Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: if we continue to work on ourselves, we can help the NFL become more inclusive… With inane assertions aimed at shaming people into feeling illogical guilt (ubiquitous these days), all 32 team names can be called out as inappropriate. For perspective, Coach dismantles their names one team name at a time: Las Vegas Raiders – Celebrates The Raiders of the Lost Ark, which featured prominent Nazi imagery. Denver Broncos – Horses have been subjugated and enslaved for millennia. Los Angeles Chargers – Anyone who has faced down a line of charging riot police would not find this name the least bit funny. Kansas City Chiefs – How about the Wise Honorable Indigenous Tribal Elders? Houston Texans – Celebrates the most racist state in the Union. Indianapolis Colts – This name glorifies guns. Jacksonville Jaguars – Jaguars are driven by evil rich “1-percenters” as they run over poor people. Tennessee Titans – Reinforces the harmful idea of power structures and male-dominated hierarchies. Pittsburgh Steelers – Making steel contributes to global warming, except of course when you make steel to build wind turbines or electric car factories. Cleveland Browns – This one’s probably ok. Cincinnati Bengals – It just sounds racist. …still looking into it. Baltimore Ravens – Named after the Disney Channel show That’s So Raven without the POC protagonist’s permission. New England Patriots – Patriots are the worst. If you truly love this country, you must hate everything about it and change it. Miami Dolphins – Painful reminder that Sea World still exists. Buffalo Bills – Bills are an evil byproduct of capitalism. New York Jets – The burning of jet fuel contributes to global warming, unless of course you are in the rare company of someone taking a jet to a climate change summit. Seattle Seahawks – Birds are unable to give consent to have their name used as mascots. It’s not like we can just take their rights, like unborn babies. San Francisco 49ers – The gold miner mascot hearkens back to manifest destiny and the destruction of Mother Earth. Arizona Cardinals – Too religious. Los Angeles Rams – Ram trucks contribute heavily to the existential climate crisis. By last count, we have less than 11 years left. New Orleans Saints – Public displays of religion go against the constitution, even thought it was created to allow it. Carolina Panthers – The panther was appropriated wholesale from Wakandan culture. Everyone knows that. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – This one’s actually ok because they were probably just stealing bread to feed their families. Atlanta Falcons – Celebrates one of the cheapest Smash Bros. characters, who is a smug little punk that only jerks choose. Minnesota Vikings – Associated with patriarchy-dominated Norse mythology. Chicago Bears – Murderous bears should never be celebrated. Detroit Lions – Lions are not vegans. Green Bay Packers – Glorifies butcherous meat packers. Meat causes global warming. Gross. Oddly enough, however, the mascot is embraced by the LGBTQX community. Coach isn't sure why, though. I'm just proud I learned how to spell LGBTQX. New York Giants – They prefer “persons of height.” Dallas Cowboys – A mutant half boy, half cow is tragic and should not be used as a mascot. Philadelphia Eagles – Eagles are a well-known Nazi symbol. Washington Redskins – Nothing wrong with this one as far as I can tell, although perhaps they should change the name to “DC” Redskins. This informative list should be a wake-up call to the NFL. Within 20 years, if the planet still exists, we may get them to put down the pigskin and kick around a rock while naked until it goes through an elevated vertical hoop, resulting in a death sentence for the losing team captain, just as the ancient Aztecs intended us to. …at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Not flawless, but a satisfying outcome nonetheless… With our 2nd win of 2020 we sit on top of the NFC Norris Division. The Queens were Off-Season picks to win the Division and Detroit was “much improved” as anal-ized by many pundits. In no shock or surprise to Coach’s loyal readers, the Queens and the KittyKats suck. [Didjya ever wonder where the word pundit came from? No, Coach doesn’t care either, but it turns out that the term derives from the Sanskrit term pandit (paṇḍitá पण्डित), meaning "sportswriter with no insight” So, now you are smarter than you were 3 seconds ago, you’re welcome.] Didn’t it feel like déjà vu all over again? Start out slow on offense, give up a buncha points and then come roaring back. This formula has worked well for the first coupla weeks on the little sisters of the weak-and-poor, but we’ll see how that holds up against good teams. The Lions held the ball for just over 10 min in the 1st Qtr and racked up 150 yards and 14 points to take a 14-3 lead. Unlike the two SF games last year, the Packers Offense came racing back in the 2nd Qtr and took control of the game by Halftime. The Offense really did look tremendous the rest of the game. Week 1 the Vikings focused on taking away the run and Aaron Rodgers went off for one of his best games ever. Week 2 the Lions focused on taking away the Pass and Aaron Jones set single-game career highs in rushing yards (168) and total yards from scrimmage (236), with three touchdowns (two rushing, one receiving). After two weeks of play, we have the No. 1 Offense in the NFL, as measured by points scored and by just about every other statistic for offense. We also are No.2 in Point Differential (Points Scored minus Points Allowed), a key predictive statistic for the Post-Season. Another encouraging point is that even the Special Teams are playing well. Fantastic punting and kicking, combined with “OK” returns and “OK” coverage units, have our short-bus-team ranked at No. 12 by Football Outsiders and No. 5 by Belcher Report. That is better at this point than any season since ’96 (we have yet to see if Tyler Ervin can play the Desmond Howard role, but keep your fingers crossed). While the Offense is great, we are ranked 21st in Points Allowed at 27.5 PPG. We could easily be even worse, but the Offense has held the ball so long that the Defense hasn’t had to play very much. An astute reader might ask, “How well do we do in actually stopping plays by the other guys?” Answer – not so good Norm. The big advantage in time-of-possession is masking how poorly we are playing D. Opponent Yd/Pass Rank 25 Opponent Yd/Rush Rank 30 If we weren’t holding the ball on Offense, we would be giving up many more points, much like the losses to Philly, the LALA Bolts and the Niners (2x) last year. Defense and Drops! The barrier between our current “Pretty Good Team” and a “Great Team” is simple enough … fix the Defense and stop dropping passes (more on the drops later in The Show!!!). Last week we focused on how fantastic the 2020 Offense is, so let’s dissect the Defense this week. Big Plays are the hallmark of this Defense. Week 1 we had the Safety and the Offense added a FG after the free kick, so credit the D directly with 5 points agin the Queens. This week it was Chandon Sullivan’s chance to be the hero. After A Jones’ 75-yard TD to open the 2nd half and an exchange of punts, the Lions had the ball 1st & 10 at their own 5 yd line. Sullivan did an outstanding job of baiting Pam Stafford into throwing the ball directly to him for a Pick-6. Poutine’s D does not use a disciplined approach. A fundamental principle of his Defense is for the front 7 (or 6 or 5) to go aggressively in to the opposing team’s backfield, by any route possible. While this does help pressure the QB, creates interception opportunities and makes us generally look good at stopping the pass, we can’t stop the run. This clip from last week looks very much like the game before (NFC Champ game against the Niners). This play is after Kenny Clark left the game, we have two down linemen and Zilarious Smith playing “standup” Nose-Tackle accompanied by three LB’s (3 DL, 3 LB, 5 DB’s -- a Nickel formation). After the snap there is mediocre penetration into the backfield and Zilarious runs right by Dalvin Cook, leaving a huge gap. This might not be critical if we had a LB to fill the gap but note: Kirksey is lined up 7 yards behind the line-of-scrimmage and then he is late diagnosing that the play is a run (not a pass) and he is late in recognizing where Cook is going. Net result? Kirksey makes a Blake Martinez type tackle 10 yards downfield. Ah, but Coach, this is an isolated incident isn’t it? Here’s another play later in the Vikings game. Same Defensive formation: 2 down linemen Z Smith playing “standup nose tackle” 3 linebackers (with Kirksey 7-8 yards off the ball) This time Zilarious doesn’t penetrate, he’s simply blown out of the hole (low man wins). This time Kirksey correctly diagnoses that the play is a run and then promptly runs himself into the wrong hole. Result? Derwood Cook has a massive hole to run through. Wait, is Kirksey the problem? Much like on the run plays above, the D-line pushes up-field, but they all get pushed to the outside. Kirksey lined up 7-8 yds behind the line-of-scrimmage and he quickly moves up and over the LOS to play “cleanup”, but he puts himself in too close and is in no-mans-land vs. the QB-Cousins. In the process he guesses wrong and goes to his left creating a massive hole for Cousins to run through. There was a bit of a kerfluffle this Summer when Blake Martinez said that the reason he made so many tackles downfield is that he had to play conservatively, and that his role was clean-up for all the other guys going aggressively into the backfield. After two games it looks like Martinz was right. When Kirksey hangs back, he tackles downfield. But when Kirsey does come up to help, he often (maybe usually?) incorrectly reads the play and is out of position to help. Had enough? Well surely Coach, with all that bad film from 2019 and from WK 1 2020 D-Coordinator Poutine would have reminded his guys how to play disciplined assignments, right? With the score 7-3 Lions and 2:35 left in the 1st Qtr, the Lions had the ball 2nd & 9 at the Packers 34 yd-line. The Packers line-up with a 2-3 Front (Dime Package with 6 DB’s). The yellow circle is on Z Smith who’s lined-up at left side LB. As outside LB, he has “outside contain” on any running plays (the DB next to him has coverage responsibility -- there are an H-Back, a TE and a WR lined-up on Detroit’s right side that he needs to help cover). Immediately after the snap Zilarious takes himself out of the play by jumping into the middle. The 52-year-old Adrian Peterson sees Zilarious vacating a huge hole, so he runs untouched for 25 yards, setting up the Lions 2nd TD. Give Montravious Adams credit, he was lined up at DT and almost got out to the corner to stop Grandpa Peterson. The play was a little different than the one we dissected in last week’s episode (Niner’s with Mostert in the NFC Champ game), but the situation was the same. Opponent Leading Knocking on the red zone door (the Niners were at almost the same yard line) 2nd down and long yardage … they are “supposed to” pass the ball … but why should they?
This is the formula that the entire NFL is watching with the Packers. Our D Coordinator dials up a Defense that is outstanding for a specific situation, but then the opposing QB recognizes it and audibles a run (if it wasn’t already anticipated by the OC) and then we get burned with the lack of disciplined play when guys run all over trying to make up for being in a bad alignment or Defensive play call. But we also just get manhandled sometimes. The next play is from late in the 3rd Qtr and you can see on the banner ribbon that we are up 34-14 and the game is truly over. Garbage time, right? Let’s pile up some statistics, get a blow out, get some sacks, right? It’s 2nd & 2 and if you’re Detroit you want to pick up a 1st down and at least close the point difference. Poutine is obviously playing pass the rest of the game as he is again in the 2-DT, 3-LB Dime (6 DB’s). Coach hates the D-Formation but will concede the argument (that Poutine presumably makes) that Detroit will be swinging for home-runs the rest of the game; so playing Pass Defense makes some sense. BUT…. Yet again, after the ball is snapped Zilarious aggressively takes himself inside (away from the play) and Kirksey hangs back and falls for the jab-step by the RB D’Andre Swift (Kirksey’s left, RB’s right). In still shot above you can see the 10 yds of green grass between Swift and Packer’s CB Kevin King (#20) with nary a D-Lineman or LB to slow him down. Also make note of the two D-Lineman, Dean Lowry (#94) and Kingsley Keke (#96)…they are being pushed 2-yards backwards and are getting killed by the Detroit O-Line. Granted it’s 3 on 2, but they are getting their asses handed to them and they have violated rule No. 1 in line-play: “low man wins”. At one level this is a boring play during garbage time, so who cares? Right? We gave them the first down on this play and eventually a TD on this drive. Watch this loop a few times and you will be absolutely disgusted. Detroit is out of the game and we should be ripping their throats out. Instead we are letting them ram the ball down our throats. We may not have elite D-Line talent after Kenny Clark, but when we are making the same mistakes with fundamentals, week-in-and-week-out, you really have to ask about the coaching. Coach had several episodes last year focused on watching Lowry stand up at the snap and then getting blown out of the hole. Not a damn thing has changed this year. Good folks out there, the Defense is simply not good enough right now to go anywhere meaningful at the end of the 2020 Season. Please remember we had the No. 1 Scoring Defense when we won 3 of our 4 Lombardi Trophies, including 1996 and 2010. What we are running is a simplified version of the Dom Capers’ 3-4 Defense so that less experienced players can play. But in the end, it’s too much finesse and over-thinking what the other guy might be going to do. If we want a Super Bowl, we have to significantly improve the Defense during the course of this Season. Addition by subtraction …. join me now: Fire Pettine. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up NFL Players Wear Special Lace Collars to Honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg ST. PETERSBURG, FL—NFL players are honoring the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg this week by wearing pretty lace collars just like Notorious RBG used to wear. In a touching show of respect for the late Justice Ginsburg, and in solidarity with her progressive cause, Ndamukong Suh and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took to the practice field yesterday wearing a stunning variety of delicate white collars inspired by RBG's wardrobe. According to several commentators on ESPN, the coaching staff fell silent as the players all knelt on one knee and chanted "RBG! RBG! RBG!” ”Yeah, RBG was an amazing person," said Suh after the practice. "I have her biography right here and I totally read it right before practice today. She was a judge. That's cool, I respect that. Judges judge things and not everyone can do that. She believed in Black Lives Matter and being on the right side of history and stuff." Tight End Rob Gronkowski also expressed his happiness with the collars. "It's good to honor her today with these lacey things. Commissioner Rodger Goodell and Nice President Biden told us to wear them so we did. I just took this little doily thing from under a table lamp at my mom's house and cut a hole in the middle. Easy." NFL players are vowing to wear the collars until Trump is removed from office, or until angry rioters burn their football stadiums to the ground, whichever comes first. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Bears Game Keeps Interrupting Commercials CHICAGO—A promising series of commercials kept on getting interrupted by a dumb football game, multiple sources across the country confirmed Sunday afternoon. "Just when you start to get into it, they jump right back to the guys chasing the ball around," said one woman in Peoria, IL who was attending a party specifically to watch the commercials for The Masked Singer in order to get clues prior to the weekly Hollywood competition. "You'd think they could stop cutting to the dumb football game for at least a few minutes, but sure enough, it seems like every minute or so it's right back to those talentless morons on the field." Sources confirmed FOX would remain on the football game, despite overwhelming disinterest, for minutes at a time before going back to the commercials. "If they keep this up, I'm just not gonna tune in next week," lamented one viewer. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground BU Projects Badgers to Run the Table After cursory analysis and research, we at the Badger Underground can unequivocally say that Bucky will not lose any regular season games. How did we reach this auspicious conclusion? Well, we cracked a 6’er of Spotted Cow and fired up a Zoom call with some of the biggest Badger experts in our contacts list. After one day of practice, it is not too hard to figure out how things will go. These are what we see as very good signs on offense (defense next week!)... OL- Just when we were worried about a drop off from a regular badass performance in 2019, we just learned that everyone’s favorite red mullet is returning. John Dietzen is back in action baby, returning to the team after retiring from football in February. QB- Mertz! Mark our words, the much ballyhooed redshirt freshman from Kansas will be our new starter. RB – Remember 2017 when New Jersey freshman Jonathan Taylor burst onto the scene? Bucky went undefeated. Look for much the same with New Jersey Freshman Jalen Berger! WR – With the departure of Cephus, Cruickshank, and Tayler, we are hanging our hat on the trifecta of 3 star recruits led by cool name leader Chimere Dike. TE – Ferguson will be solid again and will be supported by cool name runner up Cam Large (another 3 star recruit). No Ohio State and no Penn State on the schedule. Road game at Michigan in front of no fans or a stadium 25% full? No problem. See you October 24th! We look forward to watching revenge-minded Bucky Jumping Around all over the Fighting Ill in the opener. We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game The Packers are a 3.5-point Dog to Nawlins according to Vegas. Wow. Really? Well, let’s break it down. The Saints were established as an NFL Expansion Team in 1966 and started League play in 1967. Overall the Packers lead the series 16-9-0 by an average score of 28-24 (see table below), dating back to their first meeting on Nov. 17th, 1968. Most’a youse yung’uns think of the Saints as a good team, and they have been since Sean Payton took over in 2006. Payton and the Saints have a 62% winning mark and won the 2009 Super Bowl. But let’s just say that before 2006, they “struggled”. From inception thru 2005 the “Aints” only won 40% of their games. In the Sean Payton/Drew Brews/Aaron Rodgers era the two teams have played 5 times with 2 of those games in NOLA (’08 & ’14). The Aints won both of those by an average score of 48-26, but this week will be different! It’s early in the 2020 Season, but both teams are mirroring each other. Both have good Offense (#1 & #6 respectively) and both have crappy Defense (#21 & #23 respectively) So far in 2020 the Packers have a net 14.5-pt/gm advantage, but obviously there is more to consider than just that. Another factor is the crowd. Normally the noise is beyond OHSA limits, but this year the Aints have copied the Packers and are not allowing fans for the first few games. However, there are reports emerging this week that they will be allowing 750 “family members” of players, coaches and staff into the Dome. Let’s say that doesn’t matter, so we’re still in a Neutral-Field situation. {WTF, how do you come up with a number like 750? Why not 785 or 207 or 3-19? Let’s hope one of A-Rods’ calls this week is “750”, something like “New York Bozo”} Normally Vegas gives the home team 2-3 points, so let’s give them the 2-point normal home advantage, plus another 3 points for the Brees/Payton/750-“fans” hex on the Packers in the Dome. They have beaten the Brady-Bucs and lost to the Chucky-Rayda’s; so let’s call strength-of-schedule for Aints even with the Pack. Net all of that out and the Packers should still be something like 9 or 10-point favorites this weekend (see chart above). Moving on to the players… Yes Billy, they have Alvin Camaro at running back, but he is ranked #7 in total yards from scrimmage behind the guy below at #1. Our rushing attack is #1 at 208.5 yds/gm vs. NOLA at #27 and 3.7 yds/carry. Yes Billy, I heard you, they have a good running back. But our RB is truly a RB/WR combination that Rodgers is raving about: “That was a pretty spectacular catch, him high-pointing that, and it was tight coverage”. Jones has made 19 of his 54 catches in 2019/20 after having lined up in the slot or out-wide. Not buying that, want another motivator for Jones to “beat Camaro”? Camaro has a new contract and A Jones is still looking for one… We also have Jamaal Williams averaging 5.6 yards/carry and the “Rookie-Hammer”. AJ Dillion has only had 7 carries so far, but he’s averaging 4.4 yds/carry. More importantly, they’ve all been tough carries where the defense knows he’s getting the ball and he’s still getting yards. Here’s hoping he gets 7 or 8 more carries in Nawlins. The Aints have the #4 rushing defense (3.3 yds/carry), but our trio will bust up that average. Eliminate the Drops & Trust AR…and we would have hung 50 points on Detroit. Of course the main weapon we have is none other than Aaron Rodgers. We easily could have had more points in both of the games this year, four more right here. The Lions were showing heavy blitz, A-Rod read the blitz and had a hot read for Bobby Tonyan – TD! Alas, no. Petite Fleur called a timeout right before the snap and killed the play because he wasn’t sure that Rodgers knew what he was doing. Oh how Coach wishes they had Rodgers mic’d-up for that play. He was 18 of 30 passing for 240 yards and 2 TD’s against the Lions. According to LaFleur’s count, there were 6 dropped passes, at least one of which would have been another TD (another 7 points instead of 3). That’s right, 8 more points if we simply catch the ball and don’t have the Coach call timeout. Even with Davante Adams potentially sitting this one out, we have an advantage overall on Offense. All of that stuff is interesting Coach, but what is the real story of this game? Oh, oh, so right Billy, there are two more keys to this game. Reason Number 2: Much has been made about NOLA QB Drew Brees and his loss of arm strength. While it is true that the 57-year-old Brees isn’t throwing the ball much past the line-of-scrimmage this year. He is averaging 6.9 yds/pass-attempt vs. A-Rods’ 8.2 yds/att, which has led to lots of speculation this week of him having “hit the wall” or he’s “lost his arm.” Don’t be so sure! Let’s wait ‘til after the game to declare that. If he has “lost it,” that will be a big factor in whether or not they can be the scoring machine the normally are in the Dome. But a weak arm is not the problem. You see, Coach has very deeply “collaborated” with Vicki Vallencourt and Coach has uncovered the real issue … the dreaded dementia. Vicki went undercover with Brees’ family and unearthed this video of him (Click on Link) at a recent Purdue WaterHeaterFabricators reunion showing his class-mates how he almost beat Wisconsin back in ’98. Apparently Brees spent most of the evening explaining to anyone who would listen that “he can still do it.” At last report Brees is spending most of his time with Momma. She is purportedly not in favor of Drew playing the Pack this week, said she: “No son of mine is gonna play any fools-ball!” Reason Number 1: The game is on NBC and we won’t have to listen to the flipping incompetent idiot Greg Jennings for a 3rd week in a row. Coach is just sick of hearing this Western Michigan educated media kiss-ass. When not being paid in front of a mic he had nothing good to say about Green Bay or Rodgers after he defected to the Queens, but now he babbles on incoherently throwing glowing praise on both as he whores himself out for a self-respectless TV paycheck. Give me Joe Buck and Troy Aikman any day over this idiot. Go mortgage the house and put it all on the Pack to not only cover the spread, but to win convincingly. Packers 38 Saints 31 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them One of the best things about having a storied franchise like the Green Bay Packers, is that you run across some great player names from days gone by. Like this week’s honoree, Charles “Buckets” Goldenberg. Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Russian Empire (before the Bolshevik Revolution and USSR), Buckets immigrated with his parents to Milwaukee in 1915. Buckets’ name was a play on “buttocks” because his rectum was so large it actually caved in most of his posterior cheeks. Young Buckets was a star running back for the University of Wisconsin until his senior season, when he was dropped from the team for cutting classes. The next year he became a fullback with the Packers in 1933. He burst onto the professional football scene, leading the NFL in TD’s his rookie year, with 7. However, that was Clark Hinkle’s position so Buckets turned into an explosive blocker on the offensive side of the ball in order to garner more playing time, and he arguably had an even greater impact on defense (yep, he played all 60 minutes). One of Goldenberg's most effective tactics was shooting through opposing offensive lines and making tackles in the backfield before plays had a chance to develop. Buckets is credited with causing the original Draw Play by consistently being in Sid Luckman’s face on passing downs – forcing a hand off. For reference, Sid Luckman is a Hall of Fame quarterback. In fact, he was the last decent quarterback the Bears had. Luckman retired in 1950. Not one to take it easy, Buckets was a professional wrestler during the offseason. He made the circuit around the upper Midwest before the advent of sportstelevision; something, for example, The Rock was able to take advantage of when his football career flamed out. Goldenberg played 13 seasons for the Packers, a span surpassed by only one other lineman in team history, Forrest Gregg (R.I.P.). Goldenberg also played on three Packers championship teams in 1936, '39 and '44. He was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 1972, when he famously addressed the crowd saying “I’ll always be a Packer, and the Bears will always suck!” …a locution paraphrased by Packers fans around the world still today! Buckets Goldenberg died in 1986, too young, at the age of 75. So today, Buckets, we salute you!
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Author"Coach" is the insightful collective brain and funny bone of a few legendary Packer fans who provide everything you need to know (and what Packers beat writers often plagiarize) about the Green & Gold, plus a weekly guest appearance by The Badger Underground. Archives
November 2022
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