It's a bye week, so let's talk politics (booo!). In case you missed the debate we extracted a brief “sneak peek” discourse from that awesome display of the best that America has to offer (Click on Link) when the tide shifted back and forth between the Donald and Hillary -- which is really the only snipit of the entire debate that the Coach Clarahanson audience needs to see. You're welcome. Back to football… Create a seam here - X's & O's about the game or a scheme As we enter the Bye Week, it’s nice to know that we are 2-1 and in a comfortable second place position in our Division, and very probably somewhere between #14-#18 in a “real” power ranking. After all, the NFL is not really important. It is “entertainment,” you know, sort of like watching Star Wars episodes or Seinfeld re-runs. So if it’s simply entertainment, then all we need are a few nice games each year, go shallow into the playoffs and we should all be happy and not get too concerned with sloppy play. Our beloved President and leader of “the best franchise in the NFL” said as much this offseason. Here are some comments from Mark Murphy, referring to the 2015 Packer’s Season: “Yes, we haven’t won a Super Bowl since 2010, but it is very hard to win games in the NFL, let alone to win Super Bowls.” “We have great leadership and stability with Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy.” “So, while the ending to the season was disappointing, and we didn’t achieve our ultimate goal, the season was not a failure, and we have much to build on for the future.” Coach, however, adheres to a different philosophy … a philosophy that once mattered, a philosophy that used to rule the day at 1265 Lombardi Avenue. When Coach read Murphy’s comments in the offseason he was apoplectic and, in a Lombardi-&-Lambeau-are-rolling-in-their-graves moment, Coach could not believe what he was reading. So just for grins and giggles, I decided to go down statistical memory lane and see how the triumvirate of Murphy-Thompson-McCarthy have done (with Capers on the Defense Wheel). We’ll call it the MTM-Legume Regime for short. The table below has Defensive & Offensive Stats from the 4 regular seasons when the Pack have won the Super Bowl. In what I hope is no surprise, on average we scored more points than the other teams. (Is Coach going too fast?) In fact, you’ll see some very common themes between those seasons:
I’ll spare you all the statistics, as interesting as they may be, but suffice it to say the:
The second thing Coach did was compare the performance of the Pack under the MTM-Legume Regime to the Super Bowl Winner’s stats. As you can see in the table above, 4 times during the Regime (2009, 2010, 2011 & 2014) the point differential was about 9 or greater, giving them a legit shot to think about being SB Champs. Only in 2010 was the defense good enough (#2 ranking) to get them over the top. As Coach looks down the list he has painful memory after painful memory of defensive collapses late in those playoff games. Every f’ng time it’s been a defensive collapse at the end….but now you know why those collapses should come as no surprise, because that’s the way the team played in the regular season. So that brings us to 2016, where our Packers are now 2-1, but tied for 15th on Defensive Points allowed and at #13 for Offensive Points. Good enough to be entertaining? You bet, Mark Murphy, nothing to hang your head about here. The MTM-Legume Regime and AR have been testy over the last couple of weeks, but this is a “show me” league -- and if Packer Fans believe that “winning is the only thing” then we haven’t passed the eye-test yet in 2016. Coach is a realist and not a Debby Downer (Click on Link), but Coach wants/expects another Lombardi Trophy (every year)…and if we don’t get one this season Coach will be on the John Elway “fire them all for F’ng up in the playoffs” mode come February 2017. So in the meantime, when you are calling in to radio shows or arguing over the Pack at your favorite watering hole, just keep steering everyone back to the reality of we must score more points than the other team and, to do that consistently against good teams, we need to be a better defensive team than we’ve shown so far. On to another topic: Coach gets asked all the time in said watering holes “I hear ‘hidden yards’ are important, but what does that mean?” This is another seemingly advanced concept to those who wait in line at the 5th Quarter tavern in Kimberly wearing their Rodgers and Nelson jerseys to watch the TJ Lang radio show each Monday at 5pm en route to the Highway N Supper Club in Darboy, but it really can be reduced to…
A great example of that is the Pass Interference penalty last weekend against the Lions. The penalty took the Pack from their own 30 to the Lions 4 yard line in one play (Click on Link) and a touchdown shortly thereafter. The 66 yards are real, but they don’t show up in the Offensive stats. A more common source of “hidden yards” is from Special Teams play. None other than Bill Belichick, the 2nd greatest coach in NFL history, has famously opined to the Boston Herald on the new kick-off rule. The 25-yard touchback rule was put in place this year to reduce the number of kickoff returns and thereby enhance player safety. An unintended consequence is that more teams are trying to pooch kicks and pin teams further back than the 25, resulting in even more kickoff returns than previously. We’ll have to wait and see if injuries are indeed reduced, or if things actually get much worse (see also, government run healthcare). Thus far, it HAS proved Coach’s point that if you have fewer yards to cover you’re more likely to score points. Number of drives that start at exactly the 20-yard line: 58 Touchdowns: 8 (13.8 percent) Field goals: 4 (6.9 percent) Scores: 12 (20.7 percent) Number of drives that start at exactly the 25-yard line: 303 Touchdowns: 66 (21.8 percent) Field goals: 49 (16.2 percent) Scores: 115 (38.0 percent) …from all games played across the NFL thru week 3. Ty Montgomery (last Sunday against the Lions) and Randall Cobb (Christmas Eve eve, 2012 during a 55-7 blowout of the Nashville Oilers at Lambeau) made possibly the biggest heads up plays in kick-off history. Click on their names for links to these plays. The Lions pooched the ball toward the SE corner of the playing field in attempt to pin the Pack in awful field position, but a very alert and knowledgeable Ty Montgomery actually ran out of bounds and then laid down and touched the ball with his feet out of bounds. That, my friends, is a kicking-team penalty that puts the ball on the 40-yard line! But this Coach was half-drunk by this point in the game and went crazy as I thought Montgomery downed the ball at the 2 (the play was literally right in front of Coach…hiccup). Using his encyclopedic knowledge of the NFL, Coach quickly said, “hey, Montgomery, WTF, that’s a violation of NFL Rule 8, Section1, Article 8!!!” Of course, as I’m sure you’re all familiar with, Rule 8 in Section 1, Article 8 stipulates that a player who goes out of bounds cannot re-enter the field of play and catch a pass…so clearly the same logic would apply to a kick-off, n’est pas? No, in fact, it’s not the same. In the particular case of a Kick-Off, because the player is out-of-bounds, the ruling is that the kickoff went out-of-bounds, resulting in the ball being placed at the 40. So, Hooray for Green Bay, 38 extra “hidden yards” and great field position to start a drive that ended in a TD (Hooray for statistics! Heck, Hooray for Boobies!). How the NFL can have different rules for out-of-bounds is just bizarre. Coach hates to say it, but Canadian’s hockey and pussy’s soccer have much more logical rules for crossing lines and boundaries…but we’ll never discuss that here because Coach has Dissociative Identity Disorder and something like 34.8% of his personality does not like futbol. This 34.8% includes the 25% of his personality that contributes the dirty humor (Boobies!) and does the final editing for this erudite and entertaining take on the Packers. Stop looking at me, swan (Click on Link). WTF - The Coach's take on a bad ref call or a bad play call or the like Mark McCorthy must have a man crush on Trevor Davis. Coach can’t figure out why TD got significant playing time over Montgomery and Abbrederis against the Lions, other than his initials are “TD” – which is pretty cool for a receiver. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ok with sending our fastest guy down the field on a GO route and hoping for PI (kudos to Trevor for his punter-like flop near the end zone!). …shoot, isn’t that why Janis is on the team? But why was Davis in for over half of the offensive plays in the game? He was in on more offensive plays in Week 3 than Abbrederis and Janis were through 17 weeks last year, combined. Hopefully his dropped pass in the 4th Q will give local-favorite Abby, and the people’s champion, Janis (without a club on his hand), a shot at more passes in the rest of the games. Or maybe MM is just waiting for them to dominate in the Divisional round playoff game; that is, up until he pulls them off the field foregoing a statistically advantaged chance to win the game with a 2-point conversion. But I digress… Getting back to WTF’s roots, several loyal readers have questioned Coach’s recent overlooking of the worst officiating debacle in the history of college football. Honestly, Coach didn’t dismiss it, it’s just that other loyal readers have questioned Coach’s proclivity toward lingering run-on sentences that never seem to end and drag on endlessly thereby extending the duration of the reader’s involvement from a reasonable allotment of personal time for interaction with The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! to a prolonged period that compromises other commitments made for said reader by his thoughtful spouse or girlfriend or parole officer, and I guess that didn’t leave enough room for it. So the bye week seems like a good rewind opportunity for a WTF break down of the final play of the Oklahoma State (FBS) vs. Central Michigan (FCS) game a couple of weeks ago. You see, OSU was ahead by 3 and facing a 4th down with several ticks left on the clock. They couldn’t take a knee because Central Michigan could call timeout and get the ball around mid-field for a hail-Mary opportunity, so the OSU QB stepped back and launched a long pass out of bounds many yards down the field in order to eat up the remainder of the clock. This is a perfectly legal play to end the game, but the Big Twelve(10?) refs called intentional grounding (even though the QB wasn’t under any pressure and has the right to make a long, inaccurate pass to end the game...the game CAN end on an Offensive penalty, just not a Defensive one) and THEY GAVE THE BALL TO CENTRAL MICHIGAN -- GRANTING THEM 1 PLAY WITH ZERO TIME LEFT. Click on this link to see what happened next. As bad as that call was, what’s even worse is that the NCAA did not retroactively grant OSU the victory that actually occurred before the “final” play that should have never occurred (and, therefore, technically did not exist). Now, Coach could care less about Oklahoma State’s football program, but having seen similar officiating travesties steal wins away from the Badgers over the past few years, I wonder if the NCAA will get away with screwing Bucky out of victories over Michigan and Ohio State in the coming weeks. I hope note, but I guess we’ll have to stay tuned. Any suggestions out there for a peaceful gesture in protest of unconscionable NCAA officiating? Before we leave this week’s WTF segment, in case you missed it, Darren Sharper was recently included on the Hall Of Fame list of nominees. That’s right, Darren “date rape” Sharper. WTF? Sure, he was great fun to party with, but NO WAY was he ever a good enough player to be nominated for induction to the Hall of Fame. What are these sports reporters thinking? Shame on you. Sharpers Hall-of-Fame nomination causes national outcry (Click on Link). The Bears Still Suck - the Coach has proof Three weeks in the books, 3 L’s and no W’s on the board for da Bears. They are not even what one might consider a competitive team anymore. Maybe Goodell should have the Cleveland Clowns and the Shitcago Bears play the last game of the season against each other (instead of the Pro Bowl?) with the winner owning the 1st pick in the 2017 draft. That way, John Fox (unless fired by then) will get the 2nd pick (and squander it)! Packers, Vikings and Lions really have an unfair advantage over the rest of the NFC because playing the Bears twice is like having 3 bye weeks on the schedule AND you get 2 automatic W’s. And there are SO many empty seats in Soldiers Fields (aka the space ship toilet bowl) these days. Maybe they should take some pointers from the better professional football team in Chicago -- the one that won the championship last year. No, I’m not talking about the Chicago Fire lawn losers that play soccer... If you’re unfamiliar with the Lingerie League (Click on Link), it is pretty much just how Coach and his shrewd staff of assistants would have drawn it up (except Chicago probably would not have been granted a team). Let’s hope Green Bay gets a team next year (and the players get drafted from out of state … that’s how Coach would draw it up – just sayin). As we take a little time-out from football this Bye-Weekend, we have to extend sympathy to FIB’s from the Windy City. At 0-3, they take little solace in the “success” of the Bears; but an even bigger kick in their collective groin is the new boundary put on their recreational use of the Ovis aires. Little known to most Packer fans, the Bears have operated an “R&R” facility on the outskirts of Spooner, WI for several years. Quite often Bears players, injured or healthy, would seek rejuvenation and respite from the choking smog of Chicago in the arms, er -- behind the legs, of a fluffy little ewe… Top notch accountants at the UW-Madison recently exposed the Bears' hideout when one of them noticed the Chicago Junction station just outside of Spooner, WI. Expertly tracking the Bear scat trail, the investigators quickly found the elicit operation. University officials discovered that the supposed “Sheep Milking Station” had been cloaked as part of the UW Ag Department. They have moved quickly to shut down the facility on both budgetary and moral grounds, and have reportedly begun an internal investigation to determine how the “Station” ever made it into the University. Asked about the operation, former starting Bears quarterback Jay Cutler (pictured below) was disconsolate: “I really cared for the girls -- Tweedle and Snowflake in particular, they really attended to my needs as a Bear. Once ewe go back, you never go back.” UW’s dairy sheep research program comes to a shocking end Udder stuff - commentary from the Badger Underground Sconnie Spanks Sparty! Ok admit it, you did not see this one coming. We certainly did not and even factoring in that we were managing expectations, the best we hoped for was for Bucky to win in a squeaker where the ball bounces the right way. We thought that we would be lucky to win and that if we did it would come on last possession heroics. We are pleased to announce that we were WRONG! First time starter Alex Hornibrook showed real poise and impressive accuracy. He took what Sparty gave him and got the job done. The RB’s turned in a pedestrian 100 yard performance with only 58 yards out of our star, Clement. But, the real story was the BAD ASS Defense. Lots of pressure, shut down running game, and forced mistakes led to the 30-6 stomping, in East Lansing no less! Even the secondary, which we felt was suspect, got the job done. This MSU squad is no slouch. They have real offensive weapons and Bucky shut it down. Can we keep up the in the coming weeks? We will see! So Saturday at 2:30, the #8 Badgers take on #5 Michigan. Since Coach Clarahanson followers are mostly gun-toting nature-going men, you probably already know that the wolverine is really just a large weasel. That said, you might not know how the wolverine inspired this educational homage to the maze and blue (Click on Link). These pesky critter’s only real test so far this year has been Colorado, who were leading in the 3rd quarter until their starting QB got injured. UM then lit up the scoreboard, including some big special teams plays. Here are some key points about the over grown Weasels:
But hey, we are liking our chances on Saturday. Badger Underground just wants to see whoever deserves to win this game come out on top, as long as it’s us. We are hoping to make Harbaugh look like he is taking a “big ‘ol growler”(Click on Link), just like we used to do to Bo Pellini! We're gonna kick your a$$ - predictions for the next game Hmmm… we just got started and now we have to take a week off? What to do with the time… well, considering our substantial rash of injuries, we can probably use the extra time to heal, Ted can have dinner with Jim Harbaugh in Ann Arbor to talk about his options for next Fall, and maybe our punter can spend time with the DB’s to teach them how to catch the ball. Hey, if Gunter and Hyde woulda held onto their gimme picks, the game woulda been the blowout that it shoulda been and Capers’ (and Coach Clarahanson, recalling the 2 INT’s predicted in late Q2) woulda been vindicated fulfilling the one scenario in which Dom's D actually works (when we’re up by at 3 TD’s in the 1st half). The contest against the Giants will be a Sunday night game again. Historically we have not done well against them in prime time at home (defying the odds, whereas every other team in the NFL does do well at home in prime time – aka “home field advantage”), and another watch-out is that Aaron and Eminem are only 1-6 in the last 7 prime time games, but more on that matchup next week. Spoiler alert: Coach is picking the Pack! In the meantime, here are a few reactions of players (Click on Link) that Coach tweeted about last year during the boring/bye week.
JB - Packer players you forgot about, but stories you'll remember about them Having Darren Sharper get nominated for induction into the Hall of Fame was so disturbing that it got Coach thinking… What do Darren Sharper, Eugene Robinson, James Lofton, Brandon Underwood, Najeh Davenport, Mark Chumura, and Mossy Cade all have in common? You guessed it! They all actually played for the Green Bay Packers! Look it up … it’s true. For reals. Related, Andrew Quarless, Jarret Bush, Erik Walden, Nick Barnett, Corey Rogers, and Ahmad Carroll. See also, Mike Pennel, Cletidus Hunt, Mike Neal, Demetrius Goodson, De'Mond Parker, Datone Jones, Joe Johnson, Johnny Jolly, Brett Favre, and Letroy Guion. Put your seatbelt on, man (Click on Link).
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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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