Bob McGinn and Ted Thompson Are Not Friends

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel beat writer Bob McGinn revealed the text of a massive Q&A with Ted Thompson on Saturday, and boy is it a doozy. While McGinn is frequently tough, but fair, he seems to have an awful lot of disdain for the Packers’ general manager.

Consider the phrasing of a few of these questions:

• “Do you worry about the organization being stale?”
• “Did [Mike McCarthy] make a mistake in judgment [last season]? Should you have dissuaded him from giving up the play-calling?”
• “Shouldn’t it be expected of [Aaron Rodgers] that he also should win multiple titles?”
• “Have you sat down with Aaron Rodgers to discuss what some would regard as his poorest season?”
• “Did you sense there was a maturity issue with [Eddie] Lacy that needed to be addressed by the organization?”
• “Is your hesitancy to participate in free agency more the case of you not having enough hours to spend on pro [scouting] and therefore getting cold feet when it comes to signing outsiders during the season and in the off-season?”
• “You also denied Brian Gutenkunst and Alonzo Highsmith interview chances with other teams in the last 1 ½ years. You’re known as a guy who won’t help people get better jobs. Ron Wolf never held you or anyone else back. Where are you coming from on this issue? Is it that you just can’t stand the prospect of staff upheaval?”

Thompson appears to take umbrage with a few of the questions, offering a few of these tersely worded lines:

• “I’m not going to discuss other people’s business.”
• “I’m not going to answer that.”
• “You’re misinterpreting what happened and the facts.”
• “You’re wrong in your interpretation of what happened.”
• “I’m not going to answer a question the way you couch it.”

The entire article is well worth a read, and in the interest of fairness, it’s worth pointing out that we can’t know for sure exactly how the questions were asked or answered. Still, it seems safe to say that McGinn and Thompson won’t be exchanging Christmas cards this year.