Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show !!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: ...Aditi Kinkhabwala has a face for radio. What the hell is NFL Network thinking? It’s run by (or really, it’s governed by) Jerry Jones, and we all know he’s a terrible evaluator of talent. They must be trying to check some perverse diversity box or something, because reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala is too ugly to make television appearances on NFL news. C’mon, NFL Network – stick with mainstay hotties that made Coach interested in watching your cable programming in the first place. Honestly, we like football, but could care less about what is happening to teams outside of Green Bay (or insert your home team city if you happen to be a fan of another team, except Chicago of course). Just stay with what you’re good at, featuring the likes Colleen Wolfe… ...and Marjorie MJ Acosta… ...and Molly Qerim… ...and, of course, Wonder Woman... So, NFL Network, use your head and give a guy a break. You have a great cable channel, but you also have SeriusXM channel 88. Keeping Aditi Kinkhabwala featured on that radio channel (only) is the best use of her talents. …at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Here’s what you need to know about the Packers v Bears game… … we are really good; we went 13-3 for 2020 and we are the No. 1 Seed in the NFC Conference Tournament. Davante Adams broke the franchise record for most catches in a season with 115 and Bubby Tunyan tied Paul Coffman for the Packers TE record with 11 TDs. And … no matter how you dress up a pig, it’s still a Bear … wait, that made no sense … anyway … … the Bears still suck. Our QB threw a lot of passes and it turns out that he is really good. At 121.5 Rodgers had the 2nd Best Passer rating ever for a full NFL Season, narrowly missing the opportunity to break the record. Narrowly missing the opportunity to break his own record of 122.5 that is. And he is the oldest on the list… Rodgers also likes the old “they don’t respect us” chip-on-the shoulder for motivation. One of the biggest last offseason is that we were a “bad” 13-3 team and that there was no way we would win the Division. Sports Illustrated and ESPN had us winning 9 games and the Division, but the rest of the football universe had us at 2 or even 3. Hmm…guess we did better. Rodgers also led the Packers to becoming just the fourth team in NFL history to finish with more touchdown passes than punts in a season, (2018 Chiefs, 2007 Patriots & 1990 Houston Oilers). In the process he led the Pack to a 2020-Season-Sweep of the Bears, and he clicked the odometer over to 101 wins all-time against Bears. For the Season we beat them by a combined average score of 38 to 21 … a three score beatdown. Coach highly recommends listening to 670 SCORE in Chicago (available on Radio.Com App) after every Bears’ loss. Grab your popcorn and sit back and enjoy as the locals beat up on the Once Proud “Monsters of the Midway”. Want to feel a little better about the Season and this team? Remember to waaay, waaay back, two weeks ago when Coach was telling about the new kid, Dafney? What, what? Yeah, him. Well he went from bouncer in Des Moines to a touchdown pass from AR in about 3 months… After the game he said he fell because his feet went numb. Numb? Yes, he was concentrating so hard on not dropping the ball his feet went numb and he fell down. (Hear that MVS?) So the routine for a Rookie UDFA is something like … tie shoes, remember to buckle helmet, pay attention and go out there when called for Special Teams… …yeah, on the ensuing kickoff Dafney is out there on the coverage team… and well… let’s just say that Corduroy Patterson knows who the rook is now. When asked which play was his favorite? “Probably the hit,” he said. “’Back in the day, your grandpa, he was hitting. He had some toughness to him.’ I feel like that’s definitely something I’d love to say to my grandkids one day.” Coach likes this guy … somebody on the Rams is gonna be really sore after getting his ass kicked by this guy. Liking it, want some more Gooty feel good? With 7:46 left in the 2nd Qtr, GB leading 14-10 after the bomb to MVS, the Bears wanted points. On 2nd & 5 from their own 25 Turdbisquit rolled out to his right and Preston Smith (91) was there to disrupt his running lane and obscure the pass. The ball is a little bit behind Kmet and Jaire Alexander (23) and Kamaal Martin (54) are there to knock it out. Rashan Gary (52) is on the spot to cover the fumble and we’re in business on the Bears 22. Six plays later and Rodgers is throwing the TD to Dafney, it’s 21-10 and the game is over. Obviously Turdbisquit loves Kmet as he tries to toss him another one in the 4th, but Packers safety Adrian Amos (31)… What ya gotta love is that it doesn’t matter who plays QB for the Bears, it’s always the same-ole-Jay. Who put these guys together for the Defense? Smith (& Smith) & Kamal Martin & Kenny Clark & Snacks & Kingsley Keke & Krys Barnes & Adrian Amos & Rashan Gary & Darnel Savage & Vernon Scott & Jaire Alexander & Chandon Sullivan? Who? Yeah, that guy Gooty you were dis’ing last April for not taking a WR. BTW, we have the No. 1 scoring Offense in the NFL! What a WASTE it would have been to take a WR in the 1st round. Just sayin … can’t do better than No. 1. D Perfect? Heck No! Coach is with King Mongkut of Siam, keeping Kevin King out there at CB is just a puzzlement. For the life of me it doesn’t make sense why Tramon Williams is playing for Baltimore and not for us … Kevin King is a non-stop “how not to do it” demonstration. Coach has 7 clips of major mistakes by King in this game alone … unfortunately waaay too many to capture here, so we’re just gonna show two for now. With only 3 yards to go for a 1st down, King lines up 8 yards away from Robinson. Even Turdbisquit can see this and he tosses and easy 1st down. You know that kid in little league that plays center field closes his eyes when the ball is coming to him? Watch King’s head as he comes in for the tackle. Not only is his head down (they are coaching against this technique because the tackler can hurt their own head and neck) but look at his trajectory! There is only one conclusion … his eyes are firmly closed. There’s an old principle in sports that Coach likes to use… It’s a lot easier to play Defense if you actually try to play Defense. Try it sometime, it’s really works. So to sum up, Special Teams, Defense and Offense all had good nights, but none were perfect. Rodgers had a 1st Half that was better than the careers of most NFL QB’s as he went 10 for 10. Yes, he was on fire, and then he attempted pass #11 … The Packers were up 21-13 at the Half and received the 2nd Half KO. On 1st & 10 on the GB 47 AR unleashed another TD bomb to MVS … and … three plays later we punted. Catch the ball and it’s 28-13 and game over (again). The scary part (for other teams)? We are only one or two corrected mistakes away from being one of the all-time dominant teams … something we are very close to doing as we enter the Playoffs. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Phillip-Morris Sponsors First-Ever NFL Broadcast on Nickelodeon Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes was not fortunate enough share the gridiron with Patrick Star on Sunday as the NFL simulcast one of its Wild Card games on Nickelodeon, but Drew Brees and Mitchell Trubisky were! “I was excited when Phillip-Morris representatives pitched the idea to me” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Adding, “For some reason, the good folks at Phillip-Morris really share my interest in winning over kids to NFL football so that they stay addicted to it well into adulthood.” The Wild Card playoff contest between the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints featured one-of-a-kind kid-focused content and Nick-themed elements throughout, including guest reporters Miley Cyrus and Keith Hernandez, original on-field graphics, and commercial breaks featuring some of the most popular Phillip-Morris products, as well as public service announcements encouraging kids to avoid vaping. Phillip-Morris public relations executive Chester Fields acknowledged Goodell actually came up with the idea to have green slime dripping down the television screen when the Bears offense had the ball, suggesting it would make the broadcast “more watchable.” At press time, Goodell admitted to reporters, “Perhaps this Nickelodeon broadcast wasn’t the choice of every NFL fan, but it made us some fat stacks in a year when we really needed the cash and we would have been fools to walk away from that kind of money.” The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Trubisky Forced to Perform Fellatio On Saints Defenders Once again the Bears proved they have no business being in the playoffs. Never mind that they backed their asses into the championship tournament without having more wins than losses, they embarrassed themselves and the NFC North Division by getting blown out on national TV (again) by a team other than the Packers. It’s like what you tell a drunk punk with beer-muscles after you punch him in the nose: “Just stay down, man.” But no, Nagy, Trubisky, Foles, they all showed up, and for 3 hours we had to listen to the announcers remind us that the Bears coach and both starting quarterbacks will probably lose their jobs because the team is so bad. IN A PLAYOFF GAME! You don’t need me to tell you this, the rest of the world was screaming it on Sunday: The Bears still suck. Aaaah, that’s a shame. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground National Championship Edition Despite a strong appearance by Ohio State, Alabama talent dominated the college football landscape. ADVERTISEMENT – Be a good wife: Clean the house and lose weight. Good advice, from your friends at Total! We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game 3:35 pm Saturday Lambeau Field Be there for the beat down… …The Rams are 2-2 over their last 4 games... A split with the SeaChickens (including the Playoff Win last weekend) A 23-20 loss to Jets An 18-7 win over the Cards Is it any wonder? The Cleveland – Los Angeles – St. Louis – Los Angeles Rams are just confused, really confused. Granted the Pack has made a few logo tweaks along the way … Yeah … let’s go with consistency. The Pack and the Rams go way back, and we beat them in our first four games in 1937 and 1938 in Cleveland and Green Bay. The overall series is very close, they are ahead by one game (46-47-2) in the series and win by an average of 0.2 pts/game. The only team that is any closer with the Pack is the Bears. But for 2020 it’s been a different story. We have the No. 1 Scoring Offense at 31.8 ppg and they have the No. Scoring Defense at 18.5 ppg. The Net Scoring Margin for 2020 favors us 6 points and we will be at home with about 6,000 screaming fans (including Coach, of course) … and guess what? Vegas favors us by a TD. In the Rodgers’ era we are 4-1-0 and have won by an average of 8 points. In a weird twist, we lost in LA in 2018 and 2019 (to the Rams and Chargers respectively) in games where we were favored … but also on very hot days. And the whole “Rogers series” games have been played on hot days in Sept/Oct (in either location). This time around the weather is going to be a bit different. It will be 50+ deg colder in Green Bay when the Rams step off of the plane, with snow in the forecast for the end of the week (please, please let it be 15 deg and snowing during the game). A big deal? Yoobetcha. Jared Goff is TERRIBLE in cold weather. The reason Goff didn’t start last week wasn’t because of his thumb surgery, it was because he was BENCHED! Ponder this, Grasshopper… In his LIFETIME, Jared Goff has played in exactly 2 games with temperatures below freezing, both in the NFL (Chicago & Denver). He completed only 34 of 72 passes, threw for zero TD’s and had 5 picks. Need a larger sample size? OK, let’s consider games he’s played in up to 40F (that’s only 8 games!). His total completion percentage is UNDER 50% across that span. He did manage 2 TD passes in those 8 total games, but that is still putrid. Coach knew Eli Manning; Jared Goff is no Eli Manning. Here’s something else to ponder… Surprise! It also turns out that the better team wins a lot in the Playoffs. Much has been made out of the fact that only two of the home teams won during Super-crazy-long-Wild-Card-weekend. The important point that the pundits have completely missed is that 4 out of 6 were won by the team with the better Regular Season Point Differential. One of the two losers was the Steelers, who completely collapsed down the stretch and maybe shouldn’t even be considered. There’s always an outlier, even in a good data set. The Rams v. SeaChickens game also bucked the trend. They are Division Rivals (so anything goes) and they had very close point differentials in “the Reg” (so anything goes) and the Rams have the No. 1 Scoring D while Seattle had the No. 15 D … (and Defense wins Championships when Offenses are less than stellar). Coach suggests that this Point Differential Rule is a “good rule to keep in mind” (and explains very well getting our asses handed to us in SF last year in the NFC Championship). But more important than the weather, the history and the stats, we just have a much better team. First of all their QB, Jared Goof, sucks. As I mentioned earlier, Coach Sean McVay cleverly hid his benching of Goff behind the guise of a hand injury. You can bet on a trade sooner rather than later to get the Rams out of Goof’s horrendously crippling contract. If history means anything to predicting the future, I would say the Bears will trade away a first round pick to absorb Goof’s contract. More on that next year… Rams All-World DT Ronald McDonald got a rib owwie against Seattle and probably will be active for the game, but Coach doesn’t give a rip. We have one of the better O-Lines he has faced and we have a far better QB at getting rid of the ball quickly. Our QB has a history of beating the Rams. Back in 2018 we had this shifty young receiver who could really stretch the field, but he only hung onto 38 of the 73 balls (52%) thrown his way, but man-oh-man he was exciting! Well fast forward two years and he is still exciting and scoring TDs and he’ll be a weapon against the Rams. More importantly, MVS has improved since 2018! His catch percentage has rocketed from 52.1% in to 2018 to 52.4% in 2020! To be fair, he has improved his yard/target by 38% from 8 to 11 and he’s scoring more TD’s. We also just significantly improved the depth on the O-Line. You remember Jared Veldheer, right? Be honest. The Packers grabbed him off the scrap heap at the end of last season when they lost Bryan Bulaga to an MCL sprain in Week 16. Now they plucked him of the Colts practice squad. He actually played for them in the Wild Card game last Saturday! Now he will become the only NFL player to suit up for 2 different playoff teams in the same season. That’s wild, weird, wacky stuff, man. Gooty is really amazing … we lost three top-notch NFL lineman: Bulaga to Free Agency, Lane Taylor to injury and David Bakhtiari to injury and we still have one of the best O-Lines in the NFL.) Hey, don’t look now, and don’t tell anyone!! ST Coach Meningitis actually did something good! One of the few weapons the Bears have is their kick returner, and former Vikings 1st Rnd Pick, Corduroy Paterson. Our opening kickoff strategy was to kick it into the corner, like a punt. If he tries to return it we tackle him in the corner for short yardage, if he doesn’t it’s a harmless touchback. Unlike a punt, if we kick it OB, it’s a penalty and the Bears would have it on the 40. Give Meningitis credit for trying it and Crosby for kicking it extremely well, alas, we also have to give credit to Corduroy for getting his feet OB. This technically made the kick a penalty (which they did not flag) and the ball was out to the 40. We got hosed on the call, but no matter, it was a creative and gutsy way to start the game. Coach really wants to see exceptional ST’s play this weekend, and this is a great example. Can we cut King before next week? The game of NFL football appears too big for him. ...keeping with the trend of Gooty signing veterans … we coulda had Tramon Williams if we’d resigned him. Okay, King’s here for the duration. Crap. It’s up to Poutine and Jerry Gray to try to get him to play better in the Playoffs. But Gooty did just sign Snacks Harrison to the D-Line two weeks ago, providing another huge interior lineman to clog things up and free up Clark to do damage, do that's pretty neat. Snacks played fairly well for the few snaps he was in against the Bears. The combo of Kenny Clark and Krys Barnes is already pretty good. Add Snacks in the mix and we are going to see continued improvement in the Run Defense. Rams RB Cam Akers ran the ball for 131 yards and a TD on 28 carries against the SeaChickens last week. So frickin’ what? Aaron Jones can do that without breaking a sweat, backwards, in high heels (not that there's anything wrong with it). Coach has two thoughts about Akers:
Like any playoff game there will be nervous moments … but by the end of this one we are going to win comfortably and have the full week plus one day to get ready for the Saints or Bucs. Packers 35 Rams 21 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them Rarely do I feature a former Packers coach as the JB tribute, but this week as we bite our nails hoping the special teams phase doesn’t give away the upcoming playoff game against the Rams, a former Rams player -- and later Super Bowl winning Packers special teams coach, comes to mind … Nolan Cromwell. After playing quarterback for the Kansas Jayhawks, Cromwell was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams as a defensive back in 1977 and played his entire 11-year career in Los Angeles. He made the Pro Bowl as a safety 4 consecutive years (in a row!) and was a standout on special teams. Unfortunately, riding the coattails of the Bears underwhelmingly successful Super Bowl shuffle video, Cromwell also starred and "danced" in the 1986 Rams promotional video Let's Ram It, rapping "I like to ram it, as you can see, nobody likes ramming it more than me," after introducing himself as "Hollywood handsome, Dodge City tough." Yes, that really happened. To be fair, Cromwell DID like to ram it, as confessed by his wife and former Rams cheerleader, and Miss Hollywood USA 1980–81, with a guest appearance in 1980 on TV’s paradigm-shifting comedy-drama series The White Shadow, Mary Lynne Gehr! Not too shabby. After retirement as an active player, Cromwell began his coaching career immediately with the Rams. He served as a defensive and special teams assistant in 1991 before being hired by Mike Holmgren to coach special teams for the Green Bay Packers 1992 - 1997. Five different times during just the 1996 season, one of Cromwell's players was honored as Special Teams Player of the Week. For reference, none of Shawn Mennenga’s players have ever been named Special Teams Player of the Week; however, multiple players on other teams have won that honor when playing against the Packers under Mennenga’s tenure.
In Super Bowl XXXI, Desmond Howard became the first special teams player to ever be named a Super Bowl MVP. "As a special teams coach when you've got a group of guys like Lamont Hollinquest, Jeff Thomason, Bernardo Harris, Travis Jervey, Chris Hayes, you know you could go down the list of the guys I had and you go 'Wow,'" Cromwell gushed. "Every one of them made their block. There are always people you cannot block. And the way I did my returns, I didn't have everybody blocked. The returner had to make a couple guys miss." Cromwell explained they just focused on making the right blocks and hoped for the best. "When I talked to the team a good return is 10 yards or plus, and that was our goal. Because I knew if we could get 10, usually you've kind of broke through the main cover proof, and once you got that far, Desmond could do his thing." Cromwell thoroughly enjoyed his time in Green Bay and said that he still has a lot of friends in the area. He acknowledged that he watches the Packers "all the time." "It was very gratifying to a special teams coach and to the special teams players that we contributed to a lot of wins throughout the year, and especially during the Super Bowl," Cromwell said. "But the other thing I think was the fans at Green Bay, they appreciate the game of football. They really have a sense that things can happen on special teams, good and bad. And they understand it and I think as a majority they have a feeling that that is a big part of the game, which it is.” Yep, there you have it, Packers fans are smarter than Shawn Mennenga. And so – for confirming that, Nolan Cromwell, 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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