-and-shoulders above them, at least figuratively.

4. RUSS bALL IS WORkING A DIFFERENT MAGIc

Russ Ball, Executive Vice President/Director of Football Operations, does his job very well: managing the contracts and salary cap for the Green Bay Packers.

Ball had worked with Thompson since joining the team in 2008 and made his vision of draft-and-develop work. The Packers almost always had some salary cap room once the season started, which Ball always used to extend the players who were determined to be valuable enough to earn the big paycheck before they ever hit free agency.

As a result, Ball worked with very straightforward veteran contracts, with the only guaranteed money generally coming in the form of signing bonuses. This has kept the Packers flush every year, because players generally agreed to terms to stay with the team, making those contracts much easier on the team in the long term. Roster bonuses have always been a contract tool that Ball has used to control costs.

Working with Gutekunst, Ball now has to manage a different frontier. Other teams in the market for a player have been more willing to take riskier contract structures. Those big salaries with signing bonuses and guaranteed money spread out over the life of the contract can throttle a team’s cap down the line.

These larger contracts that can choke your salary cap space, so rare under Thompson, are already impacting the Packers. In December, Rodgers took $14.26 million of the roster bonuses in the big contract he had signed and turned it into guaranteed money, payable immediately. Instead of using the remaining 2019 cap space to extend a free agent like Kenny Clark, the money was used to clear space for the 2020 cap.

Looking at the contracts for Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith, you wonder if that might become a more common occurrence as the Packers continue to be aggressive in free agency then find themselves against the cap in subsequent years.

You get the feeling that Russ Ball had a pretty routine job working under the conservative and predictable approach of Ted Thompson. With Gutekunst’s aggressive approach to free agency, Ball is going to have to work a different magic. The challenge is either using up cap space previously used to extend player contracts before they hit free agency, or as in the case of Jimmy Graham, keeping a player on the roster for an extra season to avoid the $7.3 million hit of dead cap money had they released him after the 2018 season.

GAME OVEr?

So in the end, is there truly a massive difference between the style of Ted Thompson and Brian Gutekunst? While it may appear so to fans, Andrew Brandt, former Vice President of the Packers, says no. “Brian is the same way [as Thompson], developing the roster primarily through the draft in terms of infrastructure and pipeline, but selectively adding FAs when the opportunity arises at a position of need,” says Brandt. “ The differences between him and previous regimes have always, in my mind, been overstated.”

Time will tell if Brandt is correct, and the games they play are simply different tools for the same strategy. But, they certainly feel like two different games now. And if Gutekunst’s investments in free agency pay off with a Super Bowl win, Thompson’s game will seem a distant memory.

HErE GOES nOTHinG

HOW NFL pROSpEcTS pREpARE FOR THE DRAFT

Michelle Bruton

In a normal year, preparing for the NFL draft is an exciting, exhausting, life-changing process for NFL prospects.

But this year will go down as one of the strangest sports years on the books, especially for the 500-odd players participating in April’s draft.

While the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic caused major sports leagues like the NBA and NHL to suspend their seasons indefinitely and necessitated cancelations of major events ranging from the NCAA Tournament to the Masters, the impact on the NFL has been more subtle. As of publication, the NFL draft is set to continue as scheduled, but all corresponding public events for what was on pace to be the most highly attended draft event of all time are canceled. More crucially to teams, the events leading up to the draft on April 23-25 have changed dramatically. The league has instructed teams to suspend pre-draft travel and all in-person pre-draft visits involving draft-eligible players. While NFL teams may conduct phone or video interviews with prospects until April 22, they can have no more than three such interviews with one player per week, and the calls can be no longer than an hour.

It’s all a lot to process for the hundreds of players who envisioned their spring being filled with workouts, visits and pro days. As soon as the college football regular season ended, these players turned their full attention to the pre-draft process, a gauntlet that can quickly become all-consuming.