Mike McCarthy can reiterate until he’s gray in the face that his quarterbacks moving forward will be Brett Hundley and Joe Hallahan Houlihan O’Callahan Callahan, but it’s ultimately not the Packers coach’s call. The man who determines the composition of the roster is G.M. Ted Thompson.
Four years ago, the last time the Packers had to proceed with a revolving door of mediocrity after Aaron Rodgers broke a collarbone (it was the left side that time), Thompson had an intriguing, to say the least, explanation for his staffing decisions when it comes to the team’s No. 2 quarterback.
“You make sure you have so many of every position, given the limitations of a 53-man roster,” Thompson told USA Today. “But quite frankly, you never think about your better players ever getting hurt. If you think that way, you might jinx it. It might happen. Literally, you don’t think about it. It’s a place where you never tread.”
So Thompson believes in jinxes?
“No,” Thompson said. “But you still never tread. You just don’t like to say it.”
Which means he does believe in jinxes. Or at least he did in 2013. This year, the No. 2 behind Rodgers has been Brett Hundley, who completed two of 10 regular-season passes before 2017. And the No. 3 (now No. 2) is a Division III quarterback with no regular-season playing time. So maybe Thompson still believes in jinxes.
Maybe he should revisit that. Twice in four years, Rodgers has suffered a multi-game injury.
Meanwhile, the team that beat the Packers on Sunday has to be very glad that it invested $2 million in another quarterback with Sam Bradford and Teddy Bridgewater already on the roster.