Review of 1st Preseason Game

I had to wait a couple of days to watch Saturday night's game until it was shown on the NFL Network on Monday. It was pretty much exactly what I expected based on the box score and a couple of stories I had seen. The first string offense looked great, except for Ryan Grant's fumble on the first play and him getting knocked out of the game a couple of carries later. Thankfully, the injury does not seem to be serious, although it does bring into play the new tougher NFL rules on concussions. Since he only fumbled once in all of 2009 (in a loss to Cincinnati, leading to the go-ahead points), it would be nice to think that this gets his fumble of the year out of the way.

The first string defense was another story. It is unfortunately accurate to say that it picked up right where it left off last year, in such games as the playoff loss to Arizona, the loss to Pittsburgh, and the losses to Minnesota. And the special teams were pretty much a mess, giving up too many yards on returns, and not doing well on Green Bay returns.

You can't make too much out of a preseason game, especially the first one. We need to see how the team looks in the next couple of weeks before getting too worried, and maybe even then worry would be premature. Suffice it to say that I did not see any strong evidence that the Packers are Super Bowl contenders, during this first preseason game.

Oh, and in other NFL news, the "Cirque du Favre" continues. By the time you read this, the official announcement will probably have taken place, that the Packers will get another shot at beating Favre.

"They Warned Us"

"They warned us. Remember?

The embedded Packers fans amongst us warned us that Brett Favre would break our hearts, whether on the field of play or in the absurd theater of his mind. He would throw the killing interception when you least wanted or expected it, would turn our summers into melodramas that teased, then annoyed, then infuriated us.

Could they have been more right? Could they have asked for any more reason to say, 'I told you so?'"

So begins a not-to-be missed article from Tuesday in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune by Jim Souhan. I expressed some skepticism myself on Tuesday, but not nearly as much as was justified. It only took one day for Favre to walk away from Tuesday's stories, saying that he is in fact undecided, and that he will play if he is healthy.

Meanwhile, ticket brokers are biding time on the pricing of tickets for the Vikings' visit to Green Bay, and for everyone except Favre, training camp continues.

Favre Retires Again (!?)

It doesn't take long for word to spread, when the story out of Minnesota is that Favre is retiring again. This still has not been confirmed as of this writing, and I kind of line up with those who say that they will believe it on opening night at the Superdome (September 9). My wife heard the report on the radio early this morning, and it has been pretty much non-stop Favre coverage ever since (after taking a little time out for a business call shortly after the news came out).

I was pretty sure he was coming back. His off-season surgery only made sense if he was planning to come back. The Vikings must have thought they had a great opportunity to go to the Super Bowl if Favre returned, and Favre (no shrinking violet, he) must have thought the same thing. So if he is not coming back because of his ankle, as reported, it must be a pretty serious issue with the ankle. One can make the case that the Vikings will be better off without Favre (see here), but I don't find that convincing. At all. With Favre, the Vikings would be serious contenders this year. With Tarvares Jackson? Or Sage Rosenfels? Give me a break.

And yet, parts of this story don't add up. Why would he have talked to Ryan Longwell, today, without mentioning that he is retiring? (Unless Longwell is covering for him, I suppose.) Why would he send text messages to friends saying he is retiring, but not officially notify the head coach, who has to make plans for the upcoming season. (Upon further review, forget that question. It has been obvious for several years that he doesn't care about the dilemma facing his head coach as he dithers about whether to retire.)

The bottom line is that even if this is confirmed later today, we won't really know for sure until the regular season, or possibly even later. In the meantime, I agree with my daughter's reaction, which was that this is sort of sad, because we won't have the chance to get our revenge on Favre this year.

Peter King's Rankings

So I was just minding my own business today, checking on some Packer news, when I came across Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column today. I usually read his column during the season, but only occasionally during the off-season. Still, I was shocked to see him rank the Packers as the number 1 team in the league, as of right now. To be sure, he admits that he is no good at this, and he points out that he had the Saints ranked as number 24 last year at this time. But still.

King relies on four points in favor of the Packers' number 1 rank: the maturation of Aaron Rodgers, the carryover from the somewhat fluky way their season ended in overtime, the points scored vs. points against differential (a category in which they were exceeded only by the Saints) and his prediction that Jermichael Finley will become a star in his second season. All of these are good points, with the possible exception of his point about the fluky end to the season. Sure, it was fluky, but I am not sure I see why that gives the Packers a leg up. I think you could just as reasonably make the argument that the fluky ending must have been so heart-breaking that they will have a hard time recovering from it. Bottom-line: I think that is just a make-weight add-on to his argument.

He ranks the Vikings as number 13, i.e., one would assume, just missing the playoffs. He says that whether "old What's His Name" comes back or not, they have an offensive line in decline. Interestingly, he has the Lions at number 24, with the Bears bottoming out the division at number 25. What a shame.

Well, who cares what Peter King thinks in May? And just because he picks the Packers as the number 1 team doesn't even mean that he thinks they will go to or win the Super Bowl. In fact, although he doesn't explicitly make Super Bowl picks in the article, he does make a comment suggesting that he thinks the Panthers will be the NFC representative in the Super Bowl.

One comment by one writer, in May, doesn't make a consensus, but it certainly gets the discussion going. The last time I can remember there being a consensus that the Packers were the team to beat was in 1996. I still have the Sports Illustrated cover around here somewhere, on which they predicted a Packers-Chiefs Super Bowl. That obviously did not happen, but it was the year that the Packers beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI.

Greg Jennings on Criminal Minds

Thanks to Facebook, I discovered this morning that our own number 85, Greg Jennings, will have a guest role on tomorrow night's episode of the CBS series Criminal Minds. Greg will be playing a Behavioral Analysis Unit tech named (what else?) "Jennings."

I like Jennings a lot. This just reinforces my high regard for him. He is only 26, and if he stays healthy, he has a lot of years of football left. Despite that, instead of just living in the moment as a big NFL star, he must have sought out the opportunity to be on a TV show. Which suggests that he is already planning for his career after football. Good for him. (Either that, or there is some Packer fan on the staff of Criminal Minds that decided it would be cool to get a Packer on the show.)

Don't miss the show - CBS, Wednesday, May 5, 2010, 9 pm EDT, 9 pm PDT, 8 pm Lambeau Field Time.

Packer Schedule is Released

The NFL released the regular season schedules tonight. It caught me by surprise, since in the past the schedule release and the draft took place several weeks apart. This year, the NFL evidently thought that by releasing the schedules in prime time tonight, and then having the draft start 48 hours later, also in prime time, they can shake things up and maybe create excitement among sports fans for the whole week. I don't know about that, but I am excited by the Packers' schedule.

Having spent about 20 years in Packer purgatory, living outside of Wisconsin, before the age of sports bars and the NFL Sunday Ticket, I recall very well what it was like to wait for release of the schedule, to see if the league was going to favor me by sending a prime time game or two I could watch that year in exile in Massachusetts, Illinois, or California. And, old habits being hard to break, that is still how I look at the schedule, even though the NFL Sunday Ticket makes it largely irrelevant to me.

The Packers open the season with an artificially late game at Philadelphia, then get a Monday night game at Chicago two weeks later, a home Sunday night game against the Vikings in late October, a Sunday night home game against Dallas in November, another Sunday night game at New England in December, an artificially late game at home against the Giants, and then finish up against the Bears, at Lambeau Field, on January 2.

The other thing I look for (now that we again have a quarterback who can play in the cold) is a good collection of cold weather games. The Packers have three December or January home games (49ers, Giants, and Bears) as well as a road game against the Patriots. My only complaint is that only one of those cold weather games is against a fair weather team, the 49ers.

One more thing. Of the Packers' first 6 opponents, only one had a winning record last year, the Eagles. And the Eagles have already lost their starting quarterback, and they may well lose their starting running back as well. So the Packers are in a position to get a strong start to the season. Could they be 5-1 or 6-0 by the time the first showdown with the Vikings rolls around? Crazier things have happened.

The Packers' schedule can be found here.

Vikings-Saints Comments

At last, the civil war among Packer fans is over, for this year at least. I know that it is a bit weird that I am writing to comment on the Vikings-Saints NFC Championship game before I have even finished and published a post about the Packers' loss to the Cardinals. But with the Vikings having lost to the Saints, and the Saints heading off to their first-ever Super Bowl, it seems like a good time to pipe in with a few comments.

If my own family and friends are typical, there has been a sometimes-heated battle going on for the last two years about Favre's post-Packer career. It was bad enough last year, but at least Favre was playing outside the division, and not against the Packers. And, in any event, the Jets didn't even make the playoffs. But it really got bad this year, when he signed with the Vikings, when he beat the Packers, solidly, twice, and when he continued to play as close to a flawless season as he ever has, all the way to the NFC Championship game.

I have one cousin whose "status" on Facebook today was wishing Favre an awesome day. Another cousin admitted to experiencing schadenfreude over the outcome of the game. One friend was rooting for Favre, mostly just because it is incredible that he can play the game at this level at age 40. Another relative (and here I really do need to be discreet to protect the guilty) has been photographed wearing a Vikings' Favre jersey, and seems to have been rooting for him all year.

A Packer fan I met yesterday said she was rooting for the Vikings to win the Super Bowl so that Favre would retire. It may take awhile before we find out, but I am pretty sure he will retire anyway. Now, the cynical might say that it doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that Favre will retire, and that the real question is whether he will play again. We'll see, but I don't think he will.

In my immediate family, all four of us were rooting for the Saints today, with differing sets of reasons and intensity. One of us would have been OK to see Favre go to the Super Bowl again if it turned out that way, while the rest of us (including me) did not want to see that happen. I have been very unhappy with Favre the last two years, so I suppose I am at the more militant end of the spectrum.

The thing that I have probably found most irritating about this year was that Favre played so magnificently. Favre's best two years as a Packer were probably 1995 (which ended with a loss to the Cowboys in the NFC Championship game), and 1996 (which ended with the Super Bowl victory against the Patriots. In the regular season in those two years, Favre had three times as many touchdowns as interceptions (38-13 in 1995 and 39-13 in 1996). That was as good as it got for Favre, with a much closer ratio of TDs to interceptions in every other year.

Until this year. Favre had 33 touchdowns and only 7 interceptions this year in the regular season. Almost 5 to 1 touchdowns over interceptions. This is the year he chooses to play flawlessly, for the Vikings? And he had several other career-best stats for the Vikings this year. Of course, there are reasons for this. I am no fan of Brad Childress, but I have to give him credit for reining in Favre's wildness, probably better than any coach in Favre's career. Favre probably never had as dominant a running back in the backfield as he had this year. Favre certainly had a better offensive line with the Vikings than he did in recent years with the Packers. Favre always made the receivers around him look better than they really were, so I am not giving a huge amount of credit to the receivers, though they were good. To sum it up, with the exception of the 1996 team, I don't think Favre ever had the combination of great offensive line, dominant running game, dominant passing game, and dominant defense that he had this year. So it makes sense that Favre and the Vikings had a great year.

But still, for the Vikings and their fans to get the benefit of all the good side of Favre, and almost none of the downside that Packer fans lived with every year, was infuriating to me. Today, the downside returned. Because of the pressure the Saints brought on Favre all day long, he was hit often, hit hard, and he was hurting badly by the end of the game. It is no accident that both of Favre's interceptions took place in the second half. (As an aside, the Saints did to the Vikings this week and to the Cardinals last week exactly what the Packers should have done, and could have done with a better defensive plan, but that is another column for another day.)

It was poetic justice for Favre to effectively end the Vikings' season with an interception on his final pass, just as he had done to the Packers two years ago. The pass tonight was just as incomprehensible as the one against the Giants two years ago. Yes, the late throw back across the field is the sort of thing that he has done his entire career, and he has gotten away with it many times over the years. But it is still a stupid throw. Michael Irvin (believe it or not) said it well on the NFL Network when he said that the real problem with the throw was the situation. He was at a point on the field where the Vikings had some shot at the game winning field goal even with an incomplete pass, and a much better shot if he gained a few extra yards, with his legs if necessary. To throw a low-probability, high risk pass in that situation is inexcusable. (By the way, although I did not remember this, Favre's last pass for the Jets was also intercepted - I think I am detecting a pattern here.) [Ed. note - upon further review, it was Favre's second to last pass for the Jets that was intercepted. His last pass, with 17 seconds left in his last game, was completed to Leon Washington, who then lateraled it back to Favre, who then tried to pass it again to Jerricho Cotchery, which of course resulted in a penalty for an illegal forward pass. You can't make this stuff up.]

But despite how critical I have been of Favre, my hat is off to him. He was really battered today, and was limping around for much of the second half. He demonstrated again today that he is probably the toughest quarterback in the league. He was largely responsible for keeping the Vikings in the game, despite their six fumbles. He has always showed a lot of heart in his play, and today was no exception.

More Random Playoff Thoughts

Playoff time for the Packers has me thinking about various things in the days leading up to the game.

Whisenhunt Controversy

The first is the controversy/"nontroversy" over Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt's comments earlier in the week. The Arizona Republic had an article on Tuesday in which it was suggested that Whisenhunt was upset with the Packers for running up the score in both last week's game, and in the preseason game between the two teams. (The Packers starters led by a combined 71-10 in the two games before going to the sidelines.) "They had their plan," Whisenhunt said. "I guess they felt good about what they were doing." While Whisenhunt's whining might have been more implied than express, naturally Mike McCarthy was asked about it. He wisely refused to take the bait:

"I am worried about my own football team. His feelings toward my team or my feelings toward his team, it's a non-topic with me. I told you, I stood in here Monday and Wednesday last week and told you what our goal was. We went out there to keep our momentum going. He took a different approach."

In the meantime, Whisenhunt felt compelled to backtrack the next day, saying yes, he was peeved, not with the Packers, but with the approach of his own team, and with the way they handled it. Sure, Ken, anything you say.

Week 17 "Exhibition" Games

This little brouhaha over Whisenhunt's comments made me reflect on the broader topic of teams tanking games that "don't matter" at the end of the season. This is not a new phenomenon. Since I live in the San Francisco area (and am not a 49er fan in any way, shape or form) I still remember vividly the 1988 season finale, when the 49ers tanked their game against the Rams, which had the effect of keeping the New York Football Giants out of the playoffs. Phil Simms angrily, and quite correctly, accused the 49ers of "laying down like dogs." But if it has been going on for some time, I can't recall a year when so many teams tanked so many games. In week 16, the Colts tanked the game against the Jets. In week 17, the Cardinals tanked the game against the Packers, the Colts tanked their game against the Bills, the Saints tanked their game against the Panthers, the Bengals tanked the game against the Jets, and others (like the Patriots) could be argued to have done so. Note that the Jets made the playoffs exclusively because of gift victories in weeks 16 and 17.

Season ticket holders already resent being forced to buy full-price tickets to preseason games. Now, if there is a good chance that week 16 and week 17 games may also be phony games, this just increases the irritation factor. But as bad as that is, how demoralizing it must have been for fans of the Steelers and other teams that were hoping for that final wild card slot, to watch the Jets just waltz their way into it courtesy of lay-down game plans by the Colts and Bengals. It is not easy to devise a perfect solution to this problem, but if this season is any indicator, then the problem is getting out of hand. Mike Vandermause of the Green Bay Press-Gazette has an interesting idea on this score. In the meantime, in the absence of a solution, I will simply be hoping for cosmic payback for all of the teams that refuse to play real games in their final game or two of the season. Nothing would make me happier than to see them all go "one and done" in the playoffs.

Charles Woodson

Finally, for a feel-good note leading up to the game, take a look at this Yahoo article on Charles Woodson. He is certainly having a sensational season, and he deserves all the accolades he is getting. Even though I live in Raider country, I watch as little of the Raiders as I can get away with, thanks to the NFL Sunday Ticket. So I can't say that I knew (or remember) most of the grumblings about Woodson when he was with the Raiders. But I am sure glad that he is with the Packers now, and that he is as happy with being in Green Bay as the fans are to have him there.

Playoff Rematch Coming Up!

The Packers beat the Cardinals Sunday in Arizona, by the score of 33-7. This, combined with the Vikings victory over the Giants, means that the Packers return to Arizona to play the Cardinals in the playoffs next Sunday. As if that isn't weird enough, there are two other rematches next week from today's games. The Eagles again will play at Dallas, and the Bengals and Jets will play again, but this time in Cincinnati. It would be way too tedious to look it up, but I would bet that there have never been 3 rematches from the final week of the season to the first week of the playoffs before.

The Packers and Cardinals approached the game so differently that it is hard to know what to make of it. By game time, the Cardinals knew that they could not get a bye week (because the Vikings had won), and so they evidently decided to treat this as an exhibition game. They started pulling starters in the second set of series of the game. The Packers, on the other hand, played almost all of their starters until well into the 3rd quarter. So I guess both teams have their own talking points about the results. The Packers know that they dominated the Cardinals, from the first possession of the game. When they add this to the fact that the Packers' starters dominated the Cardinals' starters in the preseason, and the fact that the Packers are one of the hottest teams in the league, having gone 7-1 in the second half of the season, the Packers have ample reason for confidence that they can beat the Cardinals again next week.

The Cardinals, on the other hand, can say "well, we weren't trying to win the game, we were just trying to get our people rested up and ready for next week." Fine. It is not a crazy strategy. But I have a hard time believing that the Cardinals are not doubting themselves a bit today. If we recognize that there is a strong mental element to the game of football, then these things matter, and I think the Packers had the far better strategy in Week 17.

Regardless of what happens in the playoffs, the turnaround the Packers had in the second half of the season was sensational. Lots of fans and writers (including me) were ready to ship out the whole coaching staff and some of the players after the Packers lost to the Buccaneers. But those same coaches and players deserve an enormous amount of credit for the improvements we have seen. It seems clear now that the Packers' defense was just not fully adjusted to the new 3-4 alignment, and that the more comfortable they have become, the better they are playing. And they are playing better despite the losses of Aaron Kampman and Al Harris for the season.

On offense, Ryan Grant has gotten stronger as the year progressed, and so has Jermichael Finley. Aaron Rodgers has been solid all year, except for his share of the blame for all of the sacks early in the year, and as the offensive line improved, and he started getting rid of the ball faster, he became one of the top quarterbacks in the league. Interestingly enough, though, as the Packergeeks note in their blog, as good as Rodgers is, it is not even clear that he is the team's MVP, given the play of Charles Woodson. The talking heads on the NFL Network after the game were agreed that Woodson probably secured the league's defensive MVP award with this game.

I have seen a few comments around the web today about how odd it is that the Cardinals had the roof closed on their stadium on such a beautiful day today. I even saw speculation somewhere (can't find it right now) that maybe the Cardinals are faking out the Packers by closing the dome today, thinking that they will leave it open next week. I can just about assure you that it will be closed next week, too.

My wife and I were in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. Before arriving, somebody mentioned in passing that they slide the field out of the stadium on a tray between games. I had never heard of such a thing, and it sounded doubtful to me. So we looked it up online, and it is true. More on that in a minute.

We also learned that they have stadium tours, so we took the tour. Here are a couple of pictures showing the field resting outside the stadium (in the rain that day) and showing the inside of the stadium without the field in place (the field slides out in the gap under the words RED ZONE at the far end of the picture).

During the tour, the guide was asked when the stadium roof is open for games. We also had dinner with some cousins of mine, formerly from Milwaukee, who go to lots of Cardinals games. Both the tour guide and my cousins explained that the roof is always closed (or nearly always closed) during Cardinals games (as opposed to other events). Apparently Kurt Warner likes the roof closed, so that there is no wind. And so the Cardinals always have the roof closed. [Ed. Note: cousin Beth, while unfortunately outing herself as a Cardinals fan, reminds me that increasing the crowd noise is also a factor favoring the Cardinals keeping the dome closed next week and every week.]

Obviously, I would expect a much closer game next time. I assume that the Cardinals will be favored by a few points, unless the oddsmakers were so impressed with the Week 17 beat down that they make the Packers the favorites. (In fact, I would think that all four home teams will be favored.) But I think that the Packers are the more complete team of the two. The Packers have scored more points (461 vs. 375), have given up fewer points (297 vs. 325), they have a better overall record (11-5 vs. 10-6) and they had a better second half (7-1 vs. 5-3). I like the Packers' chances.

Playoff Berth Clinched

I had the great fun of attending Sunday's game against Seattle, with my son, Ben. The Packers absolutely spanked their opponents, by the score of 48-10. Simultaneously, the New York Giants were losing to the Panthers, something I did not expect after the Giants' domination of the Redskins the previous Monday night. The effect of these two events was that the Packers clinched a wild card spot in the playoffs, thus avoiding the dreaded final week drama about whether the Packers make the playoffs. And finally, on Monday night, the Bears (of all teams!) beat the Vikings, in what sounds like it was a great game. This makes Brett Favre's record 0-7 in road games below 40 degrees since 2005. Now that is what you call a great week of football!

We were flying back from Chicago to San Francisco on Monday night. If the flight had left on time, we could have listened to the end of the game on the radio, driving home from the airport. But because the flight was 2.5 hours late (due to unspecified "security issues"), we missed it all. We got exactly 2 updates from the pilot during the game (remember, this was a flight from Chicago, so you might think there was some interest). He came on to tell us that the score was tied, 30-30, with 16 seconds to go in the 4th quarter. No sense of the drama that led up to that, but he did add that the dispatcher had said that the Bears had multiple opportunities to put the game away but, quoting the dispatcher, "naturally, they didn't." He came back on later to announce that the Bears had won, 36-30, in overtime. The reaction to both announcements was the same: stone cold silence. I guess nobody flying from Chicago cares? I suppose I can understand that in a way, given the Bears' season, but still, I expected some reaction. It certainly differed from the reaction on the Chicago to San Francisco flight during the playoffs two years ago, when the announcement that the Cowboys had lost to the Giants was greeted with cheers.

A couple of notes from the game, things that you probably did not see if you watched the game on TV. First, Milwaukee native and American Idol finalist Danny Gokey sang the national anthem, and did a fine job of it (see video here). And at the end of the game, since it was (barring a miracle) the last game at Lambeau Field this year, Charles Woodson and Donald Driver did victory laps around the perimeter of the field, high-fiving all the fans in the bottom rows of the stadium.

The Packers now travel to Arizona for the final regular-season game, with there being at least a 2/3 chance that they play Arizona again the following week in the playoffs. That makes for weird incentives for both teams. Both teams would surely want to play well and win the game, to increase their own confidence that they can do it again the following week. But neither team wants to show all its cards this week, lest they tip off the opponent as to how they intend to play the game that really counts. With the Packers having won 6 of the last 7 games, and barely lost the 7th game, they have to feel pretty good about themselves about now. Peter King, of Sports Illustrated, says that he wouldn't want to play the Packers right now.

At the same time, the Cardinals have played well in most of their games this season. They have the same record as the Packers (10-5), but in the NFC West, that is easily enough to win the division. Although I don't follow their games very closely, they have seemed less impressive in recent weeks, during which time they lost twice, and didn't look that great in some of the wins. Their quarterback, Kurt Warner, is only a little younger than Brett Favre, and at times he looks pretty old out there. But there is no doubt that he can pick apart a defense if given the time to throw. So the Packers would be well advised to bring some pressure on defense.

Another issue for the Packers this week is whether, and if so to what extent, to rest starters. The Packers are a wild card team no matter what, and are highly likely to be the number 5 seed. They could drop to the number 6 seed if the Packers lose and the Cowboys win, but the only real difference between no. 5 and no. 6 is that no. 5 has a very slim chance of hosting the NFC Championship game, while no. 6 has absolutely no chance. So one could take the view that there is not much at stake here. If this team had been performing at a high level of precision for weeks, maybe you could argue that the Packers should rest starters. But they haven't. The Packers took awhile to get into a rhythm against the Seahawks. The Packers' defense gave up ridiculous yardage and point totals to the Steelers. The Packers trailed the Bears in the fourth quarter. The Packers started a bit sluggishly against the Ravens. To me it seems clear that the Packers still have lots of things to work on. So I come out very strongly on the side of playing the starters, playing the game to win, and resting the starters only if the game is well in hand toward the end of the game.

Keeping some of the game plan in reserve for the following week is quite another question. That makes a lot of sense. So I would see no problem in playing a plain vanilla game plan, on offense and defense, but playing hard to win the game. Save the trick plays, the new offensive and defensive wrinkles for the playoffs. But if the Packers bench a lot of starters at the start of the game, or start resting players in the second quarter, that to me would show a foolish degree of over-confidence in how ready the Packers are for the playoffs.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Charles Woodson, Nick Collins and Aaron Rodgers for being selected to the Pro Bowl squad.