Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: Rodgers had the yips. As we head into the playoffs, much consternation exists in Packer Nation regarding noteworthy lackluster performances in recent weeks by Number 12. Some dim-witted, socially inept fans have suggested that his drop in performance had to do with a significant drop in his bedroom satisfaction due to a change in the leading ladies in his life. Really? It was all because of insufficient gameday felacio? It sounded even more puerile when a fan with a thick Wisconsin farmer accent called into a local radio show to assert that ridiculous notion. But I digress… Looking at real data, there is a solid case to be made for Rodgers’ inability to complete passes at an elite level dating back to the Vikings’ Anthony Barr 2017 cheapshot sack, when Aaron’s collarbone was severed. His accuracy has been inconsistent ever since he returned from that injury. That said, the injury itself appears to have had little to no effect on his arm strength. In fact, Rodgers still appears to have no trouble flicking the ball over 65 yards in the air and, unfortunately for Packers fans, he often OVERTHROWS receivers on deep balls. Other possible reasons?
So what’s the problem? In those periods of inconsistency, I believe Rodgers simply had the yips. What are "yips"? Well, like porn, it’s one of those things that isn’t easy for me to define, but I know it when I see it. And, hey, I’m not suggesting Aaron is a pussy – far from it. In fact, he probably stands in the pocket too long, all too often, absorbing more hits than he needs to! But, like any human being, Rodgers is susceptible to the physical effects of a mild form of the psychosomatic condition known amongst the mental trauma community as PTSD. His muscles unconsciously tense up (the yips) to the point where he lacks the fine motor control that he once took for granted before he was sidelined in a sling for an extended period of time. Take, for example, Aaron’s terrible mechanics. “Stop right there, Coach, Aaron’s always had bad arm angles and odd footwork, but they never were a problem before!” I agree; however, if his entire body is tensed up on top of having bad mechanics, it exacerbates the likelihood of him being inaccurate. Additionally, the game film shows he tends to throw in more of a defensive posture (e.g. throwing off his rear heel while backing up), instead of wielding an aggressive pass by leveraging oblique muscle torque as he did in his heyday. Try this at home: I bet you can’t tighten your oblique muscles in a throwing motion with your other skeletal muscles taught. OK sit down now, you look ridiculous. So what can be done? The good news is that Rodgers’ problem isn’t really insolvable mechanics, it’s more between the ears. Overcoming his psychological barriers will probably require him to take more of his own advice: R-E-L-A-X. That simple? Well, maybe! In what became the game-winning drive in Detroit, you could see him saying (when the camera zoomed in on in the huddle) “Calm down,” which most casual viewers likely interpreted as the field general leading his troops. On the other hand, as Coach believes, it was Rodgers verbalizing to himself what he needed to do to complete passes accurately. A salient need for this year’s Super Bowl run will be to have Mr. Rodgers keep from tensing up on Sundays. No offense to Dan Patrick, but maybe Princess Olivia should be brought back in for the playoff run. She famously claimed “No sex with Aaron the morning of a game” (wisely realizing it would be too reckless to have him risk exhaustion, or a back injury, or – worse, pull a hammie during some aggressive Dutch-door action), but when asked if blow jobs were out of the question she replied with a smile, “Not necessarily.” So maybe our farmer friend from the radio call-in show was on to something after all! I mean, nothing relaxes a man more while heightening his senses than a good morning hummer. …At least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme It’s been over a week since the squeaker in Detroit (actually our 2nd squeaker against Detroit this year) so Coach is going to assume that you, the loyal reader, has already studied the dusty corners of the internet where only the intrepid explore and, before you scrambled to erase your browsing history, you looked at all the main-stream-media analysis of the game (which means Coach is going with “analysis-lite” on the X’s & O’s this week). Quick aside, did you know we were featured in a recent Jeopardy episode? The Answer: “Detroit” The Correct Question: “Which NFL Team led for two full games, 8-quarters, of football during the 2019 Season but was beaten in both by the Green Bay Packers?” Wow, what a regular season? Nobody, I mean nobody, predicted 13 wins. While this is a very positive and unexpected result for the newly wed Aaron Rodgers and his best buddy Petite Fleur, this is Title Town and we don’t really care about 2019 if we don’t bring home another Lombardi Trophy. Let’s stay focused on that as we think about how we closed-out the 2019 Season. Big, unexpected win in St. Paul, MN followed by a nail-biter, narrow, win over a 3-win Lions team? Huh? Vikings-bad or us-good? Hell, they were playing for playoff positioning and went on to kick-ass over the NO Saints in the Wild-Card Round. They had every right to want to kill the Pack and couldn’t do it!! We good! Lions-good or us-bad? More like us believing our own press clippings. Much like the game against the Chargers, it was obvious that we believed the press and Vegas and we just did not show up to play. Coach, what do we conclude? Well if we “decide” to play, we have a team that could win the next two games and be in the Super Bowl. Some thoughts on the negatives… Turnover differential: We’ve lived on turnovers all year and we “only” broke-even with Detroit on turnovers. And we beat Detroit anyway! Penalties: For the whole season we are averaging 6 penalties per game and were the 9th least penalized team. This level of discipline bodes well for the Playoffs, but we shot ourselves in the foot in this game. And we beat Detroit anyway! Rushing: We’ve become a rushing team. While 120 yards is not bad, the 4 yds/attempt was in the bottom 1/3rd of the NFL for the week. We need to do something like our Season Average of 4.4 yds/carry during the Playoffs. And we beat Detroit anyway! Defense: In the 1st Half we played sloppy and lazy. The last two games Coach was praising Lowry after beating him up earlier in the Season. On this run both Lowry and Lancaster get just blown out of the hole against a mediocre D-Line. Are they tired? Maybe, but no excuses come Playoffs. And we beat Detroit anyway! What the hell? This exactly the same play the Vikings ran the week prior. We got lucky that Diggs overthrew the ball in St. Paul; Not so lucky this time, Amendola hit wide-open 3rd string QB Blough and put the Lions up 7-0. And we beat Detroit anyway! Some thoughts on the positives... Kicker: Mason Crosby is 22 for 24 FG on the year and 40 of 41 on extra points. Good enough for the Playoffs! Punter: JK Scott has recovered from Coach Meningitis’ attempt to “fix” him. Good enough for the Playoffs! Returns: Tyler Ervin is now ranked #19 in yards/punt return as you can see above, he’s also a threat on kick-off returns. Good enough for the Playoffs! Defense: Played really poorly in the 1st Half and then turned it on in the 2nd Half and shut down Detroit. The Defense finished the 2019 Season ranked #9 in points allowed. The D gave up way too many yards but got stops and turnovers when it mattered. Good enough for the Playoffs! Offense: We finished the Season as the #14 Scoring Offense and peaked at No. 7 when we spread the ball around and didn’t have Davante Adams. Is our running game good enough? Yes, normally it has been good enough throughout the Season, let’s hope this ass-kicking in Detroit on 4th and 1-yard was just an aberration. Is our passing game good enough? Sometimes yes, sometimes no… Coach is getting tired of saying that Jimmy Graham needs to be in sweatpants, but for whatever reason LaFleur is afraid to de-activate him. Graham has had a few nice plays this year, but more often than not he is a liability. Bench him. What’s left? Yes. Rodgers. Once again, this team will go as far as Rodgers can take them. We’re in the “pretty good zone” as a team, but AR is not playing anywhere near his peak level when he dominated the NFL in the year of our Lord 2011. As I said before (and ignoring his perfect QBR against the Raiders in Week 7), Aaron has occasionally had the yips. “The Problem” is that he doesn’t know it or isn’t willing to acknowledge it. Probably the most disturbing comment was Rodgers post-game presser where he acknowledged that he was missing passes, but he was confused why the passes weren’t’ connecting because they felt so good when he was throwing them. Coach understands. There’s a point in your 30’s where you can’t beat the 20-year-olds anymore in Rec-League basketball. Your mind knows where they are going before they do, but the body doesn’t cooperate. What does a rational person do when something doesn’t work? That’s right, STOP! We’re in a close game, and we need a first down? Right. Let’s chuck it 30 yards down field and watch the ball hit the turf. And then do it again. And again. Let’s just hope that in the Playoffs AR can sink his last ball with his 7-iron. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Woke Football League Modifying Stadiums To Feature Moving End Zone SAN FRANCISO, CA—A group of intersectional trans-vegan fair trade gender neutral climate activists announced plans to form a new Woke Football League, sources confirmed Tuesday when stadium reconstructions began across the country. “The WFL will offer a globally conscious and socially just alternative to the National Football League,” WFL spokesperson Peter Glasier told reporters. “Today’s fans are tired of the same old game, with its established rule book and time-honored traditions, which we now know are bad because they were created by a bunch of white men 100 years ago.” In the new league, teams will march down the field toward the Woke Zone and score points by throwing the ball to a receiver beyond the Goal Line. However, hurlers must keep their throwing elbow in contact with their hip, and the Goal Lines will constantly move away from the players as they approch the Zone. “We want to demonstrate that Masculinity has no place in our league and True Wokeness can never be fully achieved,” Glasier explained. Much like in the NFL, a first down is earned by traveling 10 yards, only the WFL player must also send a virtue-signaling tweet supporting the latest woke cause or organization. The opposing team may throw a challenge flag, at which time the supposedly woke organization’s Twitter will be scoured for any non-woke tweets, prompting the first down to be canceled. Coaches will have unlimited challenges. A team wins by proving they are more woke than their opponent (because no real points are ever made). Games are expected to last an average of 3.5 months when overwhelming fan indifference and common sense take hold. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Bears Fans Unsure Why Some Teams Still Playing Football In January CHICAGO—Bears fans across the country reported their confusion after discovering that some NFL teams still play football well into January. Puzzled fans saw four Wildcard games being played on television this past weekend. “The season’s been over for a solid month,” said one man in Chicago as he caught the game at Chili’s. “Is this a re-run or something?” He eventually concluded that the teams must be playing just for fun. “Fools!” he chuckled. “They need to rest up an extra month or two for next season, like the Bears do every year.” The strange occurrence gave fans an idea though: perhaps the NFL could have some kind of playoffs or postseason where teams that did well enough in the regular season could compete for a championship. “It’s not a bad idea, an extra month of football,” said one woman, who’s somehow a Bears fan despite there being dozens of other teams to choose from. “You could do an elimination-style tournament where the final two teams remaining can compete for the top prize, like a trophy or something like that to display as world champion for that year.” Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Yeah, Bucky fumbled his way out of another Rose Bowl victory, and Ohio State shoulda beat Clemson in the 1st playoff round. If there were no playoffs, tOSU would have played Oregon in the Rose Bowl instead. It would have looked something like this... ...And although the PAC-12's best would come to play regardless of the Big Ten representative... The intensity of the Scarlet & Grey talent would have schooled the Ducks... ...and Ohio State would be the Rose Bowl winner. So now it's on to NCAA basketball, and the perennial favorites... (Don't plan on a Big Ten team beating these guys) But before we go, here's our prediction for the National Champs... We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game What a Wild-Card weekend! In 3 of the 4 games, the “Vegas loser” not only won the game but beat the line substantially. Even more surprising to Coach, my “point differential” predictive model took a hit and went O-fer in all 4 games. (Over the last 10 years the higher Reg Season Pt Differential has won 75% of Playoff Games. Coach believes this change is due to Pete Dougherty plagiarizing my model in his Wildcard Weekend piece in the Sunday paper while suggesting additional otherwise-obvious and thoughtless points regarding teams with a 1st-round bye having a better chance at getting to the Super Bowl – uhm, duh. …2-minutes of my life I can’t get back.) And just like last year, all the games were close, average score 18-points, with a six-point average win (21-15). Pete Rozelle is smiling up from his grave, the long-time NFL Commish dreamed of “parity” when he designed the NFL revenue sharing formula. Now it seems his vision reigns, at least as far as the Wild-Card Round of the Playoffs. It really does seem to have been anyone’s game last weekend. Now let’s dig a little bit deeper for the Divisional Round. The table below has:
In the Divisional Round, all of the games seem to have much clearer outcomes. On the AFC sides both the Ravens and Chiefs look much stronger and should easily win at home. On the NFC side, Vegas really likes the Niners over the Vikings, with the same 9.5 pt line as on the AFC side. However, on all of the individual stats the Vikings and Niners are much closer. Who knows, the Niners have looked weaker the last few weeks, maybe the Queens can pull off the upset? (And if they do, that would set the Packers up as playing for Home-Field in the NFC Championship when they play the SeaTurds in the last game of the weekend). What is Seattle gonna try agin’ us? They are a running team that is down to their 3rd string RB, so they will have to rely on re-signed Marshmallow Lynch. He did score against the Eagles, but he only had 7 yards on 6 carries. He is not a threat. He is a decoy. That means they will rely on trick plays and Russell Wilson running all over the yard. He is a threat and a decoy. They will look at the 2019 game tape and be tempted to try flea-flickers like the one above and no-doubt Wilson will go out on a pass route at some point as he did in his Big Ten Championship and Rose Bowl performances. Let’s hope that BJ Metcalf has about as much accuracy as Stephanie Diggs. Yes boys & girls, this one is going to boil-down to how well Rodgers can control the game and how crazy the crowd is at Lambeau. The chart below is truly amazing. During the Favre/Rodgers era, the Packers are 8-1 at Lambeau vs. the Seahacks. And these games are typically not close, the average score as been 30-17. Coach was at all of the home games against the Blue & Teal and enjoyed them all (except for the 2016 game when Coach, Sr. was dead in Iowa). …and undoubtedly the most fun games in that stretch were the two playoff games. January 12th, 2008 was the “Snow Globe” game. The game started poorly with Ryan Grant losing two fumbles and the Seagulls taking a 14-point lead. Grant recovered his composure and went on to run for 201 yards and 3 touchdowns, both Packers playoff records. The Pack won, 42-20. The following week was Favre INT disaster against the Giants…different story for another day. The wildest ending was the Wild Card game, January 4th, 2004. Mike Sherman was our Coach and Mike Holmgren was running the Hacks. Former Packer QB “Mr. August” Matt Hasselbeck led SeaTac back to tie the game at 27 with 55 seconds left in the game. Favre got the Pack down to the 29 with 5 seconds left, but Longwell had too much Applebee’s the night before and missed a 47-yard opportunity to win the game. After winning the OT coin-toss Matt Hasselbeck leaned into Ref’s mic and famously exclaimed: “We want the ball and we’re gonna score!” Well Mr. August was correct, he did in fact throw the winning pass! On 3rd and 11 at their own 44, Hasselbeck dropped back and threw a pick to Al Harris, who ran down the Visitor’s sideline into the North Endzone. Whatta game!! Coach is completely confident that AR and Lefleur will get on the same page. Unless we catch the Badgers’ turnover bug, the Pack will turn the corner on a close game midway through the 2nd quarter and we’ll win going away. Packers 30 SeaHoax 13 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them Remember another #25, Dave Hampton? The crib notes version is that Hampton was drafted by Vince Lombardi out of Wyoming in the 9th round in 1969, and then about 20 minutes later Lombardi left the Packers and 3 years later Hampton was traded to Atlanta. He was a running back that also returned kicks, and he was pretty good at it. However, in 1970 he got hurt and his replacement is this week’s hero, a local dairy farm boy from Greenwood, Wisconsin, Larry Krause. (See how I tricked you there with the old “bait and switch”? Gotcha!) Pat Peppler, the Green Bay Packers' director of player personnel, took a chance on the running back out of tiny St. Norbert College in De Pere in the 17th round of the 1970 NFL draft. The 6-foot, 208-pound Krause had a solid camp, but he was Phil Bengtson's final cut. "Back then, if a team claimed you at that point they had to put you on their 40-man roster," Krause said. "The Packers cut me and hoped to get me through waivers. But the Steelers called and claimed me." The bottom line was this: Krause would be on an NFL roster. He just didn't know if it would be in Green Bay or Pittsburgh, and the Steelers wanted Krause at practice the next day. See also, Taysom Hill. Then Peppler made the call that Ted Thompson never did … a call to the Steelers' Art Rooney Sr. "I told Art he was a local kid, and we'd like to keep him," Peppler said. "Art was a great guy and let Krause go. He knew down the road the favor would be returned." Due to an injury suffered by Dave Hampton, Krause became the team's primary kickoff returner in '70. He carved out his niche as a Rookie, leading the special teams in tackles and being one of the NFC's top kickoff returners with 18 returns for 513 yards (28.5 avg.). "In the 1960s, every kid in Wisconsin watched the Packers game on Sunday," Krause said. "And now I was one of them. Lucky for me, NFL teams were just starting to hire special teams coaches and keep players just for special teams," he continued. "I was kind of a new breed as teams realized the importance of special teams and started emphasizing it more. I played on all of them." "I took a lot of pride in being the first guy down the field on coverage," he said. "I had to lead the team in tackles. That's how I'd stay on the roster." Krause's first and only NFL touchdown was a memorable one - and it came ironically against the Steelers in Pittsburgh on December 6, 1970. His 100-yard kickoff return keyed Green Bay to a 20-12 victory, evening its record at 6-6 before the Packers lost their final two games on the road. Bengtson retired after the 1970 season, and that was not good news for Krause. "Phil liked me and gave me opportunities," Krause said. On the other hand, Dan Devine had little interest in Krause as a position player when he took over the following year. In 1972, the Packers won the NFC Central title with a 12-4 record. It was a difficult and challenging season for Krause, however, as he broke his jaw in the preseason finale and spent the entire season on injured reserve. In 1973, Krause remained a special teams mainstay and standout. He returned 11 kickoffs for 244 yards (22.2 avg.), but had only 1 return in his final 1974 season. Devine resigned after the 1974 season to take the head coaching position at Notre Dame after a frustrating 6-8 campaign that included the Packers losing its last three games on the road. "Our team was divided under Dan Devine. It was the old Packer guard and the new Devine camp," Krause said. "Devine never had the full cooperation of the staff. As in any organization, there has to be one purpose, one focus. We never had that." Those sorts of things are difference makers between a team that loses half its games and a team with a 2nd round bye. Just sayin.
Krause went into the Banking & Insurance industry after football, and is now retired on a lake 20 minutes north of Antigo. Nice.
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Author"Coach" is the insightful collective brain and funny bone of a few legendary Packer fans who provide everything you need to know (and what Packers beat writers often plagiarize) about the Green & Gold, plus a weekly guest appearance by The Badger Underground. Archives
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