Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! Hey, before I forget, Coach wishes yooce all a safe 'n successful gun deer hunt dis weekend, en so? (Click On Link) Shoot straight... we're playin San Francisco. In Coach’s Humble Opinion: I may have misjudged Murphy Coach is not too big to admit when he’s wrong. Good thing I’m not. However, in the middle of the snowstorm during the Packers vs. Panthers matchup at Lambeau in Week 10, I thought to myself, “Perhaps I misjudged Mark Murphy’s ability to learn from his mistakes and do an about face to correct them.” Case in point: the Game of Thrones foghorn. Murphy heard the moans from fans drowning out the sound of his recorded tocsin during preseason games, and brought back the GO PACK GO melody for the regular season. Good call, but truth-be-told it was also a very easy call to make. Then just recently Coach was delighted to hear the reappearance of “Jump Around” played at the 2-minute warning of the Panthers game. It was a huge hit with the crowd and really increased the enthusiasm in the stadium, as anyone in attendance could see and feel. …just like I told Murphy it would be a few weeks ago (check out The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! archives). FWIW, I heard (unsolicited) numerous other fans in attendance commenting that it is time for Roll-Out-the-Barrel to be retired. Just sayin. But I gotta say, Murphy really blew my socks off with the halftime show. Every fan in attendance was totally consumed by the death-defying heroism of the paratroopers forced to parachute down into the stadium amidst a windy snowstorm. One of the commandos smashed into the sideboards at high speed (click on link), and another missed the stadium completely – landing on nearby Valley View Road (not too far from Coach’s house, I might add). Fortunately, no paratroopers got seriously hurt, but I’ll be damned if everyone in the stadium didn’t think one of them was going to be. We were all on the edge of our seat, waiting for a bone-crushing drop onto the field, or a wind-blown parachute drag across the top of stadium-goers. It was totally awesome (for complete show click here). Good on you, Mark. Keep that shit coming! Along with an 80%-win rate. Us locals might even start to overlook your condescending platitudes about us and your arrogant persona in front of us, if you keep that sort of danger on the gameday docket. …At least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme What a nice 24-16 win over the Panthers!! We’re 8-2 baby!! So much for the prediction from the Big Apple. Ya know, that headline last week seemed familiar for some reason, so Coach did a little research. Oh yeah, the January 11th, 2015 NFC Divisional Round. The “Dez No Catch” game which the Packers won handily, 26-21. That playoff game was great, but Coach’s fondest memory is that Chris (aka “Slim”) Christie, New Jersey Governor and erstwhile Pretender-Candidate to the Republican nomination, was a guest of Jerry Jones. Midway through the game something very memorable happened. AR often uses “Green 19” during his cadence to signal changes in the play, or sometimes to signal nothing-at-all (much like Payton Manning’s “Omaha”). In a moment that almost made Coach pass a beer and brat through his right nostril, changed his audible from “Green 19” to “New York Bozo, New York Bozo”. Whatever could he have meant? Ah the memories at Lambeau. OK, back to the game. Short version, we won, we’re 8-2, relax, go back to sleep on the couch. Greg Olson, the washed-up journeyman TE Coached warned you about, had a good day. But Super-human and Running Back Chris McCookie was held under 150 total yards and the 2nd Yr. UDFA QB Kyle Allen was made to look like just that -- an Undrafted Free Agent QB in his 2nd year (although, I wish we had him on our roster rather than the rag tag bunch we’ve had since Matt Flynn). We won, we got the last stop of the game and we are 8-2. What’s not to like? Sorry, Coach is going to go broken record on you here. With 2:24 left on the game clock and the Pack up 24-16, the Charlotte Kittens took over at their own 11-yard line…and promptly went the length of the field. They covered 88 yards in 18 plays that included several defensive mistakes. Opportunities to make tackles, drpped interceptions, and ZeeDarius Smith’s offsides penalty gave the Charlotte’s a 3rd & 1 at the 4-yard line with 0:18 on the clock. The D “bent” for the length of the field, and on 2nd and Goal at the 2-yard line there was one last play to try to win the game or possible face OT. “In situations like that, teams give the ball to their best players,” Packers safety Adrian Amos told reporters. “So, in a situation like that, maybe I didn't expect them to run it. But we stopped it and it was good.” Just milliseconds before the ball was snapped, Martinez moved Fackrell into the ‘A’ gap. The Fack ficked thru to slow up McCoffee until Preston Smith could finish him off just short of the goal line. We ran well, they ran well and overall the eye-ball test said that we had two evenly matched teams or perhaps Charlotte was a bit better, but we won. Among the successes were that Jimmy Graham and Davante Adams got going in the same game, first time all year. In a key and novel insight into the game of football, Charlotte’s coach, Riviera Ron, said “Unfortunately the play was close, it was a game of inches.” Not kidding, he actually said that. More importantly for us, though, in this “the ultimate team game” (sorry, can’t resist the cliché), we have a team that is playing like a team, even if they aren’t perfect. 8-2, yes, but we had plenty of mistakes on Offense to go with the D and our rookie head coach is just that, a rookie. At the end of the 1st Half the Pack went 86 yards on 13 plays, one of the best drives of the day. With 2 seconds left we were 1st & Goal at the 1-yard line. Lambeau was pumped and the crowd was chanting “go-for-it, go-for-it”! Coach takes this opportunity to remind you that most fans are idiots. Coach, of course, told fellow game-goers as much in my vocal display of dissent as the field goal team remained with both ass cheeks firmly planted on the sideline benches. Man I hate being right all the time... Anyone with a football IQ greater than their shoe size knows it was a stupid call right out of the Mike McCarthy game mismanagement handbook. Shudda taken the 3-points and gone up by 7, knowing you get the ball back at the start of the 3rd quarter. There would have been no drama at the end of the game if we’d have kicked for 3 at the end of the 1st half. Recall this vintage statement from our very own Vincent Lombardi (which I quoted in Week 4, you can go back and check if you want)? According to David Maraniss’s book “When Pride Still Mattered,” Lombardi later regretted not attempting two additional easy field goals, saying: “When you get down there, come out with something. I lost the game, not my players.” (Lombardi lamenting his mistake in his only playoff loss, the 1960 NFL Championship Game.) So why did we win? Very simple, we won the turnover game 2-0, Special Teams recovered and played better in the 2nd Half and we played as a team. Speaking of Special Teams, astute readers will remember we discussed hidden yards in the punting game last week, and the first half looked much the same. JK Scott was punting lights-out during warm weather at Lambeau, just like last year. And just like last year, he seems to be disappearing in the cold weather. The first punt of the game was a nice 36-yard doink to the Charlotte 47, leading directly to their first TD. The 2nd was the 32-yard shank below to the Carolina 45. Fortunately, Kyle Allen had an un-forced fumble and we scored a TD off of the turnover. In the 1st Half we averaged starting on our own 24-yard line, and the Kitty Kats at their 36, for a net advantage of 62 yards in field position for “them”. So, if Allen didn’t fumble, we likely would not have been leading at half. In what Coach hopes is a sign of things to come, in the 2nd half we actually held them to an average starting position of the 11-yard line. On our first kickoff to them in the 2nd Half, we kicked a pop-up to the 1 which was muffed and then returned to only the 8-yard line. Finally! This is what Hoodie has been teaching the league to do for 2 years now. We did that again on our only other 2nd half KO and held them to the 18, combined with two short punts to inside the 20, and we made Charlotte play on a much longer field in the 2nd half. How strong of a team do we have? As loyal readers have no doubt gathered by now, Coach highly recommends scoring more points than the other team. And after 10 games we rank 8th in Point Differential, averaging 4.5 more points per game than the other guys. We also rank 12th in both Offensive and Defensive points allowed. These ranking are not great folks, but this means we are slightly better than mediocre and we can at least be in the conversation for the post season. But hey, Coach, whaddaya mean? We’re 8-2. Yes Jimmy, we are. We have a healthy team for the first time in years and we’ve caught some breaks during the games, but let’s see if we can’t do a bit more to understand how good the 2019 Packers really are. Jimmy, you may remember in years past that Coach has explained the “Pythagorean Theorem” of NFL records. Using both points scored and points allowed in the formula at the bottom of the table below, the number of wins for a season can be “predicted”. The table below shows the Packers actual wins each season from 2009 thru present and shows what the scoring predicts their record should have been. The last column compares the two. Coach has applied the work to the Packers so far this season (2019 thru 10 games) and the points scored and allowed “predict” that we would have won just under 7 games so far this season. This translates somewhere between 10 and 11 games for the 2019 total season. This seems to fit with “eye-ball-test” for the Pack, a good team, but not a great team. For a little more understanding of the model, look at the 2009 & 10 seasons. The model “predicted” 13-win seasons vs. the 11 wins and 10 wins we actually had. That’s right, the 2010 Super Bowl winners were a strong team that was “unlucky” in winning only 10 games, they cudda, wudda, shudda won 13 games. The run through the playoffs was no fluke, it really just reflected how strong a team that was. We have six games left boys, let’s hope Petite Fleur and the Boys can fix the D and Special Teams; otherwise, if the model of 2019 to-date is correct, we are looking at 3-3 the rest of the way. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Colin Kaepernick Questions Whether Michael Jordan Actually Went To Space To Help Bugs Bunny Win A Basketball Game ATLANTA, GA—On a podcast following his workout for seven NFL teams earlier this week, former NFL quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers Colin Kaepernick questioned why all 32 teams were not present, and then in a peculiar tangent went on to discuss whether or not Michael Jordan actually went to space in the 1990s to help Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes win an intergalactic basketball game against the nefarious Monstars. While conventional wisdom has held that Jordan saved both the careers of several star basketball players and the lives of the Looney Tunes through his heroic matchup against the alien minions, Kaepernick refused to take the official account at face value. "I don't want to feed another conspiracy theory and stuff, but it's just an interesting question," Kaepernick pondered aloud. "I mean, if you start questioning this stuff, they'll come get you, ya know?" The highly-controversial athlete also claimed he always believed as a child that Jordan went into space, but upon a recent viewing of the documentary Space Jam, his doubts started to arise. It all started with Bill Murray's surprise entrance late in the game against the evil alien basketball players: "I realized that Bill Murray is probably not going to be the guy you call on to win a basketball game, especially a high-stakes matchup where your cartoon friends' lives are at stake," Kaepernick said. "And once I started questioning that, the reality of the whole thing started to unravel. " Kaepernick also pointed out the "suspect" idea that cartoons and humans could even play a basketball game together. "It just seems like something out of a movie and not real science," he said, further calling out elements like the cartoon basketball players blowing each other up with ACME explosives and traps as "outlandish." At press time, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had purportedly invited Kaepernick to tour the Moron Mountain amusement park deep in outer space to prove its legitimacy. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Bears Fire Dropsies Coach CHICAGO—Claiming that Bears receivers have not been dropping footballs embarrassingly enough, GM Ryan Pace fired team Dropsies coach Ovan “Mitts” Mitzenberg following their loss to the Los Angeles Rams on national television Sunday night. “Our guys have simply forgotten the basics—turning upfield before the ball arrives, stopping the pass with their facemask, using only one hand,” Pace said. “Sure, we’ve excelled in areas such as throwing the ball directly to defenders and only keeping one foot inbounds, but that only gets you so far. We need to get to a point where our team is able to drop balls with the game on the line.” Many questioned the personnel move at this point in the season, with the Bears on the cusp of being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Despite this untimely firing, Pace reiterated high praise for the team’s Sucking coach. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground These week we comment on TROPHIES!!!... Ironically, Purdue is not worthy of any trophy, but one of their cheerleaders is smokin' hot, so there's that. The Boilermakers (nice mascot, not) come into this game being down to their third string QB and having lost two starting receivers. Despite that, they have beaten Nebraska and Northwestern in their last two games (#WhoHasn't?). Purdue leads the conference with 43 passes per game, so once again the Badgers secondary will be tested. Don’t think payback isn’t a part of Purdue's in-going agenda, and with a bye week to scheme up gadget plays, look for this one to be a bit more interesting than we would like, but JT will run wild in the 4th Q behind our big nasties, and our D will get another late pick 6 to run up the score as time expires. Bucky will be doing lots of pushups Saturday. You heard it here first, Badgers 41, Boilermakers 17. We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game Jimmy, to address your earlier question about the playoff outlook, Coach has created this handy Playoff Summary Sheet for the NFC. (Yes, that’s right, Coach doesn’t give a flip about the AFC until the day we find out who we are playing in the Super Bowl. The great news for us is that we are currently the 2nd Seed and have 1st round Bye! However, if you believe that scoring more points than the other guys is a good thing and is key to winning games, then the bad news is that the Niners, Cowboys and Vikings all look like playoff trouble. They all have a better point differential and we face 2 of the 3 on the schedule coming up (we handled the Cowgirls and the Viqueens once already). The Niners are in their 3rd Year with John Lynch as GM after hiring him for the 2017 season. This is his first role outside of playing safety (15 years) or broadcasting (10 years) and it looks like he’s doing it pretty well. He’s done a great job assembling a coaching staff and has done extremely well with player acquisition. Lynch hired Mike Shanahan’s kid Kyle to be the head coach and somewhere in there coordinating their passing attack is Petite Fleur’s brother Mikhael. D-Coordinator Robert Saleh is also relatively new to running the show, he was brought into the NFL by the Texans after “earning” double major degrees in Finance and Ethanol Consumption at Northern Michigan and now has his first D-Coordinator job. Interesting the way the Niners are organized…the GM is responsible for all football operations. He has then gone out and hired some unknown yet talented guys to run the show, you know, like the Packers used to do. Just sayin’. One qualifier on the player acquisition side of things, after years of bad teams the Niners have had a bunch of high draft picks to restock the team, and Lynch has done a good job of that. He also made a huuuge free agent signing when the managed to pry QB Jim Garofalo away from the Pats two years ago. He’s overcome his injury and he’s playing really well, even if he isn’t so modest. Garofalo has flourished in the Niners Offense and has them at #2 in points scored and #5 in yards gained. The Defense has been dominant as well, at #2 in both points allowed and yards allowed. They are jelling as a team, but just won't have enough to overcome the Pack. The Packers have won the last two meetings and lead the series 36-30-1 all time with an average win of 21.4 to 20.7 and it looks like that will be going to 37 wins. The Niners fan base is really greased up for this game, they’ve obviously been looking forward to it all year. Apparently, the excited fan above is signaling 1st down to his mates in the bar? Well, I guess they’ve earned themselves the right to have a little bit o’fun in the end. Never a dull moment out there. It’s always interesting to how football is embraced by enthusiastic San Franciscans. Too bad for Poncho…he goes home unhappy again…. Packers 24 Niners 21 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them Ever wonder why this jersey hangs in the atrium at Lambeau Field? Most think it has something to do with an organizational salute to our military veterans; and, although that sounds like a great idea, it is actually not the reason. Only the most astute Packers historians have the inside scoop on this one, and now Coach is gonna share it with you… This week we salute another local kid that beat the odds and earned a spot on the Green Bay Packers. Robert Freiheit grew up in a Hustisford, Wisconsin trailer park and was the smallest kid on his high school football team, but he probably had the biggest heart. The little engine that could had nothing on this guy. He was born the bastard son of an immigrant woman who fled the gluttony of 1930’s Nazi Germany for the promise of America and changed their family name to “Freedom” after arriving at Ellis Island. “Bob” as he was called by friends, played running back and defensive back for Coach Knoebl’s Hustisford/Horicon Falcons before playing ball at Ripon College, and subsequently began his professional career as a Speed Queen washing machine salesman. Upon a sales call in Green Bay during the summer of 1958, he was overhead at lunch with a client mentioning his college playing days by Packers defensive coach Jack Morton. Morton invited Bob to City Stadium for a tryout and he took over as the Packers starting defensive back by the end of training camp. Freedom wore number 35 for the Packers that year, and they went an abysmal 1-10-1, largely due to an undersized has-been defensive back from Hustisford, Wisconsin and his incompetent head coach, Ray “Scooter” McLean. That said, if Bob Freedom hadn’t gone to Ripon College, got a job at Speed Queen, sold washing machines in Green Bay, and got a tryout for the Packers, Vince Lombardi might never have been recruited and hired as the Packers head coach in 1959. THANK YOU, BOB FREEDOM!!! Lombardi immediately cleaned house and Bob Freedom didn’t last long. With his stubborn German heritage, he burned a few bridges when leaving the Speed Queen company, and had to fall back on his hobby of brewing beer in order to earn money and make ends meet. Bob’s “Freedom 35” beer soon became the most popular bootleg beer in south-central Wisconsin and eventually earned a cult following in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, where he later relocated his operation to; and by all accounts it has become a legitmate business, abiding by all mounted police provincial laws. Even today, Freedom 35 is a staple of the eastern Canadian imbibe diet. Not surprisingly, in the heyday of the Favre-led 1990’s, Bob’s “Green Bastard” IPA became an equally popular line extension as he handed the family beer business over to his three nephews. So, Nazi defector Robert Freiheit from Hustisford, Wisconsin, we salute you as an unsung hero in bringing Vince Lombardi and several world championships to Titletown, and we thank you for brewing beer.
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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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