One More Win Was All the Packers Needed

John, Mary, Sam, and Your Humble Blogger at the Game

Looking forward, the Packers need two more wins.  But looking back, one more win in the regular season would have made an enormous difference.  If the Packers had won one more game (and still won in the divisional round) they would be hosting the NFC Championship game on Sunday, instead of taking yet another dreaded road trip to the west coast.  Let's stipulate that the Packers were not about to turn around either the 49ers game or the Chargers game, both in November.  Both of them were out of hand pretty early.  But what about that Eagles game, on a Thursday night in September?  The Packers failed, twice, in an attempt to tie up that game in the fourth quarter.  That game could easily have gone the other way, either in four quarters, or in overtime.  What a difference that would have made.  Or, if the Seahawks had won one more game, by beating the 49ers in week 17, the Packers would have ended up with the number one seed.  So if the last two teams left were the Packers and 49ers, once again the game would have been played at Lambeau Field.

The 49ers have turned into a great team this year, which was just as surprising to me as the Packers ending up with a 13-3 record.  They looked dominating in dispatching the Packers in November in Santa Clara, and they looked dominating in beating the Vikings in Santa Clara last Saturday.  "On any given Sunday," and all that, but I certainly would have liked the Packers' chances better if they were hosting this game in Lambeau Field.

I went to the game on Sunday night, along with family members John, Sam and Mary, from left to right in the photo above.  The Packers played a great first half in putting the Seahawks in a deep hole, 21-3.  Call it another ugly win if you want to, but the Packers went to sleep on offense and defense for parts of the third quarter, and the Seahawks got close enough to make the fans, in the chilly stands or in comfy living rooms, pretty nervous.  Russell Wilson was really like a magic man out there, escaping most of the attempted sacks and making positive things (for the Seahawks) happen.  Sometimes quarterbacks escape because of shoddy missed tackles, and sometimes they escape by their own awesome elusiveness.  Russell Wilson had awesome elusiveness.  A timely late sack by Preston Smith, and a debatable decision to punt on the next play by Pete Carroll, were enough to snuff out the comeback, and the Packers won the game, 28-23.

Oh, and of course there was the controversial first down catch by Jimmy Graham, that allowed the Packers to kneel on the ball to end the game.  I have to admit, from our end zone seats, I thought Graham was short.  But we didn't even have a TV yellow line on the field to go by.  How many times have the announcers reminded us that the yellow line is unofficial?  Well, I think we finally saw an example where the unofficial nature of the yellow line made a real-world difference.  After the game, none other than Davante Adams himself tweeted out the picture below, showing clearly that the TV yellow line was off - the yellow line was just inside the 36 yard line, while the first down marker itself was outside the 36.  So those pictures of Graham's helmet on the yellow line are beside the point, and it doesn't matter how furious Pete Carroll was, the first down call properly stood as called, despite the mysterious appearance of late footage causing the referees to take a second look.

Tweet by Davante Adams

The Packers have lots to fix from their November debacle, if they want to beat the 49ers this time.  Ryan Wood of the Press-Gazette has identified 10 plays that made a huge difference in that game, all in the first half.  Many of those plays are quite avoidable, or flukes that might not be repeated, like the iffy personal foul call on Davante Adams, the Rodgers fumble leading to the first touchdown, the dropped passes, the penalties prolonging 49er drives, Bryan Bulaga getting knocked out of the game, etc.  Change some of those plays around, and the Packers don't end up in that kind of a hole, and maybe have at least a chance to make a game of it.

So is there reason to expect a better result this time around?  I liked a lot of what I saw on Sunday night.  The Packers scored quickly, and had three touchdowns in the first half.  If they can do that again, they will either be leading, or at a minimum in the game, by the time halftime rolls around.  Rodgers was way more accurate than he has been in some recent games; he seemed to stick more to the LaFleur game plan with short and quick passes, picking his spots for the occasional longer passes.  I only counted about half a dozen long passes down the field Sunday night.  They resulted in 2 Adams TDs, a pass interference penalty against the Seahawks, an overthrow, a long Jimmy Graham catch, and the long pass to Adams that almost iced the game.  Not bad results when you use the long pass more judiciously!  And the receivers were catching the ball Sunday night.  A couple of the Jimmy Graham catches, and several others to other receivers, are passes that might have been dropped in other games, but the receivers seemed to finally have their acts together, and they caught almost all of the catchable balls.

I am not overly worried about the defense.  They didn't have a good game against the 49ers in November, and gave up way too many points, but in other games since, they have held their regular season opponents to 20 or fewer points, and only gave up 23 to the Seahawks despite the magic of Russell Wilson.  If it is true, as the players contend, that they were able to get on the same page after the 49ers game, then the defense should have a better game Sunday night. 

It is true that the 49ers have more weapons on offense than the Seahawks, at this stage of the game, with the Seahawks' first 3 running backs on IR.  And the Seahawks certainly do not have the equivalent of George Kittle, who can take over a game.  But, on the other hand, Jimmy Garoppolo threw more than double the interceptions thrown by Russell Wilson during the year, so the Packers may well be able to grab an extra possession or two from the 49ers.  Look, the 49ers are heavy favorites in the game for a good reason.  But I think the Packers have a real chance to pull off the upset.  Go Pack Go!

Kissing Your Sister?

Family Photo with Judy, Sam and Mary

I did not hear any phrase more in the first 24 hours after the Packers' tie (29-29) with the Vikings than that a tie is just like "kissing your sister."  Maybe so, maybe not, I don't have a sister, so I can't confirm this.  My friend Stan Silva thinks he suggested the idea of using this phrase to me.  But he hasn't been watching/listening to/reading midwest sports media, where the phrase has been omnipresent.  But anyway, a tip of the hat (sort of) to my friend Stan. 

I do know this much.  This game may not have been a loss, but it felt like a loss in the stands, and I am sure it felt the same way in the locker room.  Even callers in to WTMJ after the game kept referring to the game as a loss, and the hosts did not bother to correct them.  There were so many chances to put this game away, and the Packers could not pull it off.  Obviously one of those chances was flat-out stolen from them by the refs (the Clay Matthews non-roughing roughing call), but there was also the missed 52 yard field goal, the Rodgers fumble that spoiled what could have been a surprise bootleg for a first down, the holding call that negated what would have been a Jimmy Graham TD catch, poor clock management on the final drive of the 4th quarter, dropped interceptions in overtime by Wilkerson and Alexander, and probably other opportunities.  If you were a Vikings fan, you probably felt the same way - if they only had a place kicker who could kick, they would have won this game a couple of times over.  Not surprisingly, they have replaced their kicker since Sunday.

As a side note, we were in the Chicago area for most of the past week, other than going to the game on Sunday.  It was extremely entertaining listening to sports radio in Chicago.  They just could not move past their stunning loss to the Packers in Week One, and in a way, who could blame them?  One of the memorable lines was the guy who called in to say that when a guy goes out on the cart, "nobody comes back off the cart, at best, you are out for the game, at worst you are out for the season.  But this guy did and then proceeded to beat the Bears on one leg."  Bears fans were extremely critical all week of Coach Nagy and Mitch Trubisky, saying that Nagy called the wrong plays, and Trubisky executed them poorly.  I heard somewhere (I think it was on the Packers Therapy podcast), that when the Bears were up 20-0 in the third quarter, Yahoo Sports was claiming that the Bears had a 98.2% chance of winning that game. 

I wonder what the odds of a 29-29 tie were in the Vikings game when the score was a relatively mundane 20-7 in the third quarter on Sunday?  But that is obviously what happened, and neither fans nor players can be very happy about it.  This game is the first tie for the Packers since they played to a tie, also against the Vikings, and also at Lambeau Field, in 2013.  Fans may remember that Matt Flynn played QB in that game in Rodgers' absence, and that the Packers could not have won the division if they had not managed to pull off at least a tie in Week 12.  So sometimes a tie is not a bad thing. 

This season, the tie makes a tie for a playoff spot with any team other than the Vikings quite unlikely, but it also makes the November 25 game against the Vikings, at least potentially, the difference between winning the division and not.  Two weeks into the season, it doesn't look promising for the Lions this year (with apologies to my friend, Al Lawson), and while the Bears look much improved, at least we have a leg up on them, thanks to the Week One miracle.  But it would be very easy to see the Division championship coming down to that November 25 game.  On the one hand, it is in Minnesota, and it is always harder to win on the road.  But on the other hand, Rodgers may be at full strength and mobility by then, and he certainly wasn't on Sunday.

One week ago, Packers fans rightly celebrated the miracle, 21 point fourth quarter to win the game against the Bears, and Bears fans lamented the collapse of their defense.  How, then, do Packers and their fans react to the fact that the Packers gave up 22 points to Kirk Cousins and the Vikings in the 4th quarter, not to mention what should have been two field goals in overtime?  There was talk of the Packers having worn out the Bears defense with the quick pace in Week One.  It looked to me as if the Vikings wore out the Packers defense in the second half and overtime on Sunday.  (And I have to wonder why Rodgers and McCarthy did not use more fast-paced offense themselves to wear out the Vikings.)  It was certainly hot and humid out there on Sunday, so it would not be shocking if the defenders were a little gassed in the second half and overtime.  Thankfully, the forecast for this Sunday in Landover, MD is for a high of 73 degrees and showers.  So weather is not likely to be the same kind of factor this coming week.  In fact, the Packers should not have another hot-weather game this season, with the possible exception of the Rams game on October 28. 

As far as the Matthews roughing call is concerned, in the real world, there doesn't seem to be any controversy about it.  Everybody (other than the NFL) agrees that it was a terrible call.  This includes both callers and hosts on Chicago-area sports radio, not known for their partiality to the Packers.  It includes Packers haters like Skip Bayless.  I have not heard a single person not associated with the League defend the call. 

I remember reading years ago that the way Superman is depicted as flying in the comic books is impossible as a matter of physics.  It is not possible to change directions instantaneously.  And yet that is what would have been required here.  Matthews could have done nothing to change his trajectory toward the QB, and there is no visual evidence that he attempted to inflict any more damage on the QB than is a natural consequence of hitting him with a clean football tackle.  I find untenable the ref's suggestion that Matthews picked up Cousins and drove him into the ground.  I had hoped that the League would have something to say about this, because the new rule is just not working in real life if calls like this can change the outcome of the game.  A player in Matthews' predicament evidently needs to pull up and not hit the quarterback, because if the QB releases the ball just as the tackler arrives, he might get called.  (Mike Daniels did just that on a different play, only to see Cousins escape from the would-be sack.)  That stinks, and the League should have admitted that the whole thing is a mess and tried to clarify the rule.  But instead, we learned on Monday that the League is doubling down on the rule, and insisting that this is a proper call.  I think I will find time to write a letter or email to the Commissioner (roger.goodell@nfl.com, or NFL, 280 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017).  I hope others do so as well.

Going to a Packers game in person is always so much fun.  The guy next to us in the stands flew in at the last minute from Myrtle Beach.  That is real fan devotion, as I would have thought the residents of Myrtle Beach had other more pressing concerns over the weekend.  When we arrived at our hotel near the O'Hare airport Sunday night, some guy came out from the lobby to talk to us when he saw our Packers gear.  He had been at the game as well.  On the shuttle bus from the rental car place to the airport, we ran into a Japanese Packers fan, who was also at the game, and who was attending the second game in his life after being a fan for about 35 years.  And on our flight to LAX Monday night, we ran into at least 5 other Packer fans who had been at the game, a husband and wife sitting in the dreaded middle seats, and a two-generation family of three a couple of rows behind us. 

For now, the Packers just have to keep winning games that they should win, while Rodgers gets healthy.  That means winning against the Redskins this week.  The Redskins seem to be improved this year, but they still should be no match for the Packers.  And then the Packers certainly must win at home against the Bills the following week.  If they can finish the first quarter of the season at 3-0-1, they will be in good shape, and be in no worse place than a tie for the division lead.