Apparently Mike McCarthy has a bullet proof contract because for some reason he is still employed as head coach of the Packers. It’s good to be the king. (Click on Link) Of the 16 teams in the NFC (6 of which make the playoffs), the Packers are in 14th place (but light years ahead of the Bears and 49ers). Create a seam here - X' & O's about the game or a scheme How Do You Respond When The Pack Loses? Coach points out, in a semi-serious moment here, that most fans of most teams say “we” won and “they” lost; but not real Packer fans. Real Packer fans say “we lost” or “we got our asses handed to us by the Skins” or “I can’t believe we f’ng lost to Indy.” If you are socially inept and insecure, find another team to follow. True Packer fans stay loyal to the team, even when they are calling for a complete house cleaning of the management and coaching staff. Coach will get to some specifics in a minute, but all you need to know about how messed up the world is right now is that the Lions are ranked No. 8 in most power rankings and the Pack is No. 22. The old question was "If you're down by 4 late in the 4th quarter, who do you want your QB to be?" and the Montana, Elway, Favre debate would ensure. If the question we're manipulated slightly to become "If you're down by 4 late in the 4th quarter, which defense would you want to be facing?" the debate would quickly end with “the Packers.” Coach isn’t telling you anything you don’t already know here. “But Coach, what can I do?” That is a great question, Johnny. Coach conferred with a respected colleague in the mental health field to generate a small list of practical things you can do to alleviate the pain. My colleague, let’s call him “Lance” has liberally dispensed medicinal ethanol in many forms for over 30 years and has a PhD in Doctorology awarded by the NFL School of Perfunctory. To help you better understand a few practical tings yoo kin doo, “Lance” has summarized for us: Ok, so here’s why we lost to the Foreskins: 1) Offense: Aaron Rodger is not OK, he is not fixed, the offense is not humming. Normally you’d say that if AR went 26 of 41 for 351 yards, 3 TD’s, no picks and a 115 QB rating we were OK. But consider this:
But Coach, we’ve had a lot of injuries. It’s no fair!! True, Jimmy, we have had a lot of injuries, and many of them have accumulated at key positions. But life isn't fair (and work is less fair), and the truth is that the number of injuries we have had is simply what the average NFL team has experienced. A couple of things that Coach sees in the numbers…
WTF - The Coach's take on a bad ref call or a bad play call or the like With the Wisconsin gun deer hunting season kicking off this past weekend, and in conjunction with some record warm temperatures, a group of Friendly Illinois Brethren thought they'd cross the border to give deer hunting a try. Their strategy was to "wolfpack" circling around a herd of deer in order to isolate the weakest animal for the taking. Illinoise hunter, Barry Dingle, is recorded here on video trying to intimidate a fawn. (Click on Link) In contrast, ½ of Coach Clarahanson was able to elude the balls and chains this weekend and get to deer camp! Too many baldies and not enough racks to shoot at opening weekend, but it was still fun, though (as always). Here’s some footage of this year’s hunt. (Click on Link) You’re welcome. You likely have heard about the father of Packers MLB Joe Thomas playing for South Carolina State’s football team this past weekend… Not to be outdone, ¼ of Coach Clarahanson (the oldest fraction) was in on the action Saturday for St. Norbert in their 35-7 win over Macalester College. After realizing he had eligibility left, and because he is taking the BS538 Advanced Statistics and Data Analysis course at the school, he decided to walk on for one game. He was picture perfect in holding for 5 extra points. Reached for an interview after the game he had this to say: "It was an exhilarating experience. Fire Capers." As his fame in the Green Bay metropolis spreads, he is also reportedly being sought as a spokesman for several popular area businesses as "the most interesting man in northeastern Wisconsin." The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! unofficially contacted the marketing departments for Shopko, Fleet Farm, Kwik Trip and Kroll's to confirm that they are all indeed putting together lucrative campaigns built around our hero. Well done, Señor Senior! BTW, in case you’re wondering what the remaining ¼ of Coach Clarahanson was up to this past weekend, he was patiently watching out for big racks, too (in Miami Beach). Bears Still Suck - the Coach has proof And you thought YOU had it bad…the Bears are really bad. They lost – AGAIN. Now sporting a saucy 2-8 record, the midgets of the midway will undoubtedly garner a top 3 pick in 2017 and squander it on a media-overrated player that will likely suffer a rookie-season-ending injury followed by an underwhelming Year 2. See also, every Bears high draft pick. Ironically, the Bears and the Packers have a 2-1 record in the NFC North Division; whereas the division-leading Lions and Vikings (6-4 each) have only a 1-2 division record. That’s weird. Anyways, the Bears still suck. Just ask Josh Sitton. Udder stuff - commentary from the Badger Underground The Badgers battled strong winds and a raucous crowd of 30,000 patrons (about half of which were Badger fans) to post a 49 to 10 drubbing of the Purdon't Beer and Whiskey's. Things went about as predicted, including the end score exactly matching the Las Vegas point spread. The offense was good enough and the D as awesome, especially in the second quarter. We had 220 yards rushing and a bit less than that passing. Houston seems to be emerging as the best QB. Watt had a studly pick 6. Purdue is a bad team and we did what you need to against lesser competition, save for giving up 20 points. Minnesota will not be so easy. If we keep the drops and turnovers to a minimum, and don’t have more defenders or O-linemen hauled off on a stretcher, we should be fine. Although… Saturday’s game saw yet another instance of Jazz Peavy not even attempting to catch a very catchable ball. One in particular was a third down pass at knee level during the first half against Purdue. No effort was made to catch the ball, second only to the 3rd down pass during the first half of the MI game which hit him in the sternum with his hands at his waste. Every game this season includes one instance of him either not attempting to catch a ball in his wheelhouse or dropping a ball that hits him in the hands. That’s gotta stop in the next 3 games. With Louisville getting their asses kicked, Bucky moved to a #6 ranking (the committee mixed up their W's this week). After the upcoming highly expected floor wiping with the Goofs, Bucky would then move on to Indy. We would also back into the championship with a loss should the Cornholers lay an egg at Iowa (an entirely plausible scenario). We all hope Michigan Weasels beats the Ohio State. This would set up an indisputable playoff berth to the winner in Indy, whom we hope will be the Badgers. The loser in Indy logically would go to the Rose Bowl which is a very decent consolation prize. But, what if tOSU beats the Rodents and PSU beats MSU this weekend? Then, we play PSU in Indy. Yes, Michigan SHOULD fall to a lower ranking than the Badgers since their losses would be inferior to ours. Winning in Indy still should take us to the playoff. Losing may land us in the Crapital One Bowl, since the BS bowl selectors may favor the Buckeyes. We may of course land a berth in some other big bowl like the Sugar or Orange Bowl. The horror of horrors would be to select Michigan or OSU over the winner in Indy as a playoff team. There would be holy hell to pay for that. But first things first: Minnie is another one of those scary teams. They are bowl bound and their 3 losses have been by a combined total of 17 points. In short, they are no slouches. The matchup problem for WI is that the Golden Rodents are tied with MI for second in the conference in sacks. They do it with four linemen rushing and very little blitzing. WI has yet to show that they can pass block consistently for four quarters. If Badger Underground had ten dollars for every time Hornibrook has dropped back to pass on 3rd down and been sacked this season… Though WI is favored by 14 points, this one has been circled on our calendar since the closing seconds of the Northwestern win. MN has had this game circled on their calendar since the Spring scrimmage practices. They are highly motivated to win back Paul Bunyan’s axe (the chopping tool, not the deodorant). Speaking of Northwestern, MN sacked their QB 7 times Saturday. Sacks and pass rush often lead to fumbles and interceptions, which cause upsets. WI has not found themselves trailing by more than 7 points this season, which is incredible. Keeping that pattern intact Saturday is essential as we don’t want to find ourselves having to pass our way out of a deficit with such a porous OL and two below average QB’s running the offense. We're gonna kick your a$$ - predictions for the next game Mathematically, we still have a reasonable chance of winning the division (Click on Link). We pretty much have to run the table, but stranger things have happened. And now we’ve got an added weapon! The Packers are hanging their playoff berth hopes on a more powerful offense with newly acquired Running Back, Christian Mingle. Let’s hope he lasts more than the average Packers RB contract lifetime of 2 games. So it’s on to Philly. Since our coaching and gameday talent is remarkably substandard, let’s reflect on the history of the 2 teams to see if we can glean some optimism for the outcome of Monday night’s matchup: - We got Reggie from them (advantage Packers) - We got Al Harris from them (before you say “push” recall that Hairass was called “Toast” by the punk fans of Philadelphia because he sucked so bad there, and then he actually was halfway decent in GB so – advantage Packers) - We dumped Allen Barbre on them (This should be good for us right? …advantage Packers) - We sent Cullen Jenkins there (we probably got rid of him at the right time, but could have used him 1 more year – push) - Ray Rhodes left there and came here (advantage Eagles) - Doug Pederson looks like a good game management coach, AND when he left town he took his entertaining and shrewd 3rd string QB radio show with him (double advantage Eagles) Add that all up and it looks too close to call. Moreover, there is no help from statistical or logical reasoning that suggests we will beat Philadelphia on Monday night: - They have had almost no injuries this year - They have a superior defense - They have a “rookie phenom” in QB Carson Wentz - They converted 4th & 26 - They beat the Lombardi led Packers 17-13 in the 1960 NFC Championship Game - They have Brett Favre’s deer hunting buddy as head coach - They had Chuck Bednarik (Click on Link), the last true “two-way player” (not that there's anything wrong with that), who called Deion Sanders a wimp for thinking he was a two-way player. No, no sane logical person or bettor would pick the Pack this coming Monday night…. Coach is not logical…in a pick from the heart… Packers 18 Eagles 16 …which will make getting rid of the MTM-Legume staff even more difficult! What’s that you say, Timmy, you’d like to hear more about this Chuck Bednarik guy? Well, ok then, maybe we'll divert slightly from our regularly scheduled bandwagon for this week's edition of JB… JB - Packer players you forgot about, but stories you'll remember about them If you clicked on the Chuck Bednarik link above (as I instructed you to), the photo above makes a lot more sense and shows Bednarik standing over NYG’s receiver Frank Gifford (a.k.a. the guy that slept with menopause-aged women in New York City hotel rooms while he was married to Kathy Lee Gifford of the LIVE! with Regis and Kathy Lee talkshow and Name That Tune gameshow fame) after Bednarik knocked out Gifford at Yankee Stadium late in the 1960 season. Gifford was out the remainder of 1960 and all of the 1961 Season. At that time this was known as “football.” Today it is known as “violence” (see also, aroma therapy and coloring books for college students too upset about the election results to attend their classes). Coach enjoys watching "football." In later years Deon Sanders would claim to be a two-way player like Bednarik. Coach assures you…self-proclaimed “Prime Time” WAS a wimp compared to Bednarik. He really was the last of a breed. For 58 1/2 minutes in the NFL's 1960 championship game, he held his ground in the middle of Philly's Franklin Field, a force of nature determined to postpone the christening of the Green Bay Packers dynasty. “I didn't run down on kickoffs, that's all” Bednarik said. The rest of that frosty December 26 day, on both offense and defense, he played with a passion that crested when he wrestled Packer-great fullback Jim Taylor to the ground one last time and held him there until the final gun sealed the Eagles 17-13 victory. (BTW, it seems like we always lose to Philly when we can’t hold them under 17 points -- see also, 4th and 26). Today, Chuck’s hold-down move would have led to a 5-yd penalty for delay of game and about 15 minutes of replays. As a Packer Fan, Coach is incensed that “cheating” by Concrete Chuck prevented Lombardi from winning his first Championship as a Packer. That said, Coach is also a football fan, and puts it on Taylor’s teammates for not punching him off the pile. That was the last playoff game Vince Lombardi EVER lost. Now run along, little Timmy.
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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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