GREEN BAY – Ted Thompson was traveling on Wednesday and didn’t call me back in time to talk about his decision to release safety Aaron Rouse, but the Packers general manager did call back on Thursday, from the Detroit Metro airport.

Asked whether releasing Rouse was an admission that the team erred by keeping him on the final roster reduction to 53 players, Thompson cited the early August practice during training camp when both Rouse (hamstring) and fellow safety Charlie Peprah (knee) suffered injuries as the day that threw a monkey wrench into the evaluation process at the position. Instead of basing their decision on how guys played in camp and in the preseason games, Thompson said the personnel staff instead had to project whether keeping one player was better than keeping another, despite his injury.

The Packers kept Rouse, put Peprah on injured reserve (later reaching an injury settlement with him and releasing him), cut Anthony Smith and traded backup left tackle Tony Moll to Baltimore for safety Derrick Martin, who figures to start Sunday against St. Louis. Recently signed Matt Giordano will likely see action only on special teams.

“We didn’t know how it was going to turn out,” Thompson said. “The day that he and Charlie Peprah got hurt on the same day in camp – Charlie’s still not ready to go – I think that hurt us in terms of evaluating what we had. In this case, this was a chance to bring a guy (Giordano) that we thought would bring us a different look and do some different things. We drafted Aaron, he’s one of ours, but we felt it was the best thing for the team right now.”

Rouse was claimed on waivers Thursday by the New York Giants, who lost starting safety Kenny Phillips to a season-ending knee injury.

When pressed on whether he made a mistake keeping Rouse instead of Smith, who was claimed by the Rams after the Packers waived him, and whether that misstep reflects poorly on the Packers’ ability to evaluate players, Thompson stood firm.

“You’re free to say that. It’s a lot more complicated than that,” Thompson said. “Injuries factor into it, durability factors into it, the makeup of your team factors into it. We knew what we had with Aaron. Unfortunately when both he and Charlie got hurt that day, that really hampered us in terms of evaluating that position.”

Thompson also politely took exception to the suggestion that a number of his higher draft picks aren’t panning out. In addition to 2007 first-round pick Justin Harrell, the Packers have gotten little out of 2005 second-round pick Terrence Murphy (suffered a career-ending neck injury as a rookie); 2006 third-round pick Abdul Hodge (released last September, now with Cincinnati); 2007 second-round pick Brandon Jackson (515 rushing yards in two years, likely to miss his third straight game with an ankle injury); Rouse, a 2007 third-round pick; 2008 second-round pick Pat Lee (on injured reserve); and 2008 second-round pick Brian Brohm (on the practice squad);

“I think you have to look at the body of work,” Thompson said. “I think as a whole most of our draft picks are still on our team and still contributing. It’s not the end of everything for those guys that you mentioned. So we’ll see.”

With starting left tackle Chad Clifton (ankle) sidelined, Thompson said he didn’t think he’d left the line with questionable depth by trading away Moll and letting rookie tackle Jamon Meredith leave the practice squad to join Buffalo’s 53-man roster earlier this week.

“The thing with injuries is, things are going to happen and we’ll move forward. Teams have to function without all their players from time to time,” Thompson said. ‘We’d like to have Cliffy out there but we don’t right now. So we make adjustments and move forward.”

As for Meredith, Thompson acknowledged that he saw the rookie fifth-round pick as a possible heir apparent to Clifton, although nothing was guaranteed, especially after Meredith had a poor camp.

“You never know. In fantasy football you can do things like that,” Thompson said of projecting Meredith as the left tackle of the future. (I didn’t have the heart to tell him that you don’t have left tackles in fantasy football). “The guys on our practice squad, we hope we can develop them. We didn’t think (Meredith) was quite ready to play, but Buffalo wanted to put him on their 53. We’d have preferred him to stay on our practice squad, but he had other thoughts.”

I told Thompson of the many Chicken Littles who feel like the NFL sky is falling on his team after Sunday’s loss to the Bengals, and Thompson said he’s nowhere near panicking.

“I think we have a good solid team. I think we can play a lot better than we played last Sunday,” Thompson said. “You can’t go around in life swinging back and forth. You have to have a belief system in your organization. We’re getting ready to play St. Louis. It’s a hard business. Anybody who thinks it isn’t is crazy. The challenge for us, for anybody that works for the Packers is the same challenge we put forth to the players: Sometimes you’re going to get knocked down. You have to get ready for the next play. That’s the same thing you have to do as an organization. Nobody cares if you have people hurt. We have to get ready for the next play, just like we ask our players to.”