One More "Meaningless" Game to Go

Photo by Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Who expected, back at the beginning of the 2018 season, that the Packers would be left with two utterly meaningless games to play out at the end of December?  One of the old cliches, that we hear every year in December about such games, is that a team had its bags packed and ready to roll out the door.  Joe Philbin indirectly referred to this phenomenon when he said that the locker room will be like a ghost town come Monday. 

Early in the game, the Packers looked like they were ready to head home for the holidays.  On defense, they gave up first down after first down, and only a missed field goal prevented the Jets from scoring on their opening drive.  On offense, there was poor blocking, poor throws by Rodgers, and only Jamaal Williams looked like he actually came to play. 

This game was like so many others this year, with the Packers in double-digit holes, trailing 14-0, 21-7, and 35-20.  I assumed for most of this game that the Packers would lose again, and finish their season winless on the road.  While the offense started to come to life in the second quarter, the defense (undermanned due to injury though it was) was making the Jets' offense look like all-stars.  And of course the special teams were busy sealing Ron Zook's fate.  Once the offense started to play, they were almost unstoppable, with Davante Adams leading the way.  But it still took overtime, and what seemed like an endless supply of penalties against the Jets, for the Packers to secure the 44-38 win.  Imagine if the Packers' offense had been prepared to play in the first quarter?  The Packers' defense and special teams would have managed, unfortunately, to keep the game close anyway, but the Packers probably would have won the game in four quarters by 7 to 14 points.

Most commentators have taken the position that the Packers should have played DeShone Kizer in these last two games.  What is the point of playing Rodgers?  What if he gets hurt?  Don't we need to see what (if anything) we have in Kizer?  But the best case for playing Rodgers (made by Pete Dougherty last week) was that he has seemed reluctant to trust his young receivers all year.  Let him have a couple of games with lots of the young receivers in the lineup, and hopefully he will gain more familiarity and comfort with them.  The first of the two meaningless games allowed for just that.  Rodgers completed passes to 9 different receivers.  Adams and Williams led the team in pass receptions.  But in addition to single catches by Dan Vitale and Robert Tonyan, there were multiple receptions by Kendricks, Graham, Kumerow, Valdes-Scantling, and St. Brown.  And kudos to Kumerow for scoring his first NFL touchdown!  (I have been waiting all year to say that.)

All that remains now is to play the final meaningless game, against the Lions, and then see what the off-season brings.  The Lions gave the Vikings a run for their money into the second quarter last week, but then pretty much collapsed after that.  Of course, the Lions' offense is likely to have an easier time against the Packers' nicked-up defense than they had against the Vikings.  But still, the Packers ought to be able to win their final game, and finish just below .500, at 7-8-1.

I'm not sure when the NFL started scheduling only divisional rivalry games in Week 17.  I didn't realize until I looked at the schedule that this is the case.  But it is a great idea.  In many cases, it results in meaningful match-ups with playoff implications.  When they put the schedule together, they probably assumed that Lions at Packers or Bears at Vikings would decide who wins the division.  In this case it did not, but at least the Vikings still have a playoff berth on the line in their match-up with the Bears.  Even where the game ends up being meaningless, as in the case of the Lions and Packers, at least it makes for a more interesting meaningless game, against a traditional rival.  May the best team win, and may there be no injuries for either team. 

Happy New Year!

Packers Were Down But Not Out

Taken in the Fourth Quarter of Sunday's Game

Sunday was just about the perfect day for our at-least-once annual football pilgrimage to Green Bay.  It was a fall-like, slightly cool but sunny day in the final days of summer.  Judy, Sam and I had an uneventful drive up from Chicago, we met old and new friends Marc and Kathy for lunch in Oshkosh, we parked a block and a half from the stadium, thanks to Marc, and we waltzed into the stadium with plenty of time to hear former Packer defensive end Esera Tuaolo sing a beautiful (but hard to sing along) rendition of the National Anthem (excerpt here).  The Packers were ready for their home opener after the crushing defeat at the hands of the Seahawks 10 days earlier.  Surely nothing would spoil the beautiful pageant of the home opener in Green Bay. 

And then the game started.  Aaron Rodgers fumbled away the snap on the first play from scrimmage, the Jets capitalized on the short field by scoring a touchdown, and the game just got worse from that point.  The Packers were down, in the second quarter, by the score of 21-3, before starting their comeback.  The three of us never said this out loud, but comparing notes on the drive back to Chicago, we all thought it was a lost cause.  Then you start focusing on such matters as the meager chances for an 0-2 team to make the playoffs, and before too long you start thinking about another lost season in the limited years left in Rodgers’ career.

Fortunately, the Packers had not given up on the game yet, and chipped away at the Jets’ lead.  21-6, then 21-9, thanks to the longest field goal ever kicked by a Packers’ kicker in LambeauField.  They even tried one of those “pop-up” style onside kicks, which failed.  This put the Jets in position to increase their lead at halftime, until the play of the game.  Mike Daniels rushed Geno Smith, and hit him just as he released the ball, resulting in a Tramon Williams interception at the 3 yard line, just after the two minute warning.  And what do you know?  The Packers put together a 97 yard drive for a touchdown, and suddenly it was a new ballgame. 

There were lots of interesting and some weird plays in this game.  There was the Jordy Nelson 80 yard touchdown.  I really thought the Jets would catch him, but Nelson proved that he is faster than I realize.  There was the 4^th down Geno Smith touchdown pass to tie the game, that wasn’t actually a play at all, because Jets’ assistant coach Marty Mornhinweg or one of the Jets defensive players had (illegally) called a timeout (illegal because only the head coach can call a timeout on the sideline).

Why were the Packers so bad in the first half, and how did they manage to turn it around?  Brother-in-law Bruce (watching on TV) pointed out that Derek Sherrod was stinking up the joint in the first half.  He was indeed, and the offensive line was providing very little protection overall to Rodgers, and opening very few holes for Eddie Lacy.  It didn't help that Rodgers was holding the ball too long, either.  Another thought that I saw expressed somewhere related to the Packers’ heavy reliance on a 4-3 defense.  This was a closely guarded secret in the preseason, and as a result was not practiced in public or used during the preseason games.

I suppose the idea was to surprise the Seahawks last week, but that strategy backfired since (a) the Seahawks won easily; and (b) the lack of full speed hitting and practice time meant that the players really weren't ready to use the 4-3.  But maybe the defense finally started to gel after the first 6 quarters of the season, and they were much more effective in the second half.  Time will tell whether, as Sherrod gets more comfortable, and/or Bryan Bulaga returns, the offensive line protection improves, and time will also tell whether the defense continues to improve after finally getting things together in the second half.  Finally, and quite importantly, Rodgers started getting rid of the ball faster on most plays, which in turn opened up the possibility of making some of the longer-developing plays work better.

On the rental car shuttle on Monday morning, we ran into two very personable (and very New York!) Jets fans, a father and son, in their 60’s and 30’s, respectively.  They had obviously enjoyed their weekend very much, couldn’t say enough nice things about Lambeau Field and the Packers fans, despite their disappointment in the final result, and were already making plans to visit another historic stadium next year.  "Look, we're from New York," the father said, and we all laughed without letting him finish the thought.  I believe that his point was that if anybody is going to abrasively irritate the local fans, it would be New Yorkers, but the fans were still as nice as could be.  The father, while wishing the Packers well, was quick to say that he thinks the Packers may be in trouble.  His feeling is that they are a very good team, but not a great team, and that they will probably make the playoffs, but probably again won’t go very far.  This is another way of saying, "settle down, it was just the Jets."

He might be right, but I am betting that he is wrong.  The Packers obviously need a lot of improvement, but my feeling is (until proven wrong) that they can continue to improve as the year goes on.  Against most defenses, Eddie Lacy can gain a lot more yards than he did on Sunday, which in turn will keep Aaron Rodgers upright, and result in more points without requiring a career day from Jordy Nelson.  As for the defense, I am more skeptical, since the defense has chronically under-performed starting with the 2011 season.  But maybe there is something to the idea that the Packers haven’t yet had enough full-speed action in the 4-3, and as a result the 4-3 package will become ever more effective as the year goes on.

On a side note, we definitely had the impression Sunday that the Packers fans are louder now than in years past.  With the addition of about 7,000 new seats in the South End Zone, and the changed acoustics created by the higher seating area in that end zone, it might make sense that the stadium can get louder now.  The same seats were there last year, of course, but the only game we got to was the Eagles game, a game in which the Packers never led, started no. 2 quarterback Seneca Wallace, and had to replace him with no. 3 quarterback Scott Tolzien.  So there was not a lot to cheer about that particular day.

The Lions are next up, and fans know that they are a tough match-up for the Packers in the dome.  I am not expecting a dominant victory by the Packers, but I do expect them to win, probably in a high-scoring affair.

Better Luck Against the J-E-T-S

There is not a lot more that can be said at this late date about the Packers' road loss to the Seahawks.  The Seahawks were clearly the superior team on that night, and the combination of the Seattle smothering defense, and a high powered rushing game, was way too much for the Packers to handle.  It didn't help that Aaron Rodgers, despite good statistics at first blush, still didn't look sharp, and uncharacteristically gave up two turnovers, one on an interception where Jordy Nelson many times would catch the ball instead of deflecting it to the defender, and the other on a strip sack fumble that resulted in a safety.

The game wasn't really a contest in the second half, and despite not wanting to admit it to myself, the only real question was how bad it would get.  It got pretty bad.  It was the sort of game that causes people to re-think their expectations for the Packers, and in many cases, to over-react.  But experience teaches us that it is way too early to panic.  Sometimes teams just have bad games.  The Patriots looked pretty bad on Sunday.  Are they done?  Brady says he will retire when he "sucks."  Does Brady suck enough that it is time?  Well, maybe we should see how they look against the NFC North-leading Minnesota Vikings before drawing up the retirement papers.  And I guess we might as well see how the Packers look against the Jets tomorrow before jumping completely off the band-wagon.  I'm looking at the bright side.  Our star running back may have gotten another concussion, but at least he hasn't been released and suspended indefinitely for domestic assault, or indicted for child injury.  (And, at this moment, it looks like Lacy will probably play tomorrow.)

A more detailed discussion of the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson cases can be left for another day.  And we might as well throw Josh Gordon and Ray McDonald into the mix for that discussion.  For now, suffice it to say that the NFL, and in particular Commissioner Goodell, has mis-handled the Ray Rice case from the very start, and has done so in a fashion so severe that I truly think his job is in jeopardy.  (Oops!  As an NFL owner myself, I guess I am not supposed to criticize the Commissioner.  But I don't think he will be able to fine me.)

We are actually going to the game tomorrow, and are in Chicago for a couple of days before the game.  I am sure that if we were already in Wisconsin, we would hear lots of moaning and complaining on sports radio there.  But I still have to chuckle when we listen to sports radio here in Chicago.

Thursday night, after having dinner with our daughter, we were driving back to our hotel, but decided to take a detour to see if the place we lived 35 years ago is still there.  (It is.)  We listened to the end of the Thursday night game, and then just left the radio on AM-670 for a sports talk radio show.  Some caller from Minnesota calls in to talk about the Bears.  This is a rough transcript of the discussion.

Caller: The Bears are never going to be any good until they get rid of Jay Cutler.
Host: Well, I get your point, but certainly there must be some good things about Jay Cutler.  What would you say is the best thing about Jay Cutler?
Caller: Every year he is one year closer to retirement.
Caller: But I am not a Bears hater.  I don't have any ill will towards the Bears.  I am a Packers hater.  I am sick of the Packers, and Aaron Rodgers this, and Aaron Rodgers that.
Host: I'll tell you what I'm sick of, I'm sick of those Vomit-Green and Urine-Yellow uniforms.

Cousin Rick characterizes this as Titletown Envy.  I think he is right.

Anyway, on to the Jets game.  The Jets beat the Raiders last Sunday, and I did see parts of that game.  But the Raiders aren't very good, and the Jets didn't beat them very convincingly.  Even Rex Ryan wasn't happy with the Jets performance, saying that the fans were better than the team on Sunday, and that this game should have been a rat kill, but wasn't.  I can't imagine that the Packers' offense won't be able to score a lot of points against the Jets, and I can't imagine that the Packers' defense won't rebound and have a much better game against the non-powerhouse Jets.  I am expecting a comfortable victory for the Packers.  If they lose tomorrow, then it is time to start worrying in earnest.

Bye Week

Dateline: Philadelphia, PA. I am here in Philadelphia to scout out the Packers' upcoming opponent, the Eagles. In our pre-game meeting with the Eagles tonight, they told me . . . .

OK, I made that up. Except for the part about being here in Philadelphia. I am here for a firm meeting, which ended early this afternoon. As a bunch of us were standing outside the small conference room where we had finished up a small break-out meeting, who walked by? Vinny Testaverde, Chad Pennington, Phil Simms and others I did not recognize. The Jets are here to play the Eagles tomorrow, and I gather that Simms must be broadcasting the game. So he was going in for the pre-game meeting, not me, and it was with the Jets, not the Eagles. Pennington, in case you are interested, is still wearing a small, soft, removable cast on his hand, and I gather that the Jets plan to get him some playing time tomorrow.

Ah, yes, Chad Pennington. The guy who got the Packers started down their slippery slope last year. In the 9 games since that count, starting with that game, the Packers have gone 3-6. But I imagine they will turn it around after the bye week, and will probably run the table to finish 12-4.

Oops - daydreaming again. I really have to stop doing that. The truth is, the Packers are more likely to finish 0-9 than 9-0. Not that they will do either. They will probably end up something like 8-8, just like the bad old Forrest Gregg days.

The Packers just don't seem to have what it takes to win consistently. The single thing they seem to need most is some pass rush. They never have any pass rush unless they blitz, NEVER! In this league, without at least some occasional non-blitz pressure on the quarterback, you are not going to win a lot of games. The result is that they are wasting one of the last years, if not the last year, of Favre's career, which is a shame.

At this point, I think about the most one can hope for is some positive momentum by the end of the year. Maybe a nice 3 or 4 game winning streak, sufficient to convince Favre that it is worth returning for another year or two. I suppose they might even make the playoffs, although I would not count on it.

Ready for Prime Time?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We're Number Two!

“We’re Number Two! We’re Number Two!”

Okay, maybe it doesn’t have the same ring as the more traditional “We’re Number One” cheer, but in the NFL, being the number two seed in the playoffs is a vast improvement over being the number three seed. I didn’t really think that the Packers would move up to the number two seed. The Eagles refuse to lose a game (and they continued to win this week), and even though the Buccaneers have looked a little shakier in recent weeks, I didn’t really expect them to lose at home on Monday night.

As for the Packers’ win over Buffalo, for the second time this month, a Packer player played through a personal tragedy. In this case, Vonnie Holliday learned on Saturday that his second cousin, a rising star high school athlete, had collapsed and died that day. Holliday had to break the news to his relatives, many of whom had flown in on Saturday for the Packers’ game against the Bills. Holliday not only played Sunday, he set a team record for sacks in a game, by sacking Drew Bledsoe five times and forcing three fumbles in the process.

The Packers, by beating Buffalo, became the only team in the league this season to go undefeated at home. That is a matter of pride for the Packers and their fans. Mike Sherman emphasized this point by going around the stadium with several players after the game, to offer “high fives” to the fans, and by stating in his post-game comments that the Packer fans are undefeated this year at home.

The most striking thing about the game itself, other than Vonnie Holliday’s performance, was the wind. Both Sherman and Favre were emphatic in their post-game comments that the wind was MUCH worse than the previous week at San Francisco (not to mention that it was a lot colder). It was swirling, and moving mostly across the field (whereas in San Francisco it moved from one end of the field to the other), so that it was very difficult to either predict, or compensate for it. Sherman said that when the wind affects Brett Favre’s throws, you really know it is windy. Favre said that this was the worst combination of wind and cold in which he has played.

Then on Monday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers, another franchise with a storied history, did their friends from Green Bay an enormous favor by beating the Buccaneers, 17-7. It was the greatest gift from the Steelers franchise since the famous “Yancey Clause” game on Christmas Eve of 1995. In that game, Yancey Thigpen dropped what should have been a touchdown pass in the end zone late in the game, ensuring the Packers would win the NFC Central Division for the first time in the Brett Favre/Mike Holmgren era. The Buccaneers’ loss, combined with the Packers’ win over Buffalo, moved the Packers past the Buccaneers and, at least temporarily, into the number two seed in the playoffs. If they stay there, they will get a week off to get healthy before starting the playoffs at home, and in my judgment a much improved chance of hosting the NFC Championship game.

To maintain the number two seed, all the Packers have to do is beat the Jets in New Jersey on Sunday. That won’t be easy, as the Jets are playing pretty well. But the Packers, overall, are a better team, and therefore can and should win this game. If you want to get a little greedier, you could hope for the Giants to beat the Eagles on the same field in New Jersey on Saturday. If the Packers win and the Eagles lose, the Packers become the number one seed, and then we can all use the more traditional version of the cheer. The Eagles really could lose to the Giants, as the Giants have played very well in recent weeks, but then I have been saying that the Eagles were bound to lose some games ever since Donovan McNabb was injured.

Disgusted

The mystique of the Green Bay Packers is gone - long gone. They have already lost twice at home this year, to the Jets and, horror of horrors, to the Bears. They are 2-4 after six games, with a game left against the no-longer-pushover San Francisco 49ers before the bye. They have had horrible problems with injuries, inconsistent play on both offense, defense and special teams, poor individual decision-making on some plays (zigging instead of zagging) and questionable calls by the coaching staff on others. It looks like it is going to be a long season. Right now I would be surprised if the Packers end up better than 7-9 by the end of the year.

Take today's game. Even when the Packers have been playing much better than they are this year, the Silverdome has been a house of horrors. So no Packer fan in his right mind would go into this game "expecting" the Packers to win. Hoping, sure. Praying, maybe. But none of us would "expect" the Packers to win this game. But the way this game was lost was discouraging. As I started to write this during halftime, the Packers were behind, 24-6. The Lions scored 24 points on total yardage of 99 yards and two first downs in the first half. You would not think it was possible to score that many points with only 99 yards of offense, unless of course all of the points were set up by turnovers and miscues (interception, fumbles, screwed up or blocked punt). To have a turnover on first and goal is just a killer, reminds me of the bad old Brent Fullwood days.

How come our offense doesn't make the defense pay for a blitz by going up top for a touchdown? How come our blitzer does not quite make it to the quarterback, whereas the other team's blitzer manages to knock the ball out of Favre's hand? Right now it seems like all of the breaks go against the Packers, although it is certainly true that they are not making a lot of breaks for themselves, either. Being out here in the San Francisco area during all of those years when the 49ers were good, even when they played poorly it seemed like the other team would do something stupid at precisely the wrong time, with the result that the 49ers would pull out a game they should have lost. That kind of magic lasted even into the early part of the 1999 season for the 49ers, before they dropped off the map after the injury to Steve Young. The Packers don't have that magic now, they didn't have it last year (except for the last second wins at the beginning of the season), and it does not look like they will have it for the rest of the year, either.

The sad part is how close this game was to going the Packers' way. Looking back on it, I suppose that you could call any of the turnovers "the" pivotal play of the game, but to me it was the ball knocked out of Favre's hand on first and goal. Without that turnover, the Packers probably would have scored, and the Packers would then have been tied near the end of the game, instead of still trying for another desperation touchdown. It is going to be a long year.