Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show !!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: ...Lambeau Field should always be “Lambeau Field.” In case you missed it, as of January 1, 2021 the Milwaukee Brewers baseball stadium formerly known as Miller Park is now officially “American Family Field.” Yilch. In a few years it will be called something else (.com) and not long after that no one will remember it was ever called Miller Park (See also, Qualcomm Stadium. Hey, if you cause the Packers to lose a Super Bowl, then you will cease to exist.). Remember where the Brewers used to play? Of course you do! “County Stadium.” That iconic name will forever be ingrained into every red-blooded Wisconsinite for its awesome memories of Hall Of Famers like Hank Aaron and Robin Yount, and its famous bratwurst tailgating smells from the parking lot through the 6th inning (followed by the inevitable Two-Fisted Slobber), and let’s not forget visits by Morganna “The Kissing Bandit!” …but I digress. I know, there’s lots of money that gets doled out by rich corporations for their company name recognition and that helps pay for expensive NFL salaries, blah, blah, blah. Sure, that’s how the newly-formed expansion football teams, and the perennial loser teams, do it -- because THEY CAN’T COUNT ON LOYAL FANS to keep the team financially viable. But you know who can? The Green Bay Packers. And, dare I say(?), the Chicago Bears. Soldiers Fields … ever heard of it? Of course you have. It’s in Chicago, Illinois. And, even though the Bears will always suck, their fans are idiots and will follow them no matter what. That’s what the NFL needs; loyal fans -- not corporate sponsors -- for their stadiums (let the TV broadcast companies whore themselves out to corporations for raising cash). Coach asks you to consider a true football-named stadium as part of the salary cap … sort of like an income cap. If you don’t have loyal fans, find a city with loyal fans that will pay to see the games each week. There are plenty of them out there (see also, St. Louis, Missouri). Which leads me to my assertion that Lambeau Field should never be called anything but “Lambeau Field,” lest we will begin the demise of western civilization (see also, Alabama playing Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl at Jerry World in Dallas). …at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Wow, a legit beat-down of a legit Playoff Team, this was the most satisfying win in a long time! A 40-14 score is tough to produce in the NFL, let alone against a good team. Our Offense performed about as predicted (40 pts actual vs. 34 predicted) … but the concern going into the game was that the Oilers came had the No. 1 Scoring Offense (and a slew of highly rated, offensive, players) and we have a middle-of-the-road-D. But Defensive Coordinator Mike Poutine actually listened to Coach this week … Hallelujah, this was the best Defensive effort in years! (14 pts actual allowed vs. 30 predicted.) Last week Coach said the keys to playing Defense were:
Check, check, check, check and check … all objectives achieved! It killed Coach to be watching from home, staring at his unused, home-game, Season Tickets! The story all year has been one of great-plays followed by mistakes. The story all year has been one of great-quarters (halves) followed by big let downs and “prevent Defense.” But not on this night… … we beat them 19-7 (3-to-1 TD’s) in the 1st-Half and we beat them again by the same margin in the 2nd-Half (21-7, 3-to-1 TD’s). 19:07 TOP 1st-Half and 17:30 TOP 2nd-Half. 208 Yds 1st-Half and 232 Yds 2nd-Half. …and no punts and no penalties in either Half… (1st time the Packers have ever done that, at least since 1941 when they started tracking it.) What delighted Coach the most is that Poutine actually committed 7 or 8 guys to the Box on a regular basis and made the DB’s play up to their pay checks. As expected, Alexander, Amos and Savage had outstanding games … and King played like a guy who doesn’t care that he’s in a contract year. Or maybe that’s all he can do when he’s trying. (What happened to the guy who was outstanding against the Rams 2 years ago?) OK Kids, let’s go a little deeper into the game and break’er down fer ya’s… Defense The Titans had 154-yards rushing and Derrick Henry’s 98 rushing yards were mostly meaningless, coming after we were up by two scores. The Packers loaded up the box to stop the run and consistently had the “flat-5” front (3 DL and 2 OLB) with 2 ILB and at least 1, sometimes 2 Safeties “up.” …meaning that we usually had 7 “bigs” (DL & LB) in the game instead of our usual diet of 5, 6 and 7 DB’s. The outside linebackers kept “contain” on the edges and played more disciplined than any of the previous games. The pressure on Tannehill was relentless all night. Rashan Gary had several pressures, including this one that resulted in an interception by Darnell Savage. In the clip above, the Titans have 3rd & 4 in the 2nd Qtr and are down 19-0. Alexander is playing aggressively, and AJ Brown gets inside of him for a quick slant, yet Jaire makes the tackle. Coach was really excited about this play. Yes, Jaire gave up a 1st Down, but he was playing 1:1 with one of the best receivers in the league. What’s impressive is that Jaire:
What really upsets Coach is that we could have (should have) been playing this way all year (basically go back and read all the previous Show!!!’s published before this one). Lets’ hope Poutine sticks with it… A few plays later and its 1st & 10 at the GB 30, still 19-0 and the 1st-Half clock is down to 1:13. Kenny Clark shoots up the middle, through one of the better O-Lines in the NFL, and tackles Henry for -2 yards. A truly outstanding play. Which brings up 2nd & 12 at the GB 32. Now is the time to kill the Titans drive and hold them to at most a FG attempt, correct? No, Kevin King to the rescue for the Titans. AJ Brown outweighs King by 25-lb’s, so King violates Commandment #1 in Football: Low-Man-Wins. By “going high” while trying to tackle Brown, King gives up 13 yards for a 1st Down and the Titans go on to score before Half-Time to make it 19-7 at the Half. The Titans received the 2nd-Half kickoff, and we were all wondering if we could make them go 3 & out (or hoping for a good stop anyway). Well, 45 of the Titans 154-yds rushing came on a Ryan Tannehill read-option-touchdown-run. In the pre-snap picture below, Darnel Savage is playing Left ILB. Tannehill faked a hand-off to Henry (who was going to the Titans left), and Savage bit on the fake … and Tannehill went to his right and was untouched for 45 yards. Tannehill’s TD narrowed the score to 19-14 and most of us were thinking “OK, here we go again”… But the Offense played well (more below), the D-Line continued to pressure, and we had another pick (by Kirksey no-less). And the D even left points on the field! With pressure coming on Tannehill he laid one up that Savage should have returned for a TD … but he was too excited and finished too quickly … Offense The Packers received the game’s opening kickoff and marched 60 yards down the field for a TD. Nice. The drive was highlighted by a nice 13-yd 1st Down catch by Dominque Dafney. Wait – what? Who the hell is Dafney? Oh, just another UDFA-Gooty-Gem at FB/TE. Signed to the active roster on December 12th, this was his fourth game. Gooty just keeps building depth at the hybrid fullback/tight-end position; Dafney is filling-in for John Lovett who was filling in for Josiah Deguara before they both went on IR. Dafney has played better and better each week and he had 25 snaps against the Titans, mostly as a run blocker. Go Gooty Go. Not to be outdone in the “no-name-hero” category by Dafney, Equanimeous St. Brown opens up the 2nd Qtr with a nice TD catch to finish to the Packers 2nd drive of the game. At some point, one just runs out of superlatives to describe Adams. He finishes an outstanding route by fooling the DB … as he routinely does, Adams doesn’t reach for the ball... because Rodgers is dropping dimes this year, Davante just lets it fall into his hands so that the DB does not know when to turn his head. Brilliant. AJ Dillon had his breakout game as a pro with 21 carries for 142 yards, exactly what the Packers need at home in cold and snowy conditions (oh, BTW, Aaron Jones also added a measly 94 yards on 10 carries). Rodgers said in the post-game press conference that he could hear Tom Clements (his old QB Coach) in his head, preaching against the cardinal sin of quarterbacking, “never throw late down the middle.” Coach grants A-Rod a mulligan and will let him start against the Bears in Chicago. Special Teams As good as the Offense and Defense were, they covered up a host of Special Teams disasters. Who knows what happened? There are no obvious errors in the mechanics on this kick, but it does make for five missed extra-points this year. Maybe something is wrong with Crosby, remember, he did hurt his leg and back a few weeks ago, and Gooty did sign a place kicker to the Practice Squad this week (and a punter, too, but these are supposedly Plan B signings should COVID isolation protocols prevent specialists from suiting up in the playoffs). One of La Fleur’s strengths as a Coach is that he is normally not emotional. The 2nd Packers TD was scored at the beginning of the 2nd Qtr and we went up 12-0. Still early in the game, the “Point-Chart” tells you to kick the extra-point at that juncture (to go up 13-0); no doubt caught up in the emotions of the game, and P.O.’d about the first PAT miss, LF went for two-points and didn’t get it. After the 3rd TD we (successfully) kicked the PAT. It didn’t matter in this game, but emotional decision making in lieu of smart game management (see also, Mike McCarthy) will matter in the Playoffs. If LaFleur was sending a message to Crosby, or Mennenga, or whoever, this was probably his last game to do that. (Sigh.) Jack Crawford splits Rick Wagner (a starter at RT half-the-time) and Elgton Jenkins (all pro LG all-the-time) to block the FG. As the play starts the guy in front of Wagner backs out and Wagner literally falls on his face, leaving Jenkins to block two guys. This is ridiculous. Fortunately we were saved by an equally ridiculous offsides-call against the Titans and 4th & 8 became 4th & 3 at the Nashville 12-yd line, with 4:21 left in the Half, still leading 19-0. With a 19-0 lead and the Half winding down, the smart play here is to kick the Field Goal and go up 22-0. Instead, McCarthy (errr) LaFleur ran a play on 4th & 3, the Titans started on a blitz and backed out, fooling Rodgers momentarily and he took the 17-yard sack. The Titans then marched down the field for their first TD. The whole sequence of the blocked kick and then going for it on 4th & 3 was just bad Coaching all the way around. Who’s the cold-weather-team-playing-at-home-in-the-snow? After scoring in the 2nd Qtr, the Oilers executed a perfect squib kick down the middle of the field to Malik Taylor, the “up man” (and kept it away from Tavon Austin who was deep). Taylor returned it, just past the 20 and the Pack ran 3 plays in 37 seconds to end the half. The ST kick strategy limited Rogers and the Pack from scoring any more points before half. Oh, yeah, Titans head coach Mike Vrabel is from Akron, OH, played at Ohio State and then played in the NFL for 13 years with the Steelers, Patriots and Chiefs. No stranger to cold-weather-games he. When ST Coordinator Shawn Mennenga was asked this week what he felt really good about with his Special Teams, after a long pause, a throat clearing, and then an awkward silence, he could not come up with an answer so he rambled onto other football aspects that did not answer the S.I.M.P.L.E. simple-as-can-be question. Yikes. Unfortunately, as we enter the playoffs Mennenga’s ACL appears fully intact. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Redskins Change Name To ‘Genderless Sports Players With No Discernible Racial Features Or Specific Ethnic Background’ WASHINGTON D.C.—Due to mounting pressure from a growing consensus of 12 people on Twitter and The New York Times, the former Washington Redskins, known temporarily this year as The Washington Football Team, have officially chosen to change their team's name and promise to forever rid the organization of any highly offensive mascot. After testing several new names with focus groups, owner Daniel Snyder has finally settled on the highly non-offensive title "Genderless Sports Players With No Discernible Racial Features Or Specific Ethnic Background." "After listening to the earnest pleas of a few recent college grads who sat through a Native American History course once, I realized something had to change," said Snyder. "Once I make this change, I expect the lives of indigenous people to improve exponentially." Activists are continuing to push the organization to do more to right the wrongs brought about by decades of racial insensitivity. In addition to the name change, the Redskins iconic logo will be replaced by a generic, genderless, racially ambiguous grey face with purple hair. Sadly, the Redskins logo was despicably displayed on helmets since the time it was first designed in 1971 in close consultation with Native American leaders. Among those who unanimously approved and voiced praise for the logo was Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, a former President of the National Congress of American Indians and Chairman of the Blackfeet Nation. Years earlier, Mr. Wetzel had been deeply involved with U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the movement for civil liberties, civil rights, and economic freedom for all. In 2014, Mr. Wetzel’s son Don commented, “It needs to be said that an Indian from the State of Montana created the Redskins logo, and did it the right way. It represents the Red Nation, and it’s something to be proud of.” Geez, what an Uncle Tom, that Wetzel kid. The next barrier the activists intend to bulldoze is changing the team’s city name from “Washington, the District of Columbia” -- which represents 2 probable racists (our first President and explorer Christopher Columbus, both of whom should obviously be removed forever from U.S. history books), to “Utopia.” The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Trubisky Admits He's Unsure If He's Tying Condoms Correctly CHICAGO— Struggling to put on the latex contraceptive, Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky confirmed after several attempts Wednesday that he was not sure whether he was tying his condom correctly. “Okay, so it’s over, under, up, and—wait, that’s not right,” said Trubisky, complaining that no matter how carefully he followed the step-by-step tutorials on YouTube, his lubricated prophylactic device came out a tangled, knotted mess that looked nothing like the ones in the videos. “How did Dad say to do this again? Because there’s no way it’s supposed to have this many loops. Maybe I can just tuck the ends in and no one will notice? Dammit, I knew I should have left it tied and slid it off the way I had it during my last post-game interview.” At press time, sources confirmed that an acquiescent Trubisky had opted to just buy a clip-on condom. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Bucky Beats Demon Deacons; Mertz Fumbles After Time Expires The Duke’s Mayo Bowl game was a perfect excuse to not do work mid-day on a Wednesday. Let’s just say it was an early spring game for the young Badger squad, something they missed this season. The Red team spotted the White team 14 points and then got down to business. The offense was spectacular, scorching Wake Forest for a whopping 144 yards passing and 122 yards rushing. Overlooking the 528 total yards of Demon Deacons offense given up, the real stars were on D, with 4 interceptions that gave the O great field position for most of the 2nd half. Wake either had guys running wide open, getting totally stuffed, or turning the ball over. Bucky wins, 42-28. In case you missed it, Badgers 5-star recruit QB Graham Mertz got a little too much mayo on his fingers, and dropped the trophy. Coach Chryst later said Graham just wanted all of his teammates to get a piece of it. There should be plenty to go around (click on link). Fortunately, the award was repaired by team manager Skippy McDougal, and it’s now on its way to the UW Football trophy case in Madison. Let’s hope this is the last time we play in this bowl. We look for great things from the Badgers next year which will be non-COVID. See you at Soldiers Fields on September 25 against perennially overrated Notre Dame. ADVERTISEMENT We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game Oh no … Bakhtiari is out … the Bears will beat us! Well let’s see here kids, whadda we have for Week 17? The Bears have now scratched their way back to a little over 0.500 … … they’ve gone thru the Jekyll & Hyde season … … playing Turdbisquit … … benching Turdbisquit … … playing, then benching Foles … … now playing Turdbisquit … … and they are playing for their Playoff lives now*… * if they beat the Pack, they are in. If they lose, they can still get in at 8-8 with a Cardinals loss to the Rams. Much is being made in Chicago of the “three Seasons” the Bears are enjoying in 2020. First Season … Spring … 5-1 Second Season … Summer … 0-6 Third Season …Autumn … 3-0 Fourth Season … Winter … see below Give the Bears their due … they have won their last 3 games … against the Texans, Vikings and Jaguars … a real murders’ row, with a combined record of 11-34 going into WK 17. Including the prior Packers-Bears game, we have gone 5-0 and they have gone 3-2 over the last 5 weeks of the Season. They have also averaged a net positive point differential of 7.8 pts/gm … BUT … over the same span we are a plus 14.2. And, we have given up only 19 pts/gm on Defense, making us a Top-10 D during that span and a great sign going into the Playoffs. For the 2020 Season, we have a plus 6.7 pts/gm advantage over the Bears, which is almost identical to the 6.4 pts/gm advantage over the last 5 weeks. No surprise, the betting line opened at 5.5 pts in favor of the Pack. Joking aside, losing Bakhtiari is very significant and his loss shaved a point off of the betting line, which has dropped to 4.5 points. What is the Bears’ “Fourth Season” going to look like? 0-1. Coach is gonna give you four reasons why we will kill the Bears Season this Sunday: 1) We are rounding into Playoff Form. It’s true that we are 2-2 against Playoff-Bound teams this year, but we have looked good in 3 of the 4 games and really looked good last week in the cold and snow (and the Buc’s game is the only stinker of the 12-3 overall record). 2) We are playing much more physically. Starting with the Bears game at Lambeau five weeks ago, we have been playing much more physically. 3) We will fix Special Teams. Clearly, Peter LaFleur is no idiot. He knows we have to be better on ST and he will get it fixed before the Playoffs. Coach has double top-secret information that former ethanol-consumption-maestro and Hillsdale-College-Hero, Chester Marcol, has been retained to advise floundering Special Teams Coach Meningitis for the remainder of the 2020 Season. 4) Bakhtiari is coming to the game. While he may have a little bit of an “owie” on his knee and can’t play, David B and fiancée will be there to provide the only kind of moral support that Wisconsinites can understand! No doubt this one will go back and forth a bit, but in the end the Pack will enjoy a comfortable victory Packers 24 Bears 17 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them So Bakhtiari is out for the season with a torn ACL ... Fudge. It’s not often the Packers get a great offensive tackle out the University of Colorado. Which brings us to this week’s gridiron relic, #79 Mark Koncar. In 1976, he was 2nd year coach Bart Starr’s first 1st-round draft choice, in a pick obtained from the Raiders in return for Ted Hendricks. The 6’5” 270-pound Koncar moved right into the starting lineup and made the All-Rookie team. He continued to improve in 1977 but began to be beset by injuries that would eventually derail his career (uh-oh). Koncar blew out his knee in 1978 and missed the whole season. Returning in ’79 he played 12 games, and then in 1980 he tore his Achilles tendon in Week 1 and missed the rest of that year. He returned as damaged goods in ‘81, but again was a starter. That October, he walked out on the team after objecting to harsh criticism from Starr. Koncar missed the October 11 game against Tampa, but returned the following week and played the rest of the season. The next year Starr traded him to Houston and he played only 5 games there before retiring. Let’s hope Bakhtiari bounces back better than that. After football, the highly-sensitive Koncar moved back to his home state of Utah and later married several women over a period of 3 years who refer to themselves “sister wives.” He recently released a highly successful book, published by his 4th wife Sarah, of designs for the DIY art of satin stitch hand embroidery, which was his major field of study at the University of Colorado. Let’s hope Bakhtiari bounces back better than that.
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Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show !!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: ...there should be a “Sarcasm” emoji. Regular readers of this periodical might have picked up on Coach’s dry sense of humor and his proclivity toward sarcastic commentary. So it should be no surprise to you, the loyal reader, that Coach’s use of text messaging for personal correspondence if often peppered with sarcastic ditties as well. Now, if you know Coach, you know enough to not be offended; I kid because I care. If you don’t know Coach, you might wrongfully infer that I am an angry soul, unsatisfied with the hopeless human condition. To the contrary, I am quite optimistic (almost to a fault) -- I just like giving people shit. Hey, it’s funny! Perhaps, though, I have recently crossed a bridge too far. I actually complemented an acquaintance on his astute observation of a football matchup, and he took offense because he thought I was being sarcastic! His ardent reply immediately caught my attention so I was quick to say “Dude, I’m serious – that was great!” to which he replied, “You should let me know when you’re not being sarcastic.” Well I’ll be damned, he is on to something. It’s so simple, so obvious. Common courtesy and social discourse insists that I should follow any sarcastic comment with a Sarcasm emoji. But there isn’t one! Why TF not? There are like 20 different smiley / laughing emoji’s, even though one would suffice. There’s even gay couples holding hands (not that there’s anything wrong with it), and several emoji of blind people with a white cane (how would a blind person know how to find or use that emoji in the first place?), but no Sarcasm emoji. That’s F’d up. Just think about how many more friends I could have if a Sarcasm emoji existed! Sure, I can make friends, but KEEPING them is the tough part for a sarcastic creature like myself (and God help the poor sarcastic person with Asperger's). That’s one of the problems of not being a racist or biased in any way … I do not discriminate -- I will expose anyone who leaves the door open. So, whoever draws up those emoji face things up needs to get off their ass and make a Sarcasm emoji – pronto! It’s really important. …at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Let’s start this week by acknowledging, celebrating and mourning… … two years in a row we beat the Charlotte Panthers at Lambeau 24-16 in a cold weather game with a big defense stop … … Rodgers is the only QB in NFL history to throw 40 or more touchdowns in a season three different seasons … … we’re 11-3, currently the No.1 Seed in the NFC and control our own destiny … … we have 7 players picked for the Pro Bowl and could (should?) have had more … … RIP Kevin Greene (Panthers OLB in ’96 NFC Championship at Lambeau, inspirational Coach in Packers 2010 SB win) … Not to minimize any of those sentiments, but you’ve read about them everywhere, so Coach won’t repeat it here. Rather, let’s start this week by summarizing just about every X&O’s since Coach started sharing his wisdom on the interweb … “The Defense sucked, and Rodgers saved the day” - or Alternate 1 – “The Defense sucked, and Rodgers almost saved the day” - or Alternate 2 – “Boy we suck, I wish Rodgers wasn’t hurt” - sprinkled with a dash of – “why can’t we find a Special Teams Coach?” Hard as it is to imagine, this week the Script-was-flipped!! Special Teams were “OK” (mediocre punting, great 51-yarder from Crosby) and the Defense actually played pretty well, but Rodgers was the problem, he was the barrier to this becoming the blowout that Coach predicted. Last week Coach said: It should be right around freezing, no snow and light winds for Saturday night at Lambeau. Teddy’s gonna toss us a couple this weekend, the D is gonna look “satisfying” and the Pack is gonna win in a “Brad Hoover be damned” blowout. Coach’s forecast for the weather and the Defense was right on! The Defense allowed 16 points vs. Coach’s prediction of 17, had three forced fumbles and pick (two wiped out by penalty and one fumble Charlotte recovered). The problem was we didn’t play situational football on Offense. … “It’s frustrating, but we’re 11-3, we won the game, that’s a good problem to have. We just know that type of football in the second half, not going to get it done in the payoffs.” - A. Rodgers Amen Aaron, amen. Offense The first 3 drives of the game we scored 21 points and gained 203 yards on 15 runs and 13 pass plays. The Panthers, a below average Defense, were totally geared to stopping the pass. Even though we completed 69% of the passes, we only gained 5.5 yds/attempt and had 7 non-impact plays out of 13 pass attempts (0-5 yds gains or penalty). The Panthers D usually lined up in a version of 3-3-5, with two of the DB’s “up”, meaning they looked kind of like a High School 3-5-3. There are “3-Bigs” on the L-O-S (Red Circle) and 3 LB (Red Circle) totaling 6 “legitimate” run stoppers in the middle. Joining them are a Safety and the two CB are lined-up in press-man coverage, meaning they have 9 in total at the Line, to help stop the run. They also have Davante Adams in what looks like single-man coverage, but the CB actually backs out into zone and the Safety comes up to cover Adams. (The Safety then slides over to the middle when he realizes it’s a run play.) This is a classic 1996 Fritz Shurmur Nickel Defense, nothing fancy. The “Bigs” tie-up the O-Line and the LB’s flow to the play. Coach really likes this formation as it solves many of the problems we have with Poutine’s D. Over the course of the game we ran really well and averaged 7.2 yds/attempt. During the first three drives we were unstoppable, averaging 8.7 yards per rushing attempt. Even more amazingly, we only had one non-impact play out of 15 rushing attempts (0-2 yd gain or penalty, see the Run/Pass chart below). For some unknown reason, after going up 21-3 on the first three drives, and with a chance to finish-the-kill in the 1st half with a 31-3 score, we went on a stretch that looked like Melissa McCarthy was back running the show. We went away from the run and for the next 7 drives we passed 57% of the time and ran 43%. Charlotte continued to focus on taking away Adams and we averaged 1.5 yds/pass-attempt, while completing 69% of the passes!! Which means, of course, we were completing meaningless passes. The result: 7-plays, 34 yds, punt 4-plays, 1 yd, Half 3-plays, -1 yd, punt 4-plays, 19 yds, punt 10-plays, 42 yds, FG 3-plays, -8 yds, punt 1-play, -1 yd, End-of-Game Helping multiply the bad news were dropped passes. Going into the game we had 24 drops for Season, 2nd to the 33 drops by the Steelers. We’ve picked on MVS all year for dropping passes, but in this game even some of our “reliable-regulars” were guilty. Rodgers followed the throw above with a deep shot to MVS … and mercifully MVS saved AR from a poorly thrown INT by knocking the ball away from the DB. In the clip above, Rodgers has the option to hand-off the ball or pass and he is expecting Lazard to be wide open in the right flat, but he isn’t there! Rodgers makes a play-action fake in the Run-Pass-Option (RPO), but Lazard goes downfield to block, and Rodgers has no one to pass to. Rodgers realizes in less than a second that the play is busted, so he runs and makes a positive-play out of a busted-play (yeah Rodgers, our 2nd leading rusher with 26 yards). LaFleur, in “Coach Speak”, blamed Rodgers for the Offensive performance. “Some of those, [pause] we weren’t necessarily having to throw those run alerts [that means checking from a run to a pass]. But if I’m looking at it critically, there’s so many more opportunities to continue to run the football. We’ve just got to be disciplined and be patient and take what the defense was giving us. Our ground game was very, very, very effective. I thought Aaron Jones was running really, really hard. Sometimes you’ve got to lean on the ground game. I wish we would’ve gone to it a little bit more.” said LaFleur after the game. Translation: “Rodgers, WTF, quit f’ng forcing the ball to Adams, I don’t give a damn about him extending his consecutive-game-TD-record.” A big factor was the absence of Jamaal Williams, who limped off after a thigh injury on a 2-yd run on the Packers 2nd TD drive. LaFleur added “We had stuff in the plan, he is such an important part of what we do, not just running the football, but in the screen game and the protection game, check down. We split him out wide at times, too.” Then the obvious question becomes, why was Dillon not used more when Williams went out? He only had three snaps and one carry. Rodgers danced around questions about Dillon all week, but basically Rodgers doesn’t trust him in the Offense. That begets the really concerning question of: “Does LaFleur have control of Rodgers during the game?” Perhaps not as much as needed. But LaFleur does control the personnel on the field. Time to get Dillon more involved and get Rodgers back running LaFleur’s running system. Defense The D has gotten marginally better over the course of the season is now ranked 14th in points allowed for the Season at 24.2 pts/gm. The black line in the chart below is the average and the line is trending down, good! (The label with the number is the Def ranking … which is on the right-side scale.) The thinner blue line shows the actual point allowed and we have now had 5 games this season where we allowed fewer than 20 points. Some of the players talked to Poutine a few weeks ago and he’s agreed to simplify the Defense. Coincidentally (or probably not), Poutine has also given the two rookies at ILB (Barnes and Martin) more playing time than Kirksey, and the D looks much better when those two are on the field. Yep, what hasn’t changed is that Christian Kirksey and Kevin King are having bad seasons and they both really sucked against the Panthers. The play above was a killer. We stopped Charlotte on 3rd & 9, only to give them a 1st down on the penalty(s) … which was on the opposite side of the field, away from the actual play. Two plays later Charlotte was in the EZ to make the score 21-10. The biggest disappointment on Defense this year is without-a-doubt the Oft-Injured, Oft-Out-Of-Position, and Oft-Missing-Tackles-Kirksey. Coincidentally (or probably not), the Cleveland Browns’ defense has gotten significantly better since Kirksey’s departure to Green Bay. Just sayin. As the play begins Kirksey (#58) is the Middle Linebacker, lined up on about the 12-yd line. The picture below captures a key moment from the clip above. At the snap Kirksey goes with the TE as you normally would in man-coverage, but as he gets downfield he seems to realize that everyone else is playing zone (he joins a group of 4 Packers downfield who are covering 2 Panthers). When he realizes his mistake he turns (too late) to go back and tackle Robby Anderson (#11 Panthers) who was wide-open in the zone that Kirksey had just vacated. Remember, Kirksey is the guy getting everyone else lined-up, he has the “green dot” (communication) helmet and is the one telling the rest of the D the play that Poutine called. When Kirksey’s phone rings, you can bet it’s not MENSA on the line. Kirksey’s role is to control the center of the field, and, in this instance, he lets the RB simply screen him out of the way and Kirksey easily scores. To be fair to Kirksey, he is alone. We are rushing four guys, six drop-back into deep coverage and Kirksey has a box 35 yds wide and 15 yards deep to cover by himself … that’s a scheme issue with Poutine. Maybe it’s unfair to pile on Kirksey, what with the recent celebration of the birth of God’s only begotten son and all (for the record, Coach has confirmed that Jesus did, in fact, prefer to be addressed with the he / him / his pronouns), but for goodness sake, man! At least in this instance there is some good news... Dean Lowry, previous poster-boy for bad D-Line play, actually makes a good play – tipping the ball and ultimately saving Kirksey from another exposure because he was out of position. But we have hope on D! Sullivan has been playing better and better with every game. In his 3rd year out of Georgia State, he’s a keeper. A nagging question remains, though, if either Chanukah or Hanukkah are valid spellings, then is it Chandon or Handdon Sullivan? Rookie 5th rounder Kamal Martin has been fantastic against the run. He fell to the 5th round because of knee injuries while playing for the Gophers, and he had a knee injury for a while this year, but when he’s out there he diagnoses the plays much faster than #58. Anyone paying attention this year knows about Barnes. He’s a UDFA this year out of UCLA and was originally cut coming out of Training Camp. He is our best ILB by far, and recently even Poutine seems to have realized that. When Barnes and Martin play inside together, usually in a 3-2 or sometimes 4-2 arrangement, the Defense is much, much better. In the clip above Barnes blows up the screen, but unfortunately got “stuff” in his eyes and was out for the rest of the game (and was replaced by Kirksey, leading to the Kirksey mistakes referenced above). So, in summary, the rookie ILB’s are keepers, and Kirksey should no longer be activated and/or cut with prejudice. ADVERTISEMENT – After a emptying the sack, it's the best way to recoup. Get Lucky! WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Baker Mayfield’s Commercial Agent Furious He Continues to Risk Everything By Playing Football CLEVELAND—Chastising his biggest client’s immaturity and lack of concern for professional obligations, Baker Mayfield’s commercial agent Patrick Hayes told sources Wednesday that he is furious that the quarterback continues to risk his career by playing football. “He’s got millions of dollars on the line, and yet he continues to ignore the risk it poses to his job and spend all his free time playing football,” said Hayes, who warned Mayfield that if he continues to risk his body and mind playing football for fun, he may never set foot on a soundstage ever again. “He’s going to need his brain to memorize scripts. He came into Progressive filming one day after spending all Sunday playing football and could barely remember any of his lines. It’s a distraction, too. If he was really focused on this, we could have him doing Pepsi or Ford.” Hayes added that the talent agency was thinking about adding something in Mayfield’s next contract to ban him from engaging in extracurricular football activities. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof ‘Bring Me Some Holiday Cheer, You Son Of A Bitch’ Says Bears Fan Slamming Christmas Tree Up Against Wall Elmhurst, IL–In a desperate effort to get out of her playoff doldrums and into the spirit of the season, local Chicago Bears fan Miranda Krall was reportedly demanding that a Christmas tree bring her some holiday cheer Tuesday while slamming it against a wall. With the Bears on the outside looking in at playoff teams again this year, Krall exclaimed “Come on, I know you’re holding out on me—you’ve got to have some Yuletide warmth in there somewhere, goddammit,” grabbing the decorated conifer by the trunk and shaking it violently in an effort to force the tree to dislodge some help from other teams for the Bears to make the playoffs (plus a few crumbs of goodwill towards men). “I swear to God, when can I expect the Bears to make the playoffs!? Tell me now or I’ll strangle you with your own string of lights, you sick bastard.” At press time, Krall was warning the sapling what happened to last year’s Christmas tree when the Bears missed the playoffs by tearing apart a wreath. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground The Axe Stays Where It Belongs The Gophers suffered a well-deserved loss because of lots of mistakes. Even when the Badgers seemed intent on gift-wrapping the Axe to the Gophers with one of the most bizarre play-calls you'll ever see: a deep pass by No. 3 quarterback, Chase Wolf, which was easily intercepted in the end zone – instead of continuing with a very successful running attack to kill the clock with 2 minutes left, but Minnesota did nothing with it. Instead, the Goofs fumbled, played for overtime and then failed to execute again. Wisconsin avoided the unthinkable, losing to PJ Fleck twice in three years. It felt good to watch the players celebrate keeping the Axe. So it’s on to a bowl game! Who does Bucky get to play? With their awesome OT win, Wisconsin qualifies for the Grandaddy of all condiment bowls. Yes, they will be travelling to Charlotte, NC for the prestigious Duke’s Mayo Bowl. What? You never heard of Duke’s Mayo? It is a southeastern thing. BU sent an intrepid reporter down there and can confirm that Duke’s is real. We play the Demon Deacons of mighty Wake Forest who have a high-powered offense that averages 37 points and 435.3 yards per game, similar to what most ACC teams average per game. Wake Forest had an impressive stretch, including a win against then-ranked Virginia Tech. Perhaps their most impressive feat was taking a 45-24 lead at major bowl-bound North Carolina. Statistically it looks like their best skill player is wideout Jaquarii Roberson, who has several 100-yard receiving games. Their QB has only thrown one pick all year and does not seem to be a running threat. The Deacons have two backs with almost identical numbers of carries averaging 5 yards per rush. The Badgers, favored to win every game they played this year, open as 7-point favorites. With a bit of luck, their two top receivers and top running back return from medical issues. Put together a complete effort on both sides of the line of scrimmage and end the season on a high note. We say Bucky 42, Demon Deacons 12 We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game This is it, the beginning of the Playoffs…we are playing the Nashville Oilers at Lambeau! Perhaps a bit overdramatic, and for sure not technically accurate, but in the Tennessee Titans we are playing one of the top teams in the AFC and it’s only the third team we are playing that has a winning record (the Buc’s and Colts are the only teams that had a winning record at the time we played them). The more important thing is that numerous players were quoted this week as looking at this game as a playoff game. Several players also pointed to lack-of-energy as a contributor to the collapse against the Panthers last week, so it heartens Coach to hear that the players are getting locked-in on this game. This will be another with a limited crowd at Lambeau … family of players, employees and now First Responders … so this game is a really a good test of what a Playoff Game could be like at Lambeau with very few people there. See also, Milwaukee fans. OK, on to the Oilers! They are led by their superstar and NFL leading rusher, King Henry. There are three reasons for King Henry VIII’s persistent fame – the fascinating history of his reign, the artistic genius of Hans Holbein the Younger and the fact that he is leading the NFL in rushing. His domestic policies changed the course of English history. Determined to annul his first marriage, Henry eventually rejected papal authority in England and declared himself Supreme Head of a new English church; the Reformation had arrived in England. He proceeded to marry five more times and executed two of those wives (talk about your risk-reward situation!). When this ‘serene and invincible prince’ died in 1547, he bequeathed a bankrupt and bitterly-divided nation to his heirs, better known facetiously as Hermans Hermits. Dirk Henry is a really good running back with 1,679 rushing yards and 15 TD’s in 2020, so stopping him will be key to the game. With all of the focus on Henry, that’s allowed average-QB Ryan Tannehill to have two career years (117.5 – 2019, 110.4 – 2020, 14 gms). Nevertheless, stopping Henry first is the key to stopping the Oilers, we keep talking about our top-notch DB’s, it’s time to let them play on an island and stop the pass with 1:1 coverage schemes. He is a beast, but he can be stopped. Here’s a clip from 2019 of the Falcons stopping him. The keys? penetrations and swarming to the balls. See also, double entendre That got Coach ta tinkin’.. when have we stopped a good back? Naturally Coach thought of the 1994 Wild Card Round when we beat the Lions 16-12. Fritz Shurmur, the best DC we have ever had, knew we had to stop Barry Sanders to have a chance of winning the game. The Lions were actually a decent team back then … I know, hard to imagine now if you are under 40. In a surprise move, defensive coordinator moved Reggie White from DE to nose tackle so the Lions couldn’t run the ball away from “The Minister of Defense.” Holding the LOS and staying in your lane are key to stopping the run. None other Don Davey, High School Wisconsin state champion, UW Badger star, and childhood friend of Coach does a nice job of demonstrating the correct technique here. He strings out the play and holds up Sanders so that he can be tackled for no gain. Coach flagged 5-yards for name-dropping, loss of down. Wayne Simmons was one of our best-ever LB’s and he is immediate in his pursuit of Sanders (Krys Barnes is close to looking like this … Kirskey, not so much). Beating a tough physical team needs tough Defense to be sure, but ALL the leaders on need to be tough, too. Yeah, I’m talking to you, JK. The clip above is from back in the days when, in addition to passing, the QB’s actually played football, too. …None better than Brett Lorenzo Favre. The Defense was relentless that day, holding the future Hall of Fame running back and Lions phenom, Barry Sanders, to minus-one yard rushing on 13 carries in the game. We also set a new NFL playoff record by holding Detroit to a team-total of minus-four yards rushing. (We also wiped out the previous record of seven yards, set by the infamous ’85 Bears … just one more example that the Bears always have and always will suck.) And our 2020 leader? He’s looking relaxed, he’s having fun … and most importantly to Coach … “the belt” is back. As the play broke down Rodgers saw his chance to score and he took it. AR invented “The Belt” during the 2010 Season … later admitting that he thought they could win the SB. Breaking out the Belt is just one more sign that this team is focused on winning the SB this year. So can the Defense do it? Shut down Henry and the Oilers #1 Scoring Offense? Well, as explained in X&O’s Section above, we have been playing better. In fact, over the last 3 games we actually have the #6 Scoring Defense, allowing about 19 pts/gm. The weather should also be in our favor, around 20 deg F and light snow. Unfortunately there won’t be much of a crowd there to experience it, but the Packers have never lost at Lambeau when it’s snowing…and the crowd always has the place rocking... (Not sure the “never lost” statement will get past the Ron Burgundy podcast fact-checkers, but you get the point.) The Titans will be tough, but we are going to beat them. Notice Coach made no mention at all of the early morning bombing in Nashville on Christmas day. You’re welcome. Packers 34 Titans 30 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them Coach knows that you know the Tennessee Titans used to be the Houston Oilers. One of the better players the Oilers ever had was Defensive End, #96 Sean Jones. …and then he came to Green Bay. In the mid-90’s when the Packers returned to glory, the Jamaican-born Jones was part of a formidable defensive front including Reggie White, Gilbert Brown, and Santana Dotson. Wow! What a lineup. Amazing as it may seem, none of these All Pro defenders went to Northwestern; although, Jones did play college football on the Northeastern University (Boston, Massachusetts) team. In the 1984 NFL draft, Jones was chosen in Round 2 by the Los Angeles Raiders. After 4 years there, he spent 5 years in Houston before finishing his career in Green Bay as a Super Bowl champion in 1996. He was a 2× All-Pro and went to 2 Pro Bowls, had 113 sacks and 1 interception! Not too shabby. As Brent Favor would say, he was a helluva player. When Coach went to the 1995 season divisional round playoff game in San Francisco, Jones was hanging out in the hotel lobby the night before the game chewing the fat with fans, exchanging laughs, and even signing autographs for pathetic grown men. He often made audio appearances on Green Bay area sports radio stations after he retired, and was always respectful to the Green Bay community. One of Coach’s favorite quotes of Jones was when he stated a good team should expect 3 losses for every rookie they start. I’ve found that assertion to be remarkably accurate, on average, over the years. In “retirement” he has also served as a financial adviser to former players, helping educate them on how to make their short-lived NFL paychecks extend into a lifelong support structure for their families. A rewarding and noble profession indeed (nevermind he was indicted in Houston for securities fraud). So today we honor you, Sean Jones, as a sharp cookie that used his wits for tremendous success on and off the field. You are welcome in Green Bay anytime. Sa-lute!
Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show !!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: ...Cynthia Frelund is a 2-face. Is she hot, or is she not? Hard to tell, any more. I mean, sometimes I turn on the pregame and think, “Hey, who’s the hottie with the brains?” Then other times, I see her on a Zoom call from home and think, “What the hell happened to that chick?” It’s a conundrum. Let’s review the evidence: On the one hand, she uses mathematical statistical analysis to predict winners each week … pretty boring, unless coming from a hottie. Then it’s actually pretty great. I’ll tune in! But, I don’t know, lately she’s been looking a little less, uh, tent-pole-ish(?). And coming from a brainiac geek broad, it’s hard to keep watching. I turn that shit off. But I’m willing to give her a second chance. Yeah! …Maybe she can drop a few pounds, put on some strategically placed makeup, lose the glasses, dim the lights and – what the hell … get a boob job! After all, that’s what America is all about: 2nd chances. And I think Cynthia Frelund would make America great again by dumping her dumpy look and sticking with her hot look from now on. …at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Last week Coach said: Win-or-lose we give up about 20 points-a-game to the Lions over Rodgers career … we lose games to the Lions when our offense sucks and we score less than 20 points. The plan for this game is to play well on Offense. Give them their average of 20 points, the Packers Offense will roll up 35. And for 37th time in 100* seasons in the NFL, we will have either won the NFL Championship or at least be in the Playoffs. * Please remember that 2020 is actually our 102nd Season. We started playing in 1919 and went 19-2-1 before joining Halas’ upstart league for the 1921 Season 1929 1930 1931 1936 1938 1939 1941 1944 1960 1961 1962 1965 1966 1967 1972 1982 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 2001 2002 2003 2004 2007 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019 2020 Think about that for 11 seconds … the Packers have been a Post-Season Team in roughly 40% of NFL Seasons since the day the League was founded. The team from the smallest city in the League was beating teams from New York and Washington DC from the very beginning. The Green Bay Packers have consistently been the best team ever, period, over-and-out. Thus sayeth Coach. Ok, Coach has that out of his system. Now it’s back to judging whether this team has the wherewithal to win another Lombardi. Probably the best news of the game on Offense was it looks like MVS can actually play receiver, kudos to him! For the day MVS had 85 yds and 1 TD on 6 catches and 0 Drops!! If he actually plays like this for the next 6 weeks, we will win 6 in a row and a trophy. Overall, we won the turnover battle, controlled the clock, gained more yards and scored more points. We also almost gave the game away in the 4th Qtr. Pretty much the formula under LaFleur / Poutine / Meningitis. After a 14-14 tie in the 1st-Half, we dominated during our first two drives of the 2nd-Half: 14 Plays, 75-yds, 8:49 & TD 21-14 Pack 12 Plays, 79-yds, 7:49 & TD 28-14 Pack Sandwiched in between? 3 Plays, 4-Yds, 1:21 DET Punt At 12:01 Left in the 4th Qtr., we were leading 28-14 and in position to crush the Lions. Coach is really running out of ways to express how frustrated he is with ... Defense and Special Teams. They both play like kids that have some sort of aberrant anti-social behavior. They play nice with their cousins and look really good for a while in front of Grandma, then they sneak down the alley and set a dumpster on fire. Metaphorically speaking that is. Did Coach ever mention that at his Grandparents house they actually did have alleys? Well never mind. Way back in history, the Packers had a very effective screen game on Offense and our D-Coordinator had an excellent Defense against the screen because he saw it every day in practice (Holmgren/Favre against Shurmur). Once again, we have a great screen game on Offense, but we seem to be completely befuddled every time we face it in a game. Up 14-7 in the 2nd Qtr, we were in perfect position to shut down the Lions and maybe go up 21-7 or at least 17-7 before the half. Instead we let the Lions go 80 yards on 11 plays for a TD, with about half the yardage coming on screens. In the clip above you’ll notice 6’0”, 214#, Safety, Adrian Amos (#31) in the middle of the field by himself (he’s playing in the MLB position and we are rushing 5)… … and just after the snap he takes himself completely out of position by shuffling to his left (toward the bottom of the screen), evidently oblivious to the 3 Lions who are running out toward the opposite sideline, looking for people to block and finding no one, because there is only green plastic field turf and no white jerseys, more-or-less similar to when the Germans massed forces before attacking Pearl Harbor. Oh yes, and behind the wall of 3 lineman is Adrian Peterson (#28), who catches the screen and runs untouched until Kevin King closes his eyes and misses with a shoulder and then Amos recovers and tackles him after a 23-yard gain. Good ole’ Darrell Bevell knows a good thing when he sees it, so on the very next play, the run the very same play, only with Kerryon Johnson instead of Adrian Peterson. It’s kind of interesting that the only player who recognizes the screen both times is Preston Smith. On the first screen he’s trailing the play, this time he recognizes the screen and turns it back inside, like he should. But he’s the only one who sees it and it’s another 1st down. They score the TD, we go 5 & out, they go 6 & out and now it’s the Half. Skip ahead past the two long scoring drives we had after halftime, and we’re early in the 4th and Crosby kicks it out of the EZ. The Lions are starting at their own 25 at 12:01 in the 4th, down 28-14. On the ensuing drive we had 5 penalties:
In a complete shocker, Detroit scores: now it's 28-21 Pack. All the hard work down the drain and a crappy team is now back in the game (although QB Mitch Stanford was crunched and knocked out of the game). We managed a FG after that … 31-21 Pack On the ensuing kickoff, Special Teams Coach Meningitis wanted to ensure that we could have a live Kicker-Tackling-Demo. Justifiably, much has been made in these pages about how awful our Special Teams are. Thank goodness we have 36-year-old Mason Crosby, and he doesn’t pay any attention to Coach Meningitis. You’ve seen JK Scott flailing around and falling over when kick returners run by him on the way to the EZ, right? Well fret no more, rumor has it that JK will be listening to this play over-and-over on his iPod. Think about this again, we were one Mason Crosby tackle away from a 31-28 game with 3:30 to go in the 4th. As it was, they were on the GB35 and down 10. Replacement QB Chase Daniels struggled, and we managed not to commit Defensive Penalties and held them to a FG. 31-24 Pack Of course the Lions attempted an onside kick. In a “Oh man, here’s Bostick again” moment, Bobby Tonyan barely got out of the way of the ball and it went OB before it went 10 yards … 2 runs, a pass and 2 kneel downs and the game was over. Glad we won? Heck yeah! Excited to notch another Post-Season appearance? Yeah baby! Convicted that we’ll go anywhere in the Post-Season? Convicted? No, never convicted. The Numbers We are the No. 1 Seed on the NFC Side of the Tournament Bracket. And we have the second worst Defense of the 7 Playoff Teams. And as concerning as the Defense is, the Special Teams are enough to give you a coronary (Coach tried that already, not recommended). The great news on Special Teams is basically Crosby. He’s made the fewest FG in the League, because we score a lot of TD’s. Of the 14 he’s kicked, 14 were good. On extra points he’s on ranked #15 because he’s missed 3 of them, but he’s #1 on made XP’s, because we score a lot of TD’s. IF Crosby is the good news, JK Scott proves that old adage that you should never waste a draft pick on a punter (5th round, 2018). His 35.9 net average yds/punt is #31 in the League. Of course he is not helped by shitty punt coverage teams. Not to be out done, we are #24 in net punt return yards … and the two together meaning we go backwards 6.1 yards with every punt exchange. We average 3 punts per game, so we are giving up 20 “hidden” yards a game, just on punting. To add insult to injury in the return game, at 53%, we rank #27 in Kickoff Touchback %. Ok, hang with Coach here, this means that 53% of the time we have to run the ball out (don’t get a touchback), because the opposing team does not believe we can return it to the 25 yd line. We also have played the softest schedule of any of the playoff teams. The NFL calculates it by total record, Coach looks at “record at the time we played them” and by that measure our opponents were 0.350. And remember, we lost to the only two winning teams we played. ESPN calculates what they call their “power index” based on a number of factors. Look it up if you’re interested to know how they do it, but frankly the results seem about right to Coach. What’s it all mean? It means that we have a pretty darn good team, but not a great team. Not a great team because we are only “OK” statistically vs. the other likely Playoff Teams … and we lost to the only two teams we played that had winning records. Confident that we will win the Superbowl? No. Is it possible? Of course.* *See also: Blind Squirrel finds nut on any given Sunday. Coach wants Championship #14, anything less is a wasted Season. P.S. Things Lombardi did not say: “Winning isn’t everything, Participation Trophies are the only thing” WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up New Evidence Suggests Ancient Churchgoers Wore Favorite NFL Jerseys To Mass Every Sunday ISRAEL—New evidence unearthed in ancient Israel has recently confirmed what Bible scholars long suspected: that early parishioners wore the jersey of their favorite NFL team to church every Sunday to show their support during the time of worship. "It seems that while Sundays were dedicated to the preaching of the Word, the singing of songs, and prayer, churchgoers also devoted a significant portion of their Sunday to cheering for their favorite NFL team," said Dr. Frank T. Parson. "So it only made sense for them to wear a loud, colorful football jersey into the service." The early church was often in hiding from persecution, of course. So worshipers would wear their football jerseys under a cloak while sneaking to the location of a secret house church. "Once they arrived, they'd take off their outer garment and reveal their Packers or Steelers jersey, signifying they were now ready to worship the Lord." Theologians believe wearing an NFL jersey helps one focus on the hymns and sermon much more effectively. "This is probably why the practice has been passed down from the early church to us today." The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof In 'It's A Wonderful Life' Remake, Angel Tells George Bailey To Kill Himself Because He's Bears Coach LOS ANGELES—Hollywood is hard at work remaking the Jimmy Stewart classic It's A Wonderful Life for modern audiences, and film critics are praising some recent plot leaks from the new script. In the new version of the film, George Bailey's guardian angel will explain to him that since he is the head coach of the Bears, he should probably just go ahead and jump in the river. Clarence the Angel will then take George Bailey on a tour of Wakanda and explain that the whole world would be like Wakanda but it's not because of centuries of colonialism and oppression. The updated story will feature a lengthy lecture from Clarence the Angel where he explains how George Bailey's predecessors have systemically driven the Bears franchise into being the laughing stock of the NFL, and that the world would probably be better off without him. "This is exactly the It's A Wonderful Life we need right now," said Jason Lieser, Bears staff reporter for the Chicago Sun Times. "With an updated message designed to expose the pathetic inability of Bears leadership to pull the franchise out of perpetual embarrassment, this film is sure to resonate with fans of NFL football everywhere and particularly in Chicago!" The film will be only 20 minutes long and it will end with George Bailey asking forgiveness for his incompetence. He then donates all his life insurance money to the McCaskey family and jumps off a bridge. Critics are hailing it as "bold," "inspiring," and "correct in its messaging." Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Big Ten Decides Pre-Season Favorites Get to Play in Indy Despite COVID Rules, Game Outcomes This brings us to the airing of grievances portion of the Badgers’ season. Yes, they lost fair and square without their starting WR’s and top RB against a better Iowa team. We are not talking about that. We predicted that and lamented at length previously about the whole season. In this holiday season, we at BU are looking forward to Christmas and New Year’s to get the hell out of 2020. But, today we will sort of “celebrate” one of the new holidays, Festivus, and its aluminum pole for airing of grievances. Ok, on to our grievance. The title this week is about as absurd as what is really happening this weekend. The rules the Big Ten made at the beginning of the season were that, at the end of the season, the top two teams would play for the Conference Championship in Indianapolis as long as each team played at least 6 games. Then, #2 plays #2, #3 plays #3 and so on. Since Ohio State played only 5 games, the line up according to the rules should have looked like this: With this plan, the top two games would have been quite interesting and made money from people watching it on television. As it stands, the match ups are very different and quite FUBAR. It looks like the Big Ten wanted to get some match ups of perennial rivalries like Minnie and Wisconsin. We get that. But jeesh, did they have to screw Indiana and Iowa in the process? Here is the actual matchup:
One more chance to get it all wrong One more time to do it all wrong One more time to get it half right One more warning Despite again missing three of our top four offensive weapons -- the Goophs do not possess an upper quartile defense like we have seen the last three games. Though RB Ibrahim is the Ameche-Dayne Big Ten RB of the year, look for Bucky to shut him down—unless the defense again spends most of the game on the field. Wisconsin is listed as 12-point favorites. Perhaps so, if Davis & Pryor play, but otherwise this game is a pick ‘em. Losing to the People’s Temple of PJ Fleck must be avoided at all costs. Wisconsin recruits very well in Minnesota and needs to protect that fertile turf. We say Bucky 21, Goofs 13 Speaking of recruiting, National Signing Day this week saw the University of Wisconsin football team bring in its highest-rated class in the internet rankings era. The Badgers secured players who have a chance to make immediate impacts, from a couple of big-play receivers, a stout crew of linebackers, another crop of standout linemen and a few other notables. The Badgers’ class was ranked No. 15 by Rivals and ESPN, and No. 16 by 247Sports as of mid-afternoon Wednesday. UW, with all 21 of its known recruits signed, surpassed Michigan as the No. 2 class in the Big Ten Conference on ESPN. Whoopiedeedoo! ADVERTISEMENT – Guns could make this Christmas a Christmas to remember! We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game This one is easy folks … we will dominate the Panthers because we have to … Everyone on Defense and Special Teams knows that their respective coordinators, Poutine and Meningitis, are under a lot of pressure to perform. Both of those units are the likely barrier to getting to the Super Bowl and so they have fixed all the problems this week … OK, scratch that, that’s been Coach’s mantra since 2010 (fix D & ST and we’ll win the damn Sooper Bowel very year that we have Rodgers). OK, on to Charlotte, the Panthers hired a College Coach in January 2020 to replace the fired Head Coach Riverboat Rob Riviera, one of the few non-assholes on the ’85 Bears. Or maybe he was one, hard to distinguish amongst that bunch This is what Packer fans need to know about the Panthers. Their new HC wears a hoodie, even in warm weather. According to his psychoanalyst’s notes, Rhule’s philosophy is that visualizing your hero’s, trying to emulate your hero’s and even dressing like your hero’s will make you a winner. How’s that worked out so far in 2020? Well we know that 4-9 Panthers are in last place in the NFC South and yet they have a path to the playoffs! (Well, the odds are less than 1%, but they are actually still alive.) With 48 games remaining in the 2020 NFL Season there are roughly 281 trillion different outcomes, so Coach will simplify for you. If the Panthers win-out and go 7-9, their odds improve to slightly over 1%. (Just be glad you’re not a Panthers fan … and to think Coach was disappointed in Petite Fleur “only” going to the NFC Championship Game last year.) If we win, they’re out … so let’s kill ’em. No doubt Hoody-Jr will do his best to motivate the Charlottes, but they announced Tuesday that they will be without their best … dancer. Statistically, this is like a lot of the games we’ve had this year. Yet another mediocre, middle-of-the-road NFC Team (Falcons, Lions, Bears, yada, yada). But it is the NFL. As the saying (sort of) goes, “on any given Saturday night…” any team can win. Twenty years ago almost to the day, both the Pack and Panthers were 5-7 and playing a “pick ’em” game on MNF. Niner’s former SB winning coach George Seifert was running the show and Reggie White was playing D, but Brad Hoover, the unknown rookie FB was the story of the game. It was the kind of game that proved the “on any given Monday night...” adage, so beware the unknown Hoover this Saturday. OK, back to 2020, the Charlottes have the No. 19 Scoring Offense, which, like a bold cabernet, pairs perfectly in the bouche with our medium-rare No. 17 Scoring Defense. Garnish our No. 1 Offense and their No. 20 Defense and voila, you have an 8.6-point Packer advantage. Guess what … Vegas has the Line at 8.5 … and yet again they are not “giving” any Home Field Advantage points to the Pack. (Fer sher, a “who cares” point to Coach.) Also kind of interesting, the Over/Under is 51.5 pt.’s, which is almost exactly the historical total between the Packers and the Panthers (50.5) During the Rodgers’ era we have gone 3-3* against the Panthers, 2-1 at home, including the 24-16 win at home last year. (*The 2017 game at Charlotte was Rodgers first game back after breaking his clavicle in the game against the purple dirtbags of St. Paul.) Last week Coach showed you how this 2020 Packers team does when it has a positive turnover ratio … it wins. The Packers have been prepping all week for Charlotte’s Teddy Bridgewater who has thrown 8 picks and lost one fumble so far in 2020. The Packers are 23-1 in the Matt LaFleur era when we are neutral or positive on turnovers. It should be right around freezing, no snow and light winds for Saturday night at Lambeau. Teddy’s gonna toss us a couple this weekend, the D is gonna look “satisfying” and the Pack is gonna win in a “Brad Hoover be damned” blowout. Bet the over with dignity, confidence and certainty. Packers 38 Charlotte 17 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them The 3rd time the Packers won the Super Bowl (their 12th NFL Championship), they had a lunchpail-carrying workman at Cornerback by the name of Doug Evans. Evans wasn’t a high draft choice by the Packers in 1993 (6th Round out of Louisiana Tech, where he played Safety), or known by offenses around the League as a “shutdown” corner, but he was a solid defender, sound on fundamentals, consistent and reliable, with a knack for making a big play at an opportune time. Unlike other Packers of that era, Evans didn’t get busted with hookers, or show up hungover on gameday, or rape his aunt. He wasn’t suspended for gambling, nor did he keep a mountain lion caged as a pet in his back yard. He did not force a woman to perform fellatio on him in the stairwell of the Top Shelf night club in downtown Green Bay, and not once was he ever arrested for speeding on I-43 in Manitowoc County with an accompanying marijuana possession charge. Nope, Doug Evans pretty much just played football. After 5 years in Green Bay, Evans had been to 3 NFC Championship Games and 2 Super Bowls, of course winning XXXI in his home state. He departed in 1998 (the same year Holmgren left) for big money in Carolina, where he later set a franchise record there of 8 interceptions in a single season. Evans also stopped for a cup of coffee in Seattle and then subsequently in 2003 at Detroit (where all careers end). Over his 11-year career he amassed 28 picks, 2 TD’s, and 6 sacks. Not too shabby.
A future Hall of Famer? Probably not. Pretty good NFL player? Yeah, you bet. Off-field shenanigans that distracted the team from winning? Never. And for that, Doug Evans, we salute you! Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show !!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: Bakhtiari is a cool name... Mrs. Coach walks around the house randomly saying “Bakhtiari" ... she claims "it’s just fun to say.” So I started looking into it, and -- sure shit, it is! Baak-T-R-E. That IS fun to say. Go ahead, say it out loud. Told ya. Fun, right? But what the hell is a Bakhtiari? Never heard of one before the Packers got one. And it isn’t even spelled correctly (but in a cool way), so what gives? Well this is gonna blow your mind…
So, depending upon which side of the Euphrates you paddleboard down, the term Bakhtiari translates to “companion of fortune” or “bearer of good luck” and either of these interpretations do well to describe our left tackle this year. And that’s pretty cool …at least, in my humble opinion. PS She just said “Bakhtiari” again. Then she said “no holding” (?) Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Last week Coach said: We may not be perfect, but we are good enough to kick the Iggles’ asses. This one won’t be close, but Poutine will be sure to allow a buncha garbage-time points to make it look closer than it was… Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but we made it much closer than it needed to be and the final of 30-16 was actually closer than it looked. Coach has been accused lately of being a Debbie Downer, being too hard on the 2020 Packers and their shortcomings. “Hey, we’re 9-3 and we have a sledding hill, what’s not too like?” Coach faced much the same criticism during the 2011 Season. “Hey, you are way to negative, we are 15-1 and have the best Offense in the NFL.” In response, Coach replies that the only objective he has is to win the Lombardi Trophy every year. It’s the only objective you should have. Coach only has one benchmark, “Is this team good enough to win it all?” Anything less than that mark is a failure, sledding hill or not. The 15-1 Team all collected their participation trophies after getting bounced at home by the 9-7 Giants in their first Playoff game. Let’s be clear. Losers lose their last game of the year. Period. OK, we’re 9-3, where does that put us for the year? Well, we are still 0-2 against teams that had a winning record when we played them, and we still don’t pass the eye test (of “Can the 2020 Packers win it all?”). OK, we can only play who’s on the schedule, the point is that we have only played two teams that we could use as benchmarks and we lost to both… One thing we haven’t looked at very closely so far is the impact of net turnovers on the outcome of our games. The graph below shows Turnover Differential for each game (from -3 to +3) on the bottom axis and the Point Differential on the left axis. Obviously if we are above the “0 line on the left axis we won the game (positive point differential). All 3 losses came in the 4 games where we lost the turnover battle, despite having a prolific offense. Think about that for a nano-second. The lone victory was against the Jag’s, one of the worst teams in the NFL and we were playing at Lambeau. Another dimension of looking at this Season is to use the “Pythagorean” approach to predicting the W-L record for the Season. We have explained this in some detail previously and will do so aginna come playoff time, but for now we’ll just say that it uses Points Scored and Points Allowed to predict the overall outcome of the Season. (Formula at bottom of table below) The table below has the Actual wins for the Season and then the Predicted Wins next column (the Predicted wins are calculated after the completion of the Season). If the Actual Wins are less than the Predicted wins, it means that we were unlucky and vice-versa. For example, the 2009 and 2010 Teams had 11 and 10 wins respectively, and their Point Differential suggests they should have been 13-win teams … which lines up with the eye-test). Applying the same math to 2020, the result is that that we “should be” at about 8-wins vs. the current 9 wins (thru 12 games). This projects to about 11 or 12 wins for the 2020 Season. Another example: the model suggests that the 2019 Team would have had a 10 or 11 win Season rather than the 13 wins they achieved, which seems about right to Coach. We have 9 wins already, so does that mean Coach is “predicting” one or two losses in the remaining 4 games? No, but it does mean that we don’t look or feel like a dominant team and it would not be a shock to go 2-2 over the last 4 games … so what do we do? In perhaps a surprise, Coach is prescribing even more ball control. Because we can’t trust the Defense and Special Teams when they are on the field, the Offense might help by slowing down and milking more of the game clock. Let’s take a little deeper look at all three phases of the game… Defense The chart above shows the points allowed in each game (left axis, blue line), the average points allowed per game (left axis, black line) and the ranking in the NFL (right axis, number in box). The color scheme is straight forward… Red is bad – ranking between 21-32 Yellow is mediocre – ranking between 11-20 Green is good – ranking between 1-10 Important to notice about us, there is no green! We do not have a good Defense! Through the course of 2020 we have improved from awful to mediocre on Defense. Last year we melted from good to mediocre, I guess Pettine can hang his hat on consistency. What really galls Coach is that we seem so close to playing good Defense. We have so many good plays every game, only to have those plays overwritten by the next, usually horrific, play! On the very first play from scrimmage with 15:00 on the 1st Qtr clock, we could have started the process to destroy the Eagles. Give Kamaal Martin credit for diving into the backfield, but the fundamental he didn’t follow is to “break down” or slow down and be ready to make a lateral move so that you can’t be faked out… …had Kamaal played this properly, likely the Eagles would have gone 3&out and not gotten a FG on the opening drive. Fast forward to the 3rd Qtr, Carson Wentz was pulled for ineptitude and replaced by the rookie Jalen “Dick” Hurts. The score was 20-3 and Eagles HC Doug Pederson had to try something. Prior to coming into the game, Hurts’ NFL experience was attempting and completing exactly two passes for 15 yards. Shown below is Hurts in his first-ever real drive in the NFL. In a “Yeah, we’ve seen this before” moment, our Mike-backer miscarriage, Christian Kirksey, gets toasted again. On this particular play he was saved by a ticky-tacky holding call on the Eagles. The great news for the Packers was the holding call killed the drive and they ended up punting. We ended up with a FG on the ensuing drive, so now Philly was down 23-3 as Hurts led his second-ever drive. What the hell is it with the Packers and the Eagles on 4th and long? Here it’s 4th & 18 on the Packers 32. Defensive leader, Mike Poutine, what should we do? Oh, I know, let’s set up in a Deep Zone Prevent Defense. The Eagles overloaded left, and we fell asleep on the right. Jaire Alexander didn’t pay attention and the Eagles’ 2nd Rnd Jalen (Hurst) hit the Eagles’ 1st Rnd Jalen (Reagor) in stride for a TD, closing the score to two TD’s, 23-10 with 7:52 left in the game. WTF. Any sort of stop at all results in a very long FG attempt and a 23-6 score at worst. You tell me, is this Championship Defense? We had a chance to put them away on the 1st play of the game, and in the 3rd Qtr, and again in the 4th and we didn’t do it. Offense The Offense is scoring a lot of points and at 31.6 pts/gm we are ranked #1. This is, as they say, good. Not as good as the 35 pts/gm after 12 games in 2011, but good anyway. And you ask yourself, would Coach Lombardi be satisfied? No. Despite the typically pedestrian performance by the Defense and the Special Teams extra effort to lose the game, we won the game with the Offense. And … the Offense won the game on 5 big plays. In total we ran 59 plays and gained 444 yards, averaging 7.5 yds/play. The 5 big plays accounted for 211 yards, almost half of the yardage (77 yd rung by A Jones and 4 pass plays). That also means that of the remaining 54 plays we had plenty of mistakes and 3&Outs. If we refer back to the Point Differential vs. Net Turnovers graph above, the Eagles fit right on the line. Our positive turnover differential is likely why we won this game. Are we done for today Coach? No Jimmy, sadly we are not. Special Teams We are likely playing well enough on Offense to go far in the playoffs and the Defense looks like a problem that is getting a bit better … “BUT”, the Special Teams are all going in the wrong direction. ST Coach Meningitis is not getting it done. After Adams scored TD No. 400, we attempted a routine PAT. Although Crosby is 14 of 14 on field goals this year, he now has three missed extra points (43 of 46) and the Bears are calling to trade for him. Whadda we have to do, back-up further on the field to make the PAT more difficult and hold Crosby’s attention? His back was hurt a few weeks ago and maybe that’s still an issue? Coach doesn’t know why we missed that one, but the margin for error is very slim in the Playoffs and we can’t miss PAT’s. That of course brings us to “The Punt Return.” There have been 4 punts returned for touchdowns this year in the NFL, and the Packers have allowed HALF of them. Last time we gave up 2 punt returns for TD’s in a single season was 56 years ago. A punt return for a TD can often change the outcome of a game, and in this case it almost did. Just after Philly closed the game to 23-10, we went 3&Out and faced 4th&12 on our own 21 (this drive was the one with both MVS & ESB drops). And JK Scott, if you make a shitty kick, at least try to redeem yourself with a touchdown-saving tackle. Instead, twice this year, he literally got faked out of his jock as the last “man” between the returner and the end zone (let’s just say we are assuming that he both needs and wears a jock). Opponents are averaging 19.4 yards per return, which is 3½ yards more than the next-worst team allows. It is also 14.5 yards more than the Packers’ punt-return unit averages. Our punt teams suck, it’s official. So, to help you, the loyal reader, understand the technicalities that led to this abortion of a punt play, Coach will walk back through it for you... Step 1 – The Snap After studying this photo, go back up to the punt return and try to focus on the snap of the ball and the gunners. You will also notice that Summers lingers a bit too long before heading downfield (no doubt he’s worried about the punt being blocked, because holy shit that’s also happened this year!). Step 2 – The Coverage Problems:
Step 3 – The Punt Coverage Tackle OK, even though the punt was in the wrong place, this is what the coverage and tackle should have looked like. Ty Summers is now in perfect position to tackle Reagor … if … Redmond and Hollman had been in position and forced Reagor into the middle. This is not Championship football; this is not even competent High School football. As Coach has lobbied for previously, the Packers could – and seriously, SHOULD – recruit a top HS or Div III College Coach to come in and run Special Teams. This is not rocket science (sorry, no unintended pun nor pejorative reference intended toward the Space X rocket which blew up this week killing no one). Coach doesn't expect our Special Teams to be the best in the league, but worst in the league should be a quick, white-knuckle pass through a dangerous part of town -- not a neighborhood to settle in. Fire Menenga. ADVERTISEMENT WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up TAMPA, FL—Expressing disbelief over finally winning the prized piece of memorabilia at auction, Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski was thrilled Friday after purchasing a rare, game-worn Rob Gronkowski jersey. “I can’t believe he would part with—it’s got the NFL patch and everything!” said the 31-year-old, explaining that he’s followed Gronkowski closely his entire career and identifies with him more than any other player. “All my teammates talk about him all the time so they are gonna freak when I tell them about this. Gronk has always been my favorite player. He’s so tough and puts his body on the line, but also seems like a lot of fun. Plus, he even wears my favorite numbers: the half-built snowman and an ‘L.’” At press time, a gracious Gronkowski was thrilled to learn a dedicated fan named Rob Gronkowski had sent him a game-worn jersey and asked him to sign it. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Bears QB Catches Himself Scrolling Social Media While He Supposed To Be Masturbating CHICAGO—Struggling to focus on completing the simple task, Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky had reportedly caught himself scrolling social media Monday while he was supposed to be masturbating. “Goddamnit, I’ve gotten sidetracked again—it’s like I have no attention span today,” said Trubisky, shaking his head in frustration as he tried to recall how he had gone from browsing PornHub to reading an in-depth Twitter thread on the student loan debt crisis in the first place. “I was so productive when I started, and now it’s been 30 minutes and I’ve barely touched myself. It’s pathetic. It was hard enough to carve out the time in my schedule to do this, and now that I’m here, I’m totally squandering it. Come on, concentrate!” At press time, Trubisky had made a deal with himself that if he put in his best effort and still hadn’t ejaculated in 15 minutes, he would allow himself to give up and go watch TV. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground A Parable of Bucky’s Big Ten Season With Bucky’s season in the crapper due to COVID, we are reminded at BU of what would be a true story from some sunny fall Saturday from a past glorious Wisconsin football season. What unfolds is a microcosm of the 2020 POS Badger season. Picture this, if you will. A Mr. Ben Dover was heading toward Camp Randall with his buds for a late afternoon game, all excited about the game and festivities before and after the game. He was thinking, “Hey, maybe I will score a hottie at the Big Ten Pub!” Well, they actually started off at the Big Ten Pub. And wouldn’t you know it, after a Spotted Cow and a couple of trips to the Octabong, Ben strikes up a conversation with one Jenny Taylia. Ben was stoked. This was all shaping up very nicely as the UW tubas popped in and shenanigans crescendoed. This is the corollary of Wisconsin’s awesome win over Illinois, Mertz’s 5 TD’s and mid-game tweet from Mahommes. Then a buzz kill hit. Jenny drifted into the crowd and was spotted making out with another hottie, not that there is anything wrong with that. This was like COVID striking the Badgers and having two games cancelled. Ben said, “WTF!” and then shook it off. The gang headed out to buy a scalped ticket near the train tracks across from the Fieldhouse. To Ben’s surprise, he scored a 50 yard line ticket for cheap. Off they went to Jingles for couple two tree shots of Jaegie before the game. The story is now tracking the awesome Michigan shellacking. Now, we are rolling! Mr. Dover makes it to the gate and the ticket taker says his ticket is counterfeit. What a kick in the nuts! Now we are at the Danny Davis concussion and his stupidity in playing with it during the second half leading 28-0 at Michigan. Ben is more than pissed. A young, exuberant Barney Fife type cop out to make his first bust thinks Ben looks like a well-known scalping ringleader. He perp-walks Ben out like he is the scalper version of Pablo Escobar. Off he goes to the cop shop. This is not unlike the questionable officiating in Evanston. Ben gets raked over the coals and is released 3 hours later just as the game ends at around 6 PM, a Badger loss in triple OT that is still being talked about years later. Ben missed it all. In 2020 season terms, we are at the Minnesota game cancellation. Ben is now downtrodden and spots a seedy strip joint on Willy Street. He pops in to see the early show. He leaves at 4 am after dropping a hundo $1 at a time on an over the hill aging stripper. His head hurts and his mouth is dry. He has to take a piss. This is like the forlorn performance Bucky had last weekend against Indiana. What started with such high hopes (Ben’s gameday, or Bucky’s season), ends in scary disappointment. Bucky heads to Iowa City this week and we do not expect much energy. DD3 is still out and the excitement level is low. Look for less than 10 points out of the Badgers and a bit more out of the Hogeyes. Score: Wisconsin 3, Iowa 13 We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game For the 2nd week in a row we’re playing a Head Coach that we like, Lions HC Darrell Bevell! You may recall that as Coach predicted in WK 2, the previous HC, Patty Patricia, was fired after the Lions got blown out by the Texans. Lions Offensive Coordinator Darrel Bevel has been named “Interim HC” to finish out the last 5 games … and he started with a bang. The Lions scored 14 points in the last 2:18 to beat the Bears 34-30. At this point he is the only undefeated HC in NFL history. The Bears suck and any team beating the Bears is a team we like … but that’s not why we like Darrel. Good ole Darrell was an Offensive-Sub-Lower-Assistant Coach with the Pack in the early 2000’s and was subsequently promoted to be Favre’s QB coach in 2003. Bevell was also among the talent evaluators of a young QB coming out of California named Aaron Rodgers. Bevell thought he was the best quarterback in the 2005 class. So do a lot of other people now. Roughly the same number that said they attended the Ice Bowl. And like the Eagles HC Doug Pederson last week, Bevell has a hunting story with Favre. They went hunting for cougars. No, Coach is not kidding. “I have a cousin that’s down in Southern Utah, so we went on a hunting trip down there for cougars. We were able to track a couple, and I think we rode the ‘horses’ for like 18 miles first, and we were able to find just a beautiful cougar.” Nope, still not kidding. “Maybe Brett would be able to tell it a little better, he had a bow he was trying to use. I think he said he could raise ‘four arrows’, and at the end he had shot all of his arrows and the cougar was still running and wanted more." Not kidding, nope. The Packer angle is nice, but that’s not the big reason we like Darrel. We like Darrell because he helped Barry Alvarez revive UW Football in the early 90’s. After a slow start in Madison, 4th-year HC Barry Alvarez led the ’93 Badgers to their first Rose Bowl berth in 31 years and that team’s QB was none other than Darrell Bevel. Although the game was played on UCLA’s home field it felt like Camp Randal because at least three-fourths of the 101,237 fans in attendance were Badgers fans (including Coach). “I think it’s kind of a little ironic, the play I’m known for in Wisconsin history was a run, since I was not the fastest guy,” said Bevell discussing his score that gave the Badgers a 21-16 win over the UCLA Bruins. Truth be told he wasn’t much of a passer either, but he was a winner! Oh well, back to reality. According to the experts at Prognosticators Associates, the Lions have a less than 7% chance of making the 2020 NFL Playoffs. The Packers objective this weekend is to make that probability less than 1%. Through the magic of mathematics, even if we beat the Lions, we have a non-zero probability of missing the playoffs. Normally Coach would scoff at the odds of the Pack missing the Playoffs, but you could say that about losing the 2014 NFC Championship Game as well.* Suffice to say, Coach’s view is that we should try to win the next 8 games. * see also: “List of games Coach will never stop talking about” The Lions and Bears split this year and the Lions should have won both. This clip (Click On Link!) is from their first game this year, where the Lions best player, D’Andre Swift, dropped the winning TD as time expired. The Bears suck, and the Lions lost a winnable game to a team that sucks, therefore, thru the power of the transitive law, the Lions suck. The Lions are filled with “OK” players like Mitch Stanford and his side-kick Adrian Peterson. Mitch has 94.4 passer rating and Adrian, internationally recognized child disciplinarian authority, is their leading rusher. All “nice” players, to be sure, complete with fully mediocre statistics. Good for them. “However,” we destroyed them 42-19 at Lambeau in game 2 this year and that game was a pretty good indicator of the Season to come for both teams. We score about 8 points a game more than they do and they give up about 5 points a game more than we do. Crunch that all together and we average almost 13 points a game better in point differential (see table below). Knock off a few points for home-field advantage and mathematically we should be a 10- or 11-point favorite. Vegas is following this week’s popular story-line that the Packers “struggle” in Daytwah and that the players “like Darrell”, so we are “only” a 7 ½ point favorite. We have beaten the Lions 103 times, the most any team has beaten another in NFL history, and we have average about a 3-point win over that time. Rodgers is 16-5-0 over the Lions during his career, with a bit better percentage at home (9-2-0) than in Detroit (7-3). Coach really chuckles that 7-3 means Rodgers “struggles in Detroit”. We have averaged a 31-20 victory in those 7 wins and 11-19 in the losses. So let’s say that another way. Win-or-lose we give up about 20 points-a-game to the Lions over Rodgers career (exactly the same if we include Rodger’s games at Lambeau against them and almost the same as the series average of 19 over all 182 games). When we win, we average 3 TD’s. When we lose, we average 1 TD. We lose games to the Lions when our offense sucks and we score less than 20 points. The plan for this game is to play well on Offense. The mighty hippo foreshadows the Packers plan for the amoral Lions (Click On Link!)… Give them their average of 20 points, the Packers Offense will roll up 35. Bet the Pack, bet the Over. Packers 35 Lions 20 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them It's not often that Coach begins his tribute to a former player by introducing a new signee, but welcome to Green Bay Anthony Rush! At 6’-4” and 361-lbs, you are needed big time on our D-line. Why am I so excited about an overweight defensive tackle that’s been cut multiple times by other teams? Well, besides the fact that he didn’t go to that factory for stamping out dominant NFL linemen, Northwestern (Rush went to Alabama! …well, Alabama-Birmingham, but that’s still better than NORTHWESTERN!), he could be this decade’s Howard Green. Midway through the 2010 season, Ted Thompson claimed defensive lineman Howard Green off waivers at the behest of D-Coordinator Dom Capers. Green, 31, had been cut 12 times by 10 teams since entering the NFL as a sixth-round draft pick in 2002. The last time it was by the New York Jets, who after a couple of seasons grew weary of Green’s weight issues and eventually waived him after he tipped the scales at 355 pounds. Capers believed Green could help his defense that was leaky against the run … sound familiar? Green was hardly a “great” player, but he ended up filling a niche the Packers badly needed: another really big man in the middle. The Packers’ run defense improved from No. 25 in the league in rushing yards allowed (124.3 per game) in the seven games before Green’s arrival to No. 10 (107.5) in the nine games after. Before Green, the Packers ranked No. 10 in the league in scoring defense (19.4 points a game). In the nine games after, they ranked No. 1 (11.5 points). Sure, Green was just a journeyman gap plugger, but the dude filled a role (and a gap!) that ended up making a difference. The Packers might very well not have won the Super Bowl in 2010 without him. Recall it was Green who slapped Big Ben’s throwing arm on that pick-six by Nick Collins, and no team with a pick-six in the Super Bowl ever lost the championship game (Collins new this, and that’s why he celebrated so gloriously when it happened). Oh, and for the record, Green also did not attend Northwestern; rather, he was drafted out of LSU, a school much less frequently identified as a talent pool for impactful NFL defensive players. Without hyperbole (or sarcasm), in last year’s NFC championship match, the San Francisco 49ers could have actually won that game over the Packers without throwing a single pass. Each game we lost this year has again exposed our unending inability to stop the run. Más o menos, all that’s really changed defensively since that embarrassment in the gay bay 11 months ago is that we’ve replaced our downfield tackling machine (Blake Martinez) with a downfield missed tackle / missed assignment machine (Christian Kirksey). God help us if we need our middle linebacker to stuff the run. (In my best Edith & Archie Bunker vocal melody) … And you knew who you were then -- girls were girls and men were men, Mister we could use a man like Howard Green again. So, Howard Green, today we salute you as a waiver wire cast-off turned Super Bowl champion in Green Bay. And to Anthony Rush … no pressure, dude.
Mrs. Coach just said “Bakhtiari” again (it’s cool). |
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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