Packers 24 Panthers 31
I said before the trip to
Charlotte that regardless of the
outcome of the game, or even
the season, Mark Murphy
should fire the entire “lot” of
them. I’m still saying it, only a
little bit louder. Actually, I’m
like a 250-lb male brown-haired
brown-eyed dark-skinned Heidi
yodeling it from the Blue Ridge
mountaintops…
After Monday night, it’s all over for the 2017 chapter of Les Miserables. We’re officially and mathematically eliminated. The Sun, Moon, and the stars all had to come into alignment. The belief that we could still win it all if Atlanta lost was about as realistic as the Nazis in Der Bunker believing the Fuhrer would lead them to victory with “magical weapons” as the Russians closed in… Our last gasp at Carolina was wild with bits of everything good, bad, and ugly in a football game. Class. Us. No class. Them. Big plays. Controversy. Dirty hits. Video reviews. Great throws, great runs. Terrible throws. Late comeback with a converted onside kick. Another sudden and heartbreaking death with all the hope and momentum being dashed. Aaron’s comeback certainly provided excitement, and the entertainment factor was, as usual, off the charts. He obviously wasn’t sharp, wasn’t the Aaron Rodgers we needed, and, fairly or not, expected. He was woefully short on all three interceptions. I heard Greg Jennings on say, “Aaron never underthrows his receiver!” Aaron or no Aaron, there is always that fine line between precision and disaster, and in too many key moments, we were on the wrong side of that line. “Football is a game of inches.” Cliché, but it’s truly stunning how close these big plays are, time and time again. You have 300-lb animals built like Greek gods with track-star speed flying around and slamming into each other, and it takes 17 video reviews from different angles to figure out what the call is on play after play. Allison’s “football move” and fumble has been talked about the most, as it clearly ended the game and effectively the season. But what about the ass -cheek touchdown they got earlier in the game? This is where all the receiver’s glute work in the weight room really paid off, as his rather angular cheek kept him in bounds when a fatter (or flatter?) ass would’ve resulted in his coming down on the backline. The ruling: Down by contact. We would’ve been better off with our typical defensive response, e.g. to leave the guy wide open… Random thoughts: The defense sucked again. We may have something with these young running backs. Devante Adams has a huge magnet on his head that evidently forces opponents to target the same. Cam Newton is a front-running asshole who will never win anything meaningful. Oh yeah, their fans suck as well… The Packers have wisely placed our Franchise on injured reserve. It is a no-brainer, clearly the smart and right thing to do. Throughout this discussion and up to the Carolina loss, I’ve cited the South Carolina motto, “While I breathe, I hope,” meaning all hands, including ARod, on deck as long as there was still a shot. However, even before the Carolina loss and Atlanta busted us out of the playoffs, there was a pretty good counter argument that the risk of playing Aaron outweighed the reward. I was truthfully having more and more trouble blowing off that theory… Besides, if we’re going home early from the dance with an ugly girl, why not go all-out for the ugliest? You know, the one you have to tie a bone around her neck to get the dog to play with her? The one that fell out of the ugly tree and hit all the branches? After all, (7-9) is a hell of a lot better than (9-7) (“Kitty licked” from page 1) will be at next year’s draft. It might be newly refreshing to have some decent draft picks for the first time since the millennium… I don’t know what Santa is bringing me this year. I’ve been nice, but I’ve also been a little naughty. It looks like a pretty safe bet that I’m going to get that late gift that I’ve gotten just about every year, one that, like the perennial tacky ties and mouthwash, I’m frankly tired of getting. That is, yet another Super Bowl game with an asterisk. Why the asterisk? Because whoever wins, something is again missing. And that something is the Green Bay Packers, after yet another derailed opportunity to win it all… I’d rather get a lump of coal or a swift kick to the gonads, but nobody asked me. Whatever. The World isn’t going to stop turning because The Grinch stole our season. As such, Merry Christmas to all, and Go, Pack, GO!
(Kraig Pringle)
Just Sayin’
Well, what did we learn from the Packers/Panthers game? We learned that if a Jedi has been away from the force for too long, his skills get rusty. And since we are on a movie theme for a minute, it sure would have been nice if someone had called Lightning McQueen’s (CARS) sponsor Rust-eze and have some sent in before the game in case it was needed. And it was sure needed. A few years ago, I was very anti-Dom Capers. Then I realized maybe he didn’t have the players to run his defense, so I backed off a bit. Now, I think he has the players, and it has made no difference. The game has passed him by. So against the Panthers, it was not The Force Awakens, it was The Farce is Strong In This One. As in Dom Capers is a farce as a Defensive Coordinator. Greg Olsen and Christian McCaffrey were running rampant on the defense all day long. Does Dynamic Don even think about making any adjustments? Well, maybe he adjusted his comb over so he would look better. He is useless. If he is not replaced as DC, the defense next year will be no better than it has been over the last several years. As far as the offense goes, Rodgers looked about like we should have expected. I was hoping, as I am sure most everyone else was, that he would come out and be spot on, like he never missed a beat. And while the running game looked pretty darn good early in the game, with Aaron Jones gaining 47 yards in his first 3 carries. He never ran the ball again. Once again, Mr. Wizard abandoned the running game. It appears that our offense will be led by Hundley for the last 2 games. Personally, I think they should let Joe Callahan start at least one of the two remaining games, maybe even both. My feeling is that Hundley will start both hoping for some good play so as to trade him before the 2018 draft. Since the 2 remaining games are for nothing but pride, why doesn’t McCarthy try and win them both. Maybe he could try Trevor Davis and/or Jeff Janis on offense. Maybe even Michael Clark. Well, one can dream. To all the Packers fans who are reading this, I wish you all a Merry Christmas!!!Just Sayin
(Jimmy Smith)
The Chief’s / GPB Report
Well, the 38 Packer Backers at Chief’s tried to keep the huggin’ and high fivin’ going, but sadly, we weren’t able finish it out. We also had 6 Packer fans from Eau Claire join us on Sunday. Door prizes were won by 186 Karn Bender who chose the Packer boa while 489 Kelly Wolff will be sporting gloves. 185 Ken Hill and 475 Jennifer Comensoli will be wearing Packer socks. 156 Phil Bender chose chip clips. 369 Don Dandelske and 490 Nick Herman will be drinking from tumblers, while 501 Louis Gepes and 474 Jim Comensoli will be sipping from thermal mugs. 131 Gerald Schulz chose a towel and 431 Jan Ziebeck will keep warm under a blanket. 445 Sharon Dandelske chose wrapping paper. 132 Sharon Schulz chose a car magnet. 328 Marge Bramlett’s buddy will be wearing a Packer necklace. The winner of this week’s trivia contest and a $25 gift card from our friends at Chief’s was 474 Jim Comensoli. We only had one $1 pool this week. Winners were 132 Sharon Schulz, 490 Nick Herman, 131Gerald Schulz, and 220 Jimmy Smith. As you have heard, with only a few RSVP’s, a night game and competing with the dance group we will not be meeting as a club this Saturday night for the viqueens game. We will be back for this seasons swan song against the Lyins the following Sunday (12/31) at 1:00. Until then, remember, we love and support our Pack through thick and thin. Always courageous!(Marge 328)
Packers vs. Viqueens
Dom Capers should be fired! There I said it! Ted Thompson should be fired! There! I said it! Let’s address those in reverse order. A lot of you know I have a problem with our (for those of us who are like me and own the team) employee, Mr. Thompson. He has three phases of HIS game that he’s supposed to play. He has failed. The Packers have been good (and lucky) enough to get into the playoffs for a number of years. That means we pick around 25th in the draft every year. It’s been that way for a number of years. You know what happens when you pick 25th in the draft every year? Soon you wind up with the 25th ranked team in a category. In our case, it’s defense! How do you fix this? You play the other phases of your game: Roster Management, and Free Agency. The first phase is of course Draft and Develop. When it comes to Roster Management, I don’t think Ted does a great job. After Superbowl XLV, we had a work stoppage. Cullen Jenkins was up for a new contract. He was going to give us a hometown discount. Ted let him go. He went on to play 5 more years in the league! He cut Greg Jennings, Jennings had a stomach injury, came back to soon as was ineffective for the rest of the season. All of a sudden, he’s “injury prone”. Josh Sitton had a year to go on his contract. The offensive line coach wasn’t pleased with his play. All of a sudden, he becomes “injury prone” too. I checked the stats; Josh Sitton started and played EVERY SINGLE GAME the previous season! Which brings us to Free Agency. Ted just doesn’t get it. We have the money. We have tons of it. We make the third largest profits in the NFL in spite of being the smallest market. Last year we made I think it was $57 million. Do we get Richard Sherman, No, a guard who blows D-linemen off the line? No. Do we resign our free agent TE that caught a game-winning catch against Dallas IN Dallas? No. We sign a TE who doesn’t really want to be there, he just wants to catch passes from Aaron Rodgers, who just happened to break his collarbone. “Uh, hey Coach. Umm, I can’t play this week, I got a sore shoulder. Yeah, it’s been sore since OTA’s in May.” He gets waived and went to play the very next weekend for the Patriots. He had signed a 3 year $21 million contract. Cook signed with the Raiders for 2 years and $12.2 million. That’s poor stewardship of a team. Dom Capers. Head Coach. Defensive Mastermind. Tired old man. Back when Dom was hired as our DC, I was happy. I wasn’t sure about the 3 – 4. It meant letting KGB go, and Aaron Kampmann moved to linebacker, so I wasn’t sure it was going to work. At first it didn’t. We got some linemen who could make the transtition, we got some guys who didn’t or couldn’t. So our Dline, which was a thing to be feared became a hit or miss proposition. Back in 2010, you had Ryan Pickett, the aforementioned Cullen Jenkins and B.J. Raji. He wasn’t the Fridge, he was “the Freezer, baby!” Remember the “Psycho Blitz” when he dropped into coverage and had a pick 6? I don’t think you could do that with the 3 we have right now. “But Ken, who will we find to replace him?” I’m glad you asked! This coach has been a Superbowl winning Defensive Coordinator. This coach took an also-ran and turned it into a threat in almost every season in a super competitive division. The man to replace Dom Capers? Marvin Lewis! Marv and his Bengals have been down this year, they don’t have him under contract for next year, and look like they’re ready to move on. Marv was DC for the Ravens when they won the Superbowl XXXV beating the Giants 34-7. His defense set records during his tenure and the 2000 season. His defense in 2000 allowed the fewest rushing yards (970), and the fewest point (165), by any NFL team in a 16 game season. Their mastery of the Giants in the Superbowl was summed up by SI writer Mike Silver as, “Punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, interception, punt, interception, interception, punt, interception, punt, punt, punt, end of game.” That was Marvin Lewis. Still think I’m crazy? Oh, yeah, the Packers shut down Aaron for the season after the loss to Carolina and the Failcons winning. So we will lose this game. The only question is how bad? I don’t think the Viqueens have anything to play for. They have an outside chance of having home field throughout the playoffs, so they may play hard. They may play hard until they have the game well in hand and start resting players, but they’ve never been a particularly high-scoring team. Sure, they will sometimes get in a track meet, but that’s not their style. The Packers lose but it’ll will be closer than it really is. 24-17. Go Pack!! GO!!
(Ken Hill)
