GREEN BAY — After 3.5 drafts as the Green Bay Packers' general manager, this much should be abundantly clear about Ted Thompson:

Regardless of a specific position's apparent strength (defensive tackle last year, wide receiver this year), regardless of the potential hurt feelings a pick might cause with a current player (hello, Aaron Rodgers), and regardless of if it's going to get him booed by the Lambeau Field faithful, Thompson is going to do whatever he believes is going to make his football team better.

A year after getting booed lustily by fans at the club's annual party inside the stadium atrium, Thompson's moves Saturday on the first day of the NFL draft got him more of the same.

After trading out of the first round — marking the first time since 1986 that the Packers did not make a pick in Round 1 — by sending the 30th overall choice to the New York Jets to move back six spots and add another fourth-round pick, Thompson took Kansas State wide receiver Jordy Nelson at No. 36, Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm at No. 56 and Auburn cornerback Patrick Lee at No. 60.

And what happened when he addressed the crowd following the Nelson pick?

"I'll be darned if they didn't boo me again a little bit," Thompson said. "I'm going to have to quit going down there."

Presumably, despite Thompson's successful replenishment of the Packers' overall depth — not to mention their 13-3 regular-season record in 2007 and berth in the NFC Championship Game — the green-and-gold true believers don't dig the way Thompson is so fervently committed to taking the proverbial best player available.

For the third time in four drafts, Thompson used his first pick on a player at a position that was hardly a need, and could be argued was a strength:

In 2005, he took quarterback Aaron Rodgers when he had Brett Favre; last year, he took defensive tackle Justin Harrell when the position appeared to be the deepest on the team; and this year, he took Nelson, even though the Packers' so-called "Big Five" of Donald Driver, Greg Jennings, James Jones, Koren Robinson and Ruvell Martin was vital to the club's offensive success last year.

"We're always trying to push the envelope. We're always trying to get better," said Thompson, who said there were "three or four" players the team liked at No. 30 that he felt would be available six picks later, enabling him to make the trade. "I don't think you can ever say 'OK, we're set at this position, so if a good football player gets to us or falls into our laps, we're just going to pass him up because we're set at that position.' We're never going to do that. We're always going to try to get better. Because you can be what we consider to be strong at a particular position, but then you have a couple of nicks or ankle sprains or things like that and you're not quite as strong."

The Packers opted for Nelson over Indiana's James Hardy (No. 41 to Buffalo), Virginia Tech's Eddie Royal (No. 42 to Denver), Coastal Carolina's Jerome Simpson (No. 46 to Cincinnati), California's DeSean Jackson (No. 49 to Philadelphia), Oklahoma's Malcolm Kelly (No. 51 to Washington) and Texas' Limas Sweed (No. 53 to Pittsburgh).

The Packers also took Nelson over Notre Dame's John Carlson, the second tight end selected (No. 38 to Seattle) after the Jets used the 30th pick on Purdue's Dustin Keller, and USC's Fred Davis (No. 48 to Washington).

"We like Jordy quite a bit. The more you watch of him, the more you like him," Thompson said. "I think he's a really good player. He's been one of those guys I sort of had my eye on for awhile and tried as best I could to try and keep it under the radar."

The 6-foot-25⁄8, 217-pound Nelson went from being a walk-on ex-prep quarterback playing defensive back in 2003 to having a huge senior year, catching 122 passes for 1,606 yards and 11 TDs as a senior.

"It's something all kids dream about, wanting to play professional sports, playing football in the backyard and stuff like that," Nelson said. "But as my career at K-State kept piling up, year after year great things were happening to me and I think that I've gotten a lot of luck."

After taking Nelson, the Packers got lucky in that Brohm was still available 20 picks later. Thompson, who has now made 10 draft-day trades in Green Bay and all of them have been to move back, admitted he was trying to trade up in the second round to get Brohm but couldn't make it happen.

"We weren't going to do anything foolish, we weren't going to panic," Thompson said. "And fortunately (Brohm) came to us."

Thompson then added Lee four picks later as a possible nickelback and heir apparent to aging corners Al Harris and Charles Woodson, but the Brohm pick created the greatest buzz.

Thompson had said at his pre-draft news conference that he wouldn't have a problem with taking a quarterback high regardless of the added pressure it might put on Rodgers following Favre.

"In our minds, (coach) Mike (McCarthy) and mine and the entire organization, Aaron's the guy," said Thompson, who has six more picks today — a third-rounder, three fourth-rounders, a fifth-rounder and a seventh-rounder. "I even told Brian that. And he understood it.

"I think he's going to be a very solid quarterback in the NFL. Again, I think you have to have as much quality on your team as you can. We need competition at all positions, we need guys that can go in the game and play. That's the thing I've talked about at the quarterback position. It's all well and good to have names or maybe people that used to be pretty good, but they have to be able to come on and play if needed. And we think he can do that."