Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! In Coach’s Humble Opinion: Love has no age limit Much mainstream sports media attention – probably too much, has been made about Aaron Rodgers’ love interests over the years since he became a starter for the Green Bay Packers. Early on there was Baywatch beauty and Sports Illustrated swimsuit model “Rookie of the Year” (not to mention Coach’s personal favorite), Kelly Rohrbach... Then there was his much-maligned, family shitstorm relationship with Maplewoods Meats patron and X-Men nemesis, Lisa Oliva Munn... And now there’s former NASCAR and Indy Car driver, Danica Patrick. Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising aspect with Aaron’s latest girlfriend is that she is a “few” years older than he. Pish-posh, I say! Love knows no boundaries, and there certainly should be no restriction if one partner happens to be noticeably older than the other. That sort of myopic thinking is tastelessly outdated and a clear double standard. After all, if Rodgers was courting a woman a few years younger than him, the mainstream media would not be making such a big deal out of it. So why are they sounding the alarm when the roles are reversed? It’s just a bunch of good ol’ boy Hollywood sexism if you ask me, and there’s no place for it in today’s NFL. …At least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme This is all you really need to know: Coach correctly predicted the outcome …. again …. and a guy named Aaron dominated the game …. again. Yes sir, Aaron Jones had four, count’em 4, touchdowns at Jerry’s World. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman seemed so confused during the game that the other Aaron had to confirm it for “the Booth” You know it’s your day when the center blows a shotgun snap and it turns into a “direct snap” for a huge gain! (No kidding, this snap was supposed to be to Rodgers. Lucas Patrick was filling in at Center for concussed Corey Linsley.) Ezekiel Elliot, the guy who was supposed to dominate the game actually fell into a deep trance on the Cowboys bench during the 2nd Half. A short time later Jerry Jones was found to be rabidly spewing spittle and his son Stephen had to shield himself. At the time of this writing, Coach is fairly confident Jerry did not suffer a stroke during the game. However, Coach is also fairly confident that both men suddenly aged another 10 years on Sunday. Former Cowboys QB Aikman and former Coach Jimmy Johnson (both now hacks and Cowboy-homers for Fox Sports) were spotted on the Cowboys sidelines trying rally the hapless Cowboys. Coach has muted these clips so that the little ones in the house don’t have to hear all of the f-bombs from St. Troy. Aaron Rodgers is now 7-2 against the Cowboys. Dallas has never won a home game against the Packers since Jerry World opened!!!! After the game Aaron thanked Jerry for adding Zeke and Dak to his Cowboy bobble-head collection. Ahhh ... what a win … let’s all just roll around in it naked for a few minutes like we’re million-dollar hookers! OK, back to reality, 5 games down, 11 to go, 31.250% of the schedule played. With the win we are 4-1, NFC North Division leaders and the 2nd Seed in the NFC behind the Niners. …can’t wait to take them down after the bye week for shot at home field advantage in January. Rarely have Packers teams started fast, and having 4 wins in the bank will help a lot as we enter a tough stretch with four of five games on the road (no R-E-L-A-X needed). On offense we look balanced and, in a complete delight for Coach, Coach Petite Fleur looks flexible! Passing last week, running this week. Running outside-zone so far this season, running inside-zone against the Cowboys. And a QB that seems more about the Team than ever, “I’ve accomplished a lot statistically in this league,” Rodgers said. “I just want to win now.” Coach is excited about where the offense might go the rest of the season! So, is it all rosy? No. For the second week in a row, Mason Crosby made a TD saving tackle on a kick-off return. On the other hand, punts have been a real weapon…but kickoff coverage, sheesh. Let’s hope it’s fixed this week. Everyone is excited about the D and we are tied with the Pats for the league lead in turnover differential at +7. Think about this for 11 seconds, we already have 7 interceptions, the same as the total for all of last year! We are getting pressure on the passer with the addition of the Smith Brothers and it’s turning into turnovers. But all is not golden on defense. The formula so far is to score first and get lots of take-aways. The only game we didn’t win the turnover battle was the loss to Philly…. The formula has worked 4 out of 5 times and when we don’t get the TO’s, well …. we don’t play the run very well. For the 3rd time in 5 games, recent-new-big-contract-recipient Dean Lowry gives a demonstration how not to tackle…. especially how not to tackle on the goal line. If you want to consistently give up 5.2 yards per carry, Coach recommends that you go high and try tackling around the shoulder pads. After 5 weeks, where are we in the NFC? To project how strong we are as a team, look beyond the W-L record and examine some of the stats behind the wins. The chart below only includes the NFC, but for each of the categories the color indicates the rankings among all 32 teams. (Hint: Dark-Green “Top 5” is good and Red “Bottom 21-32” is bad.) The teams above are ordered by point differential and then by Defensive points allowed. The conclusion should be we are a pretty good team that is likely to make the playoffs, but we have to fix the run Defense. There will be games where the TO’s don’t come and we need to stop the other guys (see Philadelphia), so don’t book your Super Bowl flights just yet… …we are 2-1 against the teams ranked above us, but we’ll get Chicago & Minnesota again (home and away) and we face the Niners somewhere in Northern California. Tough tests to come, but hey, 4-1 is much better than anyone expected coming into the Season. WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up Christian High Schools Embattled In Overtime Game Entering Its Sixth Week LOMETA, TX—In a tragic prayer misfire, two Christian high schools have been stuck in a tied football game for the past six weeks after both teams prayed Philippians 4:13 before the game. The teams, the Lometa Christian Knights and the Adamsville Raging Reverends, are currently facing off in a record-breaking 5,920th overtime. They got stuck in the loop of neither team being able to win after both teams' coaches huddled them up to pray and both claimed the victory by invoking Philippians 4:13. "Lord, we claim the promise that we can do all things through you," prayed Lometa Christian Knight coach Stan Westwood before the game started in late August. "Like beat the pants off the Reverends. Gooooo Knights! Now, everyone's hands in. Jesus on 3. 1, 2, 3, JESUS!" "Lord, we come before you now and we just claim your promise that we can do all things through you," prayed Adamsville coach Red Camello. "Like crush the Lometa Christian Knights. Gooooo Reverends! Now, everyone's hands in. Jesus on 3. 1, 2, 3, JESUS!" Biblical scholars say that when two sports teams both claim the verse, it creates a paradoxical time vortex. "It's like an unstoppable object meeting an immovable wall," said one biblical scholar. "Some say they'll be playing forever." At press time, the Lometa Christian Knights had almost won after praying Jeremiah 29:11, but the Adamsville Raging Reverends quickly countered with Isaiah 40:31, and the stalemate continued. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Question: What is the most dysfunctional organization in the NFL? Unanimous Answer: THE OAKLAND RAIDERS! Question: If you lose to the most dysfunctional organization in the NFL on an international stage in a British stadium that is overflowing with your team’s fans, do you suck? Unanimous Answer: YES! Conclusion: The Bears still suck. Boom. Need more evidence? Consider this… The Bears are paying Khalil Mack $100M after trading to get him from the Raiders. Also, they just paid off QB Mike Glennon’s $50M guaranteed contract (they cut him last year), and he is now backing up Derek Carr for the Raiders. So, in summary, across the last 3 years the Bears have committed to shelling out $150M for essentially exchanging two players with the Raiders, IN ADDITION to giving the Raiders two 1st round draft picks for Mack, and they still lost to the Raiders. That is deliciously sucktastic. Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground #8 in Coaches Poll – Badgers take on Michigan State BU prediction from last week: Badgers 41, Golden Flashes 3. Actual score: 48-0. Not bad. And that’s about all we have to say about that game. Not including garbage time, Bucky’s defense has allowed only 15 points in five games. The Badgers are the only FBS team that has not trailed in a game all year. We anxiously await this Saturday’s matchup vs. Sparty. We at BU hate MSU, the couch-burning armpit of the B1G. We hate them for their sexual abuse cover ups, which put them on par with Ped State. Dantonio apparently went all Sean Connory SNL Celebrity Jeopardy and thought it was suggested the team needed "the rapist" rather than a "therapist." Every time TV shows MSU coach Dantonio on the sideline he looks to be mumbling like Sling Blade. We don't like that they have played dirty or borderline dirty under Dantonio and Pat Narducci. We still hate the losses in East Lansing marring what were potentially great Badger seasons. We also hate Magic Johnson and Izzo and Kirk Cousins and Leveon Bell and Kirk Gibson (there seems to be an unusually large proportion of MSU athletes named Kirk). We’ll never stop hating them for producing steroid king Mandarich, leading him to get drafted #2 to the Pack. We hope the Badgers boat race those MFers like nobody's business. When UW arrived in East Lansing on Sept. 24, 2016, the Spartans were flying high. They were coming off a three-year stretch in which they went 36-5 overall, won 24 of 26 games against Big Ten opponents and played in the College Football Playoff. They’d opened the 2016 season by winning their first two games, including a victory at Notre Dame. Starting with a 30-6 loss to the Badgers that day, Michigan State has since gone 22-20 overall and 15-15 in Big Ten play. If you are taking comfort in that trend, or the 10-point spread vs Sparty because they lost to Arizona State and then got shitstomped by Ohio State, stop right there. Their front seven is stout and disruptive and has recorded 19 sacks and 48 tackles for loss in six games. The thing that worries about us about the MSU game is that the Spartans are traditionally an undisciplined bunch of thugs. But after the way they played Saturday night vs tOSU, limiting turnovers and mistakes is going to be a MAJOR point of emphasis for Dantonio. Even an MSU football player possesses enough brain power to focus for an entire week and they will not shoot themselves in the foot against us the same way they did against OSU. The Spartans have been relying heavily on senior quarterback Brian Lewerke, who is averaging more than 35 passing attempts per game. Lewerke already has thrown for 1,543 yards with 11 touchdowns and two interceptions, a far cry from 2018 when he finished with more picks than scores while dealing with a shoulder injury. The good news is that Lewerke has completed just 58.5% of his passes. Lewerke’s favorite target is senior wide receiver Darrell Stewart Jr., who has 41 catches for 624 yards and four touchdowns. Stewart is second in the Big Ten with 104 receiving yards per game. This guy is a stud. Sparty can’t run the ball consistently and their 2nd & 3rd tailbacks have left the team over the last 3 weeks. Comparable to our FG kicker, theirs has missed 6 of last 10. Badgers get their starting NT (Bryson Williamson) back, out since USF game. It is impressive how well the DL has performed in his absence, though it should be noted that they faced only one respectable offense. The difference between good Wisconsin and great Wisconsin is the ability to consistently get our WRs involved in the offense. Will Paul Chryst think "good Wisconsin" plus his defense is enough to win a grinder? MSU doesn't strike us as the kind of team UW can bully with the run game. The offense has reverted to last year’s look since the Michigan game. With wind gusts exceeding 30 mph on Saturday, don’t look for them or Michigan State to be opening the playbook and airing it out. Advantage Wisconsin. Should Michigan State even attempt (or be forced) to air it out, they will be doing so against a ball-hawking, head-hunting, pipe-hitting, bad-ass Wisconsin secondary. You read it here first. Bucky 24, Sparty 14. We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game A lot has been made of the Lions being “almost” 4-0. True Dat. Coach is here to tell you, they are also “almost” 0-4. They blew a lead to Arizona in the season opener. They followed this with two thin 3-point wins and then blew another lead in Kansas City, that has them still gagging down the outcome. Detroit seems to have been on the wrong end of the stick several times this year … AND … they’ve only had 4 encounters with the sausage so far. Ironic to reflect that their pullovers are often blue, much like Monica’s. In an effort to improve their on-field performance, Coach Matt Patricia scheduled a scrimmage against a semi-pro female team last week during their NFL bye. Unfortunately for Coach Tricia, his guys couldn't figure out what to do and the Portsmouth, OH Random Girls prevailed by a healthy margin in the tilt. Roger Goodell purportedly won’t count this loss against the Lions, as he has previously approved exhibitional outreach to the fairer sex and sledding hills in order to generate unsustainable revenue. Oh, in case you missed it, Coach really likes it when we score more points than the other team – and while we are not a Top-5 Defense thus far, we do have a Top-10 D giving up an average of just under 19 points a game. What we need to get excited about is what Rodgers and LaFleur said in August, namely that this Offense will get better as the season unfolds. We do not currently have a Top-10 Offense, but on the path we are going, we should be among the League Leaders by the time we get to the Bye Week. The Offense looks more-and-more balanced and we are scoring more and more points per game. the Kitty-Kats will prove the laws of “average” and will emerge from Lambeau as a “tamed” 2-2-1 to put the all-time series as 101-72-7 in favor of the Pack. A Vegas lock if Coach has ever seen one; in a game not as close as the score indicates: Packers 41 Lions 17 Chevon McNuggets - G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them The cowardly Lions used their 1st draft pick this Spring on Iowa tight end T.J. Hockenson. The number 8 overall selection appears to be the real deal and a ready-for-prime-time player in the pass-happy NFL. That got Coach to wondering ... Who was the last linebacker the Packers had who could truly shut down talented receiving tight ends? The last, and probably the best, was Clemson alum Wayne “Big Money” Simmons. Coach was at the 1995 Divisional Round playoff game in San Francisco when Green Bay thumped the defending Super Bowl Champion Forty-Whiners 27-17 (it was never really as close as the score might suggest). It was probably the most pivotal game for the Packers in 25 years to put the rest of the League on notice that they were a legit Super Bowl contender (and they gave Dallas all they could handle in the NFC Championship Game the following week, but the fricken refs threw the game ala #Rams”Beat”Saints). Anyhoo, the most remarkable performance of the game could arguably have been that of Wayne Simmons. On the Niners’ first offensive play, Steve Young swung a pass out to his flanker in the flat, and Simmons hit the back so hard the ball popped out airborne and was scooped up by CB Craig Newsome for an easy sprint into the end zone (right in front of me, BTW). Wayne Simmons set the tone for the day, for the whole D, on that play ... not Reggie, not Sean Jones, not Leroy Butler. Those guys did play great, too, but Wayne Simmons truly validated his Big Money nickname that day. And he didn’t stop with that first defensive series. When the Niners threatened to score a touchdown right before halftime, Simmons nearly decapitated Young as he scrambled toward the goal line on 3rd down, forcing them to kick a chipshot field goal. Then later he again hits Young, this time in the backfield with a strip sack (no instant replay challenges back in those days, so the Niners got the ball back). Most impressive that day, though, was Wayne Simmons’ ability to stifle All-World 49ers tight end Brent Jones, which messed up head coach George Seifert’s entire offensive game plan and completely frustrated San Francisco throughout the contest. Simmons trademark as a player from that day forward became his knack for shutting down opposing tight ends. Shutting down tight ends has become a lost art in today’s NFL, with its emphasis on using outside linebackers almost exclusively as "Edge" rushers. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying the game has changed. I still think a shut-down OLB it’s a pretty good tool to have in your toolbox, though. We may see how valuable it could be against the Lions. But I digress…
Wayne Simmons was a flat out badass. So much so, that some thought he might actually have suffered from bipolar disorder or perhaps a similar mental illness that made him appear deranged to “normal” people. He often drew the ire of devout Christian teammate and part-time homophobe Reggie White. Simmons infamously shouted 4-letter words in the locker room and, in doing so, got a “talking to” by the HOF defensive end. Many say that repeated confrontations between the two was what ultimately got Simmons traded to KC midway through the 1997 season, which coincidentally resulted in the Packers D getting soft and allowing the Broncos to run the ball down their throat in Super Bowl XXXII. Just sayin. The Chiefs waved Simmons in 1998 after a 30-7 Monday night drubbing by their arch-rival Denver Broncos (who won their 2nd Super Bowl in a row that year, just sayin). Wayne Simmons and fellow linebacker Derrick Thomas were called for a total of five personal fouls on the Broncos’ final TD drive. Now, both those guys are dead. …just sayin. In the early morning hours of August 23, 2002, Simmons was killed at the age of 32 in a single-car crash on a Missouri interstate highway. Witnesses say he was driving at high speed and weaving through traffic before losing control of his Mercedes, rolling it several times, and then landing in a ditch with a fiery explosion. “I was totally surprised by the manner in which Wayne Simmons died” said no one. So, Big Money, for being a real badass on and off the field, 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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