Packers cleaning house to ring in new year, firing Capers and replacing Thompson
The Green Bay Packers rang in the new year with a cleaning house of sorts.
Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers watches his team warm up before an NFL football game against the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Bob Leverone)
It’s funny what the team’s first sub-.500 record in nearly a decade will do.
First, 67-year-old defensive coordinator Dom Capers was fired. Then reports were that 64-year-old Ted Thompson was being replaced.
Thompson, who’s been the GM since 2005, is supposedly going to transition into a different role with the team. Eliot Wolf, Brian Gutekunst, and Russ Ball are among the internal candidates the Packers are considering for general manager, the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport tweeted.
Thompson went 4-12 his first season, then brought on coach Mike McCarthy and finished 8-8 in 2006. The Packers went 13-3 in the next season — Brett Favre’s final year — before starting Aaron Rodgers, who went 6-10 in 2008.
Capers started as defensive coordinator in Jan. 2009, helping win Super Bowl XLV a season later — the only year he had a Top 10 defense (fifth). His defenses haven’t cracked the Top 15 in six of the past seven seasons.
He won’t be the only changes to the defensive personnel either, according to ESPN. No candidates have been reported to replace Capers yet.
Before this year’s 7-9 record the Packers haven’t had a losing season since going 6-10 in 2008. They did go 8-7-1 in 2013 — the first time Aaron Rodgers broke his clavicle.