Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show !!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: ...the NFL was right to assign a woman ref to the Super Bowl. This week the NFL announced that Sarah Thomas will be positioned as the Down Judge, also referred to as the Head Linesman, for Super Bowl LV. I’m not sure why they gave her that role, but it sure sounds like a good idea to me. Sarah will be responsible for accurately and consistently counting up to four, unless of course a 1st down is achieved by the Offense. Oh sure, I’ve heard the questions about having women referees… “How can she possibly break up a fight between players?” … “They can’t even drive, how are they gonna navigate the action on the field?” … “Is there no sanctuary left for a man?” … “Does the carpet match the drapes?” … but these are socially unjust and, honestly, not worth answering here despite an impressive array of supporting evidence. C’mon fellas, open your minds a little. Don’t just think about her performance during the game, think of the impact she will have OUTSIDE the lines. There are seven male officials that are part of that Super Bowl officiating team, too. Wouldn’t it be nice to have Sarah get them a fresh cup of hot coffee and a newspaper as they gather in the hotel lobby before heading to the game? Or how about a pleasant Bundt cake on Super Bowl Eve when the guys are going over their notes together (don’t forget their slippers, Sweet Cheeks!) … not to worry if some cake crumbs drop onto the carpeting, guys – Sarah is right there to vacuum it up for you! She’ll take your plate, too. Post-game … it’s always easier for a fit woman to attract a cab with a whistle than it is for middle-aged men. The possibilities are endless. What took the NFL so long to get to this point? As groundbreaking as an NFL woman referee may sound, it was really the Italians who took the first bite at this apple. Claudia Romani, who officiates the game of soccer in Italy (what Europeans call “Futbol”), is perhaps the world’s most famous referee! So kudos to her, and really to Europe as a whole for showing us Americans a thing or two about social justice. Who knows what kind of impact women referees could have on America as we finally can now move forward together as a united people? Maybe someday a woman could even be a doctor, or the CEO of a major corporation! (Ha ha, juuuuust kidding ... OK, back to reality…) So congrats on the choice and THANK YOU to the NFL for this sweeping decision (no pun intended). This is just what football needed. …at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Coach said last week: “Like any playoff game there will be nail biting moments … but at the end of this one we are going to win comfortably…” The game did, in fact, get tight and after 3 Quarters; we only led by a TD. But as Coach predicted, we won going away with Rodgers taking a knee to end the game when we could have easily tacked on another 7 points. The reality is that the Packers are playing in the “Gold Zone” mindset and can only be beaten by themselves (go check it out, Coach has been saying this for weeks, well before the Packers have been admitting it out loud). Loyal readers will know that Coach always respects good Defense, and the Rams came into the game with the No. 1 Defense. Which means, what? Yeah, that’s right. It means we don’t care and we kicked their collective asses! In a couple of moments of true Schadenfreude (look it up), the Rams “stars” suffered a humiliating loss. You have undoubtedly read that Davante Adams approached Ramsey before the game and told him to “Get it on” and “Follow me around the field” and “Let’s give them the show they came for.” It’s not bragging if you can’t back it up! After getting torched by Adams for the Packers first TD, Ramsey found lots of “other people” to blame. What a frickin’ loser. It’s a team sport, dumbass. You may have noticed after Sunday that the same mainstream media pundits who touted Ramsey’s greatness prior to Sunday were quick to defend him on every play he gave up. Like Pappy Coach used to tell me, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. When it became clear that they were going home without their snow globe participation trophies, Aaron McDonald didn’t have much to say. Later in The Show!!! we’ll have a look at Elgton Jenkins kicking McDonald’s ass into the offseason. As Coach said, we can only be beaten by ourselves this year. The Defense has gotten better each week and DC Poutine has continued to get better and more creative in stopping the run (well some of the time anyway). In a refreshing change of pace, Poutine actually committed 8 guys to the box when it was a passing situation (1st down and the Rams were behind by 15-points). And, as he’s done on occasion earlier this year, Z’Darious Smith became the “up” Middle Linebacker, or maybe he’s the “off” Nose Tackle … hard to say because ILB Krys Barnes is right behind him. In any case, we are generally committing more beef and better beef to the middle of the field. On this particular play they stuffed Rams RB Cam Akers for no gain. To borrow the Denny Green quote, before we “crown his ass” for being a genius DC, Poutine went back to doing stupid shit. Beginning the play after stuffing Akers above, we had Defensive Tackles dropping into zone coverage while only rushing 3 guys … this dumb ass defensive concept fooled exactly no one and the Rams passed the ball straight down our throats to make it 25-18. Ennewaze … Coach supposes that the Defense is playing “well enough” to carry us and they did get key stops at the end of the game. The scary Unit was, and still is, Special Teams. What does ST Coach Meningitis have to do to get fired? Literally every week there is a new and different F’up, the creativity of this group seems boundless! In this week’s installment of “How can we screw up the game on Special Teams?” long snapper and wasted draft pick* Hunter Bradley just flat ass missed on the snap. * Bradley was selected by the Green Bay Packers with the 239th overall pick in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL Draft. This made Bradley only the ninth long snapper ever drafted into the NFL. Coach loves Gooty, but this was a major error on his part. The bad snap was compounded by local Mensa-Chapter-Leader and noted football-tackling-expert JK Scott’s decision to pass the ball to our franchise kicker Mason Crosby in hopes that he would either outrun 11 NFL defenders for 20 yards into the end zone for 1-point or be killed. ST Coordinator Mennenga has apparently been schooled by Mike McCarthy on the finer skills of rectal-cranial inversion and failed to instruct his holder of the most basic NFL concept to throw the ball out of bounds when the extended extra point kick is aborted. Let’s just hope for a new ST coach (and even new punter!) next year. Imagine, you’re a coach, a COORDINATOR – on a Super Bowl winning team, and you get fired. Yep, that’s what we need. Not to be outdone by Hunter Bradley’s incompetence, newly acquired Punt-Return-Artist-and-Expert-Fumbler Tavon Austin completely misread this punt and it sailed over his head. The result of this play was a net 64-yard punt and a completely negative change in field position. On the ensuing drive we ended up with our first punt of the game … just saying. The mind-boggling part? Even with Average-D and crappy ST, we are only one or two corrected mistakes away from being one of the all-time dominant teams … … we had 9 drives and scored on 6 of them, punted twice and knelt down to end the game… … and we were (literally) just a couple of minor mistakes away from scoring 63 points. (Coach will help you folks out: 9 x 7 = 63.) Battering ram AJ “Juggernaut” Dillion demonstrated that we can run the ball up the middle on the best Defense in the League … and we went right down the field on our 1st drive. Unfortunately we stalled in the Gold Zone and had to settle for a FG. On all three 1st & Goal plays we were very close to TD’s. All three just inches away, so Coach will count this drive as: Shudda Been: 7-0 Pack The Packers have been running the Inside Zone extremely well since about the Tampa Bay game (more later in The Show!!! down below). The point being that we are doing very well running straight at good run Defenses. On 3rd & 1 Elgton Jenkins blasts Aaron McDonald out of the way and Jamaal hits the hole for 9 yards and a 1st Down. This TD is a work of art by Rodgers and Adams to make the score 10-3. Jalen Ramsey getting thoroughly toasted was simply a bonus. Shudda Been: 14-0 Pack After a good stop by the D and a non-fumbled-8-yd-punt-return by Tavon Austin, AR ran for a TD. This is the drive where JK Scott tried yet another way to prove that he is not really a football player, and Shawn Mennenga not a coach. Shudda Been: 21-0 Pack After the Rams scored a TD, we started at our own 25 with 29 seconds left in the half. Rodgers just barely underthrew this pass to Adams before the Half. If he throws the ball 1 more foot downfield, Adams would have caught the ball in stride and scored. Coach is now officially declaring the State of Wisconsin as “shudda been” 28-10 at the Half over California. Shudda Been: 28-0 Pack Continuing with the inside zone running, Aaron Jones opened up the 2nd half with a 60 yarder…more to come on this later in The Show!!!. With the score 25-10 it apparently “seemed logical” to go for 2 and maybe make the score 27-10. But … the 2-pt conversion has odds only marginally above 50% and the XP is a 96+% play (well for the league, maybe not for us). The “play chart” says kick the XP … but LaFleur was no doubt pissed-off at Meningitis and went for 2. Not smart, when the Rams scored and made a 2-pt conversion, it made for a 7-pt. game. Shudda Been: 35-10 Holy cripes…this drive had two TD’s just evaporate. On 1st & 17, A-Rod just flat out misses MVS up the sideline for what shoulda/woulda been a 92-yd TD. (On 1st & 10 from the 15 Wagner had a phantom holding penalty, backing up the Pack half-the-distance to the goal line.) Three plays later AR sets up Alan Lazard for a TD which he drops… Shudda Been: 42-10 After a 2nd ram-it-through-Poutine’s prevent Defense and embarrass us with a razzle-dazzle 2-pt conversion, we made it to the 50 and just stalled on a series of incompletes. This one is probably the weakest “shudda”, so let’s call it: Cudda Been: 49-18 Shudda Been (at least): 42-18 You know it’s our year when the ball is knocked out of Dillon’s hands and it bounces directly to AR and he gains a yard to make it 3rd & “manageable.” Making up for his earlier drop, Alan Lazard pulls in an A-Rod pass for a TD. You may recall that Lazard put a crown on AR after he got to 400 TD passes and AR returns the favor after this dagger … you can tell this team really, really likes each other. Cudda Been: 56-18 Shudda Been (at least): 49-18 After a great Defensive stop of the Rams, we go the ball back at the Rams 46 with 4:59 on the clock. With the Rams knowing full well that we wanted to run out the clock, we jammed it down their throat to the 13-yd line. At the 2-min warning the Rams were out of time-outs so LaFleur/Rodgers did the classy thing by kneeling 3 times to run out the game clock. Cudda Been: 63-18 Shudda Been (at least): 56-18 Only the Team facing us in the Mirror can stop the 2020 Packers … on to the Buccaneers!! WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Terrell Owens Blasts Today’s Fragile NFL Players Who Can’t Just Play Through Covid Like He Did Paso Robles, CA—Following the rescheduling of multiple games and lackluster performances of teams without key position players as league officials dealt with the spread of the virus, Hall of Fame player and relationship expert Terrell Owens on Wednesday blasted today’s fragile NFL players who can’t just play through Covid like he did. “Back in our day, we were tough, and we were always out there on the field, no matter whether we had Covid or how bad our Covid was,” said Owens, recalling a 1998 game with the San Francisco 49ers when most of the team came down with Covid in the first half and they still held on to beat the Atlanta Falcons. “You think Ben Coates or La'Roi Glover is skipping a game because he’s running a fever or lost his sense of smell? These guys today are quitting on their teams the second they hear they have it, and some of them don’t even have symptoms. Fact is, the entire Vikings team—[Randall] McDaniel, [Robert] Griffith, [Todd] Steussie, [Randy] Moss, all those guys—they had Covid the whole season back in ’98, and they made it all the way to the NFC championship game. Back then, were we feeling achy? Sure. Were we unhappy? Yeah. Were we most likely responsible for our assistant coach’s death from Covid? Probably. But you just went out there and played, man, Covid or no.” Owens also criticized NFL fans for not manning up and attending games anyway, saying that the fans back in the 1990s would have showed up with their ventilators and cheered their teams on the whole game. ADVERTISEMENT – New PEP Cereal from Kellogg’s: it's Mother’s little helper The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Not Winning Is Fine With Bears Brass It’s January, which of course means 3 things:
Last weekend marked the 10-year anniversary of the Bears last playoff victory. Problem? Not for Bears executives. In fact, much to the dismay of Bears fans and delight of Packers fans everywhere, both general manager Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy WERE RETAINED by the Bears for another season. Upon learning this news, Bears defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano quit. That really happened. Bears Chairman George McCaskey defended the decision to maintain mediocrity based on how impressed he was with Nagy and Pace during their 6 game losing streak. Seriously – that’s what he said! As for Bears CEO & President Ted Phillips, he said he had vigorous discussions with Nagy and Pace which led him to believe both are still learning but are excellent people, and all successful organizations despite wins and losses have good people. That’s a lot of words for saying the Bears are committed to being nice losers. Perfect! …let the suckage continue. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Wax Up You Boards! With zero Badger football news and snow a possibility for Sunday at Lambeau, we are getting you in the mood...shoosh! We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game Awright, let’s get all of the emotional stuff out of the way first … …yes, it’s been 13 years since the last NFC Championship at Lambeau in 2007 when Favre crushed our souls with the idiotic interception against the Giants. …yes, it’s AR’s first home NFC Championship and he’s undoubtably the favorite to be the 2020 MVP. …yes, both the League and the TV Networks want a rematch of Super Bowl I (Packers & Chiefs). Into that mix you can stir the fact that the Pack are 1-3 in NFC Championship Games on Rodgers watch, and most people will want Aaron to “beat” Tom (Coach will ignore the irony that neither are on the field together at any time). So just what is the AR-Packers history in NFC Championships: 2010 (W) Packers 21 Bears 14 AR threw 2 INT’S, 0 TD’S and finished with a passer rating (PR) of 55.4. 2014 (L) Packers 22, SeaChickens 28 (OT) AR played with a calf injury against No. 1 D and finished with 2 INT’s, 1 TD and 55.8 PR. 2016 (L) Packers 21, Falcons 44 60.0% completion rate, 45 passes, 287-yds, 3 TD’s, 1 INT and a 91.6 PR, mainly from garbage time. 2019 (L) Packers 20, Niners 37 First-half: 1 INT, 2 fumbles, lost one, and 52.1 PR. Average: Packers 21, Other Guys 31 One could argue that over this period the:
So what about this year’s NFC Championship matchup? For the Regular Season and Playoffs, the Pack & the Buc’s are about as close statistically as you can get. We are the No. 1 scoring offense, and they are the No. 2. Defensively they are No. 8 and we are No. 12. The net result in Point Differential is that we are the No. 1 ranked team (9.1 pts/gm), and they are No. 3 (8.6 pts/gm). Add the 2020 “2-points for home field advantage” (or the historical 3-pts) and you match the betting line of 3.5 exactly. Ironically enough, that’s also the Packers historical advantage over the Buc’s. Which means what exactly? The emotional tug on the heart strings for Aaron to win, the history Aaron and Pack in NFC Championships and the 2020 Stats won’t matter, the game is going to be decided on the field and will ultimately boil down to which team makes the fewest mistakes. Oh, and they also have to score more points than the other team. (Unless Coach’s brother is correct, in which case the fix is in from Vegas. At the moment of this writing all the money is flowing to the Packers and Vegas will make a killing if the Pack doesn’t cover the 3.5-pt spread … hmmm … just making an observation here.) So let’s take a high-level view of the 2020 Season and roll in some observations from the 38-10 beatdown we received earlier this year at the Pirate Bowl in Tampa. Key Factor No. 1 – Don’t turn over the ball (Sorry, Coach is contractually obligated to state the obvious.) The Roger’s/LaFleur’s regime has had seven losses over 2019 and 2020 and we had a negative turnover differential in six of those games. In the seventh loss the turnovers were even; that was the 2019 game against the Chargers when the Team never got off the bus. The graph below shows the Point Differential (Scored vs. Allowed) for 2020 vs. the Turnover Differential in each of the 17 games played so far. In case you missed the point, the winning margin and turnover differential are related. If you want to torture yourself --- scroll down to the X&O’s from the Tampa Bay earlier this year and you will find all the gory details of our loss. Suffice it to say, Rodgers’ 3rd-ever pick-6 was a big factor (his other INT was returned to the 2, so basically he threw two pick-6’s in that game, although Davante basically handed that 2nd one to the defender). And, Tampa Bay's four takeaways last weekend were the difference in the Bucs' defeat of the Saints. So what are the Packers doing about it? Well, let’s try to eliminate mistakes. One of the scary turnover possibilities is if recently signed Tavon Austin fumbles another punt. Punt fumbles are obviously the worst as you typically give up 40 yards in field position along with the ball. Coach was aghast seeing Austin in live action against the Rams last weekend, he uses the ball to help his balance when he’s running. The photo above isn’t overly clear, but you can see how far away the ball is from his body. This is a key factor in why he has fumbled 10% of his punt returns over his career (see last week’s issue for more). Contrast that with how Tramon Williams is carrying the ball “high ’n tight” (like most of the girls Coach picked up in college) in this TD punt return against the Lions. Williams was just re-signed by the Pack after he was released by the Ravens following their Playoff elimination last weekend. Who knows if he’ll be activated from the practice squad this weekend, but he certainly can field punts without fumbling and will provide depth in the D-Backfield (fingers crossed, Kevin King left Friday’s practice with a “tight back”). Key Factor No. 2 – hold the Buc’s under 24 (Coach reminds you again, he is contractually obligated to state the obvious.) Coach has been going crazy about our Defense since 2011. Bitching about poor defensive performances was the single biggest motivator to start this blog. Well, that, and an affinity for large breasts and sarcasm. But I digress… In 2019 we gave up an average of 21.6 pts/game … and it has ballooned to an average of 26.6 pts/game in 2020 and we are now ranked 20th in Road Points Allowed. On the flip side, we allowed 19.9 pts/game at Home in 2019 and 19.3 pts/game in 2020. This puts us at the No. 4 Defense in Points allowed at Home. Over the last 4 games we’ve allowed 16 pts/game, which puts us at No. 3 in scoring Defense. The point of all of this is that we are certainly capable of playing good enough Defense to get to the Super Bowl and win it. Key Factor No. 3 – score more than 27 points. Both Offenses are capable of producing a shootout and Tampa Bay’s scoring on the Road is actually 32.5 pts/game. If we split the difference between the points our D is allowing at home, and how many the Buc’s score on the road, they should score in the neighborhood of 24 points. Not-for-nothing, the Over/Under is 51.5 … if the Buc’s score 24 and we score 27 it’s Under, we score 28 and it’s Over. The questions that you, the ever loyal and venerable reader, should be asking is: “OK Coach, I get it, but how are we going to do it? Didn’t we get gashed 38-10 by these punks in Week 5 this year?” The following clips and comments will make you smarter and you will enjoy the victory even more (after memorizing this section)! Let’s start with what LaFleur is calling on Offense this year. Last year and the start of this year we had been primarily running an outside zone run scheme. Against teams with defensive speed this just doesn’t work… ya gotta go North & South. You can see the problem with the Outside Zone Run Scheme on the very first play of the game last fall. Lucas Patrick couldn’t get out fast enough to block Devin White, the Buc’s star ILB, and the run is stuffed. Contrast that with last weekend when we faced the No. 1 D in the League and lit them up by running straight at them. Guard Elgton Jenkins in the clip above is destroying all-universe DT Aaron McDonald. The Inside Zone Run actually did work against the Buc’s last fall, we just didn’t run it enough. You can see the Bucs are playing in a Nickle D and only have 6 in the box, so A-Rod sticks with the Inside Zone Run on the run-pass-option (aka RPO) and AJ Dillon has a huge carry (BFD!). LaFleur admitted (and ARod also emphasized) this week that he got away from the running game back in October, and the pass-centric comeback effort was doomed by Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Todd Bowles' pressure packages that the Packers struggled to handle, particularly when left tackle David Bakhtiari exited the game with an injury and Rick Wagner was miscast into that position. Last week the Rams opened the 2nd-half in a similar Nickel defensive alignment, so A-Rod went with the run in the RPO and Aaron Jones was off for 60 yards. Run inside and run more often than we did against TB last fall, that’s the formula! And when or if they move up to stop the run, ARod will kill them over the top! Last week the Defense rose to meet the moment (at least when Poutine wasn’t holding them back with ridiculous concepts, see X&O’s above). The Buc’s O-Line is OK, but Kenny C should be able to wreak havoc on Brady at times up the middle and force him to scramble, perhaps forcing a pick or two. All of that running and defensive stuff is important, but let’s be honest about what is really fueling this team. 1) Aaron Rodgers is in the Gold-Zone and he is making every other team in the league give him gold. On his running TD, AR completely faked out former Bears 1st Round Draft Pick, Leonard Floyd. It turns out the Floyd is pretty good, but his talent was not obvious until he was able to get away from the Bears organization (go figure). 2) The players and coaches have all commented on how important it was to have a crowd, and the crowd was loud! Coach can confirm, those inane plastic signs make a lot of noise when they are whapped on the metal bleachers. If you’re at the game on Sunday and don’t have a sign, pound your heel into the empty bleacher in front of you. That’s makes an insane amount of noise, too! Coach is going to officially call this a 4-point win. Packers 28 Buccaneers 24 Like any playoff game there will be nail biting moments … but at the end of this one we are going to win going away and if we don’t turn over the ball, this should be more like 31-21. Either way, I’m calling Over. See you in Tampa, boys! Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them Coach thought, “What better way to enter Championship Weekend in Green Bay than to tell the guys about a real champ and local hero, Champ Seibold?” Champ grew up in Oshkosh and went to the University of Wisconsin before eventually playing Left Tackle for the Packers between 1934-1940. Of course you’ll recall he was a particular standout performer in 1936 when the Packers won their 5th NFL Championship … not too much unlike the Packers targeting their 5th Super Bowl victory this year, but let’s not get two weeks too far ahead of ourselves just yet. The reliable Packers blocker was part of many good teams during his tenure, which included numerous Hall of Famers, and he even won another NFL Championship in 1939. That summer he also joined the Chicago police force. Go figure.
Perhaps the most unique, yet unimportant, piece of trivia about Champ is that he wore a different number every year he played for the Packers. Usually he was one of the last to report to camp and sign a contract, so he would get whatever jerseys were left at that point. He also was part of the 1935 team that first shifted the Packers jersey color scheme from blue/gold to green/gold in the middle of the season. The colors went back and forth between blue and green over numerous years until Curly Lambeau was forced to retire in 1949, and then forever more the Packers remained green and gold (actually, hunter green and mustard yellow to be precise, but I digress...). After retirement from football (and from his side job keeping the peace in The Windy City), when his father started getting a bit long in the tooth Champ returned to Oshkosh to run Seibold’s Tavern on Commercial Street and became a quiet, famous neighbor amongst the locals. Champ passed away of an apparent heart attack in 1971 at the tender age of 59 at his home on Lake Street in Oshkosh, and that town hasn’t been the same since. So, Champ Seibold, you were a true Champ in many ways, on this Championship Weekend, 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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