USA Today writer and noted Minnesota Vikings homer Tom Pelissero sat down with Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson on Friday and talked to him about the team’s backup quarterback situation, among other things.
Thompson’s philosophy? Don’t think about Aaron Rodgers getting hurt.
“You make sure you have so many of every position, given the limitations of a 53-man roster. But quite frankly, you never think about your better players ever getting hurt. If you think that way, you might jinx it. It might happen. Literally, you don’t think about it. It’s a place where you never tread,” Thompson said.
Good philosophy. By that thinking, it doesn’t matter who Rodgers’ backup is.
Thompson goes on to say he doesn’t believe in jinxes, although he pretty much said he does in the comment above.
Then he explained that the Packers haven’t been able to find a good backup, although they’ve tried to develop a number of guys.
“That position’s not really like any other position. But when I was here in the ’90s and went to Seattle and even here, we’ve always liked to fool with that second and third quarterback thing, trying to tweak it and find a guy. In a perfect world, you do it like Ron (Wolf) – you find a good one, he’d apprentice to Brett for a couple years and then you’d trade him for a second-round pick. Not to treat him like a commodity, but then you go get another one and you do the same thing with him. It sort of worked that way a little bit with Matt Flynn. But it doesn’t always work. We’ve drafted a couple of guys. We’ve had guys here who never did find it,” Thompson said.
Wolf was able to find guys like Mark Brunell and Matt Hasselbeck. Thompson found Flynn, but that’s about it.
Now, maybe they’ve found something in Scott Tolzien, who will start this week for the Packers. We’ll have a better idea of what Tolzien is capable of when he gets a full week of preparation.
Clearly, the drop off from Rodgers to the next guy is pretty big, though and Thompson hasn’t been able to find the right guy. Yet.