Unbeaten Packers Start Their Second Quarter

Monday Night Stud, photo by Evan Siegle, Packers.com

Before we get to some comments on last week's win against the Falcons, and some comments on the upcoming game against the Buccaneers, I feel as if I have to comment on what a terrible disappointment Week 5 (the Packers' bye week) has been. Not only did a legitimate NFL star, Dak Prescott, suffer a catastrophic injury on Sunday, but the games I cared about most went the wrong way. 

I had hoped, during the Packers' bye week, that the Packers would get some help in other games. Instead, on Thursday night, the Bears won a game against the Buccaneers that they could easily have lost. The Bears even got a big assist from a "senior moment" by Tom Brady, when he lost track of the down before turning the ball over as the Buccaneers were trying to get in position for a potential game winning field goal. The Bears' 20-19 win left them at 4-1, half a game behind the Packers. 

Then, on Sunday night, the Vikings, to my great amazement, were in position to upset the Seahawks, which would have left the Packers as the only unbeaten team in the NFC. But as the second half progressed, I just knew that the Vikings were going to blow it. And indeed they did. Many will focus on Mike Zimmer's decision to go for the kill shot at the end of the game, when it was 4th and 1. A first down there would have effectively sealed the win for the Vikings, 26-21. But an "easy" field goal (easy, except it was raining pretty hard at the time) would have made it an 8 point game, meaning the Seahawks would not only have to drive down the field for a touchdown, but also get the 2 point conversion, just to tie the game and take it to overtime. Instead, the Vikings did not convert, and the Seahawks' ensuing touchdown won the game for them, rather than just giving them a chance to tie the game up. I can't really criticize Zimmer for the call, though, because I am generally in favor of being more aggressive in trying to secure a win. As a matter of fact, there is a statistical argument that you should go for it on 4th and 1 from any place on the field.  The Seahawks' win brought them to 5-0, half a game ahead of the Packers.

Anyway, getting back to the Monday night game against the Falcons, you figured going in that the 3-0 Packers should beat the 0-3 Falcons.  But the problem for the Packers was the injuries, especially at receiver.  Allen Lazard was on IR after surgery, Marcedes Lewis was out, and Davante Adams thought he was ready, but the Packers decided to hold him out anyway.  Plus Rashan Gary and Kenny Clark were both out on defense.  Could the Packers handle the Falcons without three starting receivers?  Enter Robert, "Big Bob" Tonyan.  Or, as someone called him on the NFL Network, "I, Tonyan," noting that he took a figurative tire iron to the kneecaps of the Falcons' defense.  This was a real coming out party for Tonyan, who caught all 6 passes thrown his way for 98 yards and 3 touchdowns.  

You might wonder when the Packers last had a tight end with 3 TD catches in a game.  It turns out this is only the third time in Packers history when this has happened.  Keith Jackson got the hat trick in the 1996 Super Bowl year, and Jermichael Finley had one in 2011, en route to a 15-1 season.  So Tonyan is in pretty elite company among Packers tight ends.  When Davante Adams and Allen Lazard return, it is doubtful that Tonyan will have more 3 TD games.  But having him around can only make the receiving game more explosive going forward.  Other tight ends have had their moments in the years since Jermichael Finley was lost to injury.  But nobody has been a consistent, elite performer.  You can't say, based on Monday night's game, that Tonyan is there yet.  But going into week 5, Tonyan was tied with Mike Evans for most receiving touchdowns in the league.  If Tonyan can even be a reliable contributor, this could be a huge plus for an already potent Packers offense.

Now that this week's bye is over, the rested and healthier Packers will play in hot Tampa against the Buccaneers, who have had 10 days of rest leading up to the game with the Packers.  I am not sure what to make of the Buccaneers.  They are 3-2, in a bunch at the top of the NFC South.  The two losses were to the Bears and Saints, while the wins were against the Panthers, Broncos and Chargers.  They have a very good (top 5) run defense, but the Packers are much better on both rushing and passing offense.  While the Packers have zero interceptions this year, the Buccaneers have four, so there is a better chance of picking off Brady than Rodgers.  They have some good offensive weapons in Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Ronald Jones, and of course Brady.  They just have not been getting as much production out of them as have the Packers.  

Going into the season, I would not have predicted that the Packers would be 4-0 after one quarter of the season.  Of course, the only one of the four teams they beat with a record above .500 was the Saints.  But the Packers have looked unstoppable on offense, and "good enough" on defense to keep them in the games and let the offense win.  What will the second quarter bring?  At the moment, the next four games only have one team above .500, the Buccaneers, followed by three below .500, the Texans, the Vikings and the 49ers, who will present a big challenge to the Packers regardless of their record.  

Home field advantage will continue to mean almost nothing in the second quarter, even if there are some fans in the stands as will be the case in Tampa this week.    Weather can still be a home field issue, and while it is mostly in the 50's in Wisconsin this week, the projected high temperature in Tampa for Sunday is 88 degrees.  Because of this, I think the Tampa Bay game and the 49ers game are the two where the Packers have the best chance of being beaten.  While I could see the Packers losing the Buccaneers game, I don't think it will happen.  I think, with the likely return of Davante Adams and Kenny Clark, the pass-catching abilities of Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams, and the emergence of Tonyan as a threat, the Packers will be too much for Brady and the Buccaneers.

Can the Packers Put Together a Winning Streak?

Interim Coach Joe Philbin, Photo by Wm. Glasheen, USA Today

The Packers have not had back-to-back wins all year long.  Such is the misery of a 4-7-1 season.  They will get a 5th chance this week to start a winning streak.

Sunday's game against the Falcons, which the Packers won 34-20, was the first game under the leadership of Interim Head Coach Joe Philbin (or Coach Fill-In, as the guys from the Packers Therapy Podcast call him). 

A week after losing to the 2-10 Cardinals in embarrassing fashion, the Packers put together a pretty good showing against the Falcons, a team similar to the Packers in that they are a talented team having a bad season.  The Falcons and the Packers, after all, were in the NFC Championship Game just two seasons ago in January, 2017.  This suggests to me that neither team is as bad as its 2018 season record.  And the win over the Falcons shows me that the Packers are not as bad as they looked the week before.

There were a few surprises for me on offense.  First, the Packers went pass-heavy in the first half, throwing on about 80% of their offensive plays.  I would have expected them to try to establish the running game.  Switching things up surprised me, and I think it may have surprised the Falcons, as well.  That is a good sign, that Philbin designed a game plan that went against what would be expected.  Better yet, many of those pass plays were quick-release plays, which many of us have been calling for all year.  With a makeshift offensive line, it doesn't take a genius to see that Rodgers should get rid of the ball quickly.  I am just glad that they actually did it. 

Second, I re-watched most of the game, and the thing that struck me was how few obvious audibles there were on offense.  We can't know if Rodgers changes some plays in the huddle, and he might have alternate play calls that he can signal with a simple word or number from the line of scrimmage.  But I saw very few of the traditional audibles, where it is obvious that the play is being changed at the line of scrimmage.  I take this to mean that Rodgers and Philbin were more in sync on the play calls than Rodgers and McCarthy have been this year. And given that this was the first game that Philbin has called as an NFL coach, it would not surprise me if he gave extra deference to the experienced play-caller behind center. 

Now, beating the Falcons was, by itself, no big deal.  It is not unusual or unexpected for a team to rally in the first game after a coach is fired, and there are presumably all kinds of psychological factors that lead to such a result.  But now that that first game is behind them, what happens for the rest of the season, and does it matter if the Packers still have theoretical playoff hopes?  They theoretically are in the playoff race as of now, and if they were to win the rest of their games, it might get interesting, as the other things that need to happen are not completely outlandish to contemplate.  The Packers play at the Bears this week, then at the Jets, and finish at home against the Lions.  While the Cardinals game shows that there are no gimmes for the 2018 Packers, let's just take it as a given that the Packers have a pretty good chance of beating the Jets and Lions.  What about the Bears on Sunday?

On one side, you have the newly resurgent Bears, who after blowing a huge lead to the Packers in Week One, have played pretty well the rest of the season, with last week's shutting down of the Rams being maybe their best game of the year.  Only two teams, the Cowboys and Ravens, have given up fewer points.  Mitch Trubisky looks like he is for real in his second year, Tarik Cohen is an important factor in both the rushing and receiving game for the Bears, and the receivers and tight ends have contributed 17 touchdown catches of their own.  Heck, the Bears even have a serviceable backup quarterback who can step in and win a game or two for them (imagine that!).  A bunch of big pluses for the Bears.

On the other side is . . . Aaron Rodgers.  His mastery over the Bears is very similar to that of his predecessor.  Both QBs were dominant over the Bears, at home and at Soldier Field.  Rodgers has won 16 of his 20 starts against the Bears, and one of those 4 losses was when the Bears broke his collarbone in the first quarter.  But very few, if any, of those wins were against Bears teams as good as this year's version.  So we will see.  Being a realistic observer, I am expecting the Bears to win this week, effectively ending the Packers' playoff hopes, and possibly affecting the way the team approaches the final two weeks.  But with Rodgers at quarterback, anything can happen.  I hope it does.

Here We Go Again!

Rodgers running for his life, photo by Jim Matthews, USA Today

Sunday night's game led to a result I expected, a Packers loss.  But I did not expect such a demoralizing loss, at the hands of the Falcons (yet again!).  Anybody who watched the game knows that the game was not nearly as close as the final score of 34-23 might suggest.  With a score of 34-10 at the start of the fourth quarter, it would have taken much more than a couple of garbage time touchdowns to even the score.

As soon as I heard that both Bulaga and Bakhtiari were inactive, I should have suspected that problems were ahead.  Missing 40% of your starting offensive line is not a good thing against a team with a strong pass rush.  And by the end of the first quarter, Jordy Nelson and Mike Daniels were also sitting on the sidelines.  By the end of the game, so were Randall Cobb, Davon House, Kentrell Brice and Jahri Evans.

On defense, the problems were evident from the first drive, which was way too easy for the Falcons, even before Mike Daniels went out of the game.  The conclusion I reached was that last week's defensive performance was something of a mirage, or at a minimum greatly exaggerated because of the ineptitude of the Seahawks offense in general, and their offensive line in particular.  Against a powerful offense like that of the Falcons, the Packers can't keep up, at least on artificial turf. One lesson I hope the Packers learned from this loss is that it is time to get rookie cornerback Kevin King and rookie safety Josh Jones more playing time.  They outplayed their more experienced teammates.

On offense, the makeshift offensive line held up for a while, and of course the touchdown on the first drive helped foster the illusion that maybe everything would be OK.  But after a few drives, it all started to fall apart. One guy who had a particularly bad night was Martellus Bennett.  He needs to clean up his act, starting catching the balls that are catchable, and put this game behind him.

The worst thing about this loss is the potential damage to the Packers' quest for home field advantage in the playoffs.  There is a lot of season left, but trailing the Falcons by a game plus a tiebreaker is not where the Packers want to be.  The Packers have a good chance to beat the Falcons in Lambeau Field in the playoffs.  But they have demonstrated no ability to beat them in Atlanta.

After two weeks, the Packers have in their record an ugly win against the Seahawks, who don't look much like a championship caliber team, and an even uglier loss to the Falcons, who undoubtedly will be contending for the title.  The schedule now calls for what should be two much easier games, both at home, first the 0-2 Bengals, who have only scored 9 points in two games, and the 0-2 Bears, who looked pretty good in losing to the Falcons at home, and not so good in losing to the Buccaneers on the road.  If the Packers take care of business and win both these games, they will have a 3-1 record, and a "mini-bye" of 10 days to get healthy before starting a tougher series of games starting with the Cowboys.  I expect two wins in the next two games, but I admit to being nervous about what the injury report will say as the games get closer.

Four More Quarters for a Shot at the Super Bowl

Mason Crosby, photo by Evan Siegle, Packers.com

I have been so far under the weather this week that I didn't know if I would come up for air before the weekend, and I guess I barely did.  But here are a few brief comments on the Cowboys game (which the Packers won 34-31 on the final play of the game), and then the upcoming Falcons game in the NFC Championship Game.

Well, I predicted (with trepidation) that the Packers would beat the Cowboys, and when they were ahead 21-3 and then 28-13, I was feeling pretty good about my pick, and more importantly, about the game.  There were so many "wow" moments in the game, and so much has already been written about them.  The TD to Rodgers on a free play.  Dallas area native Ty Montgomery living a dream and scoring two TDs in the Cowboys' stadium.  The Cobb toe tap sideline catch (announced by the crew as Rodgers "throws it away").  The even more spectacular Cook sideline catch.  The decision to go for a 56 yard Mason Crosby field goal, when a miss would have given the Cowboys great field position to win the game.  The 51 yard Mason Crosby field goal to win the game, as time expired, with the obligatory time out to ice the kicker.  Remember when Mason Crosby was a problem a few years ago?  Not any more.

The one I want to highlight, though, is a couple of plays before the Cook miraculous sideline catch.  Rodgers sustained a blindside sack at the Packers' 31 yard line.  If he had fumbled, as you would expect he would on a sack like that, the Cowboys would probably have recovered the ball right there, in perfect position to kick the game winning field goal themselves.  I really don't know how Rodgers avoided the fumble, but by doing so he saved the game.

Now obviously it was a little disheartening to let the Cowboys close the score to an 8 point margin before halftime, and it was a lot disheartening, if not heartbreaking, to let the Cowboys tie the game at 28 and then again at 31 in the fourth quarter.  We Packers fans have some history with blown leads in the playoffs, and it seems (without adding up each instance over the years) that it doesn't usually end well.  Just two comments: at least the blown leads this time did not result from a "prevent defense" or "kill the clock offense."  That would drive me crazy.  Instead, if you rewatch the game, the blown leads really happened "organically" in the course of the game, meaning the Cowboys adjusted their offense to rely more on the passing game, and the Packers made some errors here and there (like the Christine Michael error on the kickoff he bobbled, or Rodgers' interception) that contributed to the blown lead by changing around the field position game.  But here, for a change, the Packers were the ones to pull off the last second victory after blowing the lead, rather than the other way around.

There are two obvious Packers-Falcons games to think about in evaluating the Packers' chances on Sunday.  In the 2010 playoffs, when the Falcons were the number one seed, the Packers blew the doors off the dome, winning 48-21.  I can't put much stock in that game.  It was 6 years ago, and there has been much turnover on both teams since then.  Besides, that was at a time when the Packers not only had a healthy offense, but also a healthy defense, sporting such defensive backs as Charles Woodson, Tramon Williams, Nick Collins, and Charlie Peprah.  If Aaron Rodgers was the no. 1 star of that game, then Tramon Williams was no. 2, with his two interceptions, including the 70 yard interception for a touchdown on the final play of the half.

So what, then, about the game against the Falcons, at the dome, earlier this year, which the Falcons won, 33-32?  This was the first of four losses in a row for the Packers, ending up with the "run the table" moment when the Packers had fallen to 4-6.  There were 7 lead changes in the game, and the Packers had the lead at some point during each of the 4 quarters.  At the end, the Falcons scored the final points on a touchdown pass to Sanu, and in this case 31 seconds left was not enough time for Rodgers to get the offense downfield for a possible winning field goal.  So the Packers of 2016 can certainly play with the Falcons, and don't have any reason to fear going into the Georgia Dome.

But in re-watching that October 30 game, the most amazing thing to me is the Packers' inactive list: Randall Cobb, Damarious Randall, Quinten Rollins, James Starks, Clay Matthews, Ty Montgomery, and Jared Cook.  Could the presence of some of those players on the active roster make a difference on Sunday?  You bet it could.  I assume Jordy Nelson will be out, but I assume Davante Adams and Geronimo Allison will be able to play, as will Randall Cobb and Jared Cook and Ty Montgomery.  That should take care of the offensive side of the ball.  On defense, the defensive backfield is a bit of a mess, but Damarious Randall will play, and Morgan Burnett may be able to play.  I assume Quinten Rollins won't be able to play, because as far as I know, he is still in concussion protocol.

I think the Packers will win this game, by a fairly close score, and advance to Super Bowl LI.

Get a Grip, Fans!

Mike McCarthy, Speaking for All of Us, photo by Mark Hoffman, USA Today

Real life intruded to prevent me from posting anything about the Packers' loss to the Falcons last week (Falcons won, 33-32), and so now I have two unfortunate losses to look back on before turning to the Titans game this Sunday.  The Falcons game, as it turned out, was a tremendous disappointment.  I had come to expect the Packers to lose that game, especially when I saw the inactive list before the game.

And then came the Colts game (Colts won, 31-26).  That one I expected the Packers to win.  They were at home, the Colts have not been playing up to expectations, they don't have a very good offensive line, I was assuming that the Packers would get back Montgomery and maybe Cobb and maybe Matthews, so I just didn't see them losing the game.  But they did, obviously, starting with the opening kickoff which even the NFL Sunday Ticket didn't give to us since the local station was carrying the Packers game and they were still in commercial at the time.

Games like this make some people crazy.  Here was the Facebook status of one of my Packer fan Facebook friends shortly after the game.  Remember, this is a Packers fan, not some troll or some Bears fan or whatever:

"THE PACKERS ARE GARBAGE ..... GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS."  

Long ago, when I was a law clerk working in the Federal Court of Appeals in Chicago, I learned that typing your motion or brief in all caps definitely adds extra persuasiveness to your position.  In those days, petitioners and brief-writers couldn't easily change the size of the font, but if they could have, all caps and huge font size would really have been extra super duper persuasive.  

Look, I am not trying to make fun of my Packer fan Facebook friend, but rather I am trying to make the point that people need to get a grip.  The Packers are not playing very well right now.  They don't have the killer instinct, or they would have at least found a way to win one of the last two games against the Falcons and Colts.  You might even say that they are a mediocre team at 4-4.  Maybe being a 4-4 team is the very definition of mediocrity.  They certainly are not as good as I assumed they would be at the beginning of the year.  Right now, I am not confident that the Packers will even make the playoffs, much less make any noise in the playoffs.  But I think it is a little early to give up on the season.  If they start to turn things around right away, they can squeak into the playoffs, and as they showed in 2010, once you get in, anything can happen.

This week they travel to play the Titans.  It is always harder to win on the road, other things being equal, but this game is a chance to start to turn things around.  The Titans aren't exactly tearing up the league, either, at 4-5, although Marcus Mariota at QB is looking better all the time, and DeMarco Murray is one of the best running backs in the league.  But they give up a lot of points, and they have only beaten Cleveland and Jacksonville in their home stadium.  So let's just say that the Packers win the game, and have another week to get Clay Matthews (who will not play this week) and some of the other players healthier going forward to additional games.  5-4 looks a lot better than 4-5, and if the Vikings happen to lose again, what with the Lions being on bye, we could have a three-way tie for first in the North after Sunday.  

Best Performer Last Sunday, Photo by Mike De Sisti, USA Today

The Dude Meets the Dirty Birds

Our neighbor Suzanne, in a completely unrelated context, recently said that nothing we do is random.  When I saw the photo of Aaron Rodgers wearing The Dude's sweater from The Big Lebowski, I thought the same thing.  Rodgers didn't just happen to pull that sweater out of his closet because it was a little chilly Thursday night.

Rodgers is a fan of the cult classic, The Big Lebowski, as disclosed in the radio show he used to have with Jason Wilde of ESPN.  So if this was no accident, what was he trying to tell us?  I interpret it as this year's version of "R-E-L-A-X."  Packer-focused media, even including obscure blogs like this one, have been obsessed with the question, "what is wrong with Aaron Rodgers?"  If The Dude abides, as the catch-phrase from the movie states, then Rodgers is telling us that he, too, abides, meaning he lives in his State of Dudeness, unbothered by all the slings and arrows hurled at him by his critics.

At any rate, despite a slow start in the first half, with the Packers moving the ball but not scoring enough points, Rodgers ended up completing 39 passes of 56 attempts, with 3 touchdowns and no interceptions, and the Packers beat the Bears 26-10.  And it could have been much worse for the Bears.  Rodgers could easily have had 5 touchdowns, since Cobb had a TD in his hands on the first drive until the ball was knocked out of his hands, and had another in his hands at the end of the half, but could not quite get the second foot inbounds.  And of course this was despite the absence of a single running back on the roster with any game experience with the Packers.

But still, all is not right with Rodgers and Thursday's game doesn't really change that.  As Heath Evans said on NFL Network, his pass placement is still bad at times.  And he is still missing more passes than he should.  Just take Rodgers' TDs to Davante Adams.  On the first one, the ball should have been placed outside, and instead it went inside.  Only Adams' extraordinary catch through the defensive back's arm saved the TD.  On the second TD, there was a defensive screw-up and nobody was within 5 yards of Adams.  But Rodgers threw a pass that required Adams to make a diving, rolling catch to make.  Despite this, Rodgers still looked sharper on Thursday night than he has all year, with the possible exception of the first half of the Lions game.  I realize that it was "only" against the Bears, and that the Bears are a pretty bad team right now.  Still, this is where the Packers are right now, and I can only hope that they continue to improve.

With the long home stand over, the Packers now head to Atlanta to meet the on-again, off-again Falcons.  Everybody knows that Atlanta was the site of what was probably Rodgers' best game ever, when he torched the no. 1 seed Falcons in the 2010 playoffs on the way to winning Super Bowl XLV.  The last time they met (in Green Bay in 2014), the Packers barely staved off a furious comeback by the Falcons to preserve the win.  The Packers led 31-7 at the half, but after a furious and record-setting onslaught by Julio Jones, they were lucky to end up winning, 43-37.  And anyone who saw it will never forget the final Packers game ever at Milwaukee County Stadium in 1994, when Favre ignored his coach's orders and decided to dive for what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown, as depicted in the accompanying photo.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Photo

With the Packers missing at least 3 defensive backs for this game (Sam Shields, Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins), how in the world will they defend against Matt Ryan and especially Julio Jones?  Mere preparation may not be enough, and Micah Hyde says they will be praying for a way to stop Julio Jones.  I will be praying, too.  I'm not sure that will be enough.  Even though the Falcons have lost two close games in a row (to the Seahawks and Chargers), they obviously have a lot of firepower on offense.  They have scored 23 or more points in every game this year, and they scored over 40 points twice, something that the Packers have not done all year.

On the other hand, their defense is yielding plenty of points.  With one exception (the Broncos), the Falcons have given up at least 26 points in every game.  So this has the makings of a high-scoring game, assuming that the Packers can keep up their end of the bargain.  I suspect it will be the Packers mounting the furious comeback this time, and that, just like the Falcons last time, it will fall short at the end.

Road Trip Awaits the Packers

The Unstoppable Jordy Nelson (photo by Jim Biever, Packers.com)

Almost everything went the Packers' way in the first half, last Monday night against the Falcons.  Other than a crisp first drive by the Falcons, to tie the game at 7-7, it was all Packers, all the time.  When Rodgers hit Nelson for the last score of the first half, to make it 31-7, Jon Gruden said "the rout is on."  And if you look at the stats for the first half, you would think the same thing.  In every single offensive category, the Packers were outperforming the Falcons.

With the way that the Packers have played this year, fans could be forgiven for thinking that the days of "playing it safe" with a lead had gone away for good.  One of my complaints, for years, had been that the Packers take their collective foot off the gas with a lead, stop playing aggressively on offense and defense, and frequently let lesser teams climb back into the game.  The Packers really haven't done that this year, and they have blowout wins against the Bears, Vikings, Panthers, Bears again, and Eagles to show for it.  

So what happened in the second half?  Since when do we expect to see the Packers give up 30 points in a half, while scoring only 12, to lead to a final score of 43-37?  Well, you can't take anything away from Julio Jones, who set the all-time record for receiving yards against the Packers, with 259.  And it could have been worse if he didn't sit out part of the 4th quarter with an injury.  All game long, it looked like they needed safety help over the top to cover Jones, but they usually did not provide it.  And it wasn't just Jones.  It was the Falcons' passing offense and the Packers' passing defense in general.  Even though no receiver other than Jones put up big numbers, 8 other receivers caught passes, and Matt Ryan ended up with 375 passing yards.

Julio Jones is certainly a top-flight receiver, but the Packers have controlled better quarterbacks (for example, Tom Brady) and have done a better job of controlling other top receivers (Brandon Marshall, Calvin Johnson).  So I do think that the second half was a bit of an anomaly, and most likely represents a letdown or an example of taking the second half off.  If so, it is appalling that it happened.  But if it did, there is no better outcome than for the Packers to hang on and win the game anyway.  This gives them the benefit of the win, against a conference opponent to boot, and keeps them tied for the best record in the league.  But, almost as importantly, it serves as an important reminder and warning that they can't get away with this stuff, even against a team that is, objectively, not as good as other teams the Packers will have to play in the playoffs.  Better to learn that lesson now than on the first (or hopefully, the second) weekend in January.

Now the Packers head off on a two-game road trip, first against Buffalo, and then against Tampa Bay.  I will take a closer look at Tampa Bay next week, but offhand that game does not concern me.  Not only do the Buccaneers have the worst record in the league at 2-11, but the stands will be half full of Packers fans.  Any Packers fans in the area should get tickets now.  You can't have a better time in late December than sitting out in shirt sleeves, in a friendly road venue, and watching the Packers.  (I'm talking to you, Marc B. and David A.)

The Bills, on the other hand, are a bigger test.  Weather should not be an issue, with temperatures in the mid-30s and not much chance of rain or snow.  But the Bills could be an issue.  They have a pretty decent record at 7-6, they are playing at home, and they still have a shot at a wild card spot.  In fact, with a bunch of 8-5 wild card contenders in front of them, a loss to the Packers would be close to devastating.  This will not be a team with their bags packed, waiting for the off-season to start.

The Bills have not played that well on offense, but their defense is outstanding.  No team in the AFC has given up fewer points than have the Bills.  The defense is coached by old Packer nemesis Jim Schwartz, so although the team may not have played the Packers in four years, the defensive coordinator knows the Packers very well.  The offensive line of the Packers will have its work cut out for it in keeping Rodgers upright and healthy against the Bills' defense.  The Packers, in my opinion, have the best quarterback in the league and the best set of receivers.  Rodgers and the receivers will have to put some points on the board, especially if Eddie Lacy is hampered or out of the game.

On top of that, and for whatever it is worth, the Bills have scored more points on offense than the Packers' other remaining opponents, the Buccaneers and Lions.  Kyle Orton, the current starting quarterback, has a surprisingly good record as starter against the Packers, and the rookie wide receiver, Sammy Watkins, will also test the defense.  So it is important that the Packers' defense plays much better than they did last week.  I think the Packers will win the game, but probably by less than 7 points, so we may to sweat this one out, too, just like the last two weeks.

Now or Never!

These last few Packers games have had a now or never feel to them, at least to me.  "OK, they couldn't beat the Bears, but now that Seneca Wallace has had a week of preparation . . .."  "Well, you can't expect Tolzien to pull off a win against the Eagles in those circumstances, but now that he has taken the starter reps . . .."  "We all know that the Giants have the Packers' number, but wait until the Vikings come to town . . .."  "They didn't win, but a tie is better than a loss, and look at the way Flynn played - when he gets another crack at the Lions, look out!"

But what are you going to say about the Lions crushing the Packers on Thanksgiving Day, by the very ugly score of 40-10?  I have run out of excuses, and of optimism, for the Packers this year.  I couldn't even bear going back to re-watch the Lions game.  I realize it was just a pre-planned Black Friday sale, but it seemed somehow strangely fitting when, early Friday morning after the game, I got a Packers Pro Shop email promotion announcing a 30% off site wide sale.  My confidence in the Packers is at least 30% off.

Anyway, I think "now or never" time has really arrived.  If the Packers were to win their 4 remaining games, I could see maybe a 50% chance that the Packers win the division.  The Lions would have to lose 2 games, but that could happen (they have away games at the Eagles and Vikings, and home games against the Giants and Ravens).  The Bears would have to lose one, but in my scenario of the Packers winning out, that happens when the Packers beat the Bears in week 17.

On the other hand, how likely is a Packer four game winning streak?  Let's be honest, not that likely.  They have not won any of their last five games.  The offensive line is in disarray, with Center Evan Dietrich-Smith listed as questionable for the game.  The defense is in free fall.  They still don't have Aaron Rodgers back, even though everyone (including Rodgers) seems to have assumed that he would be ready to play this week.  But the four game winning streak, if it is going to happen, has to start against the Falcons tomorrow, without Rodgers.  As disappointing as the Packers have been this year, the Falcons have probably had an even more disappointing season.  They were, after all, in the NFC Championship game last year, where they blew a 17 point lead to lose narrowly to the 49ers.  And yet they are 3-9 as they arrive in Green Bay today.  They have beaten no good teams, only the Rams, the Buccaneers and the Bills.  They may not have had the injury problems the Packers have had, but losing Julio Jones for the year is, without question, a severe loss.

I am predicting a Packers loss.  Maybe that will switch up the mojo.

Bye Week Blues? No, Bye Week Bonus!

As much as the Packers may have needed a bye week to have a chance to get healthy, their fans usually don't look forward to the bye week.  Sure, you can watch other NFL games, or clean out your garage, or catch up on some paperwork or whatever.  But usually it is a letdown, a lost Sunday right in the middle of the football season.

Going into the weekend, the Packers were on a four game winning streak, with a 6-3 record, sitting in second place in the division.  "If the playoffs started today," as they say, the Packers would be a wild card, and the 5th seed, looking up at the four division leaders.  So what happened to those four division leaders?  The number one seed Falcons, previously 8-0, went out and lost to the New Orleans Saints, despite having a couple of opportunities in the closing minutes to take the lead.  The Saints had an impressive goal line stand in the final two minutes of the game to preserve the win.

The 7-1 Chicago Bears were the number 2 seed, and led the Packers by a game and a half.  But a sloppy weather game in Chicago, and a concussion for Jay Cutler, was all it took for them to lose their second game, to the Texans.  Truth be told, they didn't look that good even before Cutler got knocked out, having scored only 3 points in the first half with Cutler at the helm.

The 6-3 New York Giants not only lost their game to the Bengals, but they looked pretty bad in the process.  They gave up big plays on defense, turned over the ball 4 times on offense, and didn't look very good on special teams, either.

The 49ers started the day at 6-2, and because they opened the season by beating the Packers, they would win any head-to-head tiebreaker with the Packers.  They battled the Rams to a 24-24 tie.  This was heartbreaking for the Rams, since they gave up several opportunities to win the game in overtime alone, on devastating penalties.  The good news about the 49ers ending up in a tie is that it makes it highly unlikely that the Packers and 49ers will end up in a head-to-head tie at the end of the year.

So the Packers picked up ground on every NFC team that was ahead of them in the playoff race.  Not a bad days' work for a bunch of guys sitting on the couch watching TV.  As a result, the Packers now control almost all aspects of their 2012 destiny.  If they just keep winning, they will win the NFC North, and start the playoffs with a home playoff game.  For a team that, a month ago, was at 2-3 and heading off to face the unbeaten Texans, that is pretty good.

Packers 5-0 on the Way to 7-0?

(Photo from the Green Bay Press-Gazette.)
Since I am late in writing about last week's Packers-Falcons game, which the Packers won 25-14, I will offer a few comments about the game before turning my attention to the next couple of games.

When the Falcons got the opening kickoff, and started at the 20, one thing I did not expect to happen was for them to go on an 80 yard, 13 play drive to score a touchdown, then recover a Ryan Grant fumble to end a promising drive, then go on another long drive to go up 14-0.

On the one hand, I did believe, going into the game, that the Packers exposed the weakness of the Falcons' defense in the playoff game last year.  And when the Falcons lost 30-12 to the Bears in week 1 of this year, my view of the Falcons' weaknesses were reinforced.  But on the other hand, they were the no. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs last year, they still have Michael Turner, Roddy White, Tony Gonzalez and Matt Ryan on offense, and now they have added Julio Jones.  So starting with a 14 point lead, they were going to be tough to beat, especially since the Packers were never behind any team all of last year by more than 7 points.

But then just like that, the game changed.  We maybe did not realize it at first, because the Packers' first three scoring drives resulted in field goals, not touchdowns.  But the bottom line is that the Packers shut out the Falcons during the last 43 minutes of the game, while going on 6 scoring drives of their own, putting up 25 unanswered points.  There were big passing touchdowns to Jones and Jennings, and there were a total of 4 field goals.  The Falcons could not stop the Packers, all they could do is just contain the damage.

How did the Packers change things around so thoroughly?  To counteract the loss of OT Chad Clifton early in the game, the Packers started rolling Rodgers out more, and keeping an extra blocker in the backfield on many occasion, just to make sure he did not get killed back there.  Rodgers spread out the ball to 12 different receivers during the game, keeping the Falcons off balance.  And most importantly, after the Grant fumble on the first drive, the Packers never gave the ball away again.

On the defensive side, the Packers seemed to keep the Falcons guessing at all times.  Sometimes they would rush only 3 or 4, dropping everybody else in coverage, and at other times (increasingly as the game went on), they would bring extra pressure on Ryan.  He was very active in changing plays at the line of scrimmage, but he could not out-think Dom Capers, and was picked off twice, and pressured into bad throws many times.

All in all, it was a great example of the Packers' coaching staff adjusting their game plans on the fly, adapting to the changing circumstances on the field.  It was, in some ways, the Packers' best game of the year.  My biggest concern at this point is that everybody is getting a little too confident about the Packers.  My buddy Dick Karth said that this was one of the most impressive games he has seen.  Noted Packer blogger Jersey Al, on the Cheesehead Radio broadcast this week, said he is as "giddy as a schoolgirl" about the Packers.  That is fine, I feel pretty good about the Packers myself.  I just hope that the players are not reading all of their own press clippings, especially going into potential "trap games" like they have both this week against the 0-4 Rams, and next week against the 1-4 Vikings.

As one would expect, the danger is not lost on the coaching staff, which has gone out of its way to remind the Packers of their loss to the 0-7 Buccaneers two years ago.  I don't expect the players or the coaches to let that happen again.  The Packers are too good to lose to the Rams at home, and I would be nothing short of shocked if they do.  The Vikings game next week is a little different, because it is a rivalry game, and it is on the road.  Still, I really expect the Packers to be 7-0 next Sunday night, heading into a well-deserved bye week.

Some interesting notes on the Rams game: Rams Head Coach Steve Spagnuolo was the Defensive Coordinator for the Giants at the time of that painful NFC Championship game after the 2007 season (also known as Favre's last game for the Packers).  So he is a pretty good coach, but I don't think that he has the horses at the moment.  Former Packers Al Harris, Brady Poppinga, and Josh Gordy all play for the Rams.  It appears Al Harris may start against the Packers, and I would expect a very warm welcome from the crowd.  He was a great player for the Packers during his prime, and he left only because of a combination of injury and advancing age.  I don't think I will ever forget his "Thank You Note" to the fans when he was released.

Packers and Lions Both Still Undefeated

(Photo from the Green Bay Press-Gazette)

The Packers finished the first quarter of their season on Sunday, by beating the Denver Broncos by the score of 49-23.  Based on the way the Lions and Packers finished last year, I am not surprised that they are both doing well so far this year.  But I am stunned that there are only two 4-0 teams left in the NFL, and they are both in the NFC North!  Unless one of these teams goes on a losing streak, every game the Packers and Lions play becomes important.  Neither team wants to fall behind the other with both looking so good.

It would be tough to overstate how great Aaron Rodgers looked in this game.  He became the only quarterback in history to throw for more than 400 yards, and throw four touchdown passes, and rush for two touchdowns in a single game.  James Starks did a credible job rushing with Ryan Grant sitting out this game, and the wide receivers stepped up when the Broncos decided to make sure that Jermichael Finley did not have a repeat of his 3 touchdown performance against the Bears.  I have to admit that when Donald Driver was taken off on a cart in the second quarter, I thought he would be out for some time and, given his age, it certainly seemed possible that we had just witnessed the end of his career.  When he came back into the huddle at the beginning of the second half, and ultimately scored a touchdown, the sense of relief, admiration and inspiration in the stadium was palpable, even just watching it on TV.  He is one of the good guys, and will always be remembered as such.

Meanwhile, problems continue on the defensive side of the team.  The problems are most glaring when long passes are completed against the Packers, and so the obvious solution is better secondary play.  Even Dom Capers seems to attribute the problems to changes in the secondary, with Morgan Burnett stepping in to replace Nick Collins.  While this undoubtedly is part of the problem, I don't think that the defensive backs are the only problem.  From my viewing of the game, I come down on the side of those who say that the problem starts with the lack of pressure on the quarterback (for example, take at the game summary by the Packergeeks).  Unlike during the run to and through the playoffs last year, the Packers' defensive line is just not getting enough pressure on the quarterback - or at a minimum, they did not get enough pressure on Sunday.  Was it the failure to sign free agent Cullen Jenkins during the off-season, who signed instead with the team formerly known as the Dream Team?  Was it the injury to Mike Neal?  Obviously, both of these contributed to the problem, but so far, Dom Capers has not found the solution.  When three or four rush the quarterback, the quarterback usually has plenty of time to sit back and wait for something to develop.  Only when Capers sends additional rushers does the quarterback have to rush his passes, and then of course there are fewer guys left in coverage, so it is easier to complete the passes.  If you saw the Jets-Ravens game on Sunday night, you saw an example of pass rush by the Ravens that was so overpowering there was not much Mark Sanchez could do.  When they blitzed, they got there so fast Sanchez had little chance to unload the ball, and even when they didn't blitz, they still got enough pressure on him to disrupt things.  I have not seen enough of that from the Packers this year.

What a pair of prime time games we have coming up this week.  Sunday night, it is the Packers returning to the home of last year's no. 1 seed Atlanta Falcons, hoping to repeat their performance from last year in the playoffs.  On Monday night, the undefeated Lions host the NFC North Champion Bears.  Lots of potential playoff implications in these two games.  For the Falcons and the Bears, it is a chance to start to recover from their disappointing 2-2 starts, and get back over .500 for the year.  For the Packers and the Lions, it is a chance to go to 5-0 and state a solid case for being elite teams in 2011.  For both teams, it will be another significant test, after starting out with the same record against similar teams.

The Packers have beaten two good teams (Saints and Bears), and two mediocre teams (Panthers and Broncos).  The Lions have beaten two pretty good teams (Buccaneers and Cowboys), and two mediocre teams (Chiefs and Vikings).  The major difference is that the Lions have had to stage startling comebacks in two of their games (Vikings and Cowboys).  This shows that the Lions have learned how to win, and that they never give up.  But it also shows a weakness, in falling so far behind to one bad team (Vikings) and to one pretty good but nicked up team (Cowboys).  They can't keep that up forever.  Either they get better in the early stages of games, or they start falling short in their furious comebacks.  The Lions are better than the Bears, and they are playing at home.  I think they will be 5-0.  In the case of the Packers, I acknowledge the power of the "revenge" factor for the playoff game last year, but the Packers overcame the same factor against the Bears.  The Falcons offense just does not seem as strong as it was last year (they only scored 12 and 13 points in their two losses), while their defense seems just as vulnerable as the Packers showed it to be last year.  I think the Packers will also be 5-0.

Still Flying High

"I've been following football for 50 years. This was the greatest individual performance in a playoff game I have ever seen."

Mike Ditka, on Aaron Rodgers' performance in routing the Falcons last night, 48-21, on Sunday's NFL Countdown on ESPN. That is a hell of a statement from our old rival, Da Coach.

As of eight days ago, Aaron Rodgers' playoff record was 0-1 and some TV talking heads were suggesting that he can't win big games. Eight days later, his record is 2-1, and he has racked up some of the gaudiest playoff statistics imaginable for a young player who is really just coming into his own. And he did it in three games, all on the road, and (in the case of the two games this year) without two players who were expected to be among his most potent weapons this year, Ryan Grant and Jermichael Finley.

If he stays healthy, Aaron Rodgers could be fun to watch for a long time to come. And the Packers may have the best quarterback transition since Joe Montana gave way to Steve Young. Here are a couple of interesting stats. In all his playoff games, Brett Favre threw for over 300 yards 4 times, and the most yards he ever had in a playoff game was 331, in a loss to Dallas after the 1993 season. Rodgers has thrown for more yards than that in 2 of his 3 playoff games. Meanwhile, in all his playoff games, Brett Favre threw 44 touchdowns, as against 30 interceptions. No, it was not just our imagination that he threw an awful lot of interceptions. Aaron Rodgers has thrown for 10 touchdowns and 1 interception in his 3 playoff games.

Aaron Rodgers Career Playoff Statistics
Game	Attempts	Comp.	Yards	TDs	INTs
@ Arizona 1-10-10	28	42	423	4	1
@ Philadelphia 1-9-11	18	27	180	3	0
@ Atlanta 1-15-11	31	36	366	3	0
TOTALS	77	105	969	10	1

And then there was Tramon Williams. He sealed the win last week against Philadelphia with a leaping interception on the left side of the end zone. Last night, he had a mirror-image interception on the right side of the end zone late in the second quarter, to keep the game tied at 14-14. The Packers took the ball, went on one of their four touchdown drives of 80 yards or more, and went ahead by the score of 21-14. The Falcons tried hard to tie it up or at least get a field goal before the half, aided by a couple of defensive penalties against the Packers. They got as close as the Packers' 26, but a very timely Clay Matthews sack backed them up to the 35, and forced the Falcons to use their last time out. With 10 seconds left in the half, the Falcons decided to try to get a few extra yards on an out pattern, to make the field goal attempt a little shorter. The problem was, everybody knew the pass had to go to the sideline, including Tramon Williams, who recognized the formation, read the play perfectly, intercepted the ball at the 30, put a move on Matt Ryan and one other Falcon, and took the ball in for a 70 yard touchdown return on the final play of the half. Now that is a prime time play by a prime time player.

All in all, you could say that Aaron Rodgers and Tramon Williams have made a pretty good case for why they should have been selected to the Pro Bowl. Then again, with one more win, they would not be able to play in the Pro Bowl this year anyway.

More on the NFC Championship Game later this week. But here is a great little fact I just heard on the NFL Network. If the Packers play the Bears in the Championship Game next week (which I expect - this article is being wrapped up just as the Bears game is about to start), it will be the first playoff game between the Packers and the Bears since the 1941 Western Division Championship Game.

A family note. My brother Bruce and his family decided to go down to Atlanta for the game, and evidently had a fabulous time - much better than when they went to the last Falcons game down there. I await his pictures from the game.

Preview of Falcons Game

The big question is, can the Packers keep things rolling against the Falcons, and roll on to the NFC Championship Game (most likely in Chicago)? Since the Packers played at Atlanta a mere seven weeks ago, that game is an excellent place to start.

The Packers lost that game, 20-17, when Matt Bryant kicked the game-winning field goal in the final seconds. How did they get there? Well, both Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan played excellent games, with very few incomplete passes, no interceptions, and one touchdown pass each. The Packers had no running game (Aaron Rodgers was the leading rusher for the Packers), while the Falcons got 110 yards and a touchdown out of Michael Turner. Everyone acknowledges that Turner got a big assist from the Packers' defense, which had a very bad day in only one category - tackling the guy with the ball.

One way to look at it is that the big difference in the game was two turnovers by the Packers. In the second quarter, the Packers got the ball to the Atlanta one yard line, before the ball was knocked out of Rodgers' hand, where it bounced into the end zone and was recovered by the Falcons. The Packers lost either three or seven points on that fumble, and they lost the game by three points. So that was a big turnover. And then in the fourth quarter, from the Atlanta 41, Rodgers' fourth-down pass to Driver was incomplete, just barely. The Packers were not yet in field goal range at the 41, but they were getting close.

The Falcons have had the advantage of getting a week off, plus their last couple of games didn't involve much pressure, since (I believe) they already had a bye wrapped up. So they should be rested and ready. Occasionally you see one of these second round playoff games where the team that had a bye seems rusty, but overall the record of teams that had a bye is excellent. (One source says that teams with a bye have won 75% of the time since 1990.)

On the other hand, in the seven weeks since the last Packers-Falcons game, the Packers have had some ups and downs, including heartbreaking losses to the Lions and Patriots. But on the positive side:

• They have now won three must-win games in a row, a laugher against the Giants, and uncomfortably close games against the Bears and Eagles. (While winning must-win games is a good thing, it causes one to wonder when they might get to the point that they are running out of gas.)
• They have cleaned up their penalty problem quite a bit in recent weeks, being called for roughly half the penalties in recent games, as compared to the prior Falcons game.
• The Packers have dialed up the pressure on defense in most of the games since the Falcons game, with generally favorable results. In the Falcons game, based on a quick review, the Packers were more passive on defense.
• In the last few weeks, based in part on more continuity on special teams, the Packers have finally started giving up fewer big plays on special teams. A big kickoff return, aided and abetted by a Packer facemask penalty, was a huge factor at the end of the Falcons game.
• Finally, if James Starks is for real, the Packers may finally have found a running game again, which would be enormously beneficial to the offense this week.

How do all these things balance out? Well, it makes sense that the Falcons are favored by a couple of points. They are the number one seed in the NFC, they had a bye week to get healthy, and they are playing at home. But the two teams were very closely matched the first time, and the Packers have improved in the ways noted above. I think the Packers will win this game, but like almost all Packer games, it will be close.

The Little Things

It's the little things that kill you in a game like the Packers had this week against the Falcons (the Falcons won 20-17 with a field goal in the final seconds). Well, make that the little things plus one gigantic thing - the total absence of a running game. We have known about that problem pretty much ever since Ryan Grant was injured in Week One. I have come to the conclusion that the Packers are not approaching the lack of a running game the right way. More about that later.

For the second time this year, the Packers' hype has gotten way ahead of their performance on the field. Before the season, they were favored by many to go to the Super Bowl, and after they started the season 2-0, that didn't seem out of the question. When they lost three of the next four games as a cascade of injuries started to take effect, Packer fans' expectations came back down to earth. Then, when they went on their four game win streak, including a couple of blowouts, the hype started to return. Just last week, Peter King made the case that the Packers are the best team in the league. That changed today, as the Packers have dropped to no. 4, but with the comment that they have an excellent chance to return to the Georgia Dome for the NFC Championship game. One of the talking heads on one of the pregame shows Sunday said that the Packers are the best team in the NFC right now. Best team in the NFC? I am having trouble making the case that they are the best team in the NFC North. I am not yet in Jim Mora territory with this team, but I am getting closer.

The little things I have in mind include:

• The return of the penalty bug. They didn't set any record for penalties this time, but just had enough of them (8), and at inopportune times, to cause some real problems.
• Regression on special teams. While the special teams seemed to be getting better for a couple of games, yesterday they were not impressive. They gave up too many yards on Falcons kick returns, they didn't get much yardage on Packer kick returns, and they committed too many penalties on special teams plays.
• Questionable play calling in short yardage situations. Just take goal line plays. The Packers had 6 plays during the game inside the Atlanta 5 yard line. Four of those plays were runs. One run by Nance (no gain) and three runs by Rodgers, resulting in a 1 yard gain, a disastrous fumble recovered by the Falcons, and a 1 yard TD run on a quarterback draw by Rodgers.
• Poor decisions on challenges. For a couple of weeks there, Mike McCarthy was on a roll on challenges. But not against the Falcons. The costly one was the non-catch by Gonzalez on 4th down, that led to the touchdown by the Falcons at the end of the first half. I accept that in the other team's stadium, you don't always get a quick look, and that McCarthy got word from upstairs too late. But the Packers had two timeouts left in the half, and it was obviously a pivotal play. McCarthy and/or the people upstairs need to make a quicker decision here. Worst case, it costs them a timeout that, as it turns out, they did not need anyway.

The gigantic problem the Packers have is the lack of a running game. Rodgers was the leading Packer rusher yesterday, and that was not a good thing. Brandon Jackson has had exactly one 100 yard game this year, against Washington, and that was after ripping off a 71 yard run on his first carry in the game. So he got another 44 yards the rest of the game. In my view, the only time the Packers' running game has been even slightly effective (setting aside Rodgers' scrambles) has been late in games when the opposing team has been burned one too many times by the Packers' passing game. At that point, in desperately trying to avoid another pass completion, some run opportunities have opened up. Yet the Packers persist, game after game, in trying to establish a running game early in games, mostly without success. This almost always leads to a slow start by the Packer offense. This was true to some extent yesterday against the Falcons, and it was also true to some extent against the Vikings the week before.

In principle, I support the idea of trying to establish the running game. Some semblance of a balanced offense is obviously a good thing, and it helps to keep the quarterback upright and the defense off-balance. But the pattern I see developing with the Packers has three phases. In Phase I, they start off the game trying to establish the running game, which does not work, with the result that the Packers start off slowly, and frequently find themselves in a hole. Then in Phase II, they abandon the running game and go with a passing play on practically every down. They are usually much more successful in this second phase. Finally in Phase III, after the success engendered by the pass-on-every-down philosophy, the Packers find that the opposing defense is so concerned about the pass that the running game becomes more effective.

I could be nuts to make this suggestion, but if the three-phase pattern mentioned above is correct, then wouldn't the Packers be better off skipping Phase I and starting with Phase II? If they came out passing on every down (sure, mixing in some play-action passes, screen passes, roll-out passes where the defenders don't know if Rodgers will pass or run), does it not stand to reason that they would get off to a better start, probably get ahead in the game, and get to Phase III where the running game opens up, that much earlier? That is my thought, anyway.

It is not a shocking development for the Packers to lose by a field goal, on the road, to a team that came in at 8-2. Nevertheless, this loss has large implications. They now find themselves at 7-4, looking up at 3 NFC teams with better records - the Bears at 8-3 in the division, and the 9-2 Falcons and the 8-3 Saints in the NFC South. They have also dropped out of a playoff spot based on this week's games (the wild cards would currently go to the Saints and Giants). I still think that the Packers can win the division, although in fairness the Bears have not been playing down to my level of expectations for them, so who knows? While lots of strange things can happen, just looking at the records of the playoff contenders and their remaining opponents, I don't see much chance that the Packers can end up with the no. 1 seed in the playoffs. They might have a better shot at the no. 2 seed, but it will probably depend on tiebreakers that are too speculative to calculate now with 5 weeks left.

Preseason Blackout Blues

This is a tough time of year for Packer fans not living in the State of Wisconsin. With all due apologies to Hoagy Carmichael, I’ve got those No TV Reason, Packer Preseason, Blackout Blues.

Two weeks ago, I caught the beginning of the Hall of Fame game against the Chiefs before leaving the office, planning to watch the end of the game on tape later that evening or the next day. Of course, the end of the game never happened, and I couldn’t get motivated to go back and watch any more of the 9-0 bore-fest from the parts I had missed.

Then, last week, I knew that the game against the Falcons would not be televised here, but I figured I could at least listen to part of the audio feed on my computer. Wrong. Turns out the league is charging for the audio feeds this year. I can’t blame them – they have been giving away the audio feeds, and there was no reason to think that they would continue to do so forever. And I willingly pay for the NFL Sunday Ticket to watch the regular season games on TV. But I will be darned if I am going to pay for audio-only feeds on a preseason game.

Finally, last weekend, I got to watch the entire Packer game against the Browns. It tended to confirm what I had been hearing and reading – big problems on defense, fewer problems on offense now that the starting offensive linemen and receivers are playing. But even this game seemed in jeopardy of not happening for awhile on Friday, what with the blackout on the east coast and with reports of sporadic outages in Cleveland continuing during the day on Friday.

And now, having escaped from the big blackout, I am plunged back into darkness for two more weeks, as the Packers finish their pre-season games at home, but without the benefit of national telecasts. I can’t wait for the regular season to start, when DirecTV will rescue me from my temporary Packer blackout.

I hope to have more to say as the real season approaches. For now, I am crawling back under my rock.

Ready for Prime Time?

I had looked forward to a quiet week of watching wild card games, waiting for the Packers to play next week, after their bye week off. Everything had been set up so perfectly. First, the Buccaneers lost last Monday night, giving the Packers an opening as wide as a barn door to claim the number 2 seed in the NFC playoffs, and a bye week to rest up and get healthy. Then, my daydream came true, and the Giants beat the Eagles at the Meadowlands on Saturday, opening the way for the Packers to claim home field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs.

Now, I knew that the Jets were a good team, and that they were playing extremely well, and I knew that they were playing the Packers at the Meadowlands. So I figured that there was a good chance the Jets might win the game. But I also expected (or at least hoped) that the Packers would rise to the occasion, given everything that was on the line. The 2002 Packers are not a dominant team, and it is doubtful that they would be dominant even if they had not suffered the injuries they have endured. But most if not all of their margin for error has been eliminated by the injuries. This is why I have assumed, for some weeks now, that the Packers would not end up in the Super Bowl this year. But the one thing that could have changed all of that was home field advantage. The Packers in their current beat-up state may not be invincible, even at home, but the odds of a Super Bowl appearance would have improved dramatically with a win against the Jets on Sunday.

This year's struggle for home field advantage was truly bizarre. Nobody seemed to want it. First, the Buccaneers gave away their own shot at home field by losing to the Steelers. Then the Eagles failed to nail it down, by losing to the Giants (despite the Giants’ friendly efforts to fumble away the game). Then, when the Packers had it sitting right at their feet, they could not take advantage, and could not even keep the game close, so the Eagles ended up with home field by default.

So instead of a week off to rest up, the Packers go from the frying pan (Chad Pennington) into the fire (Michael Vick) and a game against the Falcons on Saturday night. And I find myself on a plane to Chicago with my son as I write this, so we can be there way up in Row 58, Section 128, in the chilly night air (and maybe snow!) to watch the game. Early in the season, before most people knew who Chad Pennington was, Michael Vick was already becoming the young, exciting phenom at quarterback. He almost beat the Packers in a brutally hot opening day game at Lambeau Field. The Falcons, after lots of early excitement, ended up backing into the playoffs, after their own problems in the last few weeks were not quite enough to knock themselves out, but only because the New Orleans Saints were losing even more games than the Falcons. The Falcons could not score a potential game-tying touchdown last week against the Browns after four shots at it inside the 5 yard line, seemingly frittering away their playoff hopes, but their season was saved when the Saints also lost their game.

So the Falcons meet the Packers Saturday night, with neither team exactly on a roll. The league's experiment with Saturday night playoff games last year turned out to be a smashing success, given everything you could ask for in the Oakland at New England game, a good matchup, a close game, heavy snowfall, and even a controversial, game-deciding call. I suspect the league thinks that all the elements are present again. Brett Favre, the aging superstar, gunning for one more Super Bowl ring before retiring. Michael Vick, the next generation of superstar quarterbacks. ABC's own superstars in the form of the Monday Night Football crew. Lambeau Field, on a night when the tundra actually might be frozen, and now with the likelihood of snow.

I'm not saying it will be easy, but I think the Packers will win this game. The conditions on Saturday night should be such that Michael Vick will be slowed down, hopefully enough for the Packers' defenders to keep up with him. I would feel a lot better about this game if I knew that Driver and Sharper would be ready to play, but as of this writing they are both listed as questionable. I also think the Giants will easily defeat the 49ers. The Giants are on a roll, and the 49ers are not. The 49ers' defensive backs are not very good, and I keep thinking of the Giants carving up the Vikings' defensive backs in the NFC Championship game a couple of years ago.

If these predictions come true, it will be Green Bay at Tampa next week, along with the Giants at Philadelphia. There are lots of interesting story lines there, but that is a subject for another column, next week, if and when my predictions pan out.

Cause for Concern

One win, one loss, both against teams that look as if they are better than anyone assumed. Things could be a lot worse, right?

Of course they could, but let's take a closer look at what has happened. Michael Vick became the new starter for the Falcons, and proceeded to force the Packer defense to chase him all over the field on an unseasonably hot Green Bay day. By the time the first quarter was over, the defenses on both sides must have had very little left in the tank. But the burden was worse for the Packers' defense, who had to continue to chase Vick. When you look at it this way, the fact that the Packers won the game in overtime, rather than being an embarrassment for the Packers, is actually quite an accomplishment. I was convinced, and my attitude was, "let's see what the defense looks like against the Saints before getting too concerned."

Well, the defense looked pretty terrible, and this time not even Brett Favre could bail out the team. True, the Saints also look better than expected, having beaten the Buccaneers in Week one, and having replaced the departed Ricky Williams with Deuce McAllister without missing a beat. But that doesn't change the fact that the Packers didn't just lose the game. Instead, the Packers lost the game AND the defense looked old, slow, and tired.

So I am concerned. And I was concerned before I found out that Ahman Green would probably miss this week's game. Before I learned that Mark Tauscher would miss the rest of the season. Before the Lions announced that they would start Joey Harrington. Before it dawned on me that this will be the first regular season game in Ford Field. The Packers just have too much history making new starters look like Hall-of-Famers. Especially on artificial turf. Especially in domes. So now I am really concerned.

I have seen the view expressed that the Packers now face two eminently winnable games against Detroit and Carolina. And if they win both of those games to get to 3-1, things will almost automatically look more positive than they do right now. But it just doesn't look that automatic to me. Heck, the Packers almost lost to the equally bad Lions last year on Thanksgiving Day. And the eminently beatable Panthers are sitting at 2-0, so maybe they are not such a bad team, either.

The third game of the season can't really be a "must-win" game. The Patriots last year started out 0-2, and lost their Pro Bowl quarterback for most of the year. But if the Packers don't win this game, it looks like it will be a long season.