Go Packers!

Improved by the Bye

Hey, check this out.  If the playoffs started today, the Packers might well be a wildcard.  After the games played in week 8, the four division champs would be Philly (7-1), Minnesota (7-2 or 6-3), Atlanta (6-2), and Seattle (5-3).  Competing for the wild card spots would be the Packers, Lions, and Rams.  Packers beat the Lions on the field, so would hold that tiebreaker, and the Green Bay-St. Louis tiebreaker would be one of those esoteric NFL things like how many players on each team were born in March.  Also, by taking a week off and healing up, the Packers moved up significantly in the standings in the NFC North.  The Lions obligingly bombed at Washington, and on Monday night the no-Moss Vikings couldn't keep up with the Colts.  This leaves the Packers playing to even their record with Minnesota and hold the tiebreaker when they play on Sunday.  Whoulda thunk it?

Skins Skinned

LeRoy Butler, in his excellent weekly column on packers.com accurately summed up the game vs. Washington--a win is a win.  I didn't hear a lot of people talking about all of the GOOD plays Ahman Green made vs. the Bears--all I heard was that the Packers blew one.  Mr. Walker and I agree completely with what Butler says, a win is a win.  I downloaded the stat sheets and play by play from the Washington game, and have now decided that only two things from that game matter all that much--The Play and The Paw. 

The Play came with 2:43 left in the fourth quarter, Redskins driving, down 14-20.  Packers run a zone blitz (actually a zone rush, but whatever), drop KGB into coverage, Skins hit Clinton Portis about seven yards downfield and he scampers in for a TD.  Oh no! But wait, a zebra bailed us out on what looks like a ticky tack illegal motion penalty.  No play, TD called back, Al Harris intercepts Brunell's next pass, game over Packers win. How can such a small penalty come at such a big time?  Was the line judge from Green Bay?  Joe Gibbs was furious, and said the next day that he sent a tape of game with James Thrash doing the same thing three times previously in the game and not getting flagged.  All of which confirmed exactly what I said to Mr. Walker and the people watching the game with me when the play happened.  "I'll bet you a pan of hash brownies to a plate of hash browns that the line judge warned Thrash at least once before throwing that flag." One of the things that a lot of people don't realize is that the players and officials are always talking on the field.  I don't know why it's not discussed more, but bits of it are seen on the mic'ed up segments on MNF and such.  The zebras are always telling guys don't do this, don't do that, I'm going to call that next time, you're lining up too far back from the line, and so on.  I saw one NFL Films thing about the officials once that made it completely clear.  Watching the replay, the line judge threw the flag so quickly and with such conviction you could almost hear him say "I TOLD YOU YOU CAN'T DO THAT JAMES!" The response from Joe Gibbs was, in essence, I have tape to prove we committed that penalty three times before in the game and didn't get flagged.  Well, if I got pulled over driving drunk I wouldn't tell the cop "look Chief Wiggam, what gives?  I've driven drunker than this three times already this week and you didn't stop me."

The Paw would be the one attached to the right arm that is attached to the shoulder that is attached to the torso of a certain Mississippi native named Favre.  In addition to last year's broken thumb, that paw has endured two pretty ugly hits in the past week--another one to the thumb and a new one to the back of his hand.  Mr. Walker thinks the thumb hit may have been worse than we are being told, and I have to agree.  Pre thumb mashing, Favre was in rare form.  The way to tell when Favre is hot is when he is completing passes to receivers that by any reasonable standard are not even close to being open, and making it look easy.  One such pass was a 48 yard beauty in the first quarter to a double covered Robert Ferguson.  That pass probably had to be in a space the size of basketball hoop to be completed, and after making it Favre gave a half hearted hand pump and ran up to run the next play.  After taking another shot or two to his hand, though, Mr. Walker noted that many of Favre's passes were short (rare for him) and not very tight spirals (ditto).  On a windy day like the one in Washington, Favre should be at his best, precisely because he throws such tight, hard spirals.  Mr. Walker and I both hope the week off of R&R in the deep south has healed The Paw.

Oh, one other thing.  Mr. Walker cringes whenever Bhawoh Jue gets on the field.  Not a Marques Anderson cringe, but a cringe nevertheless.  We have to give a Big Up to Jue this week though.  Subbing for reportedly the best player on the defense, he did a fine job, was rarely out of place, and would have added a second pick on a good-enough-for-a-receiver-highlight-film play in the end zone.  Well done sir, we shall cringe no more!

Season So Far

One of the hallmarks of sports punditry is that nobody ever goes back to see if their predictions were on the money.  Sadly, the same is usually true for people who write about important things like politics and war.  However, Mr. Walker and I decided to buck the trend and take look back fearlessly at the pre-season analysis published here and see how we did.

I predicted the offense would be excellent, said that the receivers were going to be better, and that "on a bad day this team should score 17 points, on a good day 35+" That doesn't look too outlandish after half of the games, save that I may have overestimated the Pack on their bad days.  Lost in the legitimate criticism of how the Packer defense played against the Colts and Titans is the fact that the offense really lost two games with their own bad play.  In the 21-10 loss to the Bears, it was Ahman Green's fumble that gave Chicago seven of their points and really turned around that game.  Against the Giants, at home, the usually fabulous Packer offense posted a dismal 7 points to lose 14-7.  In other words, had the offense held up a little better, the Packers would be 6-2, on top of their division, and chasing Philly instead of having to nearly run the table to get into the playoffs.

On the defense, Mr. Walker and I said that there simply was not enough data to make a guess.  I believe we can pat ourselves on the back on that one.  The defense has been completely confusing, great against Carolina, abysmal against the Colts, good enough to shut down Clinton Portis and a decent line vs. Washington, and absolutely cover-youreyes bad against a Titans team that just isn't all that good.

Finally, we predicted that at least in the beginning of the season, the Packers were going to have to simply outscore some teams to win games.  And how!  We're taking another pat on the back, damn it!  They needed 49 to beat the freaking Titans!  As far as the game by game predictions, we said the Packers had no excuse losing to the Cowboys, Bears, and Giants at home, and should beat the Lions at Detroit.  We then boldly suggested the Packers would split the four games vs. the Titans, Panthers, Redskins, and Colts to be 6-2 at the bye.  Funny thing, we were right about the split and wrong about the gimmes.  Those losses to the Giants and Bears in many ways are more damaging than the loss to the Colts.  I wonder if that's a formula for NFL success, beat all the bad teams and split against the good teams?  In that same piece, for the second half of the season, we wrote "After the bye, it's Minnesota, @Houston, St. Louis, @Philly, Detroit, Jacksonville, @Minnesota, and @Chicago.  The Packers always split with the Vikings, but should beat the Texans, Lions, and Bears with comparative ease.  Mr. Walker and I think the Eagles and Jaguars are overrated, but let's say they split those as well.  That leaves the St. Louis game as the difference between 11-5 and 12-4."

Yeah, those Jaguars and Eagles are overrated.  Oops.  Jacksonville is tied for the lead in their division and has beaten the Colts, Broncos, and held the Chiefs to 16 points in a victory.  And the Eagles?  Just the last undefeated team in the NFC.  Me and Mr. Walker can't win 'em all.  The second half of the season is going to be a LOT more difficult for Green Bay.  Houston is no longer a doormat, Philly looks like the best team in the NFC, and St. Louis can still score points.  Nevertheless, for our second half of the season predictions we say the Packers beat Minnesota at home and lose at the Metrodome.  Mr. Walker is worried about the Houston game, but I say the Packers are just playing too well on offense for the Texans to keep up.  St. Louis will be visited with hellfire and brimstone at Lambeau to avenge the various fast track dome losses the Pack has suffered against them over the past few years.  Detroit will be in full fade mode when the come to Green Bay, so we're chalking that up as a win too.  We'll take the easy way out and say the Packers split Philly and Jacksonville, even though it is kind of cheating.  This set of predictions leave the Packers at 9-6 going into the game at the Bears, another game I expect to be an ugly revenge match.  The Packers win that one and they're 10-6.  Playoffs? Probably.  NFC North?  Well, we'd need the Vikings to blow a few late in the season, which they seem to do as predictably as the tides, so Mr. Walker and I will boldly predict a 9-7 finish for Minnesota and the Packers the NFC North champions.  Oh, by the way, the Vikings will be finishing up against a Redskins team with nothing to lose on the last day of the season.  Sound familiar?  Perhaps the Redskins will be helping us out like the Cardinals did last year.

Pillage the Vikings

John Madden has taken a steady dive in the color commentary ranks the past few years, but he did say one very insightful thing on Monday night--the Vikings don't play well from behind.  It was one of those moments where I turned to Mr. Walker and said, "I'll be jiggered he's got a point there." The team that scores first wins a whole lot more games than the team that doesn't, but whoever scores first this Sunday will probably have a pretty huge edge.

However, the big story leading up to the game Sunday will be the Randy Hamstring Watch.  As mentioned in the "Random Thoughts" section, the Vikings are almost a different team without Moss as the Packers are a different team without Favre.  It's a fair guess that even if he does play he won't be 100%, but anyone who thinks the Packers coaches aren't hoping for 0% Moss instead of 70% Moss is crazy.

Whenever I'm handicapping a game, I always run over a few stats to see where both teams rank.  Things like average points per game and average points allowed, turnovers, total yards allowed per game, and so on.  It's surprising how close Green Bay and Minnesota are in nearly every category.  Usually Minnesota is ranked minimally ahead in most categories, but two do stand out; Yards per rushing attempt and yards per pass attempt.  Minnesota averages 5.1 yards per rush (1st in the NFL), while the Packers average 4.3 (11th).  In the passing game, Green Bay is averaging 7.4 yards every time No. 4 hurls it (14th) and the Vikings pick up 8.52 yards per throw (3rd).  Other than that, in things like total points, total points allowed, and so on, statistically the teams are very close to each other.  All of which, to my mind, makes the Randy Hamstring Watch all the more important.  Sure, he helps in the yards per pass attempt category for obvious reasons, but whenever Moss is on the field teams have no choice but to keep a second defensive back deep on his side of the field, putting some pretty severe limitations on what a team can do to try to stop the rushing game.  All of that said, here's the final stat to consider.  As bad as the Packers have been on defense, they're ranked 17th in the league in total yards allowed, which the Vikings are ranked all the way down at 28th.  They're closer in points per game, but even the often pathetic Packer D has played better than the Vikings.

In the specific matchups category, there are a few to note.  Of course if Randy plays that's a bad matchup unless the guy covering him happens to be Superman.  Beyond that, though, is the interior line of Minnesota vs. Hunt and Jackson.  The Vikings like to run up the middle, and if the Packers are giving up 5 yards per rush it's going to be a long day. Next would be Duante Culpepper vs. the Green Bay linebackers.  What's that I hear you say?  Don't you mean DBs in the passing game?  No, I don't.  Green Bay for years has had an extremely difficult time keeping quarterbacks who can run from converting on third and long.  I don't know how many times I've seen Culpepper or McNabb on a third and seven, with the Packer secondary doing a great job so nobody is open, and then the QB runs for nine yards to keep a drive alive.  Nick Barnett is fast enough to chase down nearly anyone, so let's hope the coaches are careful to emphasize that a QB getting a first down with his feet is the same as getting one with his arm.

Random Thoughts

Keep in mind that I'm writing this while watching the Vikings-Colts tilt.  It sure is funny seeing Tony Dungy as the Author of the Shootout.  My first memories of Tony Dungy were his ferocious Vikings defenses during the John Randle era just beating the daylights out of the Packers in the Metrodome.  Then he was the head coach for the Bucs, where he built another fearful defense around Warren Sapp and John Randle.  That was the era of "Dungy ball," another way of saying his offenses couldn't score so every game went down to a field goal in the fourth quarter.  Those Bucs teams perfected the art of the four field goal, 12-10 victory, where the opposing defense scored the touchdown on an interception or kickoff return.  Funny nobody at ABC has down a maudlin story about

Dungy's "connections to his opponent tonight." Watched all of the Steelers-Eagles game, and there is absolutely no doubt that Pittsburgh is playing better than anybody else in the league, nobody else is close.  This doesn't mean jack, of course, it's not even December yet and all kinds of things can go wrong.  But the Steelers didn't just beat the Eagles, they slapped them around.  They ran at will and had the Eagles looking positively confused on offense.  All of that said, a few weeks back I mentioned that nobody beats the odds forever.  That was in the context of Culpepper who was being hailed as the perfect combination of Montana, Bradshaw, and Norm van Brocklin.  Sure enough Culpepper stunk the place up that week vs. the Giants, making me look a lot smarter than I am.  However, here's the Steelers factoid to remember.  Against the Patriots they were 9-9 on third down, against the Eagles they were 8-8.  Part of that was that the Steeler run game was giving them a lot of third and three instead of third and 12, but NOBODY goes 17-17 on third down conversions, I don't care if they're all third and a foot.  So then, we'll see if third down karma catches up with the Steelers some time down the road.

The Vikings sure seem to be a different ball club without Randy Moss, eh?  I was a Duante Culpepper fan when he was one of the greatest players I've ever been lucky to discover via ESPN game plan, and I was bummed out when the Vikings took him because I knew I couldn't every really be a fan anymore.  But it sure helps a QB to be throwing to a mutant like Moss.

Strange play calling at the end of the half in the Vikings-Colts game.  1.53 left in the half, Vikings have one timeout.  Culpepper scrambles for eight yards, then throws a slant, then a draw, and they have to spike it and take a while to do so.  That took the clock down to 32 seconds.  The worst decision of all might have been Culpepper who could have run out of bounds when he scrambled.  Then two more bad play calls (run and pass inside) and there's two seconds left so they have to take a FG.  To start that far up the field and not even get a shot at the end zone is pretty sad.

TCB is a contributing writer for Packer Palace.
© November 11, 2004.

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