Mr. Walker and I were too busy last week to get this done in time, and Packer news kept on coming up.  So, this week will cover a lot of ground, including the personnel changes, injuries, and the most recent game.  We'll also look at next week's game, and prattle on a bit about other stuff.  Keep in mind, the Pack can still go 13-3.  I don't think they will, but it's possible!  Go Packers!

Brett's Brain

Mr. Walker and I are reminded a bit of a Cowboys game from many years ago, during the Aikman-Irvin-Smith heyday.  The Cowboys were driving deep into opposition territory, as they always seemed to be doing back then, when Aikman took a vicious sack.  Two plays later, he threaded a pass to Irvin in the back of the end zone, splitting a pair of defenders in zone coverage.  It was the kind of pass where being off by a few nanoseconds would result in at least an incompletion and quite likely and interception. Aikman did not return, though, when the training staff found that not only did he not remember most of what had transpired that day, he thought he was a Fuller Brush salesman from Billings, Montana named Jean-Philippe.  His higher level mind was still trying to manage tricky issues like who he was and where he might be, but somehow he was still able to line guys up right, call a play, and throw touchdowns into double coverage.

It appears that Brett Favre has entered that territory, where his lizard brain, that part keeping his heart pumping and lungs filling, also knows how to throw touchdown passes to Javon Walker.  Concussions are serious stuff, though, just ask Steve Young and Merrill Hodge, and are particularly scary injuries for both fan and player.  The boxing world is familiar with the results of repeated concussions, since the whole point of that sport is to beat the other guy unconscious, which is just another way to say give him a concussion. "Punch drunk" is the term use for ex-fighters, meaning that they mental capacities are so diminished that they seem bombed all the time.  I quite often seem bombed, but that's because of all of the time I spend with Mr. Walker!  Concussions are cumulative injuries, very often the more a person has the more susceptible he is to having more of them, and more serious they become.  For a player like Favre, in the second half of his career and financially secure beyond his dreams, a dislocated shoulder or a broken thumb might be a fair trade for playing a game he loves and feeling the crowd surge behind him at Lambeau.  But I don't imagine he would trade anything for waking up one day and not recognizing his kids.  Those are the stakes at the roulette wheel marked brain injuries. One final note about concussions.  A few years ago the NFL told teams to start giving cognitive tests to most of their players.  Why?  So that there would be a reference point to see what, if any, damage was caused by concussions.  In other words, did he always have a hard time finding the kitchen in his own home or is this a linebacker related issue?

Giant Meltdown

Where to start?  The 52 yard TD scamper by Tiki Barber, unmolested by Packer hands? The previously mentioned Shockey catch in which numerous Packer defenders appeared to be waiting in line for coffee?  The fourth quarter interception caused by a pass thrown slightly behind newly rock handed Donald Driver?  The exceedingly shrewd 24 yard pass down the middle of the field, Packers sans timeouts, allowing us to watch Robert Ferguson lay on the ground while time expired?  It's a pickle, finding where to start. But let's start with this--where, oh where, is the Packer offense?  This is a team with a top ten all time quarterback, an elite running back, a superb offensive line, and receivers that are at least very good.  There is simply no excuse for putting up one TD, at home, against the Giants.  The none too scary Washington Redskins managed 14 points on the board vs. the Giants and they had SEVEN turnovers.

There's so much else to do this week that Mr. Walker and I leave you with the following factoid about how bad the Packer offense was vs.  the Giants.  The only points scored by the Packers were the result of a touchdown pass thrown by a guy temporarily possessing the mental capacity of an otter! Who's That Again?

I'd guess that a few Packer players and coaches are still catching up on the arrivals and departures in Packerland.  Mr. Walker and I sure are.  When last we wrote Mike McKenzie was lolling in the hot tub and the only small college QB on the team was one letter from being named null.  Let's take a look.

A sincere "bugger off" to Mr. McKenzie from Mr. Walker and myself.  Best of luck playing for the New Orleans Saints, a team famous for poor ownership, cheapskate tactics, state funding shakedowns, and knee wrenching turf at their home stadium.  Then again, New Orleans has the most varied cuisine in the country, legendary cathouses and strip clubs, and according to a musician friend of mine who played there on tour, "the freelance independent pharmaceutical redistributors represent 'round the clock." I'm not kidding, those where his exact words.  Mike is a great corner, and we were initially somewhat sympathetic to him on this site, but the behavior AFTER coming back was intolerable. The holdout was at least understandable, but kvetching to reporters and faking injuries is bad form.

A sincere Packer Palace "big up yourself" to JT O'Sullivan.  Though certainly not possessing a name as fabulous as R-Kal Truluck, or even one as good as N'ail Diggs, O'Sullivan is still a hell of a name.  Mr. Walker and I love truly ethnic names.  My last name is Brown, the fifth most common surname in these not so United States.  Brown as a surname is vaguely German but could also mean the clerk at Ellis Island was just too lazy to transliterate Albanian.  Not much ethnicity there, and only a few eyedroppers of German blood mingles with the scotch in my veins.  Wisconsin is one of the few places where Svensons and Sorensons will outnumber Johnsons and Jacksons, but the east coast (where I live now) is a veritable smorgasbord of names with in-your-face ethnicity.  And it's not just Scandinavian names here.  For every Lorenzo Bonzini and Lakeesha Washington there's a Sean Shanahan and a Miriam Glickstein.  JT O'Sullivan?  There's actually an Irish pub in New Haven called O'Sullivan's.

However, Mr. Walker and I are lucky enough to know a bit about JT.  Yes, this sounds bizarre but it's true.  Because of friends who are rabid Cal Bears fans, we follow California college football.  JT was a small college guy there, but he put up sick numbers and managed to get drafted.  No, he doesn't have Kyle Boller's arm, but he also has JT's brain. Mr. O'Sullivan scored a lofty 35 on the not terribly useful Wonderlic intelligence test.  I took the Wonderlic once and scored higher than that, but not much higher, and I graduated from Yale instead of University of California-Davis.  The Packers have been searching for depth at quarterback ever since the traded away Aaron Brooks and Matt Hasselbeck, and JT really might be that player.  He's whip smart, played brilliantly at a small college, and he's been tutored by Mike McCarthy, former Packers quarterbacks coach and current Saints offensive coordinator.  Mr. Walker and I are going out on a limb and saying that O'Sullivan will at least be a solid long term No.  2 for the Packers, and may well be a fine starter on that sad day when No.  4 decides he'd rather blow up beaver dams in Hattiesburg than throw touchdown passes on the shores of Lake Michigan.

A sincere "thanks for everything and see you next year" to Mike Flanagan.  This may actually be the most significant injury of the year for the Packers.  Remember the Warren Sapp cheap shot/attempted decapitation against Chad Clifton?  Flanagan slid over to left tackle, the glamour position on the offensive line, and did a rather fine job.  For some time now NFL teams have paid offensive tackles big money and used the best lineman they could find in the fifth round to play center and guard.  A center who can play left tackle competently in a pinch is a rare commodity indeed, and Flanagan wasn't just competent he was quite good.  As a center he was tough enough to take on the hideously large nose tackles who populate the NFL, but quick enough to pull on outside running plays and smart enough to make offensive line audibles.  His season ending surgery leaves the Packers playing Grey Ruegamer at center.  I'm quite sure he will rue the gamer he was Sunday against the Giants, but here's hoping he improves.  Flanagan on the IR is a huge loss for the Packers, quite possibly worse than the figuratively and literally gigantic loss of Grady Jackson, and the rest of the line must pick up some slack.  Not to harp on names, but in the Packer locker room, do the players call the new center G-Rug?

The Other Mr. Walker

Easily lost in the justified gloom and doom of the 1-3 start is the superb season Javon Walker is having.  Yes, he still drops an easy one on occasion, but for the first quarter of the season he has 23 catches for 326 yards and four touchdowns, while averaging over sixteen yards per reception.  At this pace, he would finish the season with 92 catches, 1304 yards, and 16 TDs.  All of this from a player who technically isn't even a starter.  As much as the coaches give lip service to the "we take what the defense will give us" and "we have three starting receivers," maybe it's time to start Javon for real and throw to him a bit more often?  I remember the day he was chosen, and I said Javon who?  but Mr. Walker and I think that a player producing that well should be fed the ball until he stops producing.

Da Titans

The Titans and Packers are in many ways the same team.  Both thought to be potential contenders at the start of the season, both are flailing after the first quarter of the season. McNair is hurt, Favre is concussed.  Neither defense is exactly intimidating.  While giving up 14 points to the Giants is shameful for the Packers, giving up 38 points to the San Diego Thunderbolts makes that shame look like honor.  That's what the Titans did last week, 38-17 vs.  the Bolts.  Then again, Tennessee held the Indianapolis Colts to 17 points, while the Packers, uh, well, umm, didn't! Anyone claiming they can pick this game is spending more time with Mr. Walker than I am.  Mr. Walker and I are picking this one out of a hat.  30-20 Packers if they feed the ball to Javon Walker all night long like they should.

TCB is a contributing writer for Packer Palace.
© October 8, 2004.

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