This surely will come as a surprise to many, but it does not come as one to us. Bob McGinn is reporting that the Green Bay Packers board of directors pushed team president Mark Murphy to remove Ted Thompson as general manager.
The board reportedly had concerns about Thompson’s health after witnessing several troubling incidents, such as this.
From McGinn: “Last month, Thompson was just gazing into space hardly mindful why he was attending a meeting of team executives, the source said.”
There’s also the perception factor at play here, of course. While board members can say they’re concerned about Thompson’s health, they’re surely more concerned about what people think. In this case, that the football operations are being run by someone who isn’t mentally fit to do so.
We’ve seen this coming for some time. We started to notice the signs that Thompson was slipping early last year. His interview at the NFL combine was a disaster. Thompson’s post-draft interview was rambling and incoherent.
Murphy actually came out and publicly made a statement after that second interview to the effect of, well, Ted’s just been working too hard. He’s exhausted.
And then there was this.
There’s Ted just staring off into space, mouth-agape when they cut to him during the Minnesota Vikings game.
Not a good look. Not for Ted. Not for the Packers.
We’re sure people probably called us assholes or thought we were idiots for pointing these things out as they were happening. Obviously enough people on the board of directors noticed the exact same thing, though.