The Packers Finally Reach the Bye Week!

Woodson Ceremony, Photo by Tim Flanigan, WLUK

If I had predicted, two weeks ago, the outcome of the Packers games against the Vikings and Rams, I would have predicted a win against the Vikings and a loss to the Rams.  Instead, just the opposite happened, with the Packers dropping the game to Minnesota, 31-34, and beating the Rams, 36-28.  Ultimately, I don't think it much matters which way the Packers went about winning one and losing one.  I don't really think that the (now) 5-6 Vikings will be able to catch the (now) 9-3 Packers to win the division.  And I doubt that the 7-4 Rams will catch the 9-2 Cardinals to win that division.  Of course, the fact that the Packers now have tie-breaker advantages over both the Cardinals and Rams could turn out to be important down the road.

The Minnesota game was a huge disappointment, but as mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the Vikings almost always play the Packers tough.  After all the injuries the Packers have had this year, losing Elgton Jenkins (the "Swiss Army Knife" offensive lineman) for the season seemed like a huge problem, especially with David Bakhtiari not quite ready to return.  But against the Rams, the Packers showed once again how resilient they have become this year.  Facing both Aaron Donald and Von Miller, this did not seem like a good time to lose yet another offensive lineman.  But the offensive line played remarkably well, giving up only one sack, and providing Rodgers enough time to throw for over 300 yards, 2 touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown.  The Packers got enough out of the rushing game and the short passing game to really control the clock, almost doubling the Rams' time of possession.

At any rate, they have managed (finally) to reach the bye week, and now get an extra week for players who have been playing through injuries (including Rodgers, Aaron Jones and Rashan Gary) to get healthier, and perhaps even allowing for injured players like Bakhtiari, Jaire Alexander, and Za'Darius Smith to return to the lineup.  If most or all of these players can get healthier and ready to play, the Packers have a lot of upside in the playoff stretch.

All year long, I have been concerned that Rodgers' ability to hit the long pass has declined this year.  It seemed as if he was missing way more of those throws than in the past.  But in the last couple of games, it seemed as if he was hitting more of them (the TD pass to MVS against the Vikings, and the long passes to Adams and Cobb and MVS against the Rams being great examples).  Turns out it was not just my active imagination.  The stats absolutely back up my impression that Rodgers has upped his game in the last couple of weeks.

The Rams game also included the Charles Woodson Hall of Fame ring presentation ceremony, and the unveiling of his place in the Ring of Honor.  Woodson was one of the all-time greats, and it was great to see him back in Lambeau Field, and to see the reaction of the fans.  It is hard to believe that he was only with the Packers for seven years, because the things he accomplished during that time were really something, culminating in the completion of the win in Super Bowl XLV, after Woodson had been knocked out of the game.  The ceremony from Sunday's game can be found here.

The Packers' schedule to the end of the regular season is not easy, but it could be a lot worse.  They play the AFC-leading Ravens and the Lions on the road, and they have home games against the Bears, Browns and Vikings.  Just for frame of reference, the goal is obviously to catch the Cardinals and secure the top seed in the NFC.  The Cardinals have 6 remaining games, at least 3 of which should be considered tough games: the Rams and Colts at home, and the Cowboys on the road.  Add in a weather game at the Bears, and a season-ending game against the Seahawks (who, just maybe, might be playing better by then), and you can see that the Packers have a decent chance of securing the top seed.  They just mainly need to guard against losing games they should win.  A week of rest and recovery should get them on the way to finishing out the season in style.  

Another Challenge for the Packers' Defense

 

Rodgers Back Behind Center, Photo by Dan Powers, USA Today

All of the pre-game hype was about the return of Russell Wilson from his finger injury, and the return of Aaron Rodgers from his bout with Covid-19.  Neither quarterback looked great; in fact they both looked as if they haven't played in awhile.  More about that later.  But the quarterbacks were not the story of this game.  The story of the game was the Packers' defense.

You can slice it any number of ways.  The Packers defense has allowed 21 or fewer points in each of the last 5 games.  They have given up a total of 34 points in the last 3 games, playing against Kyler Murray, Patrick Mahomes, and Russell Wilson.  They registered their first shutout since 2018.  They shut out Russell Wilson for the first time in his career.  And bear in mind that they are doing this without their best defensive back, Jaire Alexander, and without one of their best impact defensive players, Za'Darius Smith.  Both of those guys may be back by the end of the season, so this defense may just continue to get better.

When the Packers were torched in week one by the Saints, 38-3, after going winless in the pre-season, not many people would have predicted the way the defense started playing just a few weeks later.  I don't think many would have predicted an 8-2 record after suffering through that Saints game.  And if you added in the facts that the Packers' offense hasn't quite looked right all year, there is no way you could predict that the Packers would be 8-2 and in the number one seed for the playoffs at this point.  As a matter of fact, the Packers have only scored 216 points in their 10 games, an average of less than 22 points per game, and the fewest points scored by any division leader in the league (the other division leaders have scored between 231 and 287 points).  

In this game, both quarterbacks played at a level that even they would have to agree was sub-standard.  Wilson was missing passes, threw no touchdowns and 2 interceptions, and averaged only 8 yards per completion.  His quarterback rating was a season low 39.7.  It is worth pointing out that he came back early from his finger injury - it was predicted that he would be out for 6 to 8 weeks, but he returned after 4.  It is quite an accomplishment, but at the same time, with the way he played, he probably should have waited another week or two.  During Wilson's absence, they only won one game (against the Jaguars), so it is understandable that they would start Wilson as soon as possible.  But they might have been better off with Geno Smith.

All year long, Rodgers has not looked quite right to me, certainly not by comparison to his MVP season last year.  In this game, he missed a number of long passes that we sort of expect him to complete, like the long pass to MVS in the first quarter.  And he had a couple of passes batted down in the first half.  And of course he had the interception in the end zone in the third quarter, one of the worst (on-field) decisions Rodgers has made in some time.  Last week, the feeling was that Adams, in his return from Covid-19, was not back at full strength, and the same was probably true of Rodgers against the Seahawks.  Even a mild case of Covid can be debilitating, and Rodgers even mentioned on the Pat McAfee show that he mostly watched the game lying down.  So it is reasonable to assume that the disease took something out of Rodgers.  Another week of recovery, even if he missed some practices with a toe injury, can only help Rodgers to be back closer to full strength.

The first three quarters were excruciating to watch.  The Packers looked much better than the Seahawks, but they only had 3 points to show for it.  One blown coverage, one missed tackle, and the Seahawks might have gone ahead.  The Packers finally finished some drives in the fourth quarter, and put the game away.  But this game was completely in doubt until the fourth quarter.

The Vikings game this week will be a real test for the Packers.  There is no doubt in my mind that the Packers are the better team.  But the U.S. Bank Stadium is a place, like the Chiefs' stadium, that is a challenging place to play.  And it seems as if the Vikings always play the Packers tough, even though the Packers are usually the better team.  In the last 10 games between the two, the Packers' record is 4-5-1, so there is plenty of reason for concern.  Last year, at Lambeau Field, Dalvin Cook ran all over the Packers on the way to a 28-22 Vikings win.  It will be interesting to see if the new and improved Packers defense can slow him down.  I think they will, and I think the offense will look a little more alive this week, leading the Packers to a well-earned win and a blow to the Vikings' hopes to make the playoffs. 

Trap Game Blues (or Worse)

Photo by Trevor Ruszkowski, USA Today

How about talking a little Packers football, as a distraction on Election Day?  Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of happy talk to lift the spirits of Packers fans.

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Is the Packers' once-promising season about to come crashing down on their heads?  When the Packers lost in embarrassing fashion to the Buccaneers, I was able to keep a little perspective by noting that (a) the Buccaneers turn out to be better than I thought they would be; and (b) maybe the Packers are only vulnerable to hard-nosed, aggressive defenses like the Buccaneers - which is obviously a problem, but maybe a problem they could work on correcting.  And then came the second Vikings game on Sunday.  Before the game, I heard comments about how Rodgers was going to slice up the inexperienced Vikings' secondary.  And on the pregame show, the question was asked, how could the Vikings win?  And the answer was "if the Packers decide not to play."  Yeah, right.  Instead the Vikings won, 28-22.

We know the Vikings aren't any good.  They were 1-5 going into this game, giving up a lot of points (over 30 points per game).  So what do we make of the Packers losing to the Vikings, in a game that really didn't feel as close as the final score?  (Bear in mind, it was 28-14 until there were less than 3 minutes left in the game.)  I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that the Packers aren't as good as I thought they were.  They are 5-2, but only one of those wins was against a good team (the Saints).  Meanwhile, they lost, and didn't look good in the process, to one good team (the Buccaneers) and one bad team (the Vikings).  That sounds like a mediocre team to me.  Tell me where I am wrong (please!).  Speaking of the Buccaneers, when the Giants play the Buccaneers tougher than the Packers did, as happened in the Monday night game, that can't be a good sign (the Giants lost the game by 2 points, and a 2 point conversion would have sent the game to overtime).

In the Vikings game, the defense had to do only one thing, as some caller on Sirius XM Radio said Monday, stop Dalvin Cook, and force Kirk Cousins to beat you.  And not only did they not do that, they let Cook set an all-time record for any player at Lambeau Field by gaining over 200 scrimmage yards and scoring 4 touchdowns.  The entire first half was taken up with 4 drives, resulting in 2 Adams touchdowns and 2 Cook touchdowns.  So which team would be the first one to break serve?  Alas, it was the Packers.  The Vikings scored on the first drive of the second half, and never looked back.  On the ensuing drive, Rodgers threw a couple of bad passes, and Equanimeous St. Brown dropped a couple of catchable balls, and they turned it over on downs.  The Packers brought a little excitement to the last few minutes of the game, but it was basically over when they turned it over on downs on the first Packers drive of the half.  

So they are not as good as I thought they were, and they got trapped by a trap game on the way to facing the 49ers on Thursday night.  My concern is that this is worse than just losing a trap game, which can happen, but evidence of much deeper problems with the Packers, particularly on defense.  I laughed when I heard Rodgers says that the Packers didn't overlook the Vikings.  Instead, he says, they didn't play with a lot of energy on Sunday.  If that is supposed to make me feel more confident about the Packers' future, it doesn't.  How do you play without energy in a game against a division rival, at home (to the extent that matters in this weird year)?

Normally, given the way they played Sunday, I would give the Packers little chance against the 49ers.  If there is one thing they can't do, it is to stop a strong running attack, and the 49ers have certainly had that.  But their star running back, Raheem Mostert, is on IR and not eligible to return Thursday.  Their backup Jeff Wilson is also on IR and not eligible to return.  I told my 49er fan friend on Sunday that as long as the 49ers have somebody they can line up at running back, they should be fine.  But that is before I learned that both QB Jimmy Garoppolo and TE George Kittle will miss multiple weeks. 

So might the Packers get lucky and steal a win that they didn't really deserve?  No sooner did that thought cross my mind when I saw that A.J. Dillon has tested positive for Covid, will miss the game, and who knows if the Packers will have other positive tests.  As of Tuesday morning, there have been no new positive tests, but two more players, Kamal Martin and Jamaal Williams, have been ruled out of Thursday's game as "high risk close contacts" with A.J. Dillon.  This leaves the Packers, as far as I can see, with Tyler Ervin, fullback John Lovett, and practice squad player Dexter Williams as the only available running backs.  Meanwhile, if there are more positive tests, and the league postpones the game, it is easy to imagine the game being deferred until later in the season, maybe even a hypothetical week 18, when all of the 49ers players mentioned above would be back.  Hey, it's 2020, and anything can happen.

We will see what happens Thursday night, if the game happens at all.  I have lowered my expectations for the Packers for the year, but if they can pull off what is (in my mind, at least) an upset, they will have a pretty good 6-2 record at the midway point of the season, and they will have bought a little more time to address their weaknesses.

Packers Preparing for Short Turnaround Week

Old Friends Getting Together for Some Football

Game 6 for the Packers turned out to be primarily another Davante Adams show.  When it was announced that Bakhtiari, Tyler Ervin and Aaron Jones would all be out on offense, along with Kevin King, Darnell Savage, and Tyler Lancaster on defense, I admit to being a little concerned.  I knew that the Texans' defense isn't that good, despite having playmakers like J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus.  But still, how many of the Packers' offensive stars can be out before the offense just doesn't work?  And on defense, I know that the Texans traded away DeAndre Hopkins in the offseason, but the Texans offense still scored 36 points last week and took the Titans to overtime before succumbing.  Could the Packers really keep the Texans' offense under control with a depleted secondary?

Turns out I need not have worried.  Billy Turner took over for David Bakhtiari and provided good protection.  Rodgers was not sacked, although he was pressured and hit from time to time.  Jamaal Williams, in replacing Aaron Jones, reminded us that he is a high quality running back, even if he doesn't have Jones' explosiveness.  Williams ended up with 114 yards from scrimmage and a touchdown.  Every time the Packers needed a third down catch to continue a drive, Davante Adams was there, ending up with 13 catches for 196 yards and 2 TDs.  

On defense, to my eye the career debut of inside inside LB Kamal Martin was a positive factor.  He was one of the team leaders in tackles.  The defense pretty consistently applied pressure to DeShaun Watson and sacked him three times.  The defensive backs as a group kept Will Fuller and Brandin Cooks under control, with Alexander primarily shadowing Fuller, and Josh Jackson covering Cooks.  Only our old friend Randall Cobb was able to do much damage, catching 8 passes for 95 yards.  I doubt this would happen, but with all the talk about how the Packers should acquire a veteran receiver, wouldn't it be fun if the Packers traded to bring Randall Cobb back?  This might have been a very different Texans team if they had not traded away DeAndre Hopkins.  The final score was GB 35, Houston 20.  Another 30+ points on offense and another double digit win.

Creative use of motion and misdirection is one of the hallmarks of the LaFleur offense.  Until the last two weeks, a player streaking down the line of scrimmage pre-snap was seen a lot.  But Tyler Ervin was the primary runner of the jet sweep motion, and for whatever reason, in his absence the Packers have made much less use of this motion.  But speaking of creative use of motion, LaFleur's former mentor, Sean McVay, pulled an interesting play out of his hat Monday night, when McVay's Rams played the Bears.  Inside the Bears' 5 yard line in the first quarter, the Rams huddled up, and then sprinted to the line of scrimmage, snapped the ball almost immediately, and the play went for a touchdown.  It is the opposite of Rodgers' normal M.O.  He likes to study the defense, noting among other things how the defense reacts to any motion by the Packers, and seeing what he can read about the defense's intentions based on their movements before the snap.  Here, the situation is reversed.  By the Rams sprinting to the line and snapping the ball immediately, the defense has no opportunity to see and react to the offensive formation.  The Bears were caught flat-footed and gave up a touchdown.  I don't remember ever having seen the Packers run a play like this, other than maybe in a two minute drill.  But just as a change of pace, once or twice a game, this would be an intriguing and winning innovation.

This Sunday, the Packers host the Minnesota Vikings, who now find themselves in last place in the North at 1-5 and going nowhere.  And then four days later, the Packers head to Santa Clara to face the injury-riddled but still formidable 49ers.  I am concerned that this makes the Vikings game a bit of a trap game.  There is no reason the Packers should lose to the Vikings.  But there are lots of reasons that the Packers might lose to the 49ers.  And if, in the course of preparing and practicing for two games in short order, the Packers look past the Vikings to worry about the 49ers game, they could easily lose both games.  It is not just blowing smoke to say that the Vikings usually play the Packers very tough, and few coaches have more experience preparing for the Packers than Mike Zimmer.  Let's not forget that the Vikings still have Dalvin Cook, Adam Thielen, and Justin ("Could Have Had Him") Jefferson, so even though they have not played well, they are still dangerous.  And of course the Vikings' Anthony Barr broke Rodgers' collarbone 3 years ago.  He is out for the season this year, but I still would think that the Packers want to get the ball out quickly and on rhythm.

I heard LaFleur, in his Thursday press conference, say that they are not thinking about the 49ers, that the 49ers are the farthest thing from his mind.  I don't believe that.  I have to assume that at least a skeletal (how is that for a Halloween week reference) game plan has been put together.  But anyway, I hope he is truthfully relaying that the Packers are not looking past the Vikings.

A Great Start to a Weird Season

Photo by Dan Powers, USA Today

I was out of town for opening Sunday, and when I had trouble getting NFL Sunday Ticket to work, we found ourselves racing to the sports bar to catch the game.  We were sitting pretty far away from the screen, so I feel as if I didn't really see the game until I watched it again on NFL Game Pass later.

Football fans, including your humble blogger, tend to over-react to the team's last game.  They even call it "Over-Reaction Monday" on the NFL Network.  And that is probably never more true than if the last game was either the first or last game of the season.  And in this year, without a preseason or much way to know what was going on with the Packers, this last game over-reaction has never been more acute.  

OK, so go ahead and correct for the bias and over-reaction if you want to, but I was pretty happy with the way the Packers looked.  On the offensive line, Bryan Bulaga is gone to the Chargers, and starter Billy Turner was listed as inactive.  And Lane Taylor went out with what looks like a season-ending injury, while Lucas Patrick left with a more minor injury.  So how would the makeshift offensive line look, and how badly would Aaron Rodgers get beat up?  Answer: they could have been playing in an old-fashioned mud bowl, and Rodgers would have come out with a pretty clean uniform.  He was rarely under duress, never sacked, knocked down twice, and was sharp throughout the game.  Speaking of over-reactions, how about this one from Nate Burleson of the NFL Network: "Aaron Rodgers looked like the best quarterback in the NFL."

This is not a fantasy football blog, but Aaron Rodgers has been my starting QB in one fantasy league for several years, and I would have drafted him if I could have in my other league last year.  But in fantasy football terms, Aaron Rodgers was a disappointment last year, despite taking the Packers to the NFC Championship game in real football.  So, in my two "keeper" leagues, Rodgers was not even protected, and was available in the draft.  After attending to other needs in the early rounds of the drafts, I ended up picking up Rodgers as my backup QB, fairly late in the draft, in both leagues.  My thinking was that he should be a quality backup in the case of injury, and if, by chance, the second year under Matt LaFleur brings Rodgers back to a place where he and the coach are on the same page, there was a lot of upside.  Well, suffice it to say, I saw a lot of upside on Sunday, and he is likely to be my starter in Week 2 in at least one of my leagues.  

Getting back to actual football, the first half of the game was strange.  The Packers were dominating throughout the half, but drives were stalling, such that they only led by the score of 8-7 late in the half.  But an offensive explosion in the last 90 seconds of the half, aided by Jaire Alexander's second big play of the game (the first was the safety pictured above, the second was his interception) effectively put the Packers in control of the game.  Some of the things I liked on Sunday included Jaire Alexander's play on defense, and how sharp Rodgers looked.  If he can stay that accurate and stay healthy, the Packers can win a lot of games.  I liked the more complete integration of what I take to be some of Matt LaFleur's influences on the offense.  Things like the jet sweeps, and going straight to the line of scrimmage on some third downs to prevent substitutions.  I also liked that they never let up in the second half.  They continued to be aggressive on offense, which, by the way, was probably necessary to prevent what could have been a miracle comeback.

The things I didn't like were the injuries, to Kenny Clark, and Lucas Patrick, and of course Lane Taylor.  The offensive line continued to play well without Patrick, or Taylor, or Billy Turner (who was inactive), but I hope this is not going to be one of those seasons marred by injuries on the line all year long.  I also didn't like how many points the defense gave up, but let's acknowledge two facts: first, the defense gave up way more yards after Kenny Clark left the game (and Montravius Adams was inactive and therefore not available); and second, the last three touchdowns were essentially in extended garbage time, as the score was 29-10 at the end of the third quarter.  And finally, one of my traditional bugaboos: I didn't like the Packers wasting time outs as the play clock winds toward zero.  I think the Packers wasted 5 of their 6 timeouts that way on Sunday.  I would chalk this up to being the first game of the season, if this had not been a continuing problem in prior years.

The weirdness of this Covid-19 season could possibly work to the Packers' advantage, and I think it certainly did on Sunday.  The relative quiet of the fake crowd noise, limited to 70 decibels, took away a lot of the home field advantage for the Vikings.  Rodgers was able to use his cadences effectively, to draw the defense offside, whereas in a normal Vikings game, the defenders probably couldn't hear the cadence well enough to be drawn offside.  In fact, the same thing could happen when the Packers play the Saints in Week 3 - which will also have no fans in the stands.  So 2 of the Packers' first 4 games are in domes, but with a significant part of the dome field advantage removed.  And then Weeks 2 and 4 bring dome-bound, artificial turf teams to Lambeau Field (Lions and Falcons).  It is true that the limited fake crowd noise will benefit these teams over a typical Lambeau Field game, but open stadiums like Lambeau are rarely as loud as domed stadiums.  And it is still true that the Lions and Falcons, as artificial turf teams, are playing out of their natural element.  If the Packers can win 3 or 4 of those first 4 games, they will be in great shape heading into the bye week.

Packers' Defense Returns with a Vengeance

Before Monday night's game against the Vikings, I admit to being quite nervous about the Packers' chances.  Sure, with the game on the line, I would rather have Rodgers as my quarterback, rather than Kirk Cousins.  Sure, Cousins had never won a game on Monday night football.  But on the other hand, the Packers have always had trouble in Minnesota, and they had never won in the Vikings' new stadium.  Plus the Vikings' defense had broken Rodgers' collarbone there 2 years ago.  And people were arguing that Cousins has been playing better down the stretch than Rodgers.  And the Vikings were 6-0 at home this season.  Cousins had more yards and more touchdowns than Rodgers.  Blah, blah, blah.

So Packers fans (or this one, anyway) were in quite a mood after the Packers gave up 3 turnovers in the first half, while not getting any from the Vikings.  The Jones fumble on the first drive reminded me of games from the past, most recently the 49ers disaster last month.  You don't win many games when you are 0-3 in turnovers in the first half.  Still, the Packers' defense was stifling.  They held the Vikings to 3 points after that first fumble, they gave up a touchdown on a perfect pass to Diggs (Cousins' best pass of the night) after the Rodgers interception, and they gave up no points after the Adams fumble.  Meanwhile, the Packers were moving the ball well in between turnovers, but they were stalling and settling for field goals.

At halftime, as I grabbed something to eat, it hit me.  The Packers had given up 3 turnovers, but were otherwise moving the ball up and down the field.  With the exception of the perfect touchdown pass to Diggs, the Packers' defense was shutting down the Vikings, in both the running and passing games, and the Packers were only down 1 point.  The Packers had 13 first downs, to 2 for the Vikings.  The Packers had 3 times more total yards in the half, and 6 times the passing yards.  Despite the turnovers, the Packers were in great shape to win the game.  All they had to do was keep doing what they were doing, but without the turnovers.  And that is exactly what happened, with the Packers winning 23-10, in the process clinching the division, and keeping themselves alive to get a first or second seed in the playoffs and a bye week.

The heroes of the game, of course, were Aaron Jones and the defense, particularly the front seven.  Jones ran for 154 yards and two touchdowns, including the 56-yard "dagger" touchdown in the fourth quarter.  Meanwhile, the defense was shutting down the running game, and bottling up Kirk Cousins and the passing game.  Adam Thielen had no catches, while Diggs had 3 and Rudolph had one.  Now in fairness, it has to be mentioned that the Vikings were down to their third and fourth string running backs, Thielen is probably still hobbled with an injury that kept him out a few weeks, and Kirk Cousins had, well, a Kirk Cousins special awful game.  But you still have to make the plays on defense, and the Packers' defense did exactly that.

You could say that this was another ugly win, primarily because of the 3 turnovers.  But the heck with that.  Division games are always tough, and for the Packers to win a division game on the road against the Vikings, in a building where they have never won before, while overcoming the three turnovers, is good enough for me.  If that was ugly, let's have another ugly win this week.

After the game, the emotion and joy in the locker room, with the team sporting their "The North is Not Enough" T-shirts, was just overwhelming.  Later, I saw Tom Pelissero interview the "Smith Brothers" on the field, and I saw Za'Darius Smith literally choke up talking about how much the win meant to him, and how he had said that all he wanted for Christmas was a hat and a T-shirt.  And Z. Smith was a huge part of the win.  He had 3.5 sacks and 5 total tackles for a loss, the highest total in any game this year.  He was a one-man wrecking crew on this evening, and if he and the rest of the front seven can keep that up, it will be huge for the Packers in the playoffs.

Speaking of emotion, I saw that in Rodgers' post-game press conference, he mentioned the fact that he had been jeered in this stadium 2 years ago when he broke his collarbone.  I guess he has been holding onto that for awhile now.  While I am not sure that holding grudges is Rodgers' best quality, it is clear that nobody is better at it than Aaron Rodgers.  And if he can use that for motivation, more power to him.  Now the truth is, he did not play particularly well on Monday night.  The interception, his third of the year, was inexplicable to me.  Was he that inaccurate that he under-threw the ball by that much?  If not, what did he think he saw on that play?  But he got it done when it counted, by engineering drives resulting in field goals in the first half, to keep the game close, and by engineering touchdown drives in the second half, to put the game away. 

The very best thing about Rodgers' game on Monday, in my view, is that he repeatedly threw the short out passes that would gain 3, 5 or 7 yards, to move the chains down the field, while relying primarily on the running game.  That is exactly what his critics have been asking for.  Play within the contours of the LaFleur offense.  Take what the defense is giving you.  Move the ball down the field, rather than sitting back there looking for the big play and ending up being sacked.  If he can keep working the offense as it was designed, while benefiting from the resurgent Packers defense, they can continue to win games.  No need for heroics if they play like this and avoid the turnovers that almost sent the Vikings game off the rails.

The Packers have a great opportunity to win and secure a bye week against the Lions.  There are no "gimmes" in the NFL, and let's not forget that the Lions crushed the Packers, 31-0, in the finale last year.  But this is a very different year.  Just get it done!  And if the Packers do their job, and the Seahawks manage to beat the 49ers, the Packers will have the no. 1 seed for the first time in a long while.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all.

Getting Used to Ugly

Aaron Jones scores, Photo by Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

More of the same from the Packers last week.  This time, after taking a 21-3 lead in the second half, the Packers' offense went as cold as Lambeau Field in January, while letting the Bears creep back into the game.  The game didn't end until the final play, a Cal Band-type play, when Tramon Williams finally stopped the madness by recovering a deflected lateral at the Packers' 2 yard line.  The 21-13 win, combined with a Rams loss later in the day, was enough to put the Packers back in the playoffs for the first time in 3 years.  And since they only need one more win to secure the division, they have a 91% chance to win the division, and a 42% chance to get a bye week, which they can accomplish most easily by winning both remaining games.

The Packers' 11-3 record ought to make fans happy.  But their inconsistency of play has resulted in some very ugly wins, of which the Bears game was another one.  Article after article this week makes it seem as if the only word you can put before "win" is "ugly," at least if you are discussing the 2019 Green Bay Packers.  They may have won 11 games, but in 9 of those wins, the Packers led by only a single score (8 points or less) at some point in the fourth quarter.  The wins over the Raiders and Cowboys are the only exceptions.  Those two games were not complete performances, either, but at least no nail-biting was required in the fourth quarter.

I didn't find the Bears game as upsetting as some of the others, because Packers-Bears games are almost always close, hard-fought battles between the ancient rivals.  They have now played 200 games against each other, and while there have been some blowouts (the first game I ever went to was a Packers blowout of the Bears in 1962, 49-0), most of them have been close games battled out to the bitter end.  So I wasn't surprised with the way the game ended up, but gratified that the Packers won.

I think much of the fan dissatisfaction and anxiety has to do with the fact that we know (or think we know) that the Packers are capable of better play than the way they are playing.  So we want to see the Packers establish their identity as a good to great team by playing 60 minutes on offense, and 60 minutes on defense, and put together a convincing win against a good team.  Hell, we would take a convincing win against any team, good or bad, at this point.  The fear is that if they don't start playing up to what we think is their potential, they are going to get bounced out of the playoffs, rather unceremoniously, as soon as they come up against a good team, which will probably be in the first game.  At the moment, from week to week, we don't know if we should expect an ugly win, or a really ugly loss.  The one thing we are losing faith that we will see is a convincing win.

Aaron Nagler says, "maybe winning ugly IS their identity."  Chris Havel says, "If the Packers' identity is 'winning ugly' so be it."  The funny thing is, they might actually be on to something.  Older fans will remember teams like the "Cardiac Pack" and the "Cardiac Cards."  The identity of those teams was that they would find ways to come from behind and win games at the end.  And we have certainly seen Packers teams over the years that would find ways to lose most of the close games that they could have won.  Well, the Packers in 2019 are kind of the opposite.  They aren't generally coming from behind, so they are not like the old Cardiac Pack, but they almost always find a way to win close games that they could have lost.  The only close game they have lost was the game against the Eagles.  I am not sure that winning like this is sustainable into the playoffs, although it looks as if we will get the chance to find out soon enough.  But if this is winning ugly, I will take it as long as they continue to win.

The Vikings are usually also a tough matchup for the Packers, especially when the game is in Minnesota.  The Packers haven't yet won a game in the Vikings' new stadium, and they weren't so great in the Vikings' last stadium, either (remember the T.J. Rubley game, for instance?).  The Vikings have good weapons on offense (although Dalvin Cook might miss this game), and their defense is in some ways similar to the Packers: lots of bend but not much break, generating turnovers, etc.  While the Vikings trail the Packers by a game in the standings, they have scored more points on offense, and given up fewer points on defense.

Channeling Denny Green for a moment, I am not ready to crown the Vikings' ass just yet.  They have already been beaten by the Packers and Bears, as well as the Chiefs and Seahawks, so they are not unbeatable.  Despite some underwhelming play by the Packers in general, and Rodgers in particular, at times this year, I will still take Aaron Rodgers over Kirk Cousins, at the end of a close game, any time.  So I would like to see the Packers play their first complete game of the year, and blow the Vikings out of their dome.  But I doubt that will happen, and I will gladly take another ugly win.  Of necessity, I am getting used to ugly wins.

Two Good Quarters out of Eight

All About the Defense, Photo by Joshua Clark, USA Today

"We've had two good quarters out of eight," said Aaron Rodgers in his post-game press conference, obviously referring to the offense.  And he is absolutely right.  The offense right now is like a big old V-8 engine that is only hitting on two cylinders.  But, in spite of this, the Packers are 2-0 after two weeks.

If you had told me, a couple of weeks ago, that the Packers' offense would have one good quarter against the Bears, and one good quarter against the Vikings, and that they would do diddly-squat (©) in the other six quarters, I would not have given the Packers much chance of being 2-0, 2-0 in divisional games, and in sole possession of first place in the NFC North.

It is obvious that the improved defense this year is responsible for the Packers being unbeaten.  They have given up 19 points in two games, and that was good enough to secure victories when the offense under-performed in both games.  If the defense can continue to play this well (or better!), if and when the offense really gets its act together, this team could win a bunch of games.  It must be a huge comfort to Rodgers (and to LaFleur) that the Packers now have a defense that can win some games for them.  It is certainly a great comfort to me as a fan.

Family members Sam and Mary were at the game, and they tell me that the Packers chose to introduce the defense at the beginning of the game, a tip of the hat to the fact that the defense won the first game.  Rodgers and LaFleur have been very upfront in acknowledging how well the defense is playing, and in particular the importance of free agent acquisitions Za'darius Smith, Preston Smith, and Adrian Amos, and rookies like Darnell Savage and second year players like Jaire Alexander.  Rodgers described the two Smith "brothers" as leaders on and off the field, and these two clearly seem to enjoy playing with each other.  Adrian Amos basically sealed the win last week against the Bears.  Against the Vikings, it was Kevin King who made the end zone interception to essentially salt the game away.

In the crazy schedule the Packers have drawn this year, they will have two more home games in a row (vs. Denver and Philadelphia), followed by a road game at Dallas, and followed by two more home games (vs. Detroit and the Raiders).  So by the end of the day on October 20, the Packers will have already played 5 of their 8 home games, but they will have had lots of chances to work out the kinks in their offense on their home field, with a home crowd that hopefully knows to be quiet when the offense is at work.  It is not hard to imagine the Packers standing at 5-2 after seven games, and wouldn't that be a great start while getting used to a new offense!  As the crew on Good Morning Football said Monday morning, Rodgers and LaFleur are getting used to the new offense and working with each other on the fly.  Absent catastrophic injuries, there is every reason to think that the offense will get better as every week goes by.

Speaking of learning on the fly, Sam and Mary also tell me that there was no foghorn at the game yesterday.  So LaFleur, or whoever else may have come up with the idea of copying the Vikings' Gjallarhorn, has learned on the fly that it was not such a great idea.

Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves.  Maybe the offense doesn't improve from week to week.  Maybe the defense is hit with the injury bug (Savage and Greene were hurt in Sunday's game).  And playing 6 of the final 9 games on the road will be no picnic.  But as of this moment, I couldn't be more encouraged by the new Green Bay Packers.

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.

Rodgers Puts Together an Instant Classic

Cobb's Game-Winning TD, Photo by Wm Glasheen, USA Today

What a tale of two halves.  And what a tale of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.  One of the best offensive players in the league (and the highest paid), in Aaron Rodgers, meeting one of the best defensive players in the league (and the highest paid), in Khalil Mack.  As bad as the offense and defense looked in the first half, they looked just that good in the second half.

We actually had to watch most of the game on DVR Sunday night, as we had to leave the house when the game was just starting for Rosh Hashanah services, and didn't get back until about 2 hours later.  In the meantime, we had turned off our cell phones and left them off, and turned off the answering machine so that we didn't have to listen to any messages coming in, and we turned off the car radio.  By the time we finished watching the game, it was almost midnight, Lambeau time.  So this is a bit of a stream of consciousness recap of how we learned what had happened.

We didn't know that Rodgers had been knocked out of the game, and taken off on a cart, until we got back home.   When we saw the injury, I thought one of the bones in his leg had broken based on the way the Bears player landed on the leg.  I was envisioning another lost season, or at a minimum wondering how many weeks Rodgers would have to miss.  I wasn't feeling too excited about traveling from the west coast this coming week to watch DeShone Kizer getting beat up by the Vikings.  And I was wondering how my fantasy team would survive.

But Rodgers miraculously appeared on the field, ready to play the second half.  It was obvious that he was hobbled by his knee injury, and therefore obvious that he was more vulnerable than usual to oncoming pass rushers, especially from Khalil Mack, who was like a human wrecking ball in the first half.  He was only expected to play limited snaps, but the Bears threw that plan out the window when they saw the instant impact he had on the game.  Oh, now I get why the Bears were willing to pay so much to bring him to Chicago.  But once Rodgers returned, the Packers started playing a lot of no huddle offense, and the TV announcers were exactly right in observing that the pass rush dropped off as soon as the Packers started running no huddle.  They just could not keep up with the pace of the offense and started to tire out. Meanwhile, defensive coordinator Mike Pettine also made adjustments, and after the two opening drives for the Bears, the defensive squad only gave up two more field goals for the rest of the game.

I only took one call while we were watching the game.  We got a call from our daughter, who was stuck in traffic on the way back from the game with her partner.  I answered and immediately yelled "we are only in the third quarter, can I call you back when we are done?"  She asked me how much time was left in the third quarter, and I said 5 minutes.  She said, "OK, I want to talk to you about the game when you finish."  On the surface, I learned nothing from this call.  And yet, I did not hear the slightest hint of dejection in her voice, and I would have expected to pick up on some.  The score was 20-0 at the time.  I didn't say this to my wife, but I began to wonder if somehow they had pulled off a miracle.

And then it was 20-3 after Rodgers' first drive of the third quarter.  Too bad they didn't get a touchdown, now they still needed three more scores (and a shutout or near shutout) to possibly win.  Soon, it was 20-10, thanks to a quick drive and a sensational pass from Rodgers (on one foot) and an excellent catch by Geronimo Allison in the corner of the end zone, on a 39 yard touchdown.  Hey, there were still 14 minutes left.  Who knows?  Around this time, my wife and I started to exchange looks, that, loosely translated, meant, "What do you think?  Could they possibly do this?"

Just a few minutes later, it was 20-17, thanks to another extremely efficient, 6 play, 75 yard drive.  And there were still 9 minutes left.  Unfortunately, the Bears, who had been quiet for most of the second half, put together a pretty good drive, converting third downs when necessary, and eating up 6 of the 9 minutes left on the clock.  But the Packers defense finally stiffened and forced a 32 yard field goal to make it 23-17.

Well, what do you know?  If they could somehow pull it off, this wouldn't be the first game-winning drive Rodgers engineered in the last 3 minutes.  Not even the first one against the Bears, and not the first one involving Randall Cobb.  When Rodgers hit Cobb for a short pass that Cobb turned into a 75 yard TD (who knew he still had that much speed and shiftiness?), the only problem was that they scored too fast, and left over two minutes on the clock for the Bears. The Packers would have to stop the Bears on downs to preserve the win.  And they did!  In fact they had to do it twice, when Clay Matthews (who didn't have a very good game overall) committed an inexcusable roughing the passer penalty on what should have been the game-clinching, fourth-down incompletion.  If the Bears had gone on to score and win, Matthews would have been the goat, and not the Greatest Of All Time kind, just the plain old goat.  But five plays later, Nick Perry bailed out his fellow linebacker with a fourth-down strip sack, preserving the miraculous 24-23 win.

It was my wife's observation, but one with which I agreed, that this game was sort of reminiscent of the famous "Irvin Favre" game in Oakland, the night after Favre's father died.  Yes, Favre and Rodgers played unbelievably well; but it was also the case that their teammates stepped up and played over their heads, in order to support their team leader.  If they can preserve and maintain just a little of that extra something in coming games, it will be a big plus.

I think there are some significant take-aways from this game.  The first is that maybe it isn't such a great idea to have your starting offense only play 5 plays together during the entire preseason.  I understand why they do it, in view of the season-ending injury to Jordy Nelson a couple years ago, but you cannot convince me that the lack of playing time together had nothing to do with the sluggishness of the offense in the first half.  To a lesser extent, I felt the same way about the defense.  They seemed lost and outcoached during the first half, and I wonder if more playing time as a unit might have helped them out as well.  I know the coach will have none of this, but I hope deep down inside somewhere, he takes the point.

The second thing is that the Packers should turn to the fast paced, or even no huddle offense, whenever they are having trouble getting things started.  Heck, start the game with it and see what happens.  It is so obvious that Rodgers is the master of the fast-paced offense, and it is equally obvious that it puts the defense at a serious disadvantage.  If you have Rodgers behind center, you have a natural advantage going in.  But if you really want to put the defense back on its heels, have Rodgers run the fast-paced offense.

Finally, they are going to have to play better than this to win the game on Sunday against the Vikings.  No holes to be dug out of; no sluggishness on offense or defense; more pass protection and quick-release passes from the very beginning of the game, not just after your quarterback almost gets knocked out for an extended period.  With an injured Rodgers, and with the Vikings looking very good against the 49ers this past week, you would think that the advantage goes to the Vikings.  But it was the Vikings who took Rodgers out last year.  That ought to be a little motivation for the team to play with emotion and intensity again.  I just hope they start that way from the very start.

Getting Tired of Home Shutouts

Tubing in Titletown, Photo by Adam Wesley, USA Today

The Packers played their final home game on Saturday night, and got shut out by the Vikings, 16-0.  Since the Packers suffered two shutout losses in Lambeau Field this year, maybe we should consider the fact that this is the last home game to be a blessing of sorts.  By the time we next see the Packers in Lambeau Field, (1) Aaron Rodgers and numerous others will be back from injured reserve; (2) the Packers will have another chance to do something about their defense; and (3) we are likely to have seen some changes in the coaching staff.  I will have more to say about coaching changes in my year-end post in a week or two.

In the meantime, since there are no more games, this would be a great time to check out the tubing hill in the Titletown District, which opened this past week.  I would check it out myself if I lived nearby.

As far as the game is concerned, I did not see a lot to like in the Packers' performance.  I also wasn't too impressed with the Vikings.  They scored 10 points in the first quarter, and then could only manage another 6 points for the rest of the game.  They did not, to me, seem like a team likely to go rolling through the playoffs, and then play and win the Super Bowl in their own stadium.  Especially if they have to play a game outdoors, I don't see them winning that game. In light of last night's game, the Eagles now have the number one seed, so if the Vikings are to advance, it will have to be by going through Philly, unless the Eagles get knocked off in their first game.  The Eagles didn't look too great, either, so that could quite possibly happen.

But the vulnerability of the Vikings makes the Packers' performance all the more disappointing.  The Packers had exactly one promising drive in the game, late in the second quarter, which ended on a terrible interception by Hundley in the red zone.  Every time Hundley threw a ball over 10 yards, it seemed like it was either too short, or, more frequently, too long.  Unlike the Goldilocks tale, none of them were "just right."  Well, technically he did complete several passes over 10 yards, but the impression this viewer had was that every time he threw a longer pass, I just knew the pass would be incomplete. 

That would be hard to take if Hundley were a first year player, but at least in that context you could wait for better play from him in the future.  In this case, he has been McCarthy's backup, "the guy" for three years now, and McCarthy has repeatedly vouched for him.  So how can he be as mediocre as he seems to be? 

Back in the first couple of weeks that Hundley was playing, I thought people were jumping all over him way too fast.  Give the kid a chance to settle in, and all.  But despite having won 3 of the 9 games he played in, I don't know how you can avoid the conclusion that Brett Hundley just isn't good enough to be the Packers' backup, at least if the goal is to keep them winning enough games to get to the playoffs.  Now, I think it is quite reasonable to conclude that McCarthy's faith in Hundley is misguided, which raises questions about whether he will be able to develop a better backup for Rodgers for next season.

Indeed, it really calls into question McCarthy's judgment and his reputation as a quarterback whisperer.  Whereas Mike Holmgren and Ron Wolf prepared backup after backup, and several of them went on to become starters in the league (Matt Hasselback, Mark Brunell, Ty Detmer, Doug Pedersen), the same cannot be said about Mike McCarthy, unless you give him credit for bringing along Aaron Rodgers after he was drafted to replace Brett Favre.  I guess you could count Matt Flynn, but when he got his chance to be a starter, he was beaten out by rookie Russell Wilson.  And to make matters worse, they put the more promising backup candidate, Taysom Hill, on the practice squad, where he was signed away by the Saints.  I know, that was a calculated risk, but in hindsight, why not keep Hill and get rid of Joe Callahan, if they don't have enough confidence in Callahan to run him out there in a game where Hundley is doing nothing?

At any rate, while the Packers have plenty of problems on defense, and that needs to be addressed for next season as well, the defense wasn't really the problem Saturday night.  They held the sometimes high-scoring Vikings to 16 points.  That ought to be good enough to give the Packers a chance to win, but as it happened, they had no chance at all with the Brett Hundley-led offense.  It is going to be a long-than-usual offseason for Packers fans, and a very interesting one, as well.

Happy New Year!

Packers are Down, but are they Out?

Photo by Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Poof!  That sound you hear just  might be the sound of a promising season blowing up.  When Aaron Rodgers hit the deck hard, with the weight of the tackler on top of him, just like that, the chances that the Packers would make it to the Super Bowl this year were reduced to next to nothing. The 23-10 loss to the rival Vikings seems insignificant when compared to the fact that Aaron Rodgers will be out for most or all of the season.

My own opinion is that it was not in the category of dirty plays or cheap shots.  But you could fairly call it unnecessary roughness, not that a 15 yard penalty would make things any better under the circumstances.

The problems on the offensive line were not directly responsible for the hit, as Rodgers was scrambling as he frequently does to extend plays.  But by the end of the game, three of the offensive linemen who had started the game were on the sideline with injuries, and that fact significantly reduced any chance that backup QB Brett Hundley would pull a "Brett Favre" and be successful in his emergency duty.

Coach McCarthy and the staff have always seemed high on Brett Hundley, and they have had more than two years to get him ready to step in as he must do now.  McCarthy says he is happy with the QBs he has, Brett Hundley as the new starter and Joe Callahan, who has been brought up from the practice squad.  But in fairness, he said the same things 4 years ago about Seneca Wallace and Scott Tolzien, when Rodgers broke his other collarbone, before eventually signing Matt Flynn, who had become available.

But McCarthy needs to give Hundley a chance to succeed.  Watching the game live on Sunday, it appeared to me, and to family members Sam and Judy, that McCarthy had Hundley under too tight a leash.  In re-watching the game, I don't remember a single play where McCarthy had Hundley do anything other than hand off or drop straight back in the pocket.  Not a single rollout, let alone flea-flickers or other imaginative plays!  And yet one of Hundley's strengths is  his athleticism.  Take off the handcuffs and let him play!

And now the inevitable arguments have started about whether the Packers should or should not go out and try to sign Colin Kaepernick.  Tony Romo's name comes up, too, but I think signing Romo is highly unlikely.  Given his injury history in recent years, the state of the Packers' offensive line, and the fact that he is getting rave reviews as a member of the CBS broadcast booth, I just can't see him being anxious to put the pads back on.

As to Kaepernick, I don't see it for at least three reasons.  First, as mentioned, the Packers have always been high on Brett Hundley.  My friend Peter tells me that Hundley is the classic over-hyped, over-rated Pac 12 quarterback, who piled up stats against bad defenses, and is a turnover machine.  I don't follow college football, but let's assume Peter is right.  Could McCarthy and his staff have helped to mold and improve Hundley's game in his two-plus years as a member of the Packers?  I certainly hold out hope that he has, and we will begin to find out soon enough, as McCarthy certainly is going to go with Hundley for right  now.  Can we at least give Hundley a week of prep as the starter before hitting the panic button and pulling the plug on him?  The Packers went 2-4-1 in 2013 in the seven games Rodgers missed when he broke his other collarbone.  That was not a good record (barely enough to get them to the playoffs), but in that seven week span they went through Seneca Wallace and Scott Tolzien as starters before re-signing and settling on Matt Flynn.  Flynn went 2-2 in the games he started.  I think Hundley can do better than 2-4-1, but we will see.*

*As an aside, if the Packers are interested in signing some quarterback who has not played in some time, I would rather see them sign Matt Flynn - he is available as a 32-year-old free agent.  The downside is that he has effectively not played in two years.  But on the upside, he at least knows the offense, the coaching staff, and many of the players.

Second, Kaepernick has succeeded in exactly one offense in the NFL, specifically designed around his talents by Jim Harbaugh, and before NFL defenses adjusted to the read option offense.  He has not succeeded in any other offense.  Are the Packers going to re-design their entire offense to suit the skills of one player who, at most, is going to play the next 10 games for the Packers?  Obviously not.  Well then, can Kaepernick quickly learn and adapt to the Packers' existing offense?  There are no data to suggest that he can, based on his past performance.  So it is not enough to say, "well, Kaepernick has won games in the NFL as a starting quarterback, gone to the Super Bowl and to another NFC Championship game, so therefore he can win games for the Packers."  Not all former starting quarterbacks are interchangeable.  With Kaepernick, you end up with a round hole and a square peg. 

In short, I think there are serious questions about his skill set and whether the Packers (or any other team, really, since nobody is running the Harbaugh-Kaepernick read option offense right now) are a natural fit for those skills.  Mike Sando of ESPN has written an interesting article, setting forth his notes over the past 4 years from his discussions with league insiders about Kaepernick.  The takeaway is an increasing level of doubts about how good a quarterback he really is as those years go by, starting well before he became famous for his National Anthem protest.  So my basic argument is that he does not have the right skills and is not a good fit from a football standpoint.

But finally, and I know this will piss some people off, I am arguing that Kaepernick's political activism is not only not a plus, but is a negative, and he would become a distraction if he joined the Packers roster.  I don't care if he is from Wisconsin, and if there is that cute picture of him as a kid in a Favre jersey.  The Packers are the team of the smallest town in the NFL.  They are owned by members of the community, your humble blogger included.  People from Wisconsin have somewhat traditional values and, for the most part, do not appreciate National Anthem protests.  The fans in the stands at the Bears game, for instance, did not seem to have any interest in adopting Aaron Rodgers' compromise suggestion to lock arms during the anthem.

While the National Anthem protests have expanded to have a wider focus than the one originally espoused by Kaepernick, he is the one who started the whole thing in the NFL.  And he was very clear about his motivation: "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color." So others joining in the National Anthem protests, like Martellus Bennett, may not be protesting the flag or the country, but Kaepernick, in his own words, clearly was.  And now he has apparently filed a grievance against the NFL for collusion.  And then there are the socks he wore on the sidelines depicting police as pigs.  And the praise for the Castro regime.  I agree with Boomer Esiason, who said, "This guy's like a tooth ache that just won't go away. . . " 

If you think all of that is consistent with him being a "Packers person," and a welcome addition to the Packers' locker room, then your definition of the term is very different from mine.

Davante Does Dallas

Packers' Bobsled Formation, Photo by Evan Siegle, Packers.com

The Packers put together a thrilling, come-from-behind, last minute victory over the Cowboys on Sunday, 35-31.  Now, if only they had not fallen behind by the score of 21-6 in the second quarter, maybe the thrilling comeback would not have been necessary.  In other words, Sunday's game marked the return of the Packers' patented slow start to games. The sooner they can rid themselves of this nasty habit, the better.

The pattern Sunday was all too familiar.  The Cowboys scored on their first possession (although in this case it wasn't easy - their drive was extended by a fourth down conversion and a phantom penalty on Blake Martinez).  The Packers answered with a very sharp drive down the field ending with a TD to Davante Adams, returning from his cheap shot concussion against the Bears.  And then the entire team went into a funk, where the defense allowed two more quick touchdowns, while the offense did nothing.  What causes this?

Mike Holmgren eventually figured out a way to settle down Brett Favre at the beginning of games, so he wouldn't throw as many "rocket balls" at the beginning of games as he had earlier in his career.  If the modern-day Packers have the skills and intensity to engineer these second half comebacks to win, then why can't they find a way to bring those skills to the fore in the first half?

This game was a bit of a coming-out party for rookie RB Aaron Jones, who rushed for 125 yards, and a 6.6 yard per carry average.  He has the speed to beat defenders around the corner, and as such he brings a new dimension to the Packers' running game.  I am sure (or should I say, pretty sure?)  that when Ty Montgomery is healthy, he will return as the starter.  He is a better receiver, from what we have seen, and that is a big deal in the Packers' offense.  But Aaron Jones has certainly shown that he deserves a bigger role in the offense.

There were a couple of very interesting play calls in the final minutes of the game.  I think they illustrate that all that matters in the end is whether the play is successful; it is the difference between "the coach is a genius!" and "the coach is an idiot!"  On 2d and 2 from the Green Bay 11, with 1:24 left in the game, the Cowboys threw an incomplete pass, stopping the clock.  The Cowboys then scored on the next play, leaving the Packers with 1:13 on the clock, which turned out to be plenty of time to win.  Jason Garrett gets grief for poor clock management in the situation.  But bear in mind that the Cowboys were behind by 4 points, and needed a TD to go ahead.  Most people would expect a run, a run, and a pass if necessary on third down for the score or first down.  Why not catch the opponent by surprise, throw on second down instead, to try to catch the Packers focusing on the run?  So I can't really criticize this call. 

Still, they had been running the ball well, and on 2d and 2, there is no reason to think that they could not have gotten the first down on the ground, running down the clock and thus prompting the time-management criticism.  One can't help but think that along with the excitement about Prescott scoring the go-ahead touchdown, there must have been some undertone in the crowd of outright dread about the amount of time left on the clock for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.  After all, they have seen this routine before, in last year's playoff game.

Seconds later, on 2d and 10 from the Dallas 47, McCarthy called a running play to Aaron Jones, which went for 15 yards, and the rookie got the ball out of bounds, to boot.  Great call!  Who expects a running play in this situation from midfield, when you have 47 more yards to cover and not many seconds left to get it done!  But imagine if he was stuffed in the backfield, or tripped up inbounds after a short gain.  What an idiot!  How can you call a running play there!  There is obviously such a thing as poor clock management, and Coach McCarthy has sometimes been guilty of this sin.  But in most cases, there is another side to the story, the strategic angle, where an attempt to go against the conventional wisdom can be exactly what is called for, in order to outsmart the opposing team.

Everybody now knows how this ended.  After a first down incompletion on a back-shoulder pass to Davante Adams, Adams urged Rodgers to call the same play, and according to Rodgers, Adams' eyes included the extra message, "throw a better ball."  He did exactly that with 11 seconds left in the game, and Adams scored the winning touchdown.  The game was a great win for the Packers, and an instant classic of a ball game overall.  It brings the Packers to a 4-1 record, which is certainly at the high end of what anyone could predict for the Packers thus far in 2017, especially when you consider all the injuries, particularly on the offensive line.

This week they head back to the Vikings' new stadium, to renew another long-time rivalry.  In recent years, the Packers have won most of their games against the Vikings, regardless of which stadium they play in.  Last year's game in Minnesota was the inaugural home game for the Vikings in their new stadium, and those games don't go well for the Packers, as we learned again this year in Atlanta.  But the Vikings are unsettled in a number of areas, including the fact that starting QB Sam Bradford has been ruled out for this game, as has starting WR Stefon Diggs.  The Vikings lost their rookie RB Dalvin Cook a week ago, so they are using backups there as well.  I expect a win for the Packers; and hopefully a win not requiring another furious comeback.

One More for the Title!

The Unstoppable Jordy Nelson, photo by Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

I feel like such a sucker, for believing in the Vikings' hype earlier this year.  When the Vikings cruised to a 5-0 start, despite having lost Teddy Bridgewater and Adrian Peterson, it was hard for me to see how they would not win the division.  After all, the Packers, after 5 games, were 3-2, and the Lions were 2-3.  And that, of course, was before the Packers' 4 game losing streak.  And before the Lions went on a tear, winning 8 out of 9.

But then the Vikings started to self-destruct, losing 8 out of the next 10 games, including their 38-25 loss to the Packers on Saturday, and they now find themselves out of the playoffs.  There was a time, not too many weeks ago, when I didn't think the Packers could catch either the Vikings or the Lions, and yet they caught and passed the Vikings and now have tied the Lions with a chance to win the division outright.  It is all about the Packers and the Lions now, with the division title (and possibly a Wild Card for either Packers or Lions) on the line next Sunday night when the Packers travel to play the Lions.

The funniest thing about the Vikings' loss to the Packers, at least to me, is the mutiny that evidently happened among the Vikings' defensive backs.  The game plan was for Xavier Rhodes to shadow Jordy Nelson for the entire game, but the DBs themselves decided that they would just cover their normal sides of the field, in the normal fashion.  This lasted, depending on which version you believe, either for only one series (according to Coach Mike Zimmer), or until halftime (as the defensive backs originally said before clamming up), before Mike Zimmer could re-assert control over the mutineers.  In re-watching the game, it is 100% clear that the mutiny was in full effect until halftime.  The game tape may not lie, but evidently Mike Zimmer does.  If Rhodes was shadowing Nelson in the first half, then he is the worst shadow in the history of the game.  In the first half, the rogues gave up 145 yards and two touchdowns to Nelson.  In the second half, under the Mike Zimmer game plan, they gave up 2 catches and 9 yards to Nelson.

The return to form of Aaron Rodgers over the past 7 or 8 weeks, combined with the re-emergence of Jordy Nelson as the receiver he was before his injury last year, and the creation out of nothing of a semblance of a running game with Ty Montgomery and Christine Michael, are responsible for how well the offense is playing.  The defense is much spottier, and if the Packers make it to the playoffs, I question how far they can go unless the defense improves.  But the return of Clay Matthews and Nick Perry to being playmakers, despite playing through significant injuries, is a big plus, and if the Packers could just keep a group of defensive backs healthy for an entire game, they might have fewer problems.

I guess you could fault the Packers for going into a bit of a shell in the fourth quarter against Minnesota, but I really don't have a problem with that.  Unlike the prior week against the Bears, where they started playing a lot of loose zone with 15 minutes left to go, and only leading by 17, in the Vikings game, the Packers were ahead by 25 points with 9 minutes to go when they decided to go into some version of the prevent defense.

So on we go to the very last regular season game, with the NFC North Division Championship on the line.  The league and NBC must be delighted to have an old-time rivalry like the Packers and Lions in this final slot.  The emotion in the stadium will be high, as well as in living rooms across the country and elsewhere.  If I were a Lions' fan, I would be a little leery of matching up Matthew Stafford and his two-game losing streak against Aaron Rodgers and his five-game winning streak.  Still, the Lions play well in their dome, Stafford has played very well over the last couple of years, and they certainly have the ability to win this game.

I think that the Packers are the better team, and should win this game.  My biggest concern is the Packers' defensive backs.  Not only do they have lots of injuries in the defensive backfield, but they have a penchant for turning relative no-name receivers into one-week wonders, like they did with Adam Thielen last week, and like they did with Marvin Jones in the first meeting with the Lions.  And let's not forget that the Lions have some quality receivers who could do the same thing to the Packers' defense, principally Golden Tate (cue bad memories) and Eric Ebron.  So even without Calvin Johnson, the Lions are a threat.  Until last week, I would also have been concerned about whether the Packers could put any pressure on Stafford, but the ability of Matthews and Perry to play through their injuries last week makes me feel much better on that score.

In the Lions' Monday night loss to the Cowboys, at first it seemed that the Lions and Cowboys would just match each other, score for score, until maybe the team with the ball last won the game.  But the Cowboys were able to adjust, start to put more pressure on Stafford, and mistakes ensued (an interception, a lost Stafford fumble, and a missed field goal).  After the Lions pulled ahead 21-14 in the second quarter, the Cowboys went on to score 28 unanswered points to put the game away.  In my viewing of the game, putting pressure on Stafford was the key to achieving this result.

For the Packers, the important thing is not to put themselves into a hole, as they did last year at Detroit.  Obviously, that game resulted in a Packers win, but relying on an untimed play and a Hail Mary pass is a low-probability way to win a game.  If they can just play the game they have discovered over the last five weeks, involving quick release and rhythm passes, just enough of a running game to keep the Lions honest, punctuated by shots down the field to Nelson, Adams, and now Cook, and maybe an occasional unusual play like a jet screen to Janis, they can maybe get off to a fast start and start to take some of the emotion out of the Lions and their fans.

Then, if the Packers have a lead in the second half, for heavens sake don't try to just sit on it!  The Lions have been the kings of comebacks.  They have apparently come from behind to win games in the fourth quarter or overtime 8 times this year!  This record apparently qualifies them as the best comeback team in the history of the NFL.  Mike McCarthy and Dom Capers are presumably well aware of all this.  So if they find themselves with a lead, they simply must keep their feet on the gas, on both sides of the ball, until any Lions comeback would definitely be too little, too late.  Doing this might well turn out to be the biggest key to the entire game.