Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show !!! Before we get started with our regular programming, a big shout out of congratulations to the winner of last week’s Clever Perverts contest, Wayne Kerr of Pound, Wisconsin! For his winning entry of “Michael David Barrett,” Wayne will receive a redacted nude photo of Erin Andrews from her civil lawsuit, signed by Barret and secretly taken by he, the owner and operator of the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University, through an altered peephole in her room. Good on you, Wayne! Now, back to The Show !!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: …the commercials during the Draft have perfectly identified their audience. Coach won’t deny that he continuously had the Draft on one of the sports channels in some back room of his house this past week, but he didn’t sit there and watch every team draft each player as if he knows whether that player will be any good in the NFL. Nor does he believe that Mel Kiper’s “best available” list and the like have much substance. No, he just had the Draft on barely loud enough so that if the term “Packers” was mentioned he could waltz on in to said room to see if the team was “on the clock” or traded up/back. …just because it’s interesting to see who the new players will be on the roster. Of course, Coach does not have the audacity that others do to unknowingly opine on the merits of Packers picks (nobody knows whether the picks will be good/bad/so-so until late October – nobody), so why portend? But here’s what I do know: commercials definitely say something about the typical viewer of the show they are watching. Ever stumble across re-runs of The Andy Griffith Show, or Gunsmoke? Then you my friend have probably also learned an awful lot about in-home catheters and the benefits of a reverse mortgage. Keep that in mind as you guess which demographic group was being targeted in each round of the NFL Draft, as ranked by top 3 commercial spending for time on ABC, ESPN and the NFL Network: Round 1 (1st hour): Gatorade, Verizon, Stendra Round 1 (2nd hour): State Farm, Lowe’s, Viagra Round 1 (3rd hour): Sleep Number, Toyota, Cialis Round 2: Taco Bell, Bud Light Seltzer, Levitra Round 3: General Motors, Super Beta Prostate, Viagra Round 4: Frito-Lay, T-Mobile, Levitra Round 5: Draft Kings, Progressive, Stendra Round 6: Sketchers, Ford, Cialis Round 7: Scott’s Lawn, FTD, Viagra Based on how these commercials aired, Coach asserts that anyone who watches the NFL Draft in its entirety is either a basement dwelling, wannabe-athlete hooked on fast/junk food, get-rich-quick schemes and social networking, or a guy in a golf shirt and khakis who watches Benny Hill re-runs while he waits up late on his living room couch every Wednesday for his cantankerous wife to get home tipsy from ladies Bunco night and then bone her so she won’t leave him. …at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Whadda draft!! Maybe you haven’t heard, but the Packers drafted a buncha guys last weekend. An interesting trend, one you may have read about. Record numbers of players were selected from the SEC and the Big10. Why? Easy, it’s The Covid Norm. When in doubt go with the guys that were heavily recruited out of High School and who you’ve actually seen on film against top talent. Take the risk out, look for the obscure guys later. Preseason will probably get the highest ratings it’s ever had, particularly by Scouts … every NFL Team is going to be out there looking for the guys they missed by focusing on “the Bigs.” “Enahow, Coach, how do you grade the Packers’ 2021 Draft Class?” Norm, I keep telling you, ya gotta wait three years to grade it out! But what can we say about the 2021 Packers Draft? Negative: Goutie did frustrate Coach in that he did not manage to turn our numerous late round picks into a couple more “Top 100” picks. That said, it takes two to tango and the other clubs are just as smart realizing a noteworthy lack of talent in the later rounds this year. Positive: On the other hand, he didn’t waste them either, we used one to trade up in the 3rd and made 9 picks in total. Negative: We didn’t address LB and DL until the 6th & 7th Rounds and the UDFA Class. Historically, these guys are just August oxygen vacuums in the Hudson Center. Positive: We drafted for need and now have 16 new Green Bay Packers who all look fantastic on paper. Take a second look at the chart above, that’s real meat applied to real needs. Positive: We really stocked up on OL. Note it was a strength last year, but we are down 2 or 3 of our “7-Starters” from last year (Bakhtiari – injured, Wagner – gone in FA, Linsley – gone in FA) and Goutie restocked with 6 OL!! Why so many? Think about it, 1 out of every 5 players on your team is an offensive lineman! Better have a bunch of guys to evaluate because you need several really good ones every game. Positive: The Badgers were finally recognized has having a football program by the Packers! With the passing of Ted Thompson, local boys Cole Van Lanen and Jon Dietzen were able to be signed. Here’s hoping they both at least make the Practice Squad. This was Goutie’s 4th Draft and got Coach ta tinkin’ ’bout where Goutie has focused his premium “Day 1 & Day 2 Picks” (first 3 Rounds of the Draft). The chart below sort of jumps out at you. Across all four Drafts, he’s picked 6 Defenders and 7 Offenders in the first 3 Rounds. Another thing that jumps out is how good (generally) his picks have been. It’s too early to tell how the 2020 & 2021 Draft Classes will stack-up over time, but the 2018 & 2019 Classes look pretty good. Positive: So far all of Goutie’s 1st Round Picks look like really, really good players (J. Love – TBD). Only two of the 13 are dudds for sure: Josh Jackson and Oren Burks, but at least they have contributed on ST (Sternberger is on the bubble too, but he gets an injury-hall-pass so far). To be fair to Burks, sure he’s no good but he is better than most other guys taken in that shitty 2018 draft class. Ponder this, Burks was taken in the 3rd round (too high for him, right?), but the best player still in the NFL drafted AFTER Burks in 2018 across all 32 teams is MVS (5th round)! What really stands out as weird is this year’s draft was “All Defense” in 2018/19 and “All Offense” in 2020/21 … maybe a little bit more consistency is called for? Goutie being good in the 1st Round also got Coach ta wundrin ’bout how many Cornerbacks the Packers have selected in the 1st Round. It turns out that Eric Stokes is the 9th all-time. Putting this list together really took Coach down memory lane. Herb Adderley is the only one on the list who’s in the Pro Football HOF, but Willie Buchanon at least needs to be in the discussion! (Too bad Willie played on really bad teams in the ’70s. He was Defensive Rookie of the Year in ’72 and they did make the Playoffs with Bart Starr as QB Coach and John Brockington pounding the rock in his 2nd year. Unfortunately, the team hated Coach Dan Devine or they might have done some damage in the Playoffs.) So, who will Eric Stokes resemble on the field? Will Stokes follow in the tradition of Herb Adderley and be a weapon on Defense? Or, will Stokes continue his bad habit from College of grabbing receivers and getting penalized like Ahmad Carrol? Coach, like literally everyone else, has no idea how Stokes will do … all we know is that we should R-E-L-A-X and know that, like John Lennon said, All You Need is Love to enjoy the journey with Stokes. *** BREAKING NEWS *** Disgruntled Player Disrupts Entire NFL Ok, Coach was not going to dive into this unseemly affair, but it’s hard not to with so many of you asking about Coach’s opinion. Let’s go back and make sure we are all starting from the same point. Hunter Bradley has been the Packers’ All-Pro Long Snapper for many years now and has been the lynchpin around which this team has turned. He and former Coach Melissa McCarthy reached a point of irreconcilable differences and McCarthy was forced out with four games left in the 2018 Season. After McCarthy was dispatched, Mark Murphy instituted a Management-by-Committee philosophy to “break down silos in communication” … and, natch, Mark Murphy is the head of the committee, effectively giving him both the President’s Role and the General Manager Role. This also effectively reduced the GM Role to “Head of Scouting” and “Recommender of Roster Moves.” Like all committees, the plan was working really well as long as it faced no important decisions. To Gutekunst’s credit, he noticed that Long Snapper Bradley’s play was slipping in 2018 & 2019, so he recommended that the Team acquire Joe Fortunato as the heir-apparent at Long Snapper. As all of Coach’s loyal readers know, Long Snapper is critical to the success of the Packers and Coach supported the need to acquire another good LS. (See last year’s Draft Edition for all the math behind how to draft a Long Snapper.) Ok, now we’re caught up to Training Camp 2020. Well, you guys all know what Hunter Bradley is like. He carries a chip on his shoulder like nobody else. He was plenty PO’d about the addition of Fortunato, but Hunter took the high road and said very little in public while giving young Joey tips along the way. That good-guy stuff all ended on the 1st Day of the Draft when Hunter Bradley’s “people” released a story indicating he did not want to return to the Packers. This has even escalated into Hunter saying he would not return unless Gutekunst was fired. (Well, reportedly he said this, but the chicken shit won’t talk in public, so nobody really knows WTF he’s thinking.) The situation has been boiling for months and Murphy, Gutekunst and LaFleur have all individually flown out to Malibu to visit Hunter Bradley and talk him into returning to the Pack. Murphy even left a Michael Scott gift basket at Bradley’s beachfront house. LaFleur has even given press conferences in the last few days begging Hunter to come back and lead the Team. The fallout has been a huge surprise to Hunter Bradley, and by most polls the fans are 80:20 against his bovine excrement. Bradley appeared on the Pat McAfee show on a number of occasions over the last year. When asked, Hunter always gave obtuse and obscure answers to McAfee’s questions about his future. In politics this is called “plausible deniability,” in Green Bay we call it “feeding bullshit to the fans.” So, how will this all come to closure? Who knows, but Coach will close with a Chinese Proverb: “May you live in interesting times.” WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Vaccine Dose Reminds King What Muscle Soreness Feels Like OAKLAND, CA—Deciding to take the day off to recover, Packers cornerback Kevin King was reportedly reminded Monday what muscle soreness felt like after receiving his first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine. “What the hell is happening—what is this strange sensation I’m feeling in my upper arm right now?” said King, who gingerly massaged the tender spot where he had received the injection as he attempted to recall the last time he had subjected a muscle to that much stress. “This takes me straight back to that time in high school when coach made me participate in a tackling drill, or that day after I tried lifting weights once in college. It’s almost like there’s a little bit of a burn going on in there, and I have to say, I really don’t care for it. Sometimes my limbs fall asleep as I watch receivers run past me toward the end zone, but this is worse. I guess I really overdid it today.” At press time, King announced that he would only be making slow, deliberate movements for the next three weeks in order to make sure he was rested and ready to receive the vaccine’s second dose. Panthers Adopt Patchy-Haired, Shivering Rescue QB Who Spent Years Abused By Jets CHARLOTTE, NC—Bringing him into Bank of America Stadium where they washed off the grime with a nice warm bath, the Carolina Panthers adopted a patchy-haired, shivering rescue quarterback named Sam Thursday, who had spent years being abused by the New York Jets. “When we saw him, our hearts just broke and we knew we had to give up a few draft picks to get him,” said Panthers coach Matt Rhule, who revealed that Sam was so traumatized by the years he spent mistreated in New Jersey that he ran into a corner and started whimpering when they first threw a ball to him. “He’s in rough shape, he was beat up pretty bad so he didn’t want to go anywhere near the coaches and other players at first, but we eventually coaxed him out with a nice meal. The sheer lack of positive experiences he’s had with football probably mean he’s scarred for life, but that doesn’t make him a bad quarterback. We think with some love and attention, he could get healthy and maybe even become a decent backup.” At press time, Sam had scrambled under a bench and started crying after seeing the Jets logo on the Panthers 2021 regular season schedule. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Chicago Bears are ‘where quarterbacks go to die’: Jim McMahon CHICAGO—There’s nothing particularly profound in blasting the Bears for their decades of quarterback failures. People do that all the time. But it’s blistering when it comes from one of the franchise’s all-time heroes in Jim McMahon. Jim McMahon won 2 Super Bowls in his memorable NFL career, one with Chicago in 1985 (the infamous “doesn’t really count” Super Bowl) and one with the Packers as Brett Favre’s backup at the Superdome. As the lone starting quarterback to ever win a Super Bowl for the Bears, he publically torched his former organization while praising the Green Bay Packers. The 61-year-old McMahon said that Green Bay is his favorite franchise in the league and the Bears can’t compare. “I think it’s where quarterbacks go to die,” he said when asked to comment on the Chicago Bears’ move up in the draft to pick an over-rated, over-hyped signal caller (again), in Justin Fields from The Ohio College. That sounds harsh, but, actually, he is factually accurate. For all quarterbacks who have landed in Chicago with the Bears, their careers never actually sprouted any meaningful success. The Bears’ most recent big splash / bust at the position was taking Mitchell Trubitchsky No. 2 overall in the 2017 Draft (before moving on to be the Bills’ backup) over Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes. You’ll recall it was a similar crash for 2003 first-round pick Rex Grossman (36 games) and 1999 first-rounder Cade McNown (25). And now Chicago is stumbling into 2021 with veterans Andy Dalton and Nick Foles with hopes they will mentor young Fields with their prowess for holding clip boards. Nick Foles wilted after the Bears traded for him last year, but his career wasn’t exactly blossoming before that. Same for Mike Glennon, Jason Campbell and many others among the 34 players who have started at quarterback since McMahon’s last game in 1988. No. 35 figures to be newcomer Andy Dalton, who at 33 has already fizzled with his original team and spent last season as the backup in Dallas. Then, you guessed it, Fields will become mistake number 36. Regarding the Packers, McMahon said “It was the best team, or the best organization, that I’ve played for of the seven teams I’ve played for. By far. From top to bottom it was great people.” It’s hard to argue with him. The Packers have produced elite quarterbacks for decades, while all that time the Bears still sucked. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Local Products Now Packers!!! Badgers Offensive Linemen Cole Van Lanen from Green Bay (Bay Port) and Jon Dietzen of Seymour are now both Green Bay Packers (well, at least at the start of training camp), which officially qualifies them for at least one more major score with chicks in Madison before making the 2-hour trek north. Congrats, fellas! And, uh, wear a raincoat. We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game Alas, there’s no game next week to predict – in fact, we won’t even know until May 12 when the Packers will be playing their opponents this year. So Coach has watched all the tape, reviewed copious scouting notes, and conducted numerous interviews in order to present the most well thought out Packers schedule prediction for 2021… Packers 2021 Mock Schedule 7.0 Week 1: Monday Night Football on ESPN at the Detroit Lions (the 1st game of a double header, the debut of Detroit’s mentally unstable head coach) Week 2: Sunday Football Night in America vs the Chicago Bears (seems like Packers - Bears game is always an early season Sunday night game) Week 3: Noon vs the Cleveland Turds (Gold Package, we can tell Milwaukee fans they are lucky to see Baker Mayfield and they will believe us) Week 4: Noon at Baltimore Slum Havens Week 5: Noon vs TJ Watt (Kevin King benched in favor of Eric Stokes for this game) Week 6: Thursday Night Football at the Minnesota Vikings (awful colors night) Week 7: 3:25pm vs the Seattle Shehawks (looking down the cross for Ciara to be sporting NHO’s) Week 8: Bye (We need a bye here to study the photo above a little more. In reality, the Packers will never get a mid-season bye week because the schedulers hate the Packers – we all know that) Week 9: Noon at the Cincinnati Bungles (trap game) Week 10: 3:15pm at Racine Cardinals Week 11: Noon vs Minnesota Vikings Week 12: 3:25pm at San Francisco Forty Whiners (Trey Lance debut / debacle) Week 13: Noon at New Orleans Aints (Jameis Winston bobblehead / free crab legs night) Week 14: Noon vs D.C. Foreskins (Gold Package, Milwaukee fans get screwed again with another lame home game, as it should be) Week 15: 3:25pm vs LAms (won’t be as cold as we want, but too cold for most of the dozens of Rams fans in the world to attend) Week 16: Noon at Chicago Bears (gonna be a real cold one) Week 17: Noon vs Detroit Lions (it seems like we always end against Detroit, I might just listen to Wayne and Larry from my ice shanty) Week 18 (Week 18? Holy crap can you believe it? Seems like it was just last year I picked the Pack to go 12-2!): Sunday Football Night in America at Kansas City Queefs (frostbite possible, Green Bay fans will bitch that Packers have to play this late Sunday game on the road and then travel to the west coast for a Saturday Wildcard Weekend matchup) Chevon McNuggets – G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them This week Coach turns the dial on the way-back machine to when the Packers drafted a Junior quarterback out of Nebraska in the 3rd round of the 1963 draft, Dennis Claridge. Claridge was also drafted that same year by the Oakland Raiders in the AFL’s 26th round, but alas Claridge agreed to sign with Green Bay because the Packers were willing to allow him time to develop in their system before fully committing to him. He saw no action until 1965, his final year in Green Bay, when he played in 1 game. Even though he had signed a contract as the highest paid quarterback in the NFL, he refused to show up for the final 3 years of his deal claiming issues with management. Always desperate for attention, Claridge often made overt statements for newspaper print such as “I wanna play well into my 30’s and retire as a Packer” and “I love the fans in Green Bay.” He also took ill-advised measures in his personal life for promotional stunts, such as an infamously public falling out with close family members, or dating a much older woman who drove race cars, and then later marrying a much younger woman from Hollywood (pictured below) who practiced bizarre homeopathic rituals to increase the vitamin D content on the surface of her labia. Through her Hollywood connections, Shailene Claridge was able to get the clean and articulate Dennis Claridge a tryout for a new original daytime gameshow called “Jeopardy!” which started airing on NBC in 1964. But Claridge lost his bid to become the show’s long-term announcer to someone that NBC had more recently targeted for stardom, a relatively unknown talent from the State of Utah, Art Fleming. When asked why he didn’t get the job, Claridge explained “They told me they wanted someone who actually graduated from college rather than someone who just claimed to be smart, plus they said I looked ‘up and to the left’ too much.” So this week we salute you, Dennis Claridge, who unfortunately might end up being remembered not for his God-given talent, but rather as an attention-starved crybaby that cared more about himself than the team and fans who supported him through good times and bad. We’ll miss you, Dennis, and Brent, and Rodger. Rest in peace, Bart.
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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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