Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! Don’t forget to stop by George Webb’s for a free hamburger this week to celebrate 12 in a row! That’s right, the Packers have lost 12 straight to the Rams in L.A. over 50+ years (sigh). Officially, we are their bitch. Montgomery Not Allowed To Fly Home With Team LOS ANGELES–Following a close loss to the Rams, Packers wide receiverback Ty Montgomery was not allowed to fly home with the team Sunday night. Despite his impressive performance at the Coliseum, Monty could not convince team managers to let him ride on the plane. “We just can’t allow a rat like that on the plane” said Packers offensive coordinator Joe Philbin. “Ty’s done what we’ve asked of him in the past in order to help the team, but we can’t bend over backwards for him and jeopardize the health of our locker room. The team comes first, and Ty is just going to have to deal with it.” Head coach Mike McCarthy seemed confused and had no idea what was going on when reporters probed for his thoughts on the Montgomery situation after the game. He simply replied “I’m one of the most successful coaches in the NFL. I bet Cleveland would love to have me.” When asked for his side of the story, Ty initially refused to comment, but then began weeping and said “I need Henry! He’s my emotional support! I can’t go anywhere without him! It shouldn’t matter that he’s a squirrel!” Packers assistant to the traveling secretary, Brach Birschbane, later provided reporters with the NFL’s official pamphlet regarding use of emotional support animals when teams have to fly for away games. To the team’s credit, the guide specifically states: “Emotional-support animals for players fall under a stricter definition than other trained service animals, such as dogs for blind referees or elephants for deaf commissioners.” Create a Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Coaches’ prediction last week? We WILL play our first good game of the year and we’re gonna Rock’em at the Coliseum (Coach will keep saying this until it happens) Well if McCarthy and company actually coached the team we could have arguably won by much more than 4 points, and at least would have had a shot at 30 to 29. But Coach doesn’t count moral victories, we lost, and now we are absolutely mired in mediocrity at 3-3-1. Remember this atrocity? Coach can’t get it out of his head….that’s Brandon Bostick fumbling the onside kick in the 2014 NFC Championship Game in Seattle…if he does his job and blocks, Jordy gets the ball and we are in the Super Bowl…what is it with Packer’s Special Teams guys just not doing their job?? WTF?? Well, it flipping happened again, dint it? …hoisted by our own petard (look it up). Doggone it…kneel down and at least Rodgers has a chance at getting a score and winning the game. Gutey wasted no time in getting rid of “Brandon Montgomery”, trading him to Baltimore for navel lint (maybe chewed gum, it wasn’t clear at press time). There was actually some genius to trading for a 2020 conditional pick, yes we might get a pick, but the major accomplishment is not letting him get to New England where Belichick would have done the Vulcan mind meld on him and sucked all the knowledge out of Montgomery before Sunday night’s game. …not that Belichick needs to fear McCarthy’s game plan or can’t figure out his overwhelmingly predictable patterns of ineptness. We’re gonna come back to this in a bit…the air waves have been burning up all week with people screaming about Montgomery, but honestly Coach is more P.O.’d about Fat Mike and his approach to situational football at the end of the first half, that’s where we lost the game. But first, let’s look at the other trade, we got rid of Chuckle Chuckle Clinton’s-Dick to the Washington Foreskins for a 4th rounder in 2019. Some have complained that we didn’t get much, but he only has this season before becoming a free agent, so the price was probably fair. The other complaint is that he was a good player. Fair enough, at times his first couple of years he was decent and give him credit for being on the field and not in the tub. But wait, let’s not just stop at Bostick in Seattle…do you remember this play? Have you ever seen such a misplayed ball in the air? Yes, OK, several times this year – by the same HHCD! At the time at 2-point conversion put Seattle up by 22-19. Had he played the ball and the Seaturds been held to 20, the Packers would have won 22-20 on the field goal they kicked 1:11 that tied the game and sent it into OT…and of course the Seabags only got the chance at that 2-pointer due to Bostick’s colossally stupid play on the onside kick. But Coach has been digging even deeper and found that Robert Mueller has positive proof of HHCD collaborating with the Redskins for several months. After his interception you can see him clearly celebrating with the enemy. Collusion? No question. Sure Dix has physical talent, but by all accounts he’s played like shit the last 2 years, has been a locker room cancer and arguably has been the weakest link on the D this year – definitely NOT playing at a 1st-round talent level (or even a 4th round level, for that matter). Here’s proof! ...Clink on this link for a video summary of his debacles this year: Ha Ha was the problem all along! So Coach says good bye and good riddance, and good call by Gutey. Where does that leave us on talent? Probably not a lot worse than we were before the game. If we look back at Teddy T’s last 3 drafts, it’s hard not to say it’s been a bust. These are the guys that should be making up the core of our “draft and develop” roster. You probably have heard that you can’t truly judge a draft class until 3 years after that draft, well… The 2015 draft class is completely gone from the Green Bay Packers, and 7 of the 8 players are complete “reds”. 2016 is better, with Kenny Clark and Blake Martinez being real contributors and King and Aaron Jones from 2017. Let Coach say it another way, we have two impact players, Clark and Jones out of the last 25 that TT drafted. Before everyone starts whining about Martinez being a “yellow”, just tell me how many impact plays he’s made? Yeah, OK, he makes a lot of tackles 5 yards downfield, but just name the times when he’s blown up a play. I knew Khalil Mack; Blake Martinez is no Khalil Mack. King is only a potential green someday: he’s had some tremendous games, but he’s out of the game injured about 50% of the time so we can’t count on him down the stretch. If he plays well, uninjured, then we can consider the upgrade to Green-Seats for him. OK, back to the Rams game. Why did we lose? Situational coaching…McVay kicked McCarthy’s ass. The game was really lost in the 2nd Qtr, from 12:14 through to Half-Time. Let’s start with who was being played, Aaron Jones and the Packers rushing game. We averaged 5.6 yards per rush vs. 4.0 for the Rams, but they ran the ball 34 times to our 19 times. They controlled the ball for 34:10, but that masks the real story, we didn’t move the ball when Jones wasn’t on the field!! We had 13 drives in total, Jones had touches on 7 of those drives, 6 drives he had none. On the drives where he was touching the ball, we averaged 6.9 yards/play and we had 5.1 plays per drive. When Jones didn’t touch the ball, we averaged 3.0 plays/drive…we averaged a “3 & out” when he wasn’t in. Jones didn’t bust a big one on every play, but the Rams had to account for him. Nowhere was this more evident than the sequence that started with 12:14 left in the 2nd quarter. Remember, Jones is out, we are up 10-0 and Jones is on the bench. On drive #7 we have 3 plays, gain 3 yards and punt, and the Rams have the ball at their 38. Drive #8 is the series where we stop them at mid-field, but King turns his back on the gunner, Sam Shields, and Hekker throws a first down to Sam Shields. Special Teams maaaajor breakdown number 1. They didn’t score on this drive, but we are pinned down and start drive #9 at the 4. We run 5 plays for 21 yards, no Aaron Jones, and we JK Scott punts for 55 with no return. Drive #10 the Rams are starting at their 28, where they go 27 yards our 45 and they punt, with Sam Shields again making a tremendous play, downing the ball on the 1. Special Teams maaajor breakdown number 2 (number 3 being the shanked punt in the 4th Qtr). Drive #11 we put AJ back in, but as you already know he never even gets close to the goal line and he’s stuffed for the safety. It was a terrible call for 2 reasons: (1) Aaron Jones is not a physical back that should be used in short yardage situations … THAT’S where Jamaal Williams is supposed to be used (you dipshit, McCarthy … Seriously, how can everyone know this but you?), and (2) it puts the RT Bryan Bulaga on an ILB assignment, which means he has to move in to open a gap for the RB – which isn’t possible when the D is playing a short yardage run set. After the ensuing free kick, they start at their own 28 and go 72 yards for the score to make it 10-8 Packers. What makes Coach absolutely sick is that we dominated the game in the 1st Quarter, McCarthy put away his best toy and then got stuffed in the field position game. Once again he proved he is the game’s worst manager of the final minutes in the 1st half of games (as has been documented by oodles of data from yours truly seemingly every week). Face it kids, McCarthy is the one who lost this game, same as he always does. Without Rodgers, he can’t win; and with Rodgers, he manages to lose half of their games when the best quarterback in the history of the league can’t pull a rabbit out of his backside in the final drive. Murphy needs to give Gutey full control of football operations, same as Ron Wolf had, so he can fire McCarthy’s ass now and bring in, well, ANYBODY ELSE. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Belichick Haunted By Gypsy Woman He Killed Last Summer FOXBORO,MA – Another poor performance was displayed last week by the Patriots, barely squeaking by the lowly Buffalo Bills on Monday Night Football. It appears New England has devolved back to the disgraceful form they showed earlier this year when they were beaten soundly by the Detroit Lions and the Jacksonville Jaguars, both of which are teams that are more or less just overgrown pussies. With the perennial contenders off to such a rough start this year, a lot of people around the League are wondering: “Did the gypsy that Bill Belichick killed during training camp curse New England?” We all know about Bill Belichick’s ill-fated encounter this summer; the late night drive in the rain where he ran over that old crone. Now, suddenly you have phantom tackles, Pats players spastically convulsing on the turf, and Tom Brady throwing picks into double coverage like he’s been possessed! That is unquestionably a curse. If a gypsy curses you with her last dying breath while you try to bury her in a shallow roadside grave, it has to have a negative impact on your pass rush. It’s hard to come back from that. Bill Belichick clearly didn’t take the hex seriously when it left the gypsy’s lips or else he would have tried to shore up his wide receiver group, and handed out pendants of gypsum and white sage to ward off the hag’s demon servants. How else to you explain New England’s complete lack of ground game, and the specter that flashed across the field as blood poured from Gronk’s eyes? Belichick’s only chance might be to pass the gypsy’s curse onto Josh Gordon and then waive him. He also might be able to break the curse by hunting down a necromancer and bring him a vile of virgin’s tears, but that’s a long shot. Until Belichick figures out how to wipe the gypsy’s blood from his hands, the Patriots and their fans will continue to struggle, which is good news for the rest of the league. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof $3 Million Donation From Bears To Help Kids Learn To Read Returned AURORA,IL—A $3 million charitable donation from Chicago Bears owner Virginia Halas-McCaskey intended to help kids learn to read has been returned following a resounding “screw you” from Illinois’ illiterate children, sources confirmed Friday. “Take this blood money and shove it up your ass, you depraved sack of shit,” said 8-year-old Emmy Bowman, echoing the sentiments of thousands of children across Chicagoland who confirmed they would rather never learn to read and write than accept cash from an organization as corrupt and inept as the Bears. “We’re not going to debase ourselves by accepting handouts from a bunch of rich pathetic morons. Do you think throwing a few million dollars at underprivileged kids absolves you of all the terrible shit you’ve done? Get real.” At press time, an angry mob of kindergarteners had reportedly descended on Soldiers Fields holding angry, wordless protest Signs. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Bucky Growls and Then Lays a Gigantic Egg The worst fears going into Northwestern were realized last week.
Adding to the debacle that unfolded, the Badgers may be without NT Olive Sagapolu for the remainder of the season or at least until the bowl game. Woe is us. The Badgers could ill afford any outages on the thin DL. Even if Loudermilk and all the DB’s come back from injury, this will be a huge loss. Sources say that Jonathon Taylor had the flu, contributing significantly to his subpar day. Waa, waa, waa! Coming into this season, we thought the defense and Jimmy Leonard would do magic with new guys rising to the fore as has always happened. It has not happened. Making up ground and finishing with a 3-way tie for the West title is highly unlikely. The betting man says Northwestern loses only to Iowa while Wisconsin will have tough games vs. Penn State & Purdue. The Mildcats have the inside track to Indy, sorry to say. The way Wisconsin is playing, Rutgers may not be the cakewalk that they appear to be on paper. Note that Northwestern had difficulty beating Rutgers only a week before playing Wisconsin. In hindsight, NU coach Jim Fitzgerald likely called an offensive game plan rivaling that of Paul Chryst & Mike McCarthy. If immobile QB Alex Hornibrook returns Saturday, he will have an extremely green LT trying to prevent him from another concussion. The good news is that Rutgers is giving up 34 points per game and will be without LB Izaia Bullock, who was charged with being a party to an attempted double-murder plot. This is not surprising. Here are some other famous Scarlet Knight students (note that Badger Underground’s initial web search – for famous Rutgers hotties, came up dry): In addition to Sagapolu, the same defensive players who missed last week’s game are questionable this week, with Loudermilk & Dixon being the closest to returning. Fortunately for Wisconsin, Rutgers scores only 15 points per game. Rutgers may have played the first ever college football game, but Wisconsin’s Pat O’Dea put the Midwest on the football map over the Ivy league in the late 1900’s with his inspired kicking game and Aussie chutzpa. ADVERTISEMENT—Are you a big fan of scary movies? Are you bummed that Halloween is over? Well don’t get too comfortable at the theaters just yet – the scariest movie of them all is about to be released: One of our most recognizable television stars takes an erotic turn on the silver screen in Roseanne Gets Naked (this movie has been rated Rx by the Motion Picture Association of America, and is intended for sick audiences only). We’re Gonna Kick You’re A$$ – predictions for the upcoming game Well, Wayne, Coach has to dig deep this week to explain how the Packers are gonna kick ass in Foxhole on Sunday night. As loyal readers know, Melissa McCarthy regularly says that he is a good coach. If he wants to argue that stepping in dog crap is better than getting hit by a car, then he has a point. (Just keep in mind that Melissa’s mentor was Marty Schottenheimer, he of the teaser 11-5 seasons who flamed out in the playoffs in Cleveland, KC, the Skins and San Diego. Conversely, Bill Belichick’s mentor was Bill Parcells, who was head coach of the 2-time world champion Giants while Belichick was defensive coordinator of LT.) But let’s see what the actual results are; think of this as kind of Snopes.com on Fat Mike’s claims... Starting with the 2014 Season, we have been in the playoffs 3 out of 4 years and managed to lose the NFC Conference Championship twice. The Pats have been to the playoffs every year and won the Super Bowl twice during the same 4 Seasons. Hmm, OK, Melissa M not in the same league as Billy B. Now let’s look a little deeper, overall William of Foxborough has averaged a Regular Season record of 13-3, while Melissa has averaged 10-6….I guess William is now up 2-zip in the comparison. With the preseason reduced to figuring out the bottom 1/3rd of the roster, Coach points out that the first 4 games of the Season are sort of “figure out your team time”, and the next 4 (gms 5-8) are the first real test. In a “no shock to any of you that actually follow football” observation: Bill Belichick is 4-0 for games 5-8 over the last 5 years (basically the month of October). Packers Coach Melissa McCarthy is below 0.500 (1.8 wins and 2.2 losses on average). If “October” is the test of getting your team figured out, then McCarthy is below average and less than mediocre, even with AR at the helm for 4 of the 5 years. And the test that Coach really likes to apply, “how well have the good coaches done when they don’t have their star QB”. Needless to say, McCarthy is a bottom tier coach. Obviously T Thompson's drafts of the last several years play into this, but newsflash, Vince, Billy and Don Shula all did fantastic no matter who was on the roster and no matter who plays at QB. So, by any measure Coach can think of, McCarthy is not the answer, should be relieved of his duties, and hopefully will do as little as possible to damage our hopes in the Foxhole. “But Coach, we can’t fire McCarthy because Aaron Rodgers has close chemistry with him, and that can’t ever be replaced by another head coach!” Wayne, you ignorant slut. The Packers win DESPITE McCarthy, not because of McCarthy (hint: it’s because of Aaron Rodgers overcoming McCarthy’s ineptitude; again – look at the chart above). Fun fact: Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have NEVER had dinner together. Eight super bowls in 17 years (or about 1 every other year for the mathematically challenged), and a whopping five world championships. Relationship be damned. We need a good coach. Shit, an AVERAGE skill at game management for a coach would have the Packers at least 5-2 right now. But even if we must have McCarthy on the sidelines another week, the Packers can win this game – and here’s why: 1) Gutey is establishing himself as the real leader of the team. His moves this week may or may not be fantastic when we look backward, but he got rid of problems and there is no doubt in any player’s mind that they have to perform….said more plainly….this week was addition by subtraction. 2) Coach now has it on good authority that Offensive Coordinator Joe Philbin is studying the Coach Clarahanson blog. Joe phoned in for some advice this week and Coach took him though the 2nd Quarter analysis above. Joe has promised to try to remember the lessons and will keep Aaron Jones on the field more. Coach hopes he will get more touches, but let’s at least keep him on the field and keep the Pats honest. 3) The defense is finally starting to gel. The Rams are one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL, but Coach doesn’t care about that, giving up 29 (27) points is not good enough to go anywhere in the post-season. However, as Coach pointed out above, many of those points we related to the offense not keeping the ball and special teams gaffes. Pettine’s Defensive unit is really starting to play better, and Coach expects this improvement to continue. Getting Ha Ha CD out of the way should clear the way for Baushad Breeland to get on the field (he of golf cart accident fame). 4) Brady has 5 rings, and usually GOAT discussions stop there, so Rodgers will put the proverbial chip on his shoulder that has been a good luck charm for him throughout his career. Besides, he's the speedy young whippersnapper that'll be messing with the old timer in this matchup (Click On Link)... Rogers and the O moving the ball, the D building on last week and Special Teams simply playing the way they have most of the year will be more than enough. Packers 34 Pats 28 JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them With all this talk about Tom Brady and his 5 championships, and Belichick's 7 Super Bowl rings, Coach thought we should pay homage to one of our own Super Bowl champs, a real guy's guy, and a big contributor to us winning XXXI in n'Awlins ... Mike Prior! #39 was never a starter in Green Bay during his tour of duty 1992-1998. He came in only on 3rd down situations as a nickel back, roaming the middle of the field, but always wreaking havoc. Prior was a key to many of the victories in 1996, most notably sealing the win in the 2nd half against the St. Louis Rams, saving the Super Bowl year that was. Prior was one of the captains of Super Bowl XXXI and intercepted a pass in that game thrown by the last Patriots quarterback before Tom Brady, Drew Bledsoe. Prior is also a part of one of the most famous Super Bowl highlights. He was the player who clipped John Elway in Super Bowl XXXII sending him spinning like a helicopter (Coach forgets what happens after that). In an exclusive mic'd up interview, Coach sat down with the former Packers DB to see what he's been up to since retiring from the NFL. After hanging up his cleats, Prior entered the business world as an insurance actuary and worked his way up the corporate ladder in a Fortune 500 company (not too shabby). Then things took a turn for the worse for Mike late last year. Below is an inspirational story in his own words of how he dealt with the tragedy, intended to offer hope for other men so they might be able to navigate through a similar midlife crisis with the same success that he had.
Once the #MeToo movement got going, things started changing. I knew I would have to be brave. I started hearing about all these guys losing their jobs. Or at least a few guys, one or two. I never thought I’d be put in a position where I would be held accountable for something I did. I thought “That’s something that happens to other people, not to me.” They fired me for using my power to solicit favors from female coworkers. I’d been doing this for years, so when they let me go I was shocked. For several hours, I felt totally and utterly alone. I had nothing. My company credit card, my un-accrued PTO….gone. It was the worst three and a half hours of my life. I felt so powerless. I texted a couple of former teammates for support and they immediately responded with “Let me see what I can do.” It felt like the end of my career. I started having really dark thoughts. I even typed “Monster.com” into my browser. I hadn’t updated my résumé in years. Instinctively I almost called my secretary to do it, but – because of her allegations, I no longer had a secretary. I felt so lost. Would I ever be taken seriously again? Where would I go? What would become of me? I turned to alcohol to numb myself. I am not proud of that. And by the time I polished off the second drink, I was ready to order a third, a fourth, a fifth… But then I got a call. A former teammate emailed me to say he knew some people at a very reputable company, and they set me up with an interview later that day. It was such an emotional time that I’d forgotten there was this whole network of men that help men like me get back on their feet. I got the job. They even offered me a starting bonus. Now, I’m actually at the same level as my previous boss who accused me of harassment. I really thought getting fired was going to break me, but a handful of unstructured hours made me stronger. I’m more confident, more self-assured… I’m proud of who I am. Oh, and I’m making a lot more money now. A lot. I’m speaking out so that other men fired in the wake of #MeToo know they’re not alone. It turns out that this kind of thing happens to a lot of guys. We just don’t talk openly about it. It may take you most of the day to find a new job, but if you just half-heartedly throw out a couple of feelers here and there, it will happen. Never hesitate to reach out to someone you trust. He’ll understand that as a man, it’s in his own best interest to back you up. As difficult as that afternoon was, it helped me see the good in people again. So if you lost your job because of your own behavior, stay strong. Before you know it, everything will be better than ever. It is not your fault that the allegations were actually taken seriously. You are not alone. I, too, was fired in the wake of #MeToo. Thank you, Mike, for that inspiration story of heroism, and your ever present can-do spirit that we all fell in love with way back since the early 1990's. We salute you, sir! And now let's go beat the Patriots (again)!
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Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! Coach is rested up from the bye week and ready to roll up his sleeves to offer you more football insight, a laugh or two, and maybe even scare you a little. That’s a full show. So let’s start by getting right to it: the Bye Week's mega contest that had a new all-time record number of entries (thank you!). Big congrats goes out to Roy Vander Velden of Little Chute (below, left) for correctly guessing the best movie without any hot chicks in it: The Borne Identity. For his winning entry, Roy of course receives the much talked about 7-days / 6-nights all-inclusive trip to Cancun, Mexico with famous Packers enthusiast, Ronda Tetas (below, right). Good on you, Roy, and don’t forget to wear a raincoat! OK, so with that big news out of the way, let’s get on with futbol! Well, the last time the Packers won a game in L.A., Coach was there and it was an 87-degrees Fahrenheit day on November 11, 1990 against the Raiders at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Don Majkowski stunned the 6-2 Raiders squad with a 29-16 victory, and Coach had to clap quietly. You see, earlier that same season, Pittsburgh paid a visit to the Coliseum and a not-so-lucky Steelers supporter was beaten severely by Raiders fans, suffering irreparable brain damage. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems a bit excessive. So going into the game, we knew to keep a low profile. That said, we weren’t about to forego tailgating (presuming we would survive the drive through South Central L.A. along Martin Luther King, Jr Drive, which is just 3 stop-and-go lights from where the Rodney King riots started a mere 17-months later), so upon our arrival we pulled out our Weber hibachi LP-grill and a cooler full of PBR. Shortly after cracking open my fourth cold one, 2 cops walked up and asked why we thought we could be drinking beer in public. We explained that we were doing something called “tailgating” and that it was a common, harmless custom in Wisconsin, where we were originally from. We were very surprised that the cops had no idea what tailgating was, although we were less surprised that they had no idea what a bratwurst was. However, ever tasting a brat, the police officers looked at each other and smiled as if a majik potion was dusted upon them, and asked that we please pour our beers into plastics cups so that it was a little less obvious to others that we were drinking beer. Very cool. I said “Thank you, Officer!” (which I think was the only time I ever said that without first getting a speeding ticket … why do I do that?). Coach won’t be in L.A. this Sunday to cheer Rodgers & Co. on to victory over the Lambs, but I will be thinking about answers for the inquisitive young man that always asks me questions about football X's and O's... Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme No Junior, it’s not your imagination. The defense looks like last year…so much so that we are giving up exactly the same number of points per game, 24.0, as the 2017 final average….24.0. Huh? Coach I thought you said the Defense would be better this year. Well son, Coach did say that. But he also said that we have very little talent, so it’s going to take a few games for the Defense to get on track. In a Yogi Berra “déjà vu all over again” moment, Coach was trying to think of the last time our Defense stunk and our QB ran around and created magic come-back-victories. 1989. The year of the Majik Man! The Pack had a bunch of exciting comeback games and the team was nicknamed the Cardiac Pack. That season even included the famous Instant Replay game, which was the birthplace of “upon further review” fame (screen printed on tasteful t-shirts everywhere). That team got lucky and finished 10-6 but did not make the Playoffs (the fricken Bengals failed to win an easy game that would have given us the playoff tie-breaker in the final week). Even though it was an exciting team, it was not a good team. They finished by averaging 0.3 points per game better than the other guys. Frankly it is simply amazing that they had 10 wins and it was not an impressive Season. The graph above shows the Regular Season Win Total vs. Point Differential for the 1980 Season through 2018 Gm 6 (2018 prorated to 9.3 wins for the Season). The general takeaway is … “duh” … when we score a lot more points than the other guys, we win a lot of games. And while having a high point differential doesn’t guarantee a Super Bowl, it does show that if you don’t have a high point differential you won’t win a SB (for reference, the 1966 and ’67 teams had point differentials of 12.2 and 8.8 respectively). What it also shows, yet again in yet another way, is that the 2018 Team is the very definition of mediocre. Through 6 games we are averaging 0.7 points per game better than the competition. As your eyeballs already tell you: if we stay here, we are going nowhere. One of the most frustrating things for any fan is to see your team F’ing up … especially when it comes to things like stupid, stupid penalties. Wanna know why we are losing? Yeah A-Rod has missed a few, Crosby shanked a few and the D has been Swiss Cheese in the first half – but what’s really killing us is penalties. When you compare our penalties to those of our opponents, we are dead last by a very wide margin. We get called for 3 more penalties per game than our opponents!! In the NFL that is a BFD!! To put a finer point on it, we also give the other guys more than one extra 1st down every game, good enough for a number 29 ranking. Take a look at who’s down there with us and you see the bottom dwellers in the standings and arguably penalties are the biggest thing holding back both the Viqueens and the Pack. If you want a positive spin, clean up the penalties and we’d have a pretty good record. Penalties are important, but the most important thing is the scoreboard and an even more concerning thing is that we are getting handled in the first half. On average, we are down by a TD at the half. OK, so AR has been able to pull the rabbit out of his hat in the second half and get a few wins... but “Son, being fat, dumb, and getting your ass kicked in the 1st Half is no way to go through life” said somebody somewhere, and it is just painful to watch. If there is good news in the chart above, it is that we are winning the 2nd Half and, both the Offense and the Defense are playing better. In an exciting Majik Man kind of way, Rodgers is pouring it on in the 4th Qtr, so net/net we’ve snagged 3 wins out of the jaws of defeat. The really good news is that the Defense has been in shutdown mode in the 3rd Qtr, giving up only 1 point on average. One point! The cynics amongst us will point out that the other guys are well ahead so maybe they take their collective feet off the gas, but still we are holding them to one point. Oh, by the way, we did beat the Niner’s in a game that felt like a loss if you were there (Coach was there, but in the concourse watch the Brewers beat the Dodgers, and when the baseball game was over went back inside to watch the last 3 minutes of the Packers/Niners tooth extraction). The final minute heroics of A-Rod felt like the 3rd stick of cotton candy at the County Fair. Tasted good for a minute, but leaves you with a sick stomach. So why does it feel that way? Well the scoring profile and the penalties were exactly like they’ve been all year. Down by 4 points at the half, mistakes and penalties killing any momentum, still down by 4 at the end of the 3rd Qtr. Yet, but yet, A-Rod wins the game at the end, against a team that came in 1-4 and got killed by the Rams the following week (during the Packer’s bye week). But what made it really sickening is the way they ran the ball down our throats. The hell of it is that we averaged almost as many yards/carry, 5.5 vs. 5.8…we just didn’t run the ball enough. Guys, come on, cut the crap, we are averaging 5.5 yards per carry and we only run 21 times? In a footnote of adding insult to injury, CJ Beathard stats against us on MNF were: Who the hell is CJ Beat hard? Exactly. He’s the grandson of Hall of Fame GM Bobby Beathard, but other than that just a guy from Iowa who went a combined 26/54 for 230 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT in 2015 & 2016 vs. Wisconsin. The guy is a backups’ backup and we let him torch us in the first half. To be clear, we had no pass rush and our very average secondary got exposed. if you want something optimistic to look for in the future, just cut out the penalties and run the f’ng ball, and we’ll probably win some more games. Penalties = Coaching No. of run plays called = Coaching Consistent debacles in 1st half = Coaching Of course, Fat Mike is the wildcard…a little bit of common sense and we start winning – convincingly. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Fox Cancels Thursday Night Games Yielding to Literature LOS ANGELES—Having Thursday night NFL games on Fox was officially called off for the remainder of the season after network executives discovered the immersive power of literature, purportedly realizing that no game featuring tired, recuperating players could ever compare to the wonder of opening a work by Leo Tolstoy or Jorge Luis Borges and becoming engrossed in a masterful volume of fiction. “After the Broncos blowout of the Cardinals last week, and another lame blowout of the Dolphins by the Texans this week, we realized our midweek matchups do not even remotely compare to the rich explorations of the human condition contained in novels such as Mrs. Dalloway and Moby Dick, and thusly we have concluded that henceforth it is best to cancel the Thursday Night Football experiment that started on Fox early this year,” said Fox associate producer, Brian Koval, clutching a copy of One Hundred Years Of Solitude as he observed that mere pixels on a screen could never engage one’s imagination as fully as the majestic sweep of Gabriel "Gabo" García Márquez’s magic realism prose. “The rich imagery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and other great works reveals complex worlds that no coach’s game plan could ever hope to match. As such, there’s no reason to continue with this farce of a game on Thursday nights. We could be entertained for a thousand lifetimes simply by visiting our local libraries.” Can A Serial Marijuana User Like Sam Shields Be Successful In Rams’ Cocaine-Based Culture? Crenshaw, CA – With Los Angeles Rams ProBowl cornerback Aqib Talib relegated to injured reserve, former Packers DB (Dope Burner) Sam Shields has moved into Talib’s starting spot. In Green Bay, Shields was the fastest guy on the grass and the biggest smoker of it. He was released by the Packers 2 years ago for his “inability to pass simple concussion protocols” such as touching his index finger to his nose or scraping resi’s from a one-hitter. Shields denies any wrong-doing, claiming “medical” marijuana is needed to alleviate lingering mental effects from football collisions. But can someone like Sam Shields, who greeted Green Bay police at his front door with a burning doobie tucked behind his ear, fit in with the Rams strict cocaine culture? In all likelihood, Shields’ dedication to the ganja isn’t going to fly in Sean McVay’s famously coked-out locker room. Shields just wants to light up and chill the "F" out, but the Rams are the kind of team that want you doing rails until 6 o’clock in the morning and then challenging a stranger to a fight. The Rams have an intense, disciplined coke-head mindset: It’s all about “Us versus The World” … “Everyone’s out to get us” … “Don’t snitch on me or I’ll kill you"; it’s about cutting up lines and rolling up hundreds. There’s no way Sam Shields can perform at a high level having such a large contrast in basic fundamentals with his teammates. It will be sad to see Shields become this year’s guy who went somewhere to stay in the League another year, instead of rolling into retirement when he should have. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof At the halfway point of the season, in one single game, the Bears when from 1st place to LAST place in the division. Think about it ... that's pretty hard to do, but if you suck as bad as the Bears, I guess anything that shitty is possible. After forcing New England to fumble twice in a row deep in the Pats own territory, and subsequently jumping out to a 10-point lead at home, the hapless Bears immediately gave up a touchdown to Cordarrelle Patterson on the ensuing kickoff return, letting the Patriots get right back in the game. Mitchell Cutler threw 2 picks, and 3 other interceptions were dropped by Patriots defenders in the end zone. Overall Jay Trubisky completed only 26 of 50 attempts. The most pathetic completion was his last… Down by a touchdown with 5 seconds left, Matt Nagy calls a Hail Mary from the Bears 45-yard line. (You’ll recall that a 32-year old Aaron Rodgers completed a Hail Mary in Detroit 2 years ago from the Packers 39-yard line, so the Bears attempt was well within reasonable range). And…a 24-year old gun-slinging Mitchell Turdbiscut winds up and lets one fly – and it’s complete! Only the quarterback that the Bears moved up one position (yes, one position) to draft, in lieu of taking Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson, threw the ball 1-yard short (yes, 1-yard). What a puss-armed dipshit! Only the Seahawks can complete an intercepted Hail Mary, and only the Bears could complete a Hail Mary 1-yard short of the goal line. Even the replacement refs could get this replay right: After further review, the Bears still suck. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Wisconsin Pre-Selected for Holiday Bowl SAN DIEGO – Perhaps they are jumping the gun, but the Holiday Bowl committee made a gutsy move and selected the Wisconsin Badgers for the New Years Eve classic. Holiday Bowl committee chairman Mitch Gunnerfelt said in a statement, “Wisconsin fans travel well and we had a great experience with them back in 2015. They brought a lot of revenue in for the City and we sold more tickets than ever. With their season going a little rocky and another trip to the Big Ten Championship looking questionable, we thought we’d offer them something now and lock them in.” Of concern, Wisconsin’s season could actually head in that dreadful direction if they do not take care of business this weekend in Evanston. This game will be tough. The Wildcats are actually in first place in the division as they squeaked out a close win over wretched Rutgers last weekend. They almost beat Michigan which is more than Bucky can say, and they're coming off a respectable 10-3 season last year. We can never look past these guys (or their alumni)… This series has seen many upsets since 1980, most of them in the form of NU upsetting Wisconsin. We are 1-4 in Evanston since 2000. This is a must win game. Keep in mind that bad things happen in Evanston. Just ask Jason Burns, Darrell Bevell, Scott Tolzein and Joel Stave. The football gods still owe us one for the two Badgers touchdowns called back on our home field when the teams met in Madison in 2015. The game-winning TD pass to Jazz Peavy was disallowed despite him taking four steps in the end zone with the ball secured. NW plays solid D with DE Joe Gaziano giving QB’s fits and MLB Paddy Fischer (a great Irish drunk’s name) drawing comparisons to 1995 MLB and current Head Coach, Pat Fitzgerald (yes, another great name for an Irish drunk). Their running game looks a little off from last year with workhorse Justin Jackson graduated, ranking 125 out of 129 schools. Leading rusher Jeremy Larkin was forced to retire due to stenosis in his neck. Clayton Thorson is a decent QB, but a bigger issue is another week of several starters missing from the Badgers defensive backfield and defensive line. Loudermilk is again ruled out and backflipping NT Sagapolu is questionable. Starting safeties Dixon & Nelson are out & questionable, respectively. Two other front line DB’s are questionable. Yikes, if all 4 of these guys are out, watch out! Similar concerns on offense: Hornibrook may not play this week due to a concussion. Considering the flaccid pass game we've displayed thus far this year, we do not see this as a big buzz kill. In fact, we relish the thought of getting a look at Jackie Coan, who has completed 100% of his passes so far, and seeing a game plan relentlessly pounding the ball on the ground over and over again until the 'Cats scream for mercy. If Hornyboy IS out, look for a tricky full house backfield with Groshek and/or Ingold running some sort of run-pass wildcat option (both were high school QB's). Bucky is favored by 5.5 points to prevail. If the O-line keeps rolling, dumb mistakes are kept to a minimum, we somehow find a pass rush, the backups starting in the secondary don’t get lit up, and we don’t turn the ball over 5 times as we have on previous visits to Evanston, Bucky will win. We say 28-19 with pom poms waiving, but dread a possible debacle with something like a 16-17 loss. In other BigTen(14) news, WTF is up with Purdue? They also won 49-20, over #2 Ohio State(!), and are now tied with the Badgers. Watch out for those guys in a few weeks. By the way, Northwestern beat them. The blueprint for the rest of our season is to somehow get by with a win this Saturday, empty out the bench against Rutgers and get healthy for stretch run games against Penn State and Purdue. This Saturday has key games that may bring clarity in the two divisions:
We’re Gonna Kick You’re A$$ – Predictions for the upcoming game 7-0 Rams vs. the 3-2-1 Packers (lift-off?) at 3911 S. Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA. Kick-off at 13:25 PDT with the Rams a 9-point favorite, 90% of the pundits are picking against us and the Packers sporting an 0-11 streak in L.A. against the Rams. And we are losing by an average of 30-17 over that streak (go look it up, 1967-89). The last game we won in L.A. over the Rams was a 27-23 win where we held on at the end, with Vince at the helm no less. So, this game will be no gimme, but did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor??? No!!! And we will not give up now!!! Hear me now and believe me later…. Coach just wants to pump you up for this game. OK, so the Rams have a much more talented roster than the Packers and their coach is innovative, creative, a good teacher, a motivator and an excellent game manager. We should still be able to beat them like 7 out 10 times, right? Oh, wait, yikes… Below average roster? Fat Mike at the helm? I guess we’ll have to look for other insights into how we will beat the Rams. It’s the Packers’ first appearance against the Rams at the venerable stadium since 1978, and a return to the venue where the NFL’s most storied franchise won the first Super Bowl in 1967. It’s also a return for Rodgers…. …fourteen years ago, Rodgers produced one of the best passing performances in college football history against one of the sport’s greatest teams. On Oct. 9, 2004, Rodgers led seventh-ranked California and the nation’s top scoring offense against top-ranked USC, the defending Associated Press national champion. The only blemish on the Trojans’ 2003 record was a triple-overtime defeat at Cal. A year later, ESPN’s “College GameDay” set up at the Coliseum for the first time to see if Rodgers and coach Jeff Tedford’s Golden Bears could knock off Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White and Pete Carroll for a second year in a row. “We knew it was going to be a tough game and we were excited about the opportunity to compete with them,” Rodgers said this week, “and we had a legitimate chance to beat ’em.” “It seemed like he hit everything,” Carroll said, “and that was an understatement.” “I don’t care if you’re throwing against air,” Leinart said. “To go 23 of 23 is really difficult. … For him to do that against one of the best defenses in the country, he was phenomenal.” Rodgers matched an NCAA record by completing his first 23 passes against one of the best defenses in USC history, and they lost, ooops, never mind, that doesn’t help the argument. Ah, here we go. The Rams are vagrant team with no real roots. About as bad as the Racine/Chicago/St.Louis/Phoenix Cardinals, the Rams have moved all over the place Cleveland Rams 1936 AFL Cleveland Rams 1937-1942 NFL Cleveland Rams 1943 – Suspended Operations Cleveland Rams 1944-1945 NFL* Los Angeles Rams 1946-1994 NFL St. Louis Rams 1995-2015 NFL Los Angeles Rams 2016-present *L.A. Rams 1945 Won the NFL Championship
Truth be told, Coach has always sort of liked the Rams and their helmets, he just doesn’t like losing to them. And proving that it’s not a new phenomenon, their QB had a smoking hot GF (at that time) to roll around in the hay with! Despite all of the moving around, they have been a reasonably successful franchise. The Rams have played 82 seasons, Won 3 Championships (’45, ’51 and ’99) and Lost in 5 Championships (’49, ’50, ’55, ’79 and ’01) and have an overall record of 562-559-21. And while all of that is “nice”, it makes you appreciate the Packers even more with an all-time record of 740-564-38. Pitty the schmucks in Cleveland, it’s not just the Champion Browns that abandoned them, it’s the Rams too. Seems like every team they have that has a little success moves out of town (Indians next?). Packers and Rams have played 92 times and the record is 45-45-2, and the Rams are ahead 22.9 to 22.8 on average. This is interesting as most of the Packers average scores vs. other teams are around 17….so Packer-Rams games have been high scoring on a historical basis. The Rams have pretty decent defense, but they gave up 31 points to both the Seahawks and Vikings this year, so we definitely have a chance. The keys to this game are as old as football itself:
For you young’ens who don’t remember, it was quite the Half-Time show. While there was nothing like a wardrobe-malfunction, nor Clydesdales playing football in the snow, there was quite a show none-the-less. We were at the height of the Cold War and the Space Race was at full throttle, so the organizers thought “What better than to show some American technological prowess at Half-Time?” In the biggest shock of this century, we WILL play our first good game of the year and we’re gonna Rock’em at the Coliseum (Coach will keep saying this until it happens)… Pack 35 Rams 31 I’m not sure I’d bet the house, but Coach has confirmed that the Packers may have a special “Rocket Man” motivational speaker this week to get the team “fired up”. Rocket Man? Yes, Rocket Man! JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them Risking reader inspirational whiplash... One of the lowest points in Packer history was the disastrous 1991 season under the misguidance of head coach Lindy Infante. This was the last time the Packers played the Rams in L.A., suffering a 23-21 loss on the way to a dismal 4-12 season. Luckily Bob Harlan sprung into action and righted the ship in 1992 bringing in Ron Wolf, Mike Holmgren, Brett Favre, T-Buck, and Assistant Director of Pro Personnel Ted Thompson (per hindsight, not too shabby). There was not much to cheer about in ‘91. The Packers were left with three sub-par quarterbacks after the departure of long-time Infante protagonist, Anthony Dilweg. There was the oft-injured Don “Majik Man” Majkowski, Bears reject Mike Tomczak, and this week’s flash in the pan, Blair Kiel. Kiel boasted the top completion percentage of the 3 men that year (58%), and had a rock solid QB rating of 83. With those gaudy numbers, Kiel felt he should go out on top and immediately retired after only 4-years with the Packers. But there’s more to the story (of course)… After departing the NFL, Blair Kiel led a relatively quiet, unremarkable life as a loner that kind of kept to himself – until he unexpectedly became a world renowned boot-glass beer drinking champion! Oddly enough, his trek down this path began when he was hitch-hiking from Chilton to Sheboygan in a drunken stupor. He was detained by a Calumet County Sheriff's deputy for weaving as he walked southbound along the northbound side of Highway 32. Before being brought in for booking, Kiel made a break for it when the constable briefly turned his attention elsewhere. After a scamper through several strips of woods used to mark farming property lines, breathless and sweaty Blair nonchalantly eased himself into the crowd at a local church picnic where he held himself up against an open edge along a long wooden table. Large glass “boots” full of beer were placed in front of each man standing there, and the crowd cheered “chug-chug-chug” as they encouraged each man to pick up his boot. Without thinking, a parched Kiel picked one up and polished it off in 3 quick glugs, far surpassing the speed of the other competitors. The crowd cheered, and an elderly man leaned into him saying “What’s your name, son?” After a half-contained belch, the former Packers QB slurred “Kiel”… As has been customary for centuries in beer drinking competitions using a glass boot, the winner gets the town named after him. So, in the summer of 2002, the quaint country village on the border of Calumet and Manitowoc counties once called New Guernsey was renamed Kiel, Wisconsin. Drunk on the success of his newfound talent, Blair Kiel went on tour showing off his boot drinking skills. The climax of his career came in 2004 when he took 1st place in the glass boot category at the Federation Internationale de Bier Association (FIBA) drinking competition held just outside of Hamburg, Germany. Alas, all good things must come to an end, though, and things went downhill for Blair from there. As younger, more tech savvy entrants began to overtake the sport, Kiel found himself placing in the mid to lower ranks in competition after competition, until he eventually dropped out of the Professional Drinkers Tour altogether. He hit rock bottom in 2009 when he was infamously arrested for taking tall boots off of female tourists walking the strip in Las Vegas, then crazily screaming at them and exposing himself while urinating in their footwear. Sadly, Blair Kiel died in 2012 at the age of 50 from an apparent heart attack in the early morning hours on Easter Sunday at the home of a friend. No word on the real cause of death, though.
And so to you, Blair Kiel, we raise our glass, and hope the Packers kick Ram ass. Cheers! Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! Coach is taking the bye week off to check his trail cams and watch the Brewers in the NLCS. But, since I know The Show!!! is something you really look forward to each week, here's a little stroll down Coach Clarahanson's Memory Lane for ya (Enjoy!)... Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! Congratulations goes out to this week’s contest winner, Matt Andrusbro of Maribel, who correctly answered “Who is the hottest chick ever in a music video?” As Jerry Jones famously once said about who his starting quarterback would be, IT’S NOT EVEN A DEBATE. You’ll recall these ditties from Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” video… Bobbie Jean Brown (great name) was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and grew into such a stunning natural beauty by the time she was in her teens that it was pretty clear to her and everyone else that she would eventually end up as a model working out of Los Angeles, which is exactly what happened by the time she turned 18. Yikes. In addition to being named Miss Louisiana Teen USA, she won the spokesmodel category on TV’s “Star Search” a record 13 times! Full disclosure, there is definite bias on my part because, as luck would have it, Coach was living it up in L.A. at the time Bobbie Brown was partying and clubbing on the Sunset Strip in her early twenties. Good times, good times. A-hem. OK. Congrats, Matt! Now back to football (sorry, I’m sweating a little…). Purportedly, a small joke around the Packers locker room leading up to their trip to Detroit was “…all of a sudden there are Brewers fans coming out of the woodwork, now that Milwaukee is in the playoffs.” WRONG, 3rd-year-player-still-on-your-rookie-contract. You are an idiot. Wisconsinites are real sports fan, not fair weather fans. Just because YOU weren’t paying attention when you returned to Green Bay for training camp doesn’t mean we weren’t watching Rock and BA nightly since April on FoxSports Wisconsin. We know everything about this year's Brew Crew…how their spring training roster invitees became part of the core team, why they sent Santana, Arcia, and Broxton down and back, and we even know how to pronounce Schoop. We know that Brian Anderson used to be a minor league catcher, Sophia Minnaert speaks fluent Puerto Rican Spanglish, and Bill Schroeder’s son is a decorated military warrior. And we know winners don’t mock winners. You need to shut your pie hole (nice tie in, eh?) and learn how to play some competitive professional football. By the way, I’ve already deer hunted, duck hunted, and watched more Bucks preseason games than Packers home games, so get your shit together NOW before the rest of the dairy state turns its attention elsewhere. Have a nice day. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Statistics are for losers…uttered by virtually every losing coach…..particularly Fat McCarthy. But you know what, the Big Tuna was right….and we gotta haul him out again Packer Fans, we really are what our record says we are….a 0.500 team at best. Every week the specifics are different… …. jobbed by the Ref’s …. missing 4 field goals and an extra point (as Crosby did last week) …. poor clock management by Fat Mike …. passing with a one legged quarter back when the RB’s are getting 5+ yards per carry. … yes the specifics are different every week, but the eye ball test tells you that we are lucky to be 2-2-1. “We look terrible, is that my imagination?” No, Johnny, that’s your brain working properly, it is processing electrical signals from your optic nerve. And when the signal is properly interpreted it makes you want to vomit. Yup, same as a finger down the throat or mixing up your Dixie Cups and accidentally chugging 10 ounces of tequila that you thought was beer. (Additional insight: the number 3 urinal from the left at the Big Ten Pub has never drained properly since.) No Johnny, it’s not your imagination, it’s the data, the data that Eminem wants to ignore. The chart below has the net score (our points less their points) for each quarter so far this year. The bars show whether we won or lost the quarter and by how much. The blue line shows the cumulative point differential, or how much we were winning or losing for the whole season. Depressing? Through 5 games, after 20 quarters plus 10 minutes of football, we are ahead by one point. The three highlighted points show the three games where we got kicked in the teeth in the first half, and where we collapsed in the second. Truth-be-told, we are much closer to 1-4 than anything else. We suck for a hundred reasons, including getting jobbed by the refs, but the primary reasons are: Average/Below-Average Offensive Line Play (covered every week this year, so let’s not do it again this week) Abysmal Defensive Line Play (do we have a D-Line? Coach is tired of banging this drum every week, so he won’t, and laughably, Fackerel, the worst guy, is actually having a better season than any of the others). One-week Collapses see also: Crosby, Mason Turnovers & Penalties Yup, this is a huuuge problem, and one that lousy teams never get over. On net turnovers we are tied at No. 23 with Dallas, Denver and Pittsburgh, all teams that look like crap-ola this year. When so much is going wrong in so many parts of the team, you simply cannot give the ball up. A common theme in all of the 1st half meltdowns have been turnovers early in games (#McCarthyWorstCoachEverInFinal2MinutesOf1stHalves). We have had some nice garbage time picks and fumbles, but they aren’t enough to cover the hole we are in… …and in penalties? We are fricking number 2. Not like, oh good were number 2, this is like “hey how ‘bout a courtesy flush?” number 2. Yeah, that’s right kids, we are only one off the bottom. 50 penalties for 413 yards Offensive Holding: 12 Roughing the Passer: 5 False Start: 5 Defensive Pass Interference: 4 Delay of Game: 3 Face Mask: 3 Defensive Offside: 3 Intentional Grounding: 2 Illegal Block Above the Waist: 2 Offside on Free Kick: 2 Illegal Formation: 2 Roughing the Kicker: 1 Taunting: 1 Unnecessary Roughing: 1 Unsportsmanlike Conduct: 1 Illegal Shift: 1 Offensive Pass Interference: 1 Illegal Motion: 1 Who’s Number 1? Da Stillers! Mike Tomlin, one of the NFL's longest-tenured coaches, and one of two coaches who sit on the league's competition committee, let loose Sunday with a blunt assessment of officiating in 2018. Speaking after his team's 41-17 victory over the Atlanta Falcons, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said some of what he has seen is "a joke" and that he's "pissed about it." Tomlin is known in NFL circles as a level-headed defender of football, and his judgment Sunday reflects league-wide concern that the biggest problem of 2018 -- an over-correction in protecting quarterbacks by the league’s least-experienced group of referees in memory -- will be more difficult to fix than anticipated. At its core, the most common reaction of defensive players is -- "I don't know what we are supposed to do" -- this a clarion call for fans who want to see a fair game and for game-changing penalties to be justified. So, if they are so focused on Player Safety, then WTF was up with Hand’s strip sack of Rodgers last Sunday? In the good ole days (like 3 months ago) Coach would say to Aaron, Tough Spaghetti, that’s football. But if we have our long-haired guy getting flagged, and this whole rule came about because Rodgers was injured last year…then WTF??? Hand gets a good strip sack, but clearly lands with his full body weight on Rodgers. Where is the flag?? While Coach believes that AR was not concussed, he did act more than a little bit strange in his post-game press conference and later this week in an exclusive interview with Coach. At first, A-Rod expressed to me some reservations he has about allowing defenders to have instant, unfettered access to the backfield. According to Rodgers, in Tuesday’s practice he asked Offensive Coordinator Joe Philbin to modify a read-pass-option play so that he’s not immediately sacked by six players after the snap. “I told him that I’m happy to run whatever the coaching staff draws up, but I think we can adjust this play a little so that I can take more than three steps without getting pounded into the turf.” He furthered the conversation with Head Coach Mike McCarthy explaining that perhaps one of the offensive linemen could attempt to stand in the way of the oncoming pass rushers, “‘there’s a lot to like about this play,’ I told him, ‘but we could try working in some play-action or a quick slant pass before the pocket dissolves and I’m hit from three different angles. At the very least, we should minimize calling the plays where I get sacked before I can start running around in the backfield and getting strip sacked.’” As of Thursday evening McCarthy was apparently still confused by Rodgers’ assertions, but was seen drawing up a new play where A-Rod scrambles left and right multiple times and then throws the ball out of bounds. But there’s something else, possibly unrelated, that Coach is also starting to worry about with Aaron: Is he wandering off the reservation? It’s no secret that Rodgers is a big fan of HBO’s popular fantasy series Game of Thrones, but now he is obsessed with the theory that Daenerys, Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister are all related. “I think that Jon Snow, Daenerys, and the Hand of the Queen [Tyrion Lannister] — I think they are all related. Three dragons, three riders, three siblings. We know from Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven, that Ned Stark was not Jon Snow’s father. The Mad King might have been his father, might have been him–and that would make Daenerys and Jon brother and sister. And then Tyrion, we don’t know who his mother is, who Tywin slept with. I think there’s some sort of relationship. At least Jon Snow and Daenerys are going to be working together, and they are mining the dragon glass.” Well, that’s what he said to me, anyway. So I ask you… Cause for concern? WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Once again, we find ourselves with the referees in our crosshairs. So, what’s worse?... Is it the bass-ackwards NFL rules that fly in the face of common sense, or the incompetence of those entrusted to ensure the players abide by those rules? Well, whether it's ignorance or apathy (truth be told, I don’t know and I really don’t care), NFL football is getting very tough to stomach. It scarcely resembles the game I fell in love with as a kid, and WARNING – kids rarely watch it these day. They DO, however, regularly watch UFC, people eating spoonfuls of cinnamon, and guys getting teabagged on YouTube, so that’s really all you have to be better than, Roger Goodell. Just sayin, the bar ain’t that high, but you continue to trip over it and fall on your face. Here’s a look at just a few of the failures by the refs (at the expense of the Green Bay Packers, again) from Ford Field observed last Sunday…
And those are just the ones I saw. Half of the contest, I was in the next room kicking my dog because I was so pissed at how badly the game was being managed. I could understand 1, maybe 2 of these egregious errors by refs occurring in any football game, but half a dozen??? I admit I’m a homer, but c’mon man, the refs have screwed the Packers enough already this year. Sheez! Jimmy Garappolo Lacks Ability To Step Out of Brady’s Shadow Santa Clara, CA – Jimmy Garappolo is no longer in New England and was paid top dollar by the San Francisco to be their starting quarterback, but can he truly step out of Tom Brady’s shadow and start a sham diet and fitness program of his own? This guy was Brady’s backup for so long he’s bound to have learned a thing or two from the future Hall of Famer. But can he really push a bullshit diet and pseudoscience workout regimen on the world with the same ease and confidence as Brady? It’s hard to believe so … no yet at least. Sure he’s got skills (he can probably do some TV spots for protein shakes), but are we going to see him hawking sensory deprivation tanks and spreading nonsense about muscle pliability in San Francisco in 2018? Don’t get your hopes up Niners fans. Garappolo showed flashes of greatness in New England – he’s got an impressive arm, but if you seriously think he’s going to be able to talk incessantly about the importance of lowering your pH levels and convince people they can stay in perfect shape until they’re in their 60’s, you’re gonna have to manage your expectations. He doesn’t even have a health guru / body coach / business partner whose been fined by the FTC for selling fake medicine. That kind of Tom Brady talent for spreading bogus health bullshit takes time to cultivate. Sorry, Jimmy, I’m sure there’s lots of pressure on you to show up right away and sell some kind of lemon water cookbook or some shit, but don’t let it get to you because – look: the real problem here is that you’re being compared to Brady at all. You have a chance to be your own kind of player in San Francisco, and maybe start your own crappy clothing brand, or a cheap reality TV show. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Most of America is unaware of this fact, but the Chicago Bears had a bye last week. I had to check to be sure, and – yep, the official NFL schedule showed them playing nobody. For Chicagoans, it’s one of the more positive weeks of the season because there is little that can go wrong. Things CAN go wrong in Chicago, though, even when the Bears aren’t playing. For example, murder. There are so many murders in Chicago, that if you go to Google and type in “how many mur” this is what shows up: Amazing. Murders in Chicago appears TWICE before murders in the U.S.! …more than murders in Mexico, New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit. Wow. Coach is particularly tickled that the category of murders in Chicago is so big, that it is actually broken down by how many murders happened in Chicago THIS WEEKEND! You know how many murders there were in Green Bay this weekend? Zero. And we got beat by Detroit, so I had some concern about that. Oh yeah, we had zero last weekend, too. And the weekend before that. You get the idea. Aside from murder, their O’Hare airport – one of the busiest in the nation, has leaky roofs when it rains. No shit! Mind you, the solve for this is at least centuries old. Coach got dripped on the last time he walked through the B terminal toward his connecting gate in F. There were “catch buckets” placed every 20-feet or so where the roof seams were. What geniuses. Holyjeezman, why don't they fix the roof leaks with all that tax and toll road money that they collect in Illinois? Oh, that’s right, their corrupt. What else can they screw up? Oh yeah, how about their shitty stadium! Back at the turn of this century everybody was upgrading their stadium to remain “competitive” including the Packers and Bears. Coach actually enjoyed going to a game once a year at Soldiers Fields in the nineties because it had those classic concrete Greek colonnades, and lots of empty seats to get a good view of Brett Favre throwing touchdown after touchdown after touchdown after touchdown. But with the stadium renovation, the idiots running that organization covered up most of the cool architectural parts with what appears to be a spaceship-esque tilted toilet bowl outer appearance, and they left the crappy parts on the inside (the crappers) crappy. As a related aside, a disgusting feature of going to Bears games today is that you can buy a warm can of beer in the bathrooms from a sidecar vendor (who quite possibly might be a homeless person actually living in there) while standing in line on the urine-covered floor. Hard to enjoy that can against your lips -- unless you’re from there, I guess. But here’s the real kicker about that shithole of a stadium: In addition to the $690 million it cost the city of Chicago to build it (note that the Lambeau renovation was a thrifty $295 million), it also cost them their 2026 World Cup event! That’s right, the Bears had 7,000 seats designed OUT of the stadium in order to accommodate its dreadful renovation design. Now with a maximum capacity of only 73,490, the city lost their their lucrative opportunity to host the most spendy tourists on earth, World Cup soccer hoodlums, by falling just short of the 80,000 minimum required seating capacity for a FIFA opening ceremony or finals game. All that money will now be going to an alternative, less murderous North American city to be announced later. Too bad... they could have used a big influx of cash to put some Flex-Seal® in the roof seams at ORD. Nice going, dumbass FIBs! Udder Stuff – commentary from the Badger Underground Ann Arbor is a Whore – It’s Weasel week! ANN ARBOR, MI—Excitedly touting the toughness and perfect form that elevate it above the millions of blades he watches every day, Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh spent a post-practice interview Thursday heaping praise on a blade of grass on the field that really impressed him. “It’s been doing a hell of a job in camp, that’s for sure, and you can tell it’s not afraid of taking a hit,” said Harbaugh, who effusively complimented the single strand of grass’s ability to bounce back after getting stepped on and it’s selfless, no-nonsense work ethic, noting that the grass appears at practice every day before he himself even gets there. “It never complains, and it does its job every single day. That’s the kind of grass I want on my field. It has the true heart of a champion, and watching it out there putting in a hard day’s work always gets me jacked up.” Harbaugh then confirmed for reporters that he had cut several thousand blades of grass from the field this week after determining they did not meet his expectations for Michigan turf. MADISON, WI – As expected, Bucky took care of business and dispatched the Cornholers in a typical hum drum affair. The O-line showed up! They shitstomped Nebraska’s thin defensive front, and Taylor ran for over 200 yards, finally breaking a couple of long runs. The passing game continues to be weaker than expected, partly due to the absence of Cephus, partly due to receivers’ inability to get behind defenders and partly due to Horndog’s inability to throw deep should receivers ever find their way past opponent D-backs. That said, Hornibrook has thus far cleaned up the picks that were so maddening last year—floating only two through five games. Pro Football Focus has him rated currently as the top passer in the Big Ten (WTF we say!). Ratings consider drops, passes that coulda been caught or coulda been intercepted. Despite not often throwing deep, he is second in the conference in % of passes thrown beyond the first down marker. You’re thinking Wisconsin must have a lotta 3rd & short situations, but he’s 3rd in the league in average distance thrown. He’s only thrown 3 balls that coulda been picked. 4 of the 9 drops came vs. BYU. You’re still thinking he has zero pocket presence and he sucks, but we are talking Big Ten rankings—not NFC Central rankings. OK, you’re still thinking ‘show me the rankings next week after the Michigan game.’ C’mon Horndog, time to step up! Bucky’s secondary is decimated and positively sucked bag in the second half, with underclassmen chasing down wide open Nebraska receivers while playing prevent defense and protecting a three score lead. Four dropped interceptions didn’t help. A pattern has emerged with several data points accumulating. Scott Nelson is the #1 offender when it comes to peeking in the backfield, allowing busted coverage followed by easy opponent scores. His up & down services will not be available until the 2nd half Saturday night due to a targeting call. It is uncertain how many starting DB’s will suit up in Ann Arbor. Dixon was not on the Monday injury report, which is encouraging. Though acknowledging that the Cornholers had two of the top Big 10 receivers and a capable freshman QB, we neglected to give their passing game the proper respect in last week’s installment. Wisconsin did improve their pass rush, caused many pressures, and actually registered two sacks to bring their season total to four. The fact is that Nebraska has a really good passing game, considering that opponents need not worry about their running game. Also in ANN ARBOR, MI— Nebraska was a good test for Wisconsin, since they will be facing similar talent vs. the Weasels on Saturday night, prime time on ABC. We add that the Weasels, aka Michigan, has a better OL and a respectable running game. Playmaking DE Loudermilk was among those injured vs. the Holers. Listed as questionable on Monday’s injury report, he needs to be taking his usual diet of snaps. We hate to say it, but Michigan is a horrible match up for Bucky’s defense. They play a lot of misdirection in the run game, attack the edge with WR screens/short outs to receivers who can run and they have a mobile QB who can take off or throw on the move. Michigan loves to establish its offense by sprinting QB Shea Butter Patterson out and taking the easy underneath yards, then exposing the middle of the field. This is just a bad match up against OLBs who can’t fight off blocks on the edge and corners who give a huge cushion. Michigan TE Zach Gentry has passing statistics almost identical to Wisconsin’s Ferguson. The Weasels also have better D numbers than Bucky so far this year. Will this make for a tough day for the Sports Illustrated cover OL? We shall see: We will obviously need to control the ball and that is achievable with our run game being so strong. The scenario to be avoided at all cost is falling behind by two scores and getting taken out of our running game. Michigan has a very good defense with top calibre pass rushers. We need this game to be a low scoring grinder. We look forward to Chryst breaking out a few razzle dazzle plays, perhaps former HS QB Groschek will have a passing TD to an eligible offensive lineman. One can hope. We have to remember, however, that Michigan still sucks. The Weasels are a combined 1-5 vs. rivals Ohio State and Michigan State during that span and hasn’t finished above third place in the Big Ten East Division under Harbaugh. They likely will land in third place again this season behind Ohio State and Penn State, but are 8-point favorites over Wisconsin. Another WTF. BU scored an exclusive interview with the always revealing Coach Jim Harbaugh: Nothing silences an opponent’s crowd like a suffocating defense. We will not win a shootout as Michigan’s offense is much better than the 2017 & 2016 editions. So how do we win this game? Most of the defenders missing time vs. Nebraska need to be on the field and contributing. Let’s play a clean game offensively like we did against Iowa & Nebraska. Michigan has a couple of injuries to their DL. If those players are unable to go, Wisconsin’s running game may tip the balances. Preferably we need to play with a lead or if forced to, keep the deficit to only one score. Don’t give up easy busted coverage scores like we did vs. Iowa & Nebraska. Maybe Jimmy Leonard will roll out some exotic Dom Capers-esque scheme that prevents Michigan’s offense from methodically going down the field with Patterson rolling out and eating up clock. Please, don’t punt inside the opponent’s 40-yard line. Go for it on 4th down! In summary, appreciate that it takes a lot of guys and this is another opportunity to improve and get better. Badgers 21, Weasels 14 in a repeat of the 1981 classic. We’re Gonna Kick You’re A$$ – predictions for the upcoming game Yooce gize ever git tah Lambeau? Coach wants to know! Coach really loves the Jerry Kramer video that features the question “Were you there when…????” and he has a riff of answers like “the Sneak” accompanied by video of Bart going in the end-zone. Really cool, well up to the point where you find out it’s a bratwurst commercial. But hey dare, gotta laugh, only in Lambeau can you sing the beer barrel polka at every game, in a stadium on an Indian Reservation where Native Dancers perform regularly. “Norm, hey, grab me another one.” Well Coach wasn’t there for the Sneak, but he’s been to one hell of a lotta games since then (way too many according to Mrs. Coach), and one of the most fun was being one of the 60,787 in attendance for the 1996 Divisional Playoff game against the Niner’s on January 4, 1997. Let’s set the Stage. The Niner’s and Cowboys were the dominant teams in the NFL and Steve Young and Troy Aikman were the dominant QB’s. In ’95 we showed the NFL that we were a force to be reckoned with by beating the Wine & Hors d’oevres crowd in the playsoffs…in their home stadium (Wayne Simmons was awesome). Anyway, for the ’96 Playoffs we were coming off of a dominant 13-3 season and would eventually win the Super Bowl. In a weird weather week, it warmed up into the 50’s, the snow melted, and the game was played in steady rain. It was a mud bowl where Edgar Bennett sealed his reputation as a “mudder.” But Coach is getting off track. The real story was Desmond Howard. A Heisman trophy winning receiver that never did much catching passes, but was awesome returning punts in ’96. The Pack stopped the Niners on their opening drive and just 2:15 in to the game Dez took one 71 yards to the house. Coach was sitting in the SE end zone and it was amazing to see the whole field open up, like Moses parting the Red Sea. After that the flood gates opened and we won 35-14, in a game that was not as close as the score might indicate. So why is coach reminiscing like this? Well, the ol’ NFL adage is that no team is as good as they look in a win and no team is as bad as they looked in a loss, so we’re gonna hope that’s true this week. In the last few weeks Coach has laid out all of the technical reasons we should be optimistic, so let’s go with that (you know, everyone pulls their craniums out of their own rectums, the new OC and DC get their units going and Crosby bets back to normal). No, Coach is going to drill deeper and give you, the educated and refined Packer Fan, the inside and deep psychological reasons why we will Kick Their Asses. Exhibit A is that the 49’ers entered the NFL along with the Cleveland Browns from the All-American Football League in 1949. Clearly confused about their identities, they started with a logo/mascot approach that would be later emulated by the “Happy” Pirate logo of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Shown below is one of the original logos of SF…notable that it includes a football, but no other designation of the team other than their official mascot, The Lumberjack (Click On Link). Even more curious is the positioning of the gun and exploding white substance. Coach is not sure what this all means, but his pretty sure that the weird professor from Psych 101 had a copy of this poster up in his bedroom. Even more curious are the forms of advertising that SF used for home games. The poster below is from a game against the LA “Dons”, who appear to be men dressed in women’s clothing. So this all got me thinking, “What the hell is going on out there?” And, although the thought crossed my mind, my friends in geology explain that no matter how much fracking we do, it’s impossible to create a big enough earth quake to get California to break off as an island. Yes, the Niner’s have had a weird and wandering history with their logo, but they seem to have finally settled on an identity. Just this week, Niner’s CEO Jed York publicly revealed their new logo. Said Jed, “We felt it was time to embrace our diverse cultural heritage and reflect it in the team logo. Many other teams reflect the greatness of their communities, too, especially the Green Bay Packers. So we thought this week would be the perfect time to establish a fresh symbol that reflects what we’re all about.” In a “we-don’t-nab-nuggets-and-our-quarterback-is-not-on-IR” guarantee, we WILL play our first good game of the year… Pack 35 Niners 14 JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them So Coach got to thinking…this season looks like it’s setting up to be another 8-7-1 year, which brought me back to 1986 – a pivotal year for the Green Bay Packers. Here is a flavor of the Packers records leading up to 1986 (skipping the strike-shortened year and a couple 5-win seasons): 1978: 8-7-1 1981: 8-8-0 1983: 8-8-0 1984: 8-8-0 1985: 8-8-0 Forrest Gregg exclaimed “mediocrity no more!” and forced the organization to bring in many different players from non-typical places in order to infuse new talent into the team, including this week’s honorary Packer, and another great “Bobby” … outside linebacker Bobby Leopold! Coach was researching former 49ers who also played in Green Bay and was surprised to learn that Bobby was the first. For the mathematically challenged, that’s 37 years before a 49er played for Green Bay! And, as an aside, Coach recommends you do NOT search Google Images using the words “san francisco players” and “packers” at the same time (learned that one the hard way in the lunchroom at work). Familiar foes? Both teams have been against each other 69 times, including post-season, regular season, and foreplay. The record is fairly close at 35-30 in favor of the good guys, and – yes, we even had one tie with them, too, not there’s anything wrong with it. ADVERTISEMENT -Coming soon in your local theater! “Bohemian Rhapsody” Leopold may not have had eye-popping stats as a Packers linebacker (1 INT, 1.5 sacks), but part of his Packer legacy was the sorely needed winning drive that he displayed in the locker room each day. He inserted unfamiliar, San Francisco bay methods of physicality into Green Bay teammates that made some want to scream at first, but they became accustomed to just biting their lip with their eyes focused forward on better days ahead. And Bobby Leopold was just the beginning of a long, penetrating influence that 49ers have had on the resurgence of the Green Bay Packers. Recall that before the Packers became the best team in the NFL in the early 90’s through current day, the 49ers were the best team during the 80’s after getting really good head coach Bill Walsh. Bringing over former 49ers was a clever way to rub out some of that San Francisco magic on Green Bay. Leopold, a west coast guy, was first to willingly slide into a muddy situation in Green Bay, which was traditionally an off-limits option, and in doing so he made it easier for others to follow from that direction. After Leopold came, his fellow San Francisco mates soon followed, such as all-purpose blocking back and local football genius Harry Sydney, possession receiver Sanjay Beach, solid QB backup Steve Bono, and even coach Mike Holmgren. No coincidence today, current and very temporary Packers head coach Mike McCarthy came directly from the 49ers offensive coordinator position, and superterrific all-pro quarterback Aaron Rodgers was raised just outside of San Francisco and grew up a 49ers fan. Yeah, I'm biased. So this week we salute the first San Francisco 49er convert to the Green Bay Packers, Bobby Leopold! Oh, and just in case you were wondering how 1986 turned out… Uh, 4-12-0.
Let's stop the mediocrity, right the ship, and hope that WE'RE the ones celebrating Monday night! Admit it … It’s hard to get up for Lions week. They’ve sucked so bad for so long, and Detroit is just a depressing arm pit of a city, we’re all (including the players) just like, “Why even bother?” OK, I’m ready. Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! Create A Seam Here – X’s and O’s about the game or a scheme It’s the “pre-season-is-over-now-pretenders-move-aside-quarterpole” edition of The Show!!! So how does it feel to be 2-1-1? Well I guess it feels better than losing, but the objective is always a Super Bowel, and right now it feels like a Full Bowel. How does Aaron feel so far? A very angry and frustrated Aaron Rodgers explained that he was not happy with the performance of the Packer’s offense against the Bills on Sunday. Particularly frustrating? The play calling. Would you be happy? We threw more than 40 times, with an injured QB, in a game where we had a big lead, and the RB’s were gaining more than 5 yards per carry!! WTF…. Coach thinks that A-Rod SHOULD be pissed-off. By all accounts, the knee is still pretty painful. Rodgers went on to explain that he was going to schedule Uncle Mike for an earwax removal, it was the only procedure left (well, OK, a rectal cranial inversion reversal may be the last step). Coach was able to sneak in and get actual film footage of A-Rod supervising the removal of a pound and a half of ear wax from portly Mikey. There’s a reason Aaron and all of Coach’s loyal readers feel frustrated, we haven’t really put together a game yet. The chart below shows the Point Differential between the Packers and the Opponents, by Quarter, for every game so far. The green bars show us outscoring the other guys, the red bars are the opposite. Through four games: We outscored the other guys in 8 quarters They outscored us in 6 quarters We tied for 2 quarters The dashed line shows the cumulative point differential is 9 points, or 2.3 pts/game. This is good enough for 9th, just behind Cincinnati. The stinker in the room is that half of the good quarters were last week against the Bills…a really crappy team. The dashed line, of total points differential, is trending in the right direction, but we need to see that continue against the Portsmouth Spartans next weekend. Let’s dive a little deeper into the D-Line/Front 7 this week and see how they are doing. Short version: We suck. Our best pass rusher is Reggie Gilbert, and he’s only pressuring the QB on 16% of his snaps…. which is way below average in the NFL. “Overpaid-Longhair” is an abysmal 7% (right BEHIND Kyler Fackrell for Frick's sake) ... if he had any decency he’d refund the Packers some of the $10.4 million base salary he’s being paid this year (#FrontCoverOfSI). In a laughable moment of disarming honesty, the NFL admitted this week that Clay’s roughing-the-passer call in the Viking game was a mistake…and insightful NFL Analysts everywhere are now calling for QB’s to take more accountability for their role in getting injured. OK, back the DL. Montravious Adams is a poster child for ineffectiveness. He hasn't had much time between the hashmarks since joining the Packers, but now that Mo Wilkerson is on the IR, Mo Adams is on the field. He has now recorded 0 pressures in 9 pass rush snaps. We don’t have space to explain all the math theory here, let’s just say his “pressure-percentage-per-snap” is undefined and undetectable. Let’s hope for more, but so far, he looks like another TT wasted draft pick. Adams was selected from Auburn in the third round of the 2017 Draft. During his first training-camp practice, he felt pain in his foot and it turned out he had a stress fracture that required surgery (#VinceBiegel). Adams played in only seven games during his rookie season, including only one for four snaps in the first seven weeks of 2017. Adams was on the field for 66 defensive snaps and 22 special-teams plays as a rookie. This season, he's played 13 defensive snaps in three games. "Guys just have to step up," Kenny Clark said. "We have full confidence in all those guys. It's hard to see one of your brothers go down. Mo being in our room and him being a great teammate, seeing him go down was crazy. But we have to just step up." Let Coach translate for you: “That guy really sucks, but we don’t have anyone else.” On the brighter side, AR was much more mobile in the Bills game and was starting to run around again…. …even if that meant a little re-arranging of the garter belt from time-to-time. But what really excited Coach this week was that Clinton’s Dick wants to play some fussball! In what Coach can only describe as “normal football”, Ha Ha finally showed up for a game and knocked the snot out of the Bill’s Kelvin Benjamin while intercepting the ball. The Front 7 will be a weak spot for pressuring the opposing QB all season, but if we can get the DB’s to fly to the ball we may have a chance of playing some decent defense. Coach is really encouraged that the simplified coverage assignments in Mike Poutine’s scheme may be starting to pay off. Fingers crossed. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Andrew Luck Vows to Bring Indianapolis Another Great Pizza Ad INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Stressing the difficulty of following in the footsteps of an all-time legend, Colts quarterback Andrew Luck vowed Thursday to bring Indianapolis fans another great pizza ad. “It’s been far too long since Colts fans have been able to call a pizza ad campaign their own, but I’m going to do my best to bring them the high-quality commercials they deserve,” said Luck, explaining that he always dreamed of standing on the soundstage and proudly holding up a slice of pepperoni pizza just like one of his heroes. “Peyton Manning gave Indianapolis one of the best pizza promotion runs the NFL has ever seen. I may not be able to live up to that, but Colts fans should know I’m reading scripts and working on my pie-flipping mechanics every day to make sure I honor his legacy.” Do Lions Regret Bringing In A Sexual Predator To Lead The Team? DETROIT, MI – The now famous “Me, too” movement has quickly and rightly put an end to powerful men in Hollywood and Washington assaulting subordinates, and has outed such men guilty of committing these transgressions decades ago. The NFL narrowly escaped a similar embarrassing exposé earlier this year when New England Patriots assistant coach Matt Patricia was exiled to Detroit to become the Lions head coach. Early in 2018 Patricia had a case dismissed for assault accusations 22 years ago, as the judge stipulated there was “…insufficient evidence to convict a man simply because his accuser said he did it, with no corroborating evidence. Could you imagine the insanity that would happen if people just assumed a man was guilty of sexual assault solely because someone accused him of doing it decades ago?” Patricia’s former head coach, Bill Belichick confessed afterward that he knew Patricia spent “inappropriate amount of time taking showers with diet and nutrition interns.” But Belichick went on to explain that he was “…a lot smarter than CBS executives and Penn State athletic directors” because he got rid of his problem before the scandal could start in Foxboro. The migrating controversy that accompanied Patricia to Detroit is now infamously known as the “D, too” movement. Following suit, the Lions have re-hired defensive line coach Joe Cullen, who was previously let go by former Lions head coach Rod Marinelli after being arrested for going through a Wendy’s drive-thru completely naked. The Detroit Free Press reported that Cullen allegedly pulled his SUV up to the window and placed an order in the nude. The Wendy's manager, Chuck Yufarley, said he was working the second drive-thru window when, "The cashier alerted me [that] `a guy coming to your window is naked!'" Added Yufarley, "He didn't say a word. I said, `Here you go with your food, sir’ and, even though it left of a bad taste in my mouth, I told him I was glad he came." ADVERTISEMENT – NEW, FROM MASTER FOODS, YOU’RE GONNA NEED A NAPKIN! The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Chicago Bears Don’t Know What The Hell To Do With 3 Wins CHICAGO—Following their win over an imploding Buccaneers team on Sunday, the Chicago Bears expressed confusion over what the hell they were supposed to do with their three wins now that they have them. “I hope we get to keep these, because a lot of the guys really like these wins,” said cornerback Kyle Fuller, helping teammates build a special shelf in the middle of the locker room where the team intends to keep the wins. “I bet if we lose this week the league will try to take them away from us, but we’re not going to let ‘em. No, sir. We love these wins.” After practice on Monday, head coach Matt Nagy made an unscheduled statement to the team announcing an impromptu, voluntary meeting to clarify numerous questions he was being peppered with from players about whether the NFL had a rewards program in which wins could be cashed in for flight upgrades or similar prizes. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Bucky Welcomes Former National Powerhouse Nebraska After our Iowa City grinder and a week off, the Badgers have been granted a bonus tune up game against the Nebraska Cornholers. Not much to analyze here. We beat them five straight times and they beat us only once since joining the Big Ten. The primary difference this time around is that Nebraska does not come in highly ranked and over-rated after beating up on bottom-feeding opposition. At 0-4, the Holers are actually worse than their record indicates. Michigan beat Bucky to be the first team to put up 50 points on Nebraska, who is playing defense this year like they are still in the Big 12. By taking over the reins at Nebraska, head coach Scott Frost is about to die a death of his own choosing (Click On Link … it’s a MUST SEE). Perhaps this season is a comeuppance of sorts for Frost being the beneficiary of two teams with questionable claims to college football national championship — first as the Cornholer QB for the 1997 team that lobbied for a share of the championship with Michigan and last year as head coach of a UCF team that beat Memphis for their only top 25 win before #7 Auburn conducted their annual ritual of not showing up for their bowl game. Unlike UCF’s creampuff schedule and low academic standards, Nebraska does have high academic standards and does typically play respectable competition at times. Frost’s team is one in transition. He should have success recruiting and those recruits should eventually produce wins. It is Bucky’s job Saturday night to derail the timetable for that happening. Kick these guys while they are down. Sway some of those Florida recruits considering offers to play in Lincoln to reconsider playing in a more fun town like Madison and a more consistently successful program like Wisconsin’s. Here’s what to expect Saturday night. Husker fans travel well. 6:30 kickoff means all afternoon to hit multiple beer gardens and beer bong parties on Breese Terrace. Again, Husker fans travel well. Oh, and about the game… Grumblings about Jonathon Taylor not breaking big runs come to an end, with Taylor breaking multiple 30-yard plus runs. Concerns about Badgers wide receivers not getting separation will be put aside for one week as Davis, Taylor and the TE’s rack up big chunks of yards. (Note that Michigan could score only 17 points vs. Notre Dame and only 20 points against Northwestern, but managed 56 against Nebraska.) Offensively, the only cap on Wisconsin’s scoring is Paul Chryst channeling his inner Mike McCarthy to not run up the score, hurt the other team’s feelings or reveal any creative plays that he is saving for Michigan. Nebraska’s freshman QB is ok and they possess good receivers. Wisconsin’s young secondary may give up a big play or two, but this is one of the games where the thin defensive line does not get exploited. With VanGinkel returning to better health, look for more QB pressures than we have seen the last two weeks. Plus, the Holers special teams give up punt returns like it’s the first day of spring practice. Wisconsin wins 38-10. While this may feel good for many, the real tests will be road games at Michigan, Northwestern and Penn State. We’re Gonna Kick You’re a$$ – Predictions for the upcoming game This game in Detroit is a gimme. The Lions beat the Hundlebrook-led-McCarthy-coached Packers twice last year. Both times in sloppy games. Coach likes to think of those games as Exhibit A in why McCarthy is really just a below average putz-of-a-coach who got lucky when TT gave him Rodgers (who McCarthy rejected when he was at SF). We lead the series with the Pussy-Cats 100-70-7 all-time, with an average score of 21 to 18, and there is no way statistically, historically or logically we lose this game. Nowhere is there more emotion behind this game than in the Norm Van der Checci home. The Marinette natives are in a mini-feud with their neighbors, the Detroit Kittys fans, the Gritzmachers. Coach had a chance to chat with Norm this week at Red Lobster when he brought his family down from the U.P. for a steak before they headed over to Lambeau to start setting up for the game. We applaud the Van der Checci’s for their loyalty (and discretely informed them that Lions game is in the Motor City this weekend…but hey, gotta love’em). So Matt Patricia is running the show in Detroit. They were thrilled to get the disciple of Bill Belichick because somehow Belichick’s greatness is supposed to rub off on his assistants. Let’s see if their logic passes the sniff test… Bill Belichick former assistants Head Coaching record: Romeo Crennel: 28-55 Eric Mangini: 33-47 Josh McDaniels: 11-17 Bill O’Brien: 31-34 Charlie Weiss: 41-49 Matt Patricia: 1-3 Not one is .500. “But, Coach, isn’t Matthew Stafford a serious threat?” Maybe, Jimmy, because his numbers seem gaudy, but not really … most of his “impressive” stats are padded late in games when the Lions are far behind and the other team is in Prevent-D mode (allowing lots of yards in the middle of the field in order to chew up time on the clock). In fact, the Detroit Free Press sports writers refer to the Lions QB as “Pad Statford”! Furthermore, Stafford can’t overcome the overwhelming nadir culture of the Lions organization... Rob Gronkowski (Patriots All-Pro TE) was almost traded to the Lions right before the draft (a story on Fox NFL Sunday a couple of weeks ago). When he found out – he threatened to retire. In other words, he would rather not play football forever, than play for Detroit. Based on the performance of the Lions thus far, I would say the Tight End for New England is more inspiring to the Lions than their own All-Pro quarterback. But Coach doesn’t want to overwhelm you with my compelling cerebral insight (best served in small doses), nor bore you with technical evaluation for how Bashaud Breeland is going to tear it up (no, not tearing off his golf-cart-induced skin graft, Coach means tear-it-up on the field). Still, the D is going to rip the Lions apart and will have at least 3 turnovers. And note that Rodgers always is a beast on weeks where his ability is in question, and JK Scott is going to have his best game yet. In the dome, he’ll stick the Pussy-Cats inside their 10 yard-line on every punt. No, forget all that X&O’s stuff, the biggest reason we will trash the Lions is that they are the Buffalo Williams in different uni’s. Coach had a real chuckle watching the Lions run around in their ridiculous color rush uniforms against the Cowturds last week. But they seemed very familiar, so Coach did a little research... It turns out Lion’s QB Matt Stafford is currently peddling those uniforms as a spandex model during the Tuesday off-days from his duties in Detroit. In exclusive news, Coach is able to report that the financially failing Lions were able to secure discount color rush uniforms for $27.99 each. Coach cannot confirm or deny rumors that Stafford is receiving a $1.72 kickback per uniform. The NFL has confirmed, however, that Stafford is the highest paid QB that moonlights wearing spandex. Oh, and one more thing (just in case you forgot), there's always this gem (Click On Link). Packers 27 Portsmouth Spartans 18 (counting the last 8-points in garbage time) JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them With the enshrinement of Jerry Kramer into the Pro-Football HOF this year, Coach’s mailbag has been filled with questions about “Who was the Packers’ punter in 1964?” Well, without further ado, Coach presents Jerry Norton! Jerry was quite an athlete, he was selected to five Pro Bowls and is in the Texas High School Hall of Fame (parenthetical, “who gives two poops about Texas, we’re in Wisconsin”). Originally drafted as a Defensive Back in the seventh round (81st overall) of the 1954 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, Jerry played safety and finished with 5 interceptions in his rookie year. Throughout his career he has recorded statistics as a defensive back, a running back, a passer, a receiver and as a punter for the Eagles, Cardinals (Chicago/St. Louis), Cowboys and Packers. He is the only player in league history to twice intercept four passes in a game (1960 and 1961). On September 10, 1963, Lombardi acquired him from the Cowboys in a trade for a 6th Round Draft Choice. Norton spent his last two years in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers, where he was only used as a punter. In a “Lombardi-was-on-this-way-before-Belichick” observation, Jerry averaged 43.5 yards per punt and was one of the weapons of the ’63 & ’64 Packers. In addition to 35 interceptions, while primarily playing Defense, Jerry had 11 receptions and 47 rushing attempts, with a 7.3 yds/carry average in 131 career games. Passing? Well, he had 2 attempts, but 0 completions. For clarification purposes, Coach points out that Jerry Norton was not related to Don Norton, nor Ken Norton, nor either Ed Norton from The Honeymooners or the Fight Club movie. In a very interesting aside, Coach discovered that Jerry Norton has been a primary case study by criminologists at the Ezechia Marco Lombroso Italian School of Positivist Criminology. You undoubtedly already know that Lombroso's research suggested criminals are distinguished from non-criminals by multiple physical anomalies. It is unclear if Vince Lombardi or his staff was fully aware of Norton’s proclivities. Coach would like to strenuously emphasize that Jerry was never convicted of any sexual harassment charges. “Convicted? No, never convicted." Since Lombroso's research tied criminal behavior together with the insane, Lombroso is closely credited with the genesis of the criminal insane asylum. The concept is kept alive today with modern correctional facilities like Cook County Jail, which houses the largest population of prisoners with mental illness in the United States (and coincidentally is also headquarters of the Bears Fan Club.) Beyond the -- shall we say, "superficial research" Coach dug a little deeper and found this rare photo of Packers legends gambling in the locker room. Jerry is seated in the back row at the right (partially obscured). You can clearly see him egging Jim Taylor into making a very poor cribbage wager. In an extreme moment of irony (you remember irony, right?), Paul Horning is also in the gambling pic (front left). Horning and Detroit Lions DT Alex Karras were suspended for gambling (April 17, 1963) and had to sit out the entire 1963 Season. Pete Rozelle claimed they were betting on NFL games and associating with gamblers. Hornung, said Rozelle, had bet up to $500 on NFL games, and Karras, he said, had placed at least a half dozen $50-$100 bets. Five other Detroit players were fined for betting on the 1962 championship game. Hornung apologized. "I made a terrible mistake," he said. "I am truly sorry." Still, he was later inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (#SeeAlso,PeteRose). Karras went on to live his life as an actor in Hollywood, playing prominent roles in Victor Victoria and the TV sitcom Webster (Karras played the black youth's adoptive father, "George Papadopolis" ... seriously, that was the character's name!). Karras is most widely known for his famous role in Blazing Saddles, though, in which he played "Mongo" -- an attention-getting, imposing yet lovable character who really wanted to be good despite finding himself constantly in a bad situation, and was resigned to merely being a pawn in the futile game of life (#SeeAlso,MatthewStafford). And so for that, Jerry Norton, we salute you!?
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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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