Comparing Ted Thompson today to Wolf signing Reggie = Apples and oranges...maybe apples and station wagons. In 93 Wolf's dead cap was ZERO; 92 and 93 Wolf could cut anyone without it affecting the cap [it was 100% a football decision]; and if one was signed before Dec 93 the Sign Bonus did not count against the cap. Wolf signed White, Sean Jones and Favre to LT contracts in 93! If Ted Thompson could sign Reggie II and not have the SB charged against the cap; he'd do it every day and twice on Sunday.

Here's apples to apples: fast forward 5ish years to '98ish and Cap is in full swing. Now, often the Cap dictated personnel moves for Wolf [just like they've done for TT]. Favre and others signed contracts where both salary and SB count against cap [just like Ted Thompson today]. So when Reggie retired, did Wolf go get another Reggie? No! He got Vaughn Booker and then John Thierry. Did he get another E. Robinson to fill hole at safety? NO, he got Pat Terell. When Simmons left and Koonce moved outside, Wolf didn't plug the MLB spot with a big time FA Ray Nitschke clone, he settled for the very mediocre UDFA Bernardo Harris for several years [Sounds like something Ted Thompson might do]. When Brian Williams left, Wolf didn't sign Kevin Greene, he plugged in UDFA Jude Waddy. The next year, when Waddy failed, he traded a 7th rounder for Nate Wayne and plugged him in at OLB the next year. When Jackson/Chumra lost viability, Wolf didn't sign Shannon Sharpe, he settled for Ty Davis and UDFA Thomassen.

Wolf loved vet back-up linemen. Dellenbach, Willig, Arthur, Mcintyre, etc; but when he signed McKenzie instead of keeping UDFA Andruzzi, OUCH; Wolf probably realized he must cultivate this type of young talent. A wise man learns from his mistakes; but Ted Thompson is a real wise, he learns from the mistakes of others.

Wolf was the same aggressive GM in 93 and 98 trying to get Championships and his 97-00 behavior mirrored what Ted Thompson is doing today. TT's and Wolf's post '93 aggression simply took a different form because the Cap caused the game to change. Wolf resigned his own, sometimes overpaying [see Freeman, Levins]; he only signed FAs when his D@D left a hole; and the FA spending was risk averse. Wolf refused to certainly harm future years by signing a big time FA who only increased the odds of winning by 1 or 2 % for a year or 2. I dont see a lick of difference between Wolf and Ted Thompson when they operated under the same conditions. This is because Wolf trained Ted Thompson and Ted Thompson was smart enough to be just like Ron.

This is like a long winded version of What I put in the Ted Thompson HOF thread

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I posted this elsewhere in response to the idea that Ted should "go for it" like Wolf. I figured I'd take the time out of my life to share it here w/o realizing the HOF thread wandered in this direction.

Now that I've read the HOF thread, ya, I should have posed it there, so sorry.

And of course gotta give credit where credit is due! ANNOUNCEMENT: PFWT said a similar thing 2 weeks ago!😂 😂 😂

But that "long winded[ness]" is called factual support/proof of a hypothesis; I prefer this method of argument over asking people to consider what I say simply because I said it. 😁