The 2006 NFL Draft and The Green Bay Packers: The Hawk Has Landed

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

The 2006 NFL draft has come to a close and the Green Bay Packers...

Pardon me?

Three what?

Years?  Three (expletive deleted) years?! No, oh no.  That "weekend" in Tijuana was a terrible idea. I have to feed my fish! Why am I even writing this?

I'll tell you why; as we've discussed in previous articles, Packers' general manager Ted Thompson is a firm believer in building his team through the draft and rookie free agents.

Ask current free agent Duke Preston what Thompson thinks of veterans. Preston, who is a center/guard, signed with the Packers this offseason as Thompson's only veteran free agent offensive pickup in the last two years.

He was one of the first cuts made by the Packers this summer. 

Thompson seems committed to keeping his team young, while increasing talent at the same time. The draft is essential to this, and luckily for Packers fans, it seems as if Ted has a real feel for it—especially in the later rounds. 

The first round, however, has been a bit of a challenge. Paging Koren Robinson, Marcus Tubbs, and Chris McIntosh? 

No response (these picks were all while Thompson was with the Seahawks and yes, yes, I know McIntosh was a Badger...Go Badgers, you guys are great, but it's still a bad first-round pick).

In 2006, Thompson found himself with the No. 5 pick overall.

Pick number what?  Since when do the Packers draft in the top five? 

Well, as Packers fans might not want to remember but probably do, the 2005 season didn't go exactly as planned.

Unless, of course, Mike Sherman's plan for his last season as Green Bay head coach was something like this:

Step #1: Be almost dead last in rushing (30th, bam!).

Step #2: Pass way too much to make up for this and force your all-world quarterback into at least nine more interceptions than touchdowns (Favre finished 20-29 that year).

Step #3: Make sure your defense plays really well for only 50-52 minutes a game. The eight or 10 minutes they take off should only be at really crucial times. If you can, see if you can finish the season first against the pass and 23 against the rush (check!). This last one should really screw with a guy writing an article three years too late.

Step #4: Go 4-12 (Done and done, and I mean that; I really, really do.  Awful season).

This is part two in a five part series looking into all of Ted Thompson's drafts and their impact on the 2009 edition of the Packers; so if you want to hear it, here it goes.

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