Leroy Butler's book

off to the amazon web site.

"I applaud guys who make a mistake and stand up and admit it," Butler writes. "Ron Wolf always did that and he said he made a mistake not getting Moss. Ted (Thompson) would never say that he made a mistake."

Only 13 copies left.

It's not as though Moss was a sure thing at the time. He was a head case with extensive off field issues. It's easy to look at his early years and lament about what could have been, but he was a classic boom/bust draft pick. He could have easily gone to GB or Dallas and imploded and been a massive bust. I don't see that as a mistake on Wolf's part that he needed to atone for, 19 other teams also passed for some very legit reasons. 

I don't know exactly what mistakes Thompson has made that he hasn't admitted? No he doesn't do the sad sack routine and lament about all the players he missed. He's a competitor. The players that turned out to be bust, and every GM has those, he gave them a legit amount of time to improve before he got rid of them. He dumped Justin Harrell after 4 years, you don't think that was an embarrassment for him?  

Leroy still interested in a job with the club? 

It seems Favre's former teammates are loyal to him, even if it includes taking shots at Rodgers, TT, or the Packers as a whole.

He just said last month that he made a mistake by not bringing Vince Young in earlier. Seems like a bit of a gratuitous shot from LeRoy. 

IIRC Butler's not wrong, per se, but while Wolf was more open about his mistakes, didn't a number of the comments also come up after he retired?

Taking a shot at the GM seems a odd way to pursue that.

It's marketing. Say something controversial to get everyone else talking.

Perhaps he should stay in the kitchen & bake cookies?

quote:

It's not as though Moss was a sure thing at the time. He was a head case with extensive off field issues.

Moss was the offensive equivalent of Deion Sanders - an elite talent that changed the way teams match up and prepare.   In his prime, he is/was the best deep threat WR maybe in NFL history.   I'm not sure what his 40 speed was but he made DBs look really stupid.

That's not to excuse the guy for his antics and behavior, but if the draft was held all over again I really doubt so many teams would have passed on the guy.  Same thing with Warren Sapp.

Recently, we've seen guys like Mike Adams and Janoris Jenkins and Vontaze Burfict fall in the draft as well and some of that is due to teams not willing to take chances or risks on players.    TT seems to really value character over talent in some cases and that's OK too.

Character issues were surely a red flag but I think teams passed on him because they weren't sure he was going to be able to do to pro DB's what he did to college DB's.  He never really ran routes or blocked in college.  He was a one trick pony there and due to us extraterrestrial talent, was also in the pros for much of his career.  Teams just weren't sure he could do that in the NFL, until he did.

The guy had almost 100 catches and 26 TDs his last year at Marshall.  He averaged almost 20 yards per catch.   I think there's something to be said about the level of competition he faced at Marshall but he was dominant.

Ron Wolf always said that a GM should not be judged by the players he didn't draft but the ones he did pick.  Vonnie Holliday was a good pick who had an excellent NFL career.  As long as you keep drafting guys like that, you should not beat yourself up that you passed on a risky player who happened to turn out to be as good as Moss.