Packers says best pick available is their guide for upcoming draft

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GREEN BAY - General manager Ted Thompson says the Packers will pick the best available player when they’re on the clock during next week’s draft. As the Super Bowl champions, the Packers have the 32nd pick in the first round next Thursday night.

At his pre-draft news conference today, Thompson said he loved what picking 32nd means – but it’s not so much fun in later rounds when the Packers will draft behind everybody else. The GM said his staff was trying to keep “business as usual” as much as possible with the NFL owners’ lockout continuing. And he said his staff had to play catch-up because the Packers’ last season didn’t end until February seventh with the Super Bowl victory. Thompson said he didn’t make it to many of the schools’ pro days where their possible draftees audition. He only went to about six of them, including Wisconsin’s.

The last time Green Bay drafted 32nd in the first round was in 1995 – and they got a productive player, corner Craig Newsome from Arizona State. Thompson also noted that the Packers won’t be signing free agents after the draft due to the lockout – only those taken in the seven rounds.

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Green Bay Packers’ defensive end Johnny Jolly pleaded guilty today to his second felony drug possession charge in three years. And a judge in Houston approved a deferred prosecution agreement – in which his conviction will be dropped if he stays clean for a five-year probationary period.

It’s uncertain if that’s enough to get NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell to reinstate Jolly once the owners’ lockout is over. District Judge Denise Bradley said Jolly must undergo drug treatment at an in-patient facility for 90 days – and he cannot enter nightclubs or taverns, drink, or use drugs during his probation. Bradley says it violates any of those things, quote, “I will send you to prison.” The arrangement was the result of a plea deal with prosecutors, and defense attorney Carl Moore said he was happy with it. Jolly plans to get his treatment at a Houston facility run by former Milwaukee Bucks’ guard John Lucas – who also fought drug problems during his NBA career about three decades ago. Jolly was suspended for all of last season – and he missed out on the Super Bowl and all the celebrating – after he was convicted in 2008 of the same thing he admitted today. In both cases, he was caught with codeine which is often used in making a new type of hallucinating drug. Before his latest arrest in March, Jolly had applied for reinstatement to the NFL – but the request is tied up because of the owners’ lockout.

Tags: wisconsin sports, proam, football, packers