Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show !!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: ...Cynthia Frelund is a 2-face. Is she hot, or is she not? Hard to tell, any more. I mean, sometimes I turn on the pregame and think, “Hey, who’s the hottie with the brains?” Then other times, I see her on a Zoom call from home and think, “What the hell happened to that chick?” It’s a conundrum. Let’s review the evidence: On the one hand, she uses mathematical statistical analysis to predict winners each week … pretty boring, unless coming from a hottie. Then it’s actually pretty great. I’ll tune in! But, I don’t know, lately she’s been looking a little less, uh, tent-pole-ish(?). And coming from a brainiac geek broad, it’s hard to keep watching. I turn that shit off. But I’m willing to give her a second chance. Yeah! …Maybe she can drop a few pounds, put on some strategically placed makeup, lose the glasses, dim the lights and – what the hell … get a boob job! After all, that’s what America is all about: 2nd chances. And I think Cynthia Frelund would make America great again by dumping her dumpy look and sticking with her hot look from now on. …at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme Last week Coach said: Win-or-lose we give up about 20 points-a-game to the Lions over Rodgers career … we lose games to the Lions when our offense sucks and we score less than 20 points. The plan for this game is to play well on Offense. Give them their average of 20 points, the Packers Offense will roll up 35. And for 37th time in 100* seasons in the NFL, we will have either won the NFL Championship or at least be in the Playoffs. * Please remember that 2020 is actually our 102nd Season. We started playing in 1919 and went 19-2-1 before joining Halas’ upstart league for the 1921 Season 1929 1930 1931 1936 1938 1939 1941 1944 1960 1961 1962 1965 1966 1967 1972 1982 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 2001 2002 2003 2004 2007 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019 2020 Think about that for 11 seconds … the Packers have been a Post-Season Team in roughly 40% of NFL Seasons since the day the League was founded. The team from the smallest city in the League was beating teams from New York and Washington DC from the very beginning. The Green Bay Packers have consistently been the best team ever, period, over-and-out. Thus sayeth Coach. Ok, Coach has that out of his system. Now it’s back to judging whether this team has the wherewithal to win another Lombardi. Probably the best news of the game on Offense was it looks like MVS can actually play receiver, kudos to him! For the day MVS had 85 yds and 1 TD on 6 catches and 0 Drops!! If he actually plays like this for the next 6 weeks, we will win 6 in a row and a trophy. Overall, we won the turnover battle, controlled the clock, gained more yards and scored more points. We also almost gave the game away in the 4th Qtr. Pretty much the formula under LaFleur / Poutine / Meningitis. After a 14-14 tie in the 1st-Half, we dominated during our first two drives of the 2nd-Half: 14 Plays, 75-yds, 8:49 & TD 21-14 Pack 12 Plays, 79-yds, 7:49 & TD 28-14 Pack Sandwiched in between? 3 Plays, 4-Yds, 1:21 DET Punt At 12:01 Left in the 4th Qtr., we were leading 28-14 and in position to crush the Lions. Coach is really running out of ways to express how frustrated he is with ... Defense and Special Teams. They both play like kids that have some sort of aberrant anti-social behavior. They play nice with their cousins and look really good for a while in front of Grandma, then they sneak down the alley and set a dumpster on fire. Metaphorically speaking that is. Did Coach ever mention that at his Grandparents house they actually did have alleys? Well never mind. Way back in history, the Packers had a very effective screen game on Offense and our D-Coordinator had an excellent Defense against the screen because he saw it every day in practice (Holmgren/Favre against Shurmur). Once again, we have a great screen game on Offense, but we seem to be completely befuddled every time we face it in a game. Up 14-7 in the 2nd Qtr, we were in perfect position to shut down the Lions and maybe go up 21-7 or at least 17-7 before the half. Instead we let the Lions go 80 yards on 11 plays for a TD, with about half the yardage coming on screens. In the clip above you’ll notice 6’0”, 214#, Safety, Adrian Amos (#31) in the middle of the field by himself (he’s playing in the MLB position and we are rushing 5)… … and just after the snap he takes himself completely out of position by shuffling to his left (toward the bottom of the screen), evidently oblivious to the 3 Lions who are running out toward the opposite sideline, looking for people to block and finding no one, because there is only green plastic field turf and no white jerseys, more-or-less similar to when the Germans massed forces before attacking Pearl Harbor. Oh yes, and behind the wall of 3 lineman is Adrian Peterson (#28), who catches the screen and runs untouched until Kevin King closes his eyes and misses with a shoulder and then Amos recovers and tackles him after a 23-yard gain. Good ole’ Darrell Bevell knows a good thing when he sees it, so on the very next play, the run the very same play, only with Kerryon Johnson instead of Adrian Peterson. It’s kind of interesting that the only player who recognizes the screen both times is Preston Smith. On the first screen he’s trailing the play, this time he recognizes the screen and turns it back inside, like he should. But he’s the only one who sees it and it’s another 1st down. They score the TD, we go 5 & out, they go 6 & out and now it’s the Half. Skip ahead past the two long scoring drives we had after halftime, and we’re early in the 4th and Crosby kicks it out of the EZ. The Lions are starting at their own 25 at 12:01 in the 4th, down 28-14. On the ensuing drive we had 5 penalties:
In a complete shocker, Detroit scores: now it's 28-21 Pack. All the hard work down the drain and a crappy team is now back in the game (although QB Mitch Stanford was crunched and knocked out of the game). We managed a FG after that … 31-21 Pack On the ensuing kickoff, Special Teams Coach Meningitis wanted to ensure that we could have a live Kicker-Tackling-Demo. Justifiably, much has been made in these pages about how awful our Special Teams are. Thank goodness we have 36-year-old Mason Crosby, and he doesn’t pay any attention to Coach Meningitis. You’ve seen JK Scott flailing around and falling over when kick returners run by him on the way to the EZ, right? Well fret no more, rumor has it that JK will be listening to this play over-and-over on his iPod. Think about this again, we were one Mason Crosby tackle away from a 31-28 game with 3:30 to go in the 4th. As it was, they were on the GB35 and down 10. Replacement QB Chase Daniels struggled, and we managed not to commit Defensive Penalties and held them to a FG. 31-24 Pack Of course the Lions attempted an onside kick. In a “Oh man, here’s Bostick again” moment, Bobby Tonyan barely got out of the way of the ball and it went OB before it went 10 yards … 2 runs, a pass and 2 kneel downs and the game was over. Glad we won? Heck yeah! Excited to notch another Post-Season appearance? Yeah baby! Convicted that we’ll go anywhere in the Post-Season? Convicted? No, never convicted. The Numbers We are the No. 1 Seed on the NFC Side of the Tournament Bracket. And we have the second worst Defense of the 7 Playoff Teams. And as concerning as the Defense is, the Special Teams are enough to give you a coronary (Coach tried that already, not recommended). The great news on Special Teams is basically Crosby. He’s made the fewest FG in the League, because we score a lot of TD’s. Of the 14 he’s kicked, 14 were good. On extra points he’s on ranked #15 because he’s missed 3 of them, but he’s #1 on made XP’s, because we score a lot of TD’s. IF Crosby is the good news, JK Scott proves that old adage that you should never waste a draft pick on a punter (5th round, 2018). His 35.9 net average yds/punt is #31 in the League. Of course he is not helped by shitty punt coverage teams. Not to be out done, we are #24 in net punt return yards … and the two together meaning we go backwards 6.1 yards with every punt exchange. We average 3 punts per game, so we are giving up 20 “hidden” yards a game, just on punting. To add insult to injury in the return game, at 53%, we rank #27 in Kickoff Touchback %. Ok, hang with Coach here, this means that 53% of the time we have to run the ball out (don’t get a touchback), because the opposing team does not believe we can return it to the 25 yd line. We also have played the softest schedule of any of the playoff teams. The NFL calculates it by total record, Coach looks at “record at the time we played them” and by that measure our opponents were 0.350. And remember, we lost to the only two winning teams we played. ESPN calculates what they call their “power index” based on a number of factors. Look it up if you’re interested to know how they do it, but frankly the results seem about right to Coach. What’s it all mean? It means that we have a pretty darn good team, but not a great team. Not a great team because we are only “OK” statistically vs. the other likely Playoff Teams … and we lost to the only two teams we played that had winning records. Confident that we will win the Superbowl? No. Is it possible? Of course.* *See also: Blind Squirrel finds nut on any given Sunday. Coach wants Championship #14, anything less is a wasted Season. P.S. Things Lombardi did not say: “Winning isn’t everything, Participation Trophies are the only thing” WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up New Evidence Suggests Ancient Churchgoers Wore Favorite NFL Jerseys To Mass Every Sunday ISRAEL—New evidence unearthed in ancient Israel has recently confirmed what Bible scholars long suspected: that early parishioners wore the jersey of their favorite NFL team to church every Sunday to show their support during the time of worship. "It seems that while Sundays were dedicated to the preaching of the Word, the singing of songs, and prayer, churchgoers also devoted a significant portion of their Sunday to cheering for their favorite NFL team," said Dr. Frank T. Parson. "So it only made sense for them to wear a loud, colorful football jersey into the service." The early church was often in hiding from persecution, of course. So worshipers would wear their football jerseys under a cloak while sneaking to the location of a secret house church. "Once they arrived, they'd take off their outer garment and reveal their Packers or Steelers jersey, signifying they were now ready to worship the Lord." Theologians believe wearing an NFL jersey helps one focus on the hymns and sermon much more effectively. "This is probably why the practice has been passed down from the early church to us today." The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof In 'It's A Wonderful Life' Remake, Angel Tells George Bailey To Kill Himself Because He's Bears Coach LOS ANGELES—Hollywood is hard at work remaking the Jimmy Stewart classic It's A Wonderful Life for modern audiences, and film critics are praising some recent plot leaks from the new script. In the new version of the film, George Bailey's guardian angel will explain to him that since he is the head coach of the Bears, he should probably just go ahead and jump in the river. Clarence the Angel will then take George Bailey on a tour of Wakanda and explain that the whole world would be like Wakanda but it's not because of centuries of colonialism and oppression. The updated story will feature a lengthy lecture from Clarence the Angel where he explains how George Bailey's predecessors have systemically driven the Bears franchise into being the laughing stock of the NFL, and that the world would probably be better off without him. "This is exactly the It's A Wonderful Life we need right now," said Jason Lieser, Bears staff reporter for the Chicago Sun Times. "With an updated message designed to expose the pathetic inability of Bears leadership to pull the franchise out of perpetual embarrassment, this film is sure to resonate with fans of NFL football everywhere and particularly in Chicago!" The film will be only 20 minutes long and it will end with George Bailey asking forgiveness for his incompetence. He then donates all his life insurance money to the McCaskey family and jumps off a bridge. Critics are hailing it as "bold," "inspiring," and "correct in its messaging." Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Big Ten Decides Pre-Season Favorites Get to Play in Indy Despite COVID Rules, Game Outcomes This brings us to the airing of grievances portion of the Badgers’ season. Yes, they lost fair and square without their starting WR’s and top RB against a better Iowa team. We are not talking about that. We predicted that and lamented at length previously about the whole season. In this holiday season, we at BU are looking forward to Christmas and New Year’s to get the hell out of 2020. But, today we will sort of “celebrate” one of the new holidays, Festivus, and its aluminum pole for airing of grievances. Ok, on to our grievance. The title this week is about as absurd as what is really happening this weekend. The rules the Big Ten made at the beginning of the season were that, at the end of the season, the top two teams would play for the Conference Championship in Indianapolis as long as each team played at least 6 games. Then, #2 plays #2, #3 plays #3 and so on. Since Ohio State played only 5 games, the line up according to the rules should have looked like this: With this plan, the top two games would have been quite interesting and made money from people watching it on television. As it stands, the match ups are very different and quite FUBAR. It looks like the Big Ten wanted to get some match ups of perennial rivalries like Minnie and Wisconsin. We get that. But jeesh, did they have to screw Indiana and Iowa in the process? Here is the actual matchup:
One more chance to get it all wrong One more time to do it all wrong One more time to get it half right One more warning Despite again missing three of our top four offensive weapons -- the Goophs do not possess an upper quartile defense like we have seen the last three games. Though RB Ibrahim is the Ameche-Dayne Big Ten RB of the year, look for Bucky to shut him down—unless the defense again spends most of the game on the field. Wisconsin is listed as 12-point favorites. Perhaps so, if Davis & Pryor play, but otherwise this game is a pick ‘em. Losing to the People’s Temple of PJ Fleck must be avoided at all costs. Wisconsin recruits very well in Minnesota and needs to protect that fertile turf. We say Bucky 21, Goofs 13 Speaking of recruiting, National Signing Day this week saw the University of Wisconsin football team bring in its highest-rated class in the internet rankings era. The Badgers secured players who have a chance to make immediate impacts, from a couple of big-play receivers, a stout crew of linebackers, another crop of standout linemen and a few other notables. The Badgers’ class was ranked No. 15 by Rivals and ESPN, and No. 16 by 247Sports as of mid-afternoon Wednesday. UW, with all 21 of its known recruits signed, surpassed Michigan as the No. 2 class in the Big Ten Conference on ESPN. Whoopiedeedoo! ADVERTISEMENT – Guns could make this Christmas a Christmas to remember! We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game This one is easy folks … we will dominate the Panthers because we have to … Everyone on Defense and Special Teams knows that their respective coordinators, Poutine and Meningitis, are under a lot of pressure to perform. Both of those units are the likely barrier to getting to the Super Bowl and so they have fixed all the problems this week … OK, scratch that, that’s been Coach’s mantra since 2010 (fix D & ST and we’ll win the damn Sooper Bowel very year that we have Rodgers). OK, on to Charlotte, the Panthers hired a College Coach in January 2020 to replace the fired Head Coach Riverboat Rob Riviera, one of the few non-assholes on the ’85 Bears. Or maybe he was one, hard to distinguish amongst that bunch This is what Packer fans need to know about the Panthers. Their new HC wears a hoodie, even in warm weather. According to his psychoanalyst’s notes, Rhule’s philosophy is that visualizing your hero’s, trying to emulate your hero’s and even dressing like your hero’s will make you a winner. How’s that worked out so far in 2020? Well we know that 4-9 Panthers are in last place in the NFC South and yet they have a path to the playoffs! (Well, the odds are less than 1%, but they are actually still alive.) With 48 games remaining in the 2020 NFL Season there are roughly 281 trillion different outcomes, so Coach will simplify for you. If the Panthers win-out and go 7-9, their odds improve to slightly over 1%. (Just be glad you’re not a Panthers fan … and to think Coach was disappointed in Petite Fleur “only” going to the NFC Championship Game last year.) If we win, they’re out … so let’s kill ’em. No doubt Hoody-Jr will do his best to motivate the Charlottes, but they announced Tuesday that they will be without their best … dancer. Statistically, this is like a lot of the games we’ve had this year. Yet another mediocre, middle-of-the-road NFC Team (Falcons, Lions, Bears, yada, yada). But it is the NFL. As the saying (sort of) goes, “on any given Saturday night…” any team can win. Twenty years ago almost to the day, both the Pack and Panthers were 5-7 and playing a “pick ’em” game on MNF. Niner’s former SB winning coach George Seifert was running the show and Reggie White was playing D, but Brad Hoover, the unknown rookie FB was the story of the game. It was the kind of game that proved the “on any given Monday night...” adage, so beware the unknown Hoover this Saturday. OK, back to 2020, the Charlottes have the No. 19 Scoring Offense, which, like a bold cabernet, pairs perfectly in the bouche with our medium-rare No. 17 Scoring Defense. Garnish our No. 1 Offense and their No. 20 Defense and voila, you have an 8.6-point Packer advantage. Guess what … Vegas has the Line at 8.5 … and yet again they are not “giving” any Home Field Advantage points to the Pack. (Fer sher, a “who cares” point to Coach.) Also kind of interesting, the Over/Under is 51.5 pt.’s, which is almost exactly the historical total between the Packers and the Panthers (50.5) During the Rodgers’ era we have gone 3-3* against the Panthers, 2-1 at home, including the 24-16 win at home last year. (*The 2017 game at Charlotte was Rodgers first game back after breaking his clavicle in the game against the purple dirtbags of St. Paul.) Last week Coach showed you how this 2020 Packers team does when it has a positive turnover ratio … it wins. The Packers have been prepping all week for Charlotte’s Teddy Bridgewater who has thrown 8 picks and lost one fumble so far in 2020. The Packers are 23-1 in the Matt LaFleur era when we are neutral or positive on turnovers. It should be right around freezing, no snow and light winds for Saturday night at Lambeau. Teddy’s gonna toss us a couple this weekend, the D is gonna look “satisfying” and the Pack is gonna win in a “Brad Hoover be damned” blowout. Bet the over with dignity, confidence and certainty. Packers 38 Charlotte 17 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them The 3rd time the Packers won the Super Bowl (their 12th NFL Championship), they had a lunchpail-carrying workman at Cornerback by the name of Doug Evans. Evans wasn’t a high draft choice by the Packers in 1993 (6th Round out of Louisiana Tech, where he played Safety), or known by offenses around the League as a “shutdown” corner, but he was a solid defender, sound on fundamentals, consistent and reliable, with a knack for making a big play at an opportune time. Unlike other Packers of that era, Evans didn’t get busted with hookers, or show up hungover on gameday, or rape his aunt. He wasn’t suspended for gambling, nor did he keep a mountain lion caged as a pet in his back yard. He did not force a woman to perform fellatio on him in the stairwell of the Top Shelf night club in downtown Green Bay, and not once was he ever arrested for speeding on I-43 in Manitowoc County with an accompanying marijuana possession charge. Nope, Doug Evans pretty much just played football. After 5 years in Green Bay, Evans had been to 3 NFC Championship Games and 2 Super Bowls, of course winning XXXI in his home state. He departed in 1998 (the same year Holmgren left) for big money in Carolina, where he later set a franchise record there of 8 interceptions in a single season. Evans also stopped for a cup of coffee in Seattle and then subsequently in 2003 at Detroit (where all careers end). Over his 11-year career he amassed 28 picks, 2 TD’s, and 6 sacks. Not too shabby.
A future Hall of Famer? Probably not. Pretty good NFL player? Yeah, you bet. Off-field shenanigans that distracted the team from winning? Never. And for that, Doug Evans, 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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