NFC North Champion Packers!

(Photo Courtesy of Packers.com)

In the course of one day, the Packers: (1) won their 18th straight game, a streak that began with their win against the Giants last year; (2) successfully completed the third quarter of the regular season without a loss; (3) achieved a 12-0 record for the first time in team history; (4) clinched a playoff spot when they beat the Giants on the last play of the game; (5) executed a classic one-minute drill to lead to the final play victory; and (6) clinched the NFC North Title later Sunday evening when the Lions lost.  Not bad for a day's work.  As for goals for next week, the Green Bay Press-Gazette Facebook page, NFL Historian Jon Zimmer reports that a win next week will match the best start ever by a defending Super Bowl Champion (matching the 1998 Denver Broncos).

Still . . . it is impossible to ignore the problems on the Green Bay defensive side.  From total points given up (35) to total yards allowed (447) to gain per rush (5.0) to gain per pass (8.5), this was not an elite defensive performance against the Giants.  And the Giants, while talented, are not really an elite team, having been crushed by the Saints on Monday Night Football six days before the Packers played them.  The Packers started the game with starters Desmond Bishop and A.J. Hawk inactive, and ended the game with Charles Woodson out with a concussion.  But the Packers and their fans have come to expect that the "next man up" will get the job done.  Looks like Woodson will be back this week, Hawk may be back, but Bishop probably will not be ready this week.

And now another wildly inconsistent team, the Oakland Raiders, comes to town on Sunday.  It was only four years ago that I reminisced about some of the great moments in Packers-Raiders history, from Super Bowl II, to the first Lambeau Leap, to the Irvin Favre game.  So rather than repeat that history now, just go take a look at the 2007 article.

The Raiders, at 7-5, are tied for first place in the AFC West, but as of now would lose the tie-breaker to the Broncos, and would finish out of the playoffs.  They have beaten some good teams, but have also lost, in embarrassing fashion, to the Chiefs and to the Dolphins in the last six weeks.  Suffice it to say, a team with a positive record, at 7-5, but with a negative points differential (giving up more points than it scores), is unlikely to be able to keep up with the 2011 Green Bay Packers.  I expect a fairly easy win (but bear in mind, I expected the same last week, too).

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Meanwhile, the Packers' latest sale of stock is underway, as I mentioned last week.  Sure, being an "owner" of the Green Bay Packers is not, in any meaningful way, an investment.  But the fact that we, the fans, actually own our team is, and always has been, one of the greatest things about the Green Bay Packers.  Apparently I am not the only one who feels that way, from comments sent in by shareholders to ESPN's NFC North reporter, Kevin Seifert.

Packers Stock Sale Next Week!

Just in time for Christmas and Hanukah, the Packers are offering another stock sale, starting next Tuesday.  When the Packers last did this (in 1997), my wife, my kids and I all bought stock, and have never regretted showing our support for the Packers this way.  It is not, in any normal sense, an investment.  Proceeds will be used to fund additional Lambeau Field expansion, including the new end zone seats which will be built.  A summary of some of the information available about the stock sale is available here.  Full disclosure information will be available later.

Anyway, thanks to Packer blogger Jersey Al and to my friend Peter Chen for reminding me of the stock sale. Go out and become an NFL owner!

Baby Steps, Giant Leap

It's hard to wax rhapsodic about a victory by a score of 6-3. [Ed. note - over the Eagles.] Was this an epic battle between suffocating defensive powerhouses? Hardly. More like a match of two struggling teams, whose defenses played pretty well, but whose offenses were out of sync. One team tried and succeeded in avoiding the dreaded 0-3 record, and the other fell to a disappointing 1-2 after settling back to earth in the wake of the season opening crushing of their traditional rival, the hated Cowboys.

The Packers' defense is proving to be a bit of a pleasant surprise, playing better than most of us probably expected based on their showing in the pre-season. This week's defensive story was the play of third-stringer Tod McBride, pressed into action by injuries to Antuan Edwards and Mike McKenzie. He did just about everything one could hope for from a third string defensive back. My only little gripe about the defense is their tendency to give up first down yardage on third down plays, seemingly without regard to how many yards the opponent needs.

The offense was not impressive. Dorsey Levens' return was welcome, and he looked good in spots, but had almost no luck going up the middle, and his speed is not great enough to consistently gain big yardage around the corner. Many more near-misses on passing plays Sunday, with passes not quite where they should be, and with other passes bouncing off the hands of the receivers. Turnovers killed several promising drives.

Special teams were OK, but just slightly off. The punting game was good, but Longwell missed a makeable field goal in the first half before coming back with what I believe was his first game-winning kick in any game at any level (that's what they said, but it still seems hard to believe). Rossum had a punt return go for a touchdown before it was called back for an illegal block, but that block had a lot to do with springing him for the TD.

So this is not a big victory, just some baby steps in the right direction. The Packers' next two games are winnable (at Arizona, and a home game against the Bears). While there is no reason to think that the Packers are good enough to be predictable, if they can improve a bit each game, they could be 3-2 two weeks from today. That is a realistic goal.

So if the game victory was the "baby steps" in the title of this article, what is the "giant leap?" That's easy. The Packers' victory at the polls this past Tuesday in getting the Lambeau renovation project tax approved. It is easy for a guy like me, 2000 miles away, to say that the residents of Brown County should increase their taxes to pay for a stadium renovation. "Sure, go ahead and spend as much money as you want, so long as it is not my money." But the Green Bay community has a long history of coming to the rescue of this team when times are tough, and they have done it again. And as a non-resident, I feel like I have done my part, too, by buying shares of Packer stock three years ago for myself, my wife and two kids. Way to go, Brown County residents!

Franchise Free Agency

There has been a fair amount of attention on the internet and in the popular press about the effects of free agency. Is it a plus or a minus for a small market team like the Packers? Now that the Packers are on top of the heap, does free agency help them (because they are relatively attractive to free agents looking for a shot at a ring) or does it hurt them, because the participants in a Super Bowl always get more attention from other teams than they deserve (see Neil O'Donnell, Larry Brown and, yes, even Desmond Howard).

These are all interesting questions, and I might even have something to say about them one of these days. But my topic today is FRANCHISE free agency, not player free agency.

As a Packer fan, I suppose it is obvious that I have my biases on the question of franchise free agency, but try as hard as I can, I can't see anything good about the present system. Yes, there are some teams with whom the fans have just fallen out of love. I suppose the Oilers are the best example. A year or so ago they had a rally in downtown Houston to try to keep the Oilers, and something like 36 people showed up. This is amazing to me, given how recent it was that the Astrodome was known as the "House of Pain" and was filled to the rafters with nut cases with their faces painted blue. But right now the team has no support in Houston, and I suppose that the owner had little choice but to try to find a new home somewhere else. The Rams are probably another more or less comparable example.

But then there are the Raiders, and the way that Al Davis screwed the City of Oakland, not once but twice. The first time was when he took the Raiders away from sellouts and a solid fan base in a dispute with the city over luxury boxes. And the second time was when he brought them back under the burden of the highest ticket and PSL prices in the league, which are not selling out and which will leave the taxpayers in the City of Oakland holding the bag under the financial guarantees they provided to the Raiders to lure them back.

And the saddest case, to me, is the Browns/Ravens. Browns fans were like Packer fans, in many ways. They had a devoted, working class fan base, they were one of the old time teams in the league, and they had a wonderful history and tradition. And, quite unlike the Raiders, the Browns had an old-time, NFL guy for an owner, not a lifelong renegade like Al Davis. But Art Modell took the Browns away just as ruthlessly as Al Davis took away the Raiders.

The people of Cleveland will be getting a new Browns team in a couple of years, but it won't be the same. Never again will the people feel as if this is really "their" team. They will always know that some rich guy can take it all away in an instant over some future dispute over stadiums, luxury boxes, or something we can't even imagine now.

Compare these situations to the Packers. The fans (or more precisely some of them) actually own the team. It is not feasible to imagine a set of circumstances, other than outright financial failure of the franchise, under which the team would no longer be in Green Bay. There is no reason for a kid, or even an adult, to hold back on giving his heart to this team.

Here is the part that I don't understand. Can't everyone see that this is a better situation for the team, for the fans, and for the league, than the situation in Cleveland, Oakland, Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles, etc? Then why is it that the league currently prohibits Packer-style public ownership, with the Packers being the sole team that is "grandfathered?" This just seems nuts to me.

I would respectfully suggest that the Green Bay Packer ownership model is the ideal fix for the problem with the league and franchise free agency. The league ought to be encouraging community ownership, rather than prohibiting it. Nothing much can be done with the existing franchises, but as the league adds new teams in Cleveland, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, and as teams are sold, community ownership should be the preferred (if not exclusive) model. The NFL right now is the hottest thing in sports. But they are very close to having the league ruined because of problems like franchise free agency.

If you agree, why not take a minute and write a letter to the Commissioner about this. I have already done so. The address is:

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue
National Football League
410 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Thank Heaven We Are Packer Fans!

Events here in San Francisco in the past week serve as a reminder how lucky we are to be Packer fans (as if we needed any reminder in this most glorious of years). It seems that the 49ers want a new stadium to replace Candlestick/3Com Park, and they want (need?) the San Francisco voters to approve a pair of propositions on June 3 to authorize $100 million in revenue bonds to finance the new stadium.

Candlestick/3Com Park is, in the words of 49er owner Eddie DeBartolo, a "pigsty." Oh really? Well it doesn't have the magic of Lambeau Field, and it is a multi-purpose stadium, but it does have real grass, it doesn't have a roof, it does have luxury boxes, it has actual backs on the actual seats, and it has much greater variety in food service than the home of our own heroes. So if Candlestick/3Com is a pigsty, is Lambeau Field one as well?

In my view, the whole issue is cooked up by yet another demanding sports owner, in a desire to have a new stadium just so he can say he has the newest, coolest stadium.

This week, the debate has become even uglier, as DeBartolo has dropped hints in the press to the effect that, if the bonds are not approved, the team might "have" to move elsewhere, since they cannot continue to play in Pigsty Park. In other words, he pulled the gun out of his pocket, and laid it on the table. TV ads are now running here, sponsored by the pro-stadium forces, which conclude with a shot of the 49er helmet, with the "SF" oval spinning like a dial on a slot machine, until it stops on a "?" Today's afternoon paper has a headline discussing the possibility
that the 49ers might move to Los Angeles.

Al Davis. Bob Irsay. Georgia Frontiere. Al Davis (again). Art Modell. Bud Adams. Eddie DeBartolo. All charter members of the NFL Hall of Shame. Thank heaven it can never happen in Green Bay.