Well, lo and behold! He speaks!
Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson granted an extremely rare, non-mandated interview to ESPN this week. What did Big Ted have to say?
Not much of note, as usual. However, the one part of the interview we did find interesting was this.
Thompson defended himself for not defending coach Mike McCarthy.
As you’re recall, there was a time when the Packers were 4-6. People were calling for McCarthy’s head. They were also calling for Thompson’s head. We were calling for president Mark Murphy’s head.
In fact, all of this was going on before the Packers even got to 4-6. It wasn’t a one-week phenomenon.
What did Thompson do?
Nothing.
When he could have come out and given a vote of confidence to his coach, he sat silent. That prompted the famous, “I’m a highly successful football coach” statement from McCarthy.
Thompson wasn’t saying anything, McCarthy had to defend himself.
What does Big Ted say now?
“Why interject something that’s not in the minds of anybody in the building?” Thompson said. “It’s somewhere out there in Neverland, where somebody’s dreamed up something down in the basement of their mom’s house.”
Well, the answer is pretty obvious, Ted. Silence only exacerbates the situation because it makes it look like you don’t support your coach.
I mean, a 7-year-old probably understands that.
But then we’ve known Ted probably isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer for a while. He did go on to suggest McCarthy wouldn’t have been fired regardless of what happened this season.
When he was asked if McCarthy’s job status would be based on a single season, he replied as follows.
“No, we’ve been at this for a while. This is not our first rodeo.”
That would suggest that as long as Thompson is the GM, McCarthy will be the coach.
And if the Packers happen to go 6-10 next year, a change would probably have to come in the form of Thompson and McCarthy both getting canned.
Not that that will happen. Another Super Bowl title and both guys have probably bought themselves as long as they want in Green Bay.