Clay Matthews: Great Move, The Right Pick?

I called it. I don't know if anyone saw it, but I said trade packs 2 and 3 to NE and take Everette Brown.

I had most of it...instead, Ted Thompson actually trade UP into the first round and took Clay Matthews OLB from USC. Perhaps he was trying to make up for trading out of the first round last year?

It's a great move, and time will tell if it was a great pick. I would have been more inclined to take Everette Brown at this point, but what Thompson has done is given Mike McCarthy and Dom Capers the ammunition to make a 3-4 transition work. By taking Raji, it allows Pickett to move outside and gives us a solid front three.

By taking Matthews, it gives us the ability to put Brady Poppinga on special teams and gives us a solid linebacking corps to play behind them.

In one round, the Packers' defense look a whole heck of a lot better than it did four hours ago.

I would never have thought it of Ted Thompson.

Now, is Clay Matthews going to be the "guy"? Is this a guy who might have been available at #41? You hope that the Packers saw something special in him, because there is the knock that he might have been the product of the system at USC and, of course, had his numbers inflated by having two other first-round linebackers playing beside him. However, he has that gritty, tough attitude that Thompson loves.

The cost seemed a bit high. The draft trade chart would have justified the second and the first of the two third round picks for pick 26, but Thompson traded both third round picks along with the second in order to get Matthews.

It's a high price. But, I also don't deny that making the "Brett Favre Draft Pick" invisible through trade takes a lot of pressure off anyone that would have been taken at that point. This finishes off the Packers for the day, and it there will be some scrutiny on Matthews this year.

You sure hope that Thompson did his homework before making the biggest trade up of his GM career.