Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show! Please post your comments - the Coach and team (that includes you) would love to get your views on these thoughts. The web stats say more and more readers each week - got anything to add to the discussion?
Create a seam here - X's & O's about the game or a scheme I know what you’re thinking, “Coach, how did you make those amazingly accurate assessments (yay, alliteration!) of what it would take to beat the Seahawks last week?” Well, it ain’t easy, Average Person. You see, there’s definitely a left brain and a right brain aspect involved here. Fortunately for the right-brain of coach, he sits mid-field, half way up with an incredible view (not to mention near the Leine’s lodge) and gets to party incessantly during football games. Whereas the more serious left-brain of coach is stuck in the new south end zone overlooking Door County, so he listens to Wayne and Larry (and talks back to them as if they can hear him through his headphones) to figure out what is going on down there. Lefty is assigned the X’s & O’s and Predictions portions of this publication – he has facts and figures; Righty says whatever he freaking wants, Dude. Both have their place in the Coach’s weekly contributions. Credit Lefty for nailing the technical portion of this program last week, as usual. Bring it, Lefty!... …What a night it was for underachievers Datone Jones, Mike Neal and Jarone Elliot! Each took turns coming up with big plays. Underachiever Nick Perry showed some flashes, too, but was consistently biting on the fake to Lynch, and he was really torched on the read option plays, with Wilson getting chunks of rushing yardage. Suffice it to say that Perry’s big contributions come when someone runs into him and he smacks them. With Seattle’s OL still melding, Wilson was safer outside the pocket and he had our defense gassed. Darrell Bevell is going to face another week of play-calling scrutiny. The Seahawks should have been running their 3rd Q offense from the first snap Sunday night. As I had hoped, but would not have bet on, I think the high volume of preseason snaps at LT helped Don Barclay with his RT play Sunday night. He and Bahktiari got overpowered a few times, but for the most part got the job done and allowed Rodgers to run out of trouble. Good choice by M-Mac (or was it T-Clem?) to sit A-Rod during the preseason after D-Bar almost got him broken in two. One more thing - white guy names are tough starter material for getting hooked on Ebonics. Dick Sherman finally got called for mugging. It was fun to see him flat out get toasted at least a couple of times, including the first TD pass to Jones. By the way, that Rogers pass to JJ was SICK. You can’t truly appreciate how amazingly difficult that was from your couch / TV – gotta be at Lambeau! Though the non-Jimmy Graham TE dinged us a couple of times (once with a well-defended great one-handed catch), a traditional nightmare matchup for our defense was contained. The secondary generally did a really good job of covering. Good to see Morgan Burnett get through his first game back in good shape. He stabilized the secondary and run support. Hoping he can stay on the field and continue his form from last year. Raji is playing his best ball since 2010. He is such a significant upgrade from the rotation last year. Too bad he wasted 4 years being fat and happy. WTF - The Coach's take on a bad ref call or a bad play call or the like Being that it was a night game (full day of tailgating, standard) and the home opener on top of that, Coach was too drunk to argue with calls. Everything was considerably blurry – even the slo-mo replays on the HD Jumbotron. The coach's clicker on JJ's ass-outa-bounds touchdown replay caused me to throw up a little in my mouth. But I digress... I did notice that the stadium raised beer prices to $9 for a Solo cup of Leine’s this year. WTF! The Bears Still Suck - the Coach has proof When we pummeled the Bears in the 2010 NFC championship game, I was extremely unimpressed with the then-recently refurbished Soldiers Fields. I secretly used to like the historic ambiance of that place before they spent $700 million to make it look like a giant shiny toilet bowl. …maybe to go with the smell of the city? My seat for that game was so far from the field that I could actually see parts of 4 different states. Why pick on the stadium? Because it's another reason the Bears suck. The opening day experience at Lambeau reminded me of that.... It was GREAT to finally be back at Lambeau - Happy New Year to all season ticket holders (and/or the wealthy who buy tickets from them online)! ...And what a great game to watch with 78,000 of my closest friends, and a few dirtbags from Seattle ... literally, they don't shower, like that brings them closer to nature or something? How do you like wearing them Birkenstocks when the urinal sprays back atcha, Curt Cobain? Go hug a tree, but not one near my deer stand ... just sayin'. Oh, that reminds me - a special shout out to our Section 117 beer girl, Natalie (pictured below), who hunts trophy bucks with a Matthews compound bow when she's not otherwise doling out cold ones to the Green & Gold faithful on Sunday's with a smile on her face and kindness in her heart (awe). Like I said, it was great to be back, and the Bears still suck. Udder stuff - commentary from the Badger Underground Pass the poi, mahalo. This week the Badgers play the mighty Rainbow Warriors of Hawaii. It promises to be another snore fest sans Clement. Of course, the weather will be warm so if the Hawaii cheerleaders show up they might make things interesting with a little "mooka lahka heekee, cmon ya-wanna lei me" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQEwJdhfddk, but other than that let's look past this one to the big corn roast at Camp Randall the following week against the Iowa Bumble Bees - who sometimes give us a test (more typically on opening day of gun season than the opener of the Big Ten). Looking ahead to the Big Ten schedule, Northwestern looks like the toughest team that Bucky will face. The 3-0 and 17th ranked Mildcats won a tough fought road game against Puke last week, and they surprised the Stanford Pine Trees in their opener. Stanford, by the way, put a beat down on the #6 ranked University of Spoiled Children Trojans last week at the L.A. Mausoleum, which should help the Big Ten's strength of schedule rankings. A month ago Nebraska had looked like the toughest division game this year, but not so much anymore after dropping to 1-2 with a drubbing by the Miami HurriGangs. Speaking of punks, Arkansas fired head coach Brett Bilenema in anticipation of the Razorbacks losing their third game in a row (last week they lost to lowly Texas Tech). In a prepared announcement, AD Jeff Long said, "We regret to have to do this, but the combination of Brett shooting his mouth off and then not following through with results is too much for us to take. We don’t want a bunch of clowns in this state – we need respectable leaders, like the Clintons. Pig-sooey!” We're gonna kick your a$$ - predictions for the next game Glad we are playing the politically incorrect Kansas City mascot’s team at home. That lessens the odds of a letdown like we saw at Buffalo last year, which messed up home field advantage. We are fully capable of not bringing it every week. That said, if we have to lose one of the “First Quarter” games, I’d rather lose to the KC Queefs (in the AFC) than at the Forty-whiners the following week. BUT … a Monday night game at home … Super Bowl I homages by ESPN … Milwaukee fans puking in the bleachers and cheering loudly during Offensive series’ when they should be quiet, and then later driving home drunk on I-43 … oh yeah, that definitely feels like we’re in store a Packer win and you can buy your playoff tickets now, Baby! Playoffs? Plaaayyoffs? The odds of making the postseason go from 63% at 2-0 to 75% with a 3-0 start. ...and they go to 100% if the Bears, Lions and Vikings are in your division. JB - Packer players you forgot about, but stories you'll remember about them You all are expecting me to reminisce this week about some Packer Hall of Famer that was in Super Bowl I against the Kansas City and evoke feelings of Glory Years pride. But I say that is too easy, my friends (and people that I don’t know who read this). Let the Drew Smith’s and Burke Griffin’s of the world pitch those softballs in hopes that their paltry, small-market sports reporting excrements catch the eye of ABC executives tuning into local news broadcasts while they’re in town gobbling up NFL cash. I’d like to think Coach Clarahanson is a better, dare I say - deeper, homer than that. Who remembers Chet Parlavecchio? I’ll tell you who. Me! …as do other true Packer fans that stayed loyal to the team when he played; watching every minute of every game on every Sunday during the brutal years of the early 1980’s, when the Packers only played games at noon on Sunday because nobody outside of Wisconsin in their right mind would watch them during prime TV slots, and despite having game commentators that really sucked big time because the decent announcers got assigned the “good” games. Chester “Chet” Parlavecchio is relevant because he left GB to go to KC and continued his mediocrity for a few years as an average special teams player with linebacker credentials. But more than that, he had a really sweet early 1980’s mullet. A thick, man’s-man mullet that forces his wife to keep their wedding photos face down on the mantle. So Chet, we salute you as a true tie that binds these two proud organizations, and their redneck followers, together. Oh, wait – I guess he played for St. Louis after Green Bay, not Kansas City. Never mind. I’m thinking of somebody else.
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Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!
Create a seam here - X's & O's about the game or a scheme The good from Week 1: gotta love the “Uncle Reuben” Favre-like pitch from Aaron to Eddie (1-handed catch!). I’m sure it was just like they drew it up at the Don Hudson center. That was fun, and a foreshadowing back breaker for the Bears in the 1st Q (sent the message, “Bears, no matter what - you are still our beeyotch!”). With the loss of a major starter this year, I still was really concerned going into the season… Now that AJ Hawk is gone – his hot wife is gone now, too – so the number of hot chicks in Green Bay was cut in half. On a related note, did anybody notice Jordy Nelson not playing on Sunday? Thanks, Aaron – for turning average receivers into scoring machines, and for keeping our hot chicks percentage in Green Bay above zero. The bad: Hmmmmm… What the heck happened to Sam Shields last week? I hope he had dysentery or something like that preventing him from covering a 1-legged Alshon Jeffery. That reminds me, has anyone seen my watch? WTF - The Coach's take on a bad ref call or a bad play call or the like So many to choose from… Should we pick:
From the mouth of Leroy Butler last week BEFORE the game, “Jay Cutler should be in the Packers Hall of Fame.” Well said, Leroy, well said. I wonder who’ll be the Bears’ $50 million cap buster signee next year. On the flip side, John Fox brought it last week (respect), but alas did not have the talent (a.k.a. “Packers”) to get it done. Having the Bears on the schedule in Week 1 was just like another preseason game for us – with all the offsides penalties and what not, it was a nice warm up game for us to prepare lightly for some real competition this week. Seems unfair to the rest of the league that we get to play the Bears twice each year (effectively, we start each season 2-0 before the 1st kickoff), but maybe that’s karma for having to put up with newer teams in the league that wear colors like teal and pewter on their uniforms. My 5th grader told me this one on Thursday: "How do you keep a bear out of your backyard? ...put up a goal post." Udder stuff - commentary from the Badger Underground CHRIS BORLAND SIGNS WITH PACKERS Former Badger Chris Borland signed a lucrative multi-year contract with the Packers late Saturday to fill the void left at ILB by the injuries to Sam Barrington's foot and AJ Hawk's ego. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the Badger Underground is sure it's pretty sweet. Former teammate Jarred Abrederas said "It's good to be playing on the same team with Chris again, although it seems like that guy is always hurt." San Francisco GM, D. Boxer-Fienstein, could not be reached for comment. Not surprised we beat Trois handily on Saturday, although the Badger Underground was surprised that Vegas spotted the Trojans 35 -- especially since they lost to tOSU by only 18 the week prior. Although Paul Chryst could use a couple more nights a week with his local Toastmasters chapter, the BU likes what he has done. It was evident in the Spring game that he and his staff had already done much more than the previous regime to develop quarterbacks and wide receivers. We are stuck in a transitional period where Gary Anderson swung and missed at top talent, aided by WI’s admissions czar. Anderson also gravitated toward a spread offense, failing to exploit the State’s fertile recruiting ground for 6’5” 310 lb OL who will eventually end up in the NFL. Gary Anderson compounded this by shutting off practices to high school coaches. Count the top OL recruit in the Midwest since Joe Thomas committing to Michigan instead of Wisconsin as one of the casualties. In the meantime, we will remain extremely thin on the OL, hoping for no injuries. Good thing for us that the rest of the West is a bunch of pussies this year. Outback here we come (again)! We're gonna kick your a$$ - predictions for the next game How will we beat the Seahoax? DEEE-FENCE! Longtime readers of this column know that the less than stellar performance of the Packers defense has been a point of frustration since the passing of Fritz (God rest his soul) and the unrelated arrest of Eugene Robinson for soliciting prostitution. We now have a unique window to capitalize on the capability of the best quarterback in the history of the NFL (just like the guy before him) and have reached the playoffs for 6 years running … only to be thwarted by poor defensive play 5 out of 6 times. The only Super Bowl win in the Roger’s era was when we had a top 10 defense during the 2010 season. (My apologies to Vikings and Lions fans, who likely were confused trying to interpret the combination of aforementioned nouns and verbs as assembled, which formed sentence structures containing concepts like “best quarterback” and “Super Bowl win” that they have never been exposed to before. Sadly, I probably lost them after “soliciting prostitution”) M-Mac has made improving the special teams and the defense both a very public and a very personal goal … stating that they are reasons he gave up offensive play calling (and you can put that in BIG, CAPITAL LETTERS). After Week 1, no complaints about Ron Zook, but the torches will be lit if Seattle’s returner breaks some big ones. So, will Eminem’s departure from play calling improve the defense? Based on Week 1 results – eh, not so sure. Matt Forte ran wild in Week 1; can we stop the Beast in Week 2? Thanks for asking. Having Morgan Freeman Burnett back in the lineup should help, but having Sam Bam-ington on IR won't (but that should help with pass coverage). Keep the Skittles in the bag and we win in Week 2 (meaning hold him under 100 yards – I wish we had Letroy back from Juvee), oh yeah - and allow no kick-return points, and win the turnover battle, and no untimely penalties that kill our drives or extend theirs, and keep Rogers healthy (Donny B, we need you to step up for Brian Beluga Bulgaria). Simple, really. JB - Packer players you forgot about, but stories you'll remember about them When former coach / GM Mike Sherman lost his General Manager role and was subsequently asked by the local media to comment on his better moves as a GM, he quickly highlighted his drafting of Javon “Wonderlic” Walker and his trading with the Eagles for Al Harris. My football contacts in Philadelphia poked fun at me when that trade was made, as they informed me Al’s nickname in Philly was “Toast” (as in, he frequently got burnt). This week we pay tribute to Al Harris and his redeeming qualities: a class act that passed through Green Bay as a slightly-better-than-average NFL starter (qualifying him as one of Mike Sherman’s better acquisitions). We will forever remember his sudden death retort to another former Packer who we care a lot less about, Matt “Mr. August” Hasselback (sadly, another hot wife departure)… http://youtu.be/vAgG9XcrDFY So, Al, we salute you! |
Author"Coach" is the insightful collective brain and funny bone of a few legendary Packer fans who provide everything you need to know (and what Packers beat writers often plagiarize) about the Green & Gold, plus a weekly guest appearance by The Badger Underground. Archives
November 2022
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