Laying the Groundwork

When Ron Wolf commented on what he saw at the practice facility this past week he said he didn't see a contender.....Yet. Even if he is the guy who gave Mike Sherman the green light, you have to respect his total resume and the Championship coaching staff, players and personnel he assembled in his tenure. I like his candidness as well. Last year when the Packers lost so many players to injury and were left with disappointment he said they had NFL Europe quality players left. He was telling the truth. He said they were horrible and they were. With that in mind, he said this week that he believes that Thompson will get this job done and that has to give one hope.
We are not looking at this year and we may not even be looking at next, but it will happen and this is just the groundwork. When you look at the one year contracts that he signed with some of these players you can see that many are temporary answers. These are players that either prove themselves a better player than they have been assessed as or they will have served their purpose in filling in while the young bloods get up to speed and until the free agents of next year come in. Thompson has made mention that next year is the better year for free agents and if you do a little math you will see that the Packers will have a decent pocketbook to right some phat checks (of course that has to include taking care of Al Harris first, but that is another story).
With all of this in mind, I think these may have been the things conveyed to Brett Favre to entice him to come back and play. I don't think he could have been talked into the idea of the Packers making a Superbowl run right away this year. He did seem to make some references to that idea when he was golfing and cutting grass this summer, but I think he had to realize that was a pretty tall order even if he does change clothes in a phone booth. I also don't think that, knowing it was going to be a couple of years, he would come back for the roughest of the next three and call it quits. I think you will see Brett here for a couple of years and maybe more. It has been said that McCarthy has three years to get it done and that figure has to sit pretty good with Brett's golfing schedule as well. You can't blame him for holding on and you couldn't blame him for hanging them up. I think he still believes it can happen again and I think he's the right guy to be at the helm.
So this year may not be the year, but kick back and watch some football. Have a couple of beers and watch the groundwork. Remember the early years of Favre's career and how it built up to the Superbowl. Now put that in fast forward and here we go again.