Just in time. We need this bye week. We didn't come out of the last one so well, but playing the woeful Detroit Lions at home is, in effect, a bonus bye week for the Packers because we get an automatic W without having to try. Here's a fun fact: 8 current active Lions players were not even born yet the last time the Lions won in the state of Wisconsin. Amazing as that sounds, it's true. What state do the Lions live in? That, of course, would be the state of Disarray. In fact, the Lions are sooooo bad, they only have 1 win! (But it was against the Bears, so that's not really anything to be proud of. BTW, the Bears are from Loserville. So, the Lions are woeful, and the Bears suck -- which is worse? That's like asking "What's worse, ignorance or apathy?" Of course, the correct response is "I don't know and I don't care." ) Create a seam here - X's & O's about the game or a scheme Ok, the gloves come off. A preseason Super Bowl favorite (along with the Colts), the Packers are stinking it up and Coach can’t take it anymore. There was a rough period for Packers fans between the end of the 60’s dynasty and the start of the current 23-year-and-counting run where we expect playoffs as the indicator of a minimally successful season. The 21 seasons where 8-8 and was a great year, the years where we backed-in (1972) and wallowed through the Players Strike (1982) to make the playoffs are long gone. The heritage and the legacy of the Green Bay Packers is one thing, and one thing only, Championships. The great teams of ’95-’98 won only one Super Bowl. The lax approach to SB XXXII, the TO catch at the Stick in ’98, the 2007 heartbreak on Saturday night at Lambeau, the 2011 disappearance of the Offense when the 9-7 Giants showed up for the Playoffs. Arizona, San Francisco, Seattle, enough? No not enough for Coach. Super Bowls XXI & XLV are fantastic to have in the trophy case……but between jerseys #4 & #12 we do not have enough hardware in the case at Lambeau. Thirteen NFL Championships are more than any other team, but we hunger for another, and we want it now. THE OFFENSE STINKS. Coach has ranted about Legume Capers and his Defensive Scheme for as many years as he’s been in GB (yes, including the enchanted year of 2010, but more on that in future weeks as we approach the playoffs). And against Carolina we had some huge breakdowns. Cam Newton went 15-of-30 passing including long passes of 59-yard completion to Jerricho Cotchery on a 3rd-and-13 in the second quarter and 52 yards to Devin Funchess for 52 yards as part of back-to-back touchdown drives and a 27-7 deficit. The Panthers 427 put the Big Legume’s defensive total at 1,475 total yards over the last three games. As frustrating as that is, as frustrating as it is to watch an anemic pass rush, Clinton-Dix out of position, poor tackling, etc., etc., etc…….it is not “the problem” this year. The Defense is not playing well enough to go far in the playoffs (yet again), no “the problem” is the offense. In the first half against Carolina we had five drives that went nowhere….contemplate this for a moment ye Packer faithful. An Aaron Rodgers led offense had drives of -7, -1, -1, 0, -7 yards in the first half. This type of production has led to an alarming lack of plays for the offense, low Time-Of-Possession, and, importantly, has left the Defense on the field for far too long. The table below shows the number of plays the Packers have had vs. the number of plays our opponents have had in each game. For the Season-To-Date we have averaged 59.9 plays per game (PPG), 7 fewer than our opponents and a sickening 31st in the League. The average number of PPG for our opponents (66.4) means that we have “made” our opponents the equivalent of the 9th ranked Offense. For those of you keeping score at home, the average of the last 3 games is even worse! We have ranked 30th with 55.7 PPG vs. 72.7 / 3rd ranking for our opponents. They have had the ball for an average of 17 more plays a game than we have!! The trend has been poor all year, but wheels seem to start coming off the bus during the Rams game. Coach was at the Rams & San Diego games and neither of those games felt like wins. Why? Well there have been many reasons: poor blocking, substandard play by Lacy, lack of separation by receivers. But he number one issue is poor play by Aaron Rodgers. Clearly he lacks confidence and he is waiting for his receivers to get open before throwing. The NFL is too fast; a QB cannot wait to “see” open receivers. Probably the best way to summarize the season to-date is to listen to #12’s summary of the ending at Carolina: “It was a great call, when I looked out to Peanut (Tillman) to see if he had eyes in the backfield, because I was worried about him shuffling off and him tackling Randall short of the goal line. Turns out (Jones) kind of ran Peanut into (Coleman) and Randall was wide open for the touchdown, so that's disappointing. I had the easy opportunity there for a pitch-and-catch touchdown, but I got scared by something. I can't explain it. It was a mistake by myself. I will definitely be thinking about that one on the ride home, but we have to move on tomorrow and get ready for this divisional stretch." Don’t think he knows he’s playing crappy? Have a look at Aaron Rodgers on the Sideline after the interception at the goal line. https://vine.co/v/elZOMPFAbnl Later he said “I should have been more decisive. I got off it and I should have gone to Davante (Adams). That's why it's so frustrating. I let the indecision slow me down a little bit.” This hesitation is not a new development. Rodgers has been holding the ball longer than usual for a month. His last truly consistent game from start-to-finish was Week 3. His ranking should rise down the stretch, but this has not been one of Rodgers' better years after his scalding hot start. 1. Brady 2. Carson Palmer 3. Cam Newton 4. Andy Dalton 5. Aaron Rodgers 6. Ben Roethlisberger FORMULA FOR THIS WEEK? We have to win to stay on top of the Division, so get your head out of the dark place. Offense & Defense --- Coach would make the team sit and stare at each other in silence for 30 minutes followed by 2 hours of Oklahoma drills for the whole team. But I guess real football is no longer allowed under the CBA, so:
WTF - The Coach's take on a bad ref call or a bad play call or the like Dear Hustler, I know you won't believe me, but this is really true... I actually perfectly predicted the first 6 non-punt plays that the Packers ran on offense to start the game against Carolina. Talk about predictable - sheeez. I'm not REALLY a coach, ya know. Just an average Joe that watches the Packers every Sunday (and occasionally reads Playboy for the interesting articles). I'm not claiming to have prophesied them before the game started, but before each play was ran I said (for example) "They're gonna play action rollout Rodgers to the right and throw to the TE to start the game." And they did (1st play). I then commented out loud to my dog that they would run the same pass to Kuhn to the left side in the subsequent series ... and they did (only they substituted Ripkowski for Kuhn, but exactly the same thing only different). ...actually, that was a very productive play (which they never ran again for some dumbass reason). As they broke the huddle the first several times, I accurately called out the targeted receivers and the general pass routes they would run, and I even suggested the inept faceplants by Eddie Lacy into the backs of JT Lang and Byran Bulagaria. My dog knows it's true, she suffered through it (looking at me like she couldn't figure out how humans got to the top of the pecking order, especially considering that I follow her around the backyard on Saturdays to collect her feces in a bag). Believe me, I'm NOT bragging here about being clairvoyant or an astute dissector of playbooks; I am in serious WTF mode -- scared out of my wits that we are on the breaking point of falling back to the days when my dad would scream at the Curtis Mathis and throw his sponge-like "TV brick" at the channel-changing dial, and my sister would tell him to shut up so she could practice her disco moves on paper footprints that she strategically placed on the living room carpet while listening to her Saturday Night Fever album. I mean, if a guy like me -- without any professional football training or sobriety, mind you -- can figure out what they're pretty much gonna run on every play, then just imagine what actual NFL defensive coordinators will be able to do to stop us. Hate to say it, but alas it is time for big Mike to start calling plays again. ...at least we could get to leading in the 4th quarter of the NFC Championship Game. I'm not sure how deep we can get with the crap that I've seen Tom Clements call in the last 3 or 4 weeks. The Bears Still Suck - the Coach has proof The pathetic Bears go to St. Louis to get silenced by the Lambs. No doubt Jay Gutless has seen the footage of Teddy Bridgewater getting knocked unconscious by the Rams D, so he'll pull a Jim Everett early / often and self-sack or fake a knee injury to avoid getting hit. Bear down! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWhPQvkIBWs Udder stuff - commentary from the Badger Underground BUCKY RANKED! Depending upon which poll you see or believe, the Badgers are somewhere between 22 and 25 in the college football rankings. In other words, the pundits finally got it right. We can beat most teams, but not about 20 of them. Maryland was able to muster enough gusto at home to hang with us until the 4th Q last Saturday, and it helped them that we played pretty crappy. But they aren't very good, and we are good enough to win against bad teams even when we don't play very well. So there you have it. This week Bucky will have one of its toughest opponents in weeks. The practice scrimmages promise to be tougher than the fighting ILL, Rugburns University, or the College of Ferryland. With a bye, there's not much to pontificate on other than to reemphasize the importance of the upcoming home game versus the Northworstern Mildcats or, as I call them, the Chicago Vikings. If we beat them, we will likely be in a good enough position for a respectable January bowl game against another overrated SEC team (see link below) -- which would turn out to be not too shabby considering the injuries and youth we've had to overcome this year with a new coach. And now here's something we hope you'll really enjoy...
https://youtu.be/eQnYfkDO5Ks We're gonna kick your a$$ - predictions for the next game Not sure Coach could say it much better than this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDRtFGDE6DM Beyond that, though, it is worth mentioning that the current version of the Packers OL is a good, but not elite outfit—not the caliber of the Tauscher, Clifton, Rivera, Wahle unit. Even when they were playing well earlier this year, the Bakhtiari got overpowered. They did a great job when Rodgers had his calf injury last year. Rodgers also made them look better by running out of trouble. When they had Nelson on the field, defenses could not cheat by crowding the line and daring us to beat them deep. Now that defenses are loading the box, the running game has also taken a hit. Lacy needs some space in which to work and get going, before he can run through arms and tacklers. Compounding matters, he now weighs 260 lbs, making it tougher to make cuts and burst. Starks probably isn’t any better than last year and isn’t as good as last year’s 2nd half Lacy. For the moment, until we can figure out a way to spread out defenses again, he gets the start but both backs will get a good share of carries. Back to this OL. Numerous times late last year they could not get 1 yard in goal line situations. Yeah, Sitton was dinged up. Or, you could argue that there should have been more creative play calling. Bottom line is that they are not overpowering. I think they are pretty good, but not elite. Weakest link is LT. Linsley screwed up a couple of plays last week which were crucial, but I think he’s generally pretty good. I give Rodgers credit for admitting that he got scared and choked on the TD pass to Cobb late, but he probably did so only because what everyone saw was pretty obvious. No talking your way out of that one. He has taken a beating in the press this week, with Cowherd comparing him to Cutler in how he relates to teammates (ouch). I wouldn’t go that far, but he is a 2-time MVP QB and many QBs and top WRs are egomaniacs. Comes with the territory. Conversely, Cutler will NEVER be an MVP (but he is OPP). Rodgers & McCarthy often clashed over play calling last year. Rodgers the politician kept that off the radar screen by occasionally giving McCarthy credit for good play calling. However, after McCarthy ran the ball 3 times into the strong side of Seattle’s defense for a quick 3 & out late in last year’s NFC championship game, Rodgers ripped his playcalling in the postgame interview stating "that’s how you lose ball games." Between that, the special teams debacles and Clay Matthews injury confusion on the sideline late in that game, McCarthy I am sure felt forced to give up the playcalling. The idea was probably something along the lines of if you (Rodgers) are the smartest guy in the rooms and don’t like my play calling, see if you can do better. Even though we are missing Nelson, who stretched defenses, opening up short passes, took defenders out of the box and gave us more space to run, we should be getting more production out of the guys we have. Drops seem to be way up this year, killing drives. Receivers don’t seem to be getting open, indicating among other things that the playcalling has become too predictable — as previously mentioned. New England seems to get their slow-footed guys open. Yeah, they have Gronk, but they also run pick and other plays schemed to get certain guys open. Defensively this week, we’ve got everyone back except for Shields. Shields is the best cover guy. We have struggled in the past when he was out, but we still had Tramon Williams on the field. House had games where he got torched, but also had a couple of games where he held down the fort. On this year’s team, Shields is more irreplaceable than ever. Peppers made a comment earlier this week that GB has nothing to prove. Coming from a guy who took chunks of plays off, vacationing his way out of Carolina and Chicago, he hasn’t brung it for weeks. His comment is 100% consistent with the way he has played. Incriminating himself, look for a big game Sunday against Detroit instead of in the last two games where we really needed him to elevate his play. Looking forward to seeing both Montgomery and Adams on the field and relatively healthy for the first time this season. Hoping that translates to some good productivity. We should be approaching the healthiest roster that we’ve had all year. Looking past Detroit, we’ll need it at MN. If we can be healthy going into the playoffs, I like our chances of getting to the SB. All the top NFC teams are flawed. The sooner a larger chunk of the playcalling gets back into McCarthy’s hands, the better. Get your torch and pitchforks. JB - Packer players you forgot about, but stories you'll remember about them Harry Sydney. Yeah, you know him as the velvety smooth-spoken ex-Packer who graces the airwaves at 4pm most weekdays, and pre- and post-game on Green Bay sports talk radio. But the thing about it is, in 1992 when it was 3rd and 2 from the 11 yard line, Harry Sydney caught Brett Favre's 14th career touchdown pass. Why is that significant? Because that touchdown reception on a snowy December day in Milwaukee was Favre's 2nd TD pass of that day (you'll recall the 1st TD pass was the infamous bomb to Sterling Sharpe when Sterling refused to cross the goal line and, instead, merely outstretched his hand with the football in order to have it cross the plane so he could score without going into the end zone - but then fumbled it prior to crossing the goal line and luckily had it bounce back up to him in the end zone). The opponent on that day, the Detroit Lions, scored 10 points against the Packers (recall the Lions were in the NFC Championship Game the year prior, but lost to the SB champs, Washington "insensitive name mascot" team. So, in effect, Harry Sydney's catch and run for that touchdown sealed the victory for Green Bay on that day. ...And the Packers have NEVER lost to the Detroit Lions in Wisconsin since then. Brett Favre never lost to Detroit at home, and neither has Aaron Rodgers. Shoot, even Matt Flynn beat the Cryons at Lambeau in 2011 as a joke. So thank you, Harry Sydney, for starting an annual tradition that many of us Packer fans take for granted each year (like Lambeau leaps, or leaves changing color by the 1st of October, or watching a drunk co-worker make an ass out of herself at the company Christmas party, or seeing Illinoise plates on a car pulled over by a Wisconsin state trooper on a holiday weekend), and that is of course the decades old tradition of beating the woeful Detroit Lions at home. It's all good. Comments are closed.
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Author"Coach" is the insightful collective brain and funny bone of a few legendary Packer fans who provide everything you need to know (and what Packers beat writers often plagiarize) about the Green & Gold, plus a weekly guest appearance by The Badger Underground. Archives
November 2022
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