Packers 42 Radars 24
Perfect. Explosive. Flawless. Greatest of All Time. These are words I heard on Sunday after watching the Green Bay Packers demolish the Las Vegas/LA/Oakland Raiders. These words were used to describe one Aaron Charles Rodgers. Aaron’s perfect passer rating was the first in 18 years in the NFL, and the first in Packer history. I was in the Packers Hall of Fame less than 24 hours prior to this and watched Bart Starr sling around a frozen ball like a frisbee in August. (The drive in the Ice Bowl).
Aaron threw 5 touchdown passes to 5 different receivers and ran one in and “put on the belt!” I. Picked. A Great. Game. To. See. Jimmy Graham FINALLY remembered how to play football. You may think I’m the only one to have a problem with Jimmy. Not true. Mark Taucher also has not warmed to young Mr. Graham, until Sunday. He blocked, he caught critical passes to maintain drives. He did his job!
Aaron Rodgers had a perfect passer rating on Sunday. He went 25 of 31 for 429 yards, the 5 TDs, 0 interceptions, and was sacked one time on a coverage sack after holding the ball of about 5 minutes or so. His average pass length was 13.8 yards, his long of the day a 74-yard strike to MVS, who took it to the house. It was the opening play of the second half, however, MVS first catch of the day that was even more impressive, a 59 yarder on a rope and I was thinking, “Now THAT’s the way to start a half!” In other words, he was perfect. The formula for having a perfect passer rating is as follows: you must at LEAST complete 77.5% of your passes, pass for 12.5 yards per attempt, throw one touchdown for at least every 8.421 attempts and throw zero interceptions. Also, Rodgers also came into Week 7 with the highest career quarterback rating in NFL history (102.7), just ahead of Russell Wilson (101.7) and Drew Brees (97.7). It’s not to say he had a “Perfect Game” he threw 6 incompletes, and was sacked once. His one rushing TD doesn’t factor in to a “Passer” rating!
I will tell you this, it was thrilling to watch. Section 124, Row 19 seat 1 was the best seat in the house as far as I was concerned. Right behind the Packer bench the defense sitting right in front of us, a clear view of the Tundratron, and a great view of the Wisconsin Marching Band during halftime! The thunder from a flyover of 4 FA-18 Super Hornets was icing on the cake for the show portion of the
My voice was thrashed all day Sunday and Monday due to my vociferous urgings for the team. I even lost my wallet! The beer guy came through and I was a bit parched, so I urged him over and he said, “13 dollars!” I reached and came up empty, slapped my pocket, and it was flat!
OMG, what was I going to do. How was I going to be able to eat? How was I supposed to pay for parking (at the airport in CLT, I’d already paid for parking there.) The ushers told me where fan services was. I would go there after the game, I wasn’t missing this! Once I saw Tim Boyle come out for a hand-off drill, I went to fan services, on the OTHER SIDE OF THE STADIUM. They told me to go into the atrium to Customer Service, I barely got out the words, “Did anyone turn in a wallet?” and they were saying, “Black, Green Bay wallet, South Carolina?” Apparently, I have an accent! That and I use the word Y’all a lot! My step-dad always thought it was funny, it’s an accepted form of expression here of course, not in Illinois a whole lot.
Speaking of Illinois, Sorry Packer John, but I’m from Illinois and it was Homecoming Week, so I can’t be mad at Lovie’s boys this weekend. This is why I tell my friends that the NFL is the purer form of football. We hold a tournament to get our Champion (That Packers are a one loss team, are THEY out of contention?),
Davante may practice this weekend, though that’s not confirmed. No Mahomes, my homies (Maybe) this Sunday, I hope that means good things. I’ll be rocking the mike as I’m waiting all day for Sunday Night. And of course, “THIS IS ROBIN LEACH WISHING YOU CHAMPAIGN DREAMS AND
GO PACK!! GO!!!”
(Ken Hill)
Just Sayin’
When John invited me to start contributing to the newsletter several years ago, it was due to me sending in one short paragraph about Jermichael Finley and his drops. I have been here weekly since then. I have never had any Journalism or Creative Writing classes or anything like that. So I am just winging it every week. So if anybody has ANYTHING Packer related they would like to share or just gripe about, send it on into John. He/We won’t ask you to contribute something every week (although if you wanted to do that, it would be welcomed).
But I’ll tell ya, sometimes I have actually cut myself a little short, since there seemed to be so much to get mad about or just being frustrated in general as the Packers showed little life or enthusiasm while out on the field. And the pressers were just as bad. What a difference a year makes. Go to Packers.com and watch some videos. Smiling, laughing and cutting up is a common occurrence lately among the players and coaches. These guys are a brotherhood. As most of you are probably well aware of, that lifeless, going through the motions, type of team morale left Green Bay when Mike McCarthy left. Yes, we have seen some animation on the sidelines between Aaron Rodgers and Matt LeFleur, but that is in the heat of the moment when something went wrong during the game. After LeFleur was hired, the media was constantly throwing out
garbage about how he and Rodgers would not be able to co-exist. There were stories of AR12 trashing LeFleur. Would Rodgers be coachable? Well, all of that crap reporting has stopped. Just the opposite, how long has it been since we have seen the kind of camaraderie on our team such as what we are seeing now? You hear it from the coach. You hear it from AR12. You hear it from any player who has a chance to say it to a microphone.
OK, back to Finley, sort of. The Packers have rarely had good TE play since the days of Finley. We had a little spell with Jared Cook, but then TT, in his usual way, would not spend any money on Free Agency. So Cook left. Last year, Gutekunst went out and signed Jimmy Graham. That didn’t work out so well. We had the shell of Jimmy Graham, not the All Pro TE. And maybe that was due to the resistance of McCarthy to involve the TEs more than he did. Many fans wanted JG released during the offseason. He wasn’t. And up to this point of THIS season, maybe we are seeing somewhat of a resurgence of the old JG. He sure looked pretty good against the Raiders. And as we all saw, we have some pretty good receivers on the roster. As a group, they looked pretty darn good out there on Sunday. And that is without Davante Adams. Wait till he gets back. We live in an impatient society. A lot of people want Gutekunst to go out and trade for a receiver. Why? AR12 is very persnickety about his WRs and how they run routes. He has been working with these guys in preseason and now 7 weeks into the season in practice, particularly the last 3 weeks. I say the WRs we have are going to be just fine. And BTW, we did sign Ryan Grant. He has played in LeFleur system before, but not with #12. Let’s keep an eye on his progress in the next couple of weeks.
Now, the defense has taken some bumps in the last couple of games. I think they are missing the rookie Darnell Savage a lot. But they are in that old mode of “bend-not-break” defense. And with the offense starting to jell, the team is looking good right now.
I know I didn’t have much on the game (how about that Jake Kumerow ! !), but I am sure that John and Ken or Kraig will touch on some highlights.
We are getting the Chiefs without Patrick Mahomes this week. But they will be fired up. They have lost 2 straight at home. So, the guys can’t expect an easy game. It’s Sunday Night Football. And everybody wants to win. You know who I am pulling for.…
Just Sayin’
(Jimmy Smith)
GPB In Our SPARE TIME
122 Packer backers (plus a few Radar followers) met at Spare Time for a great game last Sunday. Join us in welcoming another new member:
553 Anita Ward.
We’re glad to have you with us!
Some great door prizes found homes this week. 553 Anita Ward and 132 Gerald Schultz chose hats, 275 John Ellinger has a 2 pack of socks, and 550 Heather Bailey will be wearing a Lambeau Field jersey. 473 Tiera Steliga will stay cozy under her Packer blanket. 263 Pat Zumbach has a set of pint glasses, and 262 Tom Zumbach got an insulated coffee mug. 131 Sharon Schultz chose a ladies’ watch gift set. 445 Sharon Dandelske will light her way with a Packer lantern.
With such a great crowd, we were able to fill both a $1 and a 50₵ pool. Winners of the dollar pool were 221 Barbara Gambrell, 431 Jan Zlebek, 219 Dan Blechl, and 365 Clifford Stiles. Winners of the 50₵ pool were 132 Gerald Schultz, 328 Marge Bramlett, 105 Linda Wieloch, and 127 Kent Sargent. Lots of folks put entries into the trivia bucket, but the lucky winner was 369 Don Dandelske. He received a $25 gift card from our friends at Spare Time.
Our next game is Sunday night at 8:20 against the Kansas City Chiefs. Now I know it’s a work night for many of you, but our team is 6-1! We need to be together to support them in our quest! Even if you can only stay for the first half, cheering as a club will be heard in KC. Oh yeah, don’t forget about the pools & prizes. I hope to see many of you there. Remember, it’s all in through thick and thin …
Marge 328
Packers vs. Chefs
Why Appleton? Two reasons. First, the relative anonymity. These two were well known, and their getup and phony moustaches certainly wouldn’t fool the people in Green Bay. Second, the little-known underground of tech-savvy Russian hackers that infest Appleton’s South Side…
The younger of the two hesitated slightly, scoping up and down the street with slight paranoia as they entered 203 West College Avenue, aka Cleo’s Brown Beam Tavern. They slinked to the last table in the back left corner. The younger whispered “I don’t know, Brian. I’m not sure this is a good idea. We could be spotted. Then what? Besides, isn’t that guy “Packer Jim,” from that huge Packers club down in North Carolina, originally from here?”
The elder steeled his gaze upon his youthful wingman and replied, “First of all, Davey Boy, it’s SOUTH Carolina. And it’s Packer John, and it’s the Greenville Packer Backers. And stop worrying! He’s not nearly as connected here as he used to be. And haven’t I done us right so far?”
Davey Boy, not convinced, persisted: “Is this a good idea? Do you trust these guys? I mean, Aaron’s playing pretty well. Maybe we should just leave well enough alone?”
Brian slammed the door with: “Yuri’s guys are the best. Put it this way. The guys that didn’t make Yuri’s squad ended up working with the hackers on the 2016 Presidential election. Now chill out, drink your Leinie, look at all the Christmas decorations and let’s do this.”
Just then, a husky, menacing beefcake sat down at their table. He sported a metallic gold Adidas track suit, a half dozen herringbone chains about his neck, slicked-back jet-black hair, pockmarked face, diamond stud earrings, Cyrillic tattoos up and down his arms, and the strong odor of Drakkar cologne emanating from his persona. He ordered, of course, a double Stoli on the rocks…
“Where the f##k is Yuri?” demanded Brian. The Russian answered, in a thick Slavic accent: “No Yuri. I’m Ivan. We do business, yes?” Brian nodded, and Davey Boy handed Ivan a sealed envelope. Brian asked: “Do we have an understanding? You will keep flooding the media, TV, and the internet with your Bots?” Ivan answered: “Da, da, da! ‘Rodgers is washed up, Rodgers sucks, Rodgers fight with coach, Rodgers too worried about race car girlfriend’…Da, you do for us, we do this for you…But one other thing we ask. Can you throw in tickets for next game?”
He knew better. Tickets can be traced. As Ivan walked out of Cleo’s, Brian and Davey Boy fist bumped. Brian said “No Collusion!” with Davey Boy quickly and dutifully responding “No Recollection!” as they slammed down their beers and headed out the back door…
“Well, I might take a train, I might take a plane, but if I have to walk, I’m goin’ just the same…Goin’ to Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come…They got some crazy little women there and I’m gonna…get me one…”
The familiar Wilbert Harrison classic was written along with a flurry of songs like Ten Days in Jail, Hound Dog (made famous by Elvis), and my personal favorite, Real Ugly Woman. These great examples of early music epitomize the Jazz and Blues BBQ tradition of Kansas City, the Paris of the Plains and the City of Fountains. But right here and right now, KC is most commonly and popularly known for the Chiefs, who have enjoyed a resurgence and relevance along with the emergence of their MVP-caliber QB, Patrick Mahomes. Their biggest problem: He’s out with an injury, maybe, maybe not, they ain’t sayin’ for sure.
There are all kinds of pundits that are not only echoing Ivan’s Bots, but pushing the narrative of “Don’t look past the Chiefs.” I’m always leery of trap games,
Rodgers is a voracious consumer of (and participant in) popular culture. He has been watching and reading, and he believes he’s been slighted, overlooked, and disrespected. He’s right. I love every bit of it because he is the Alpha Dog who thrives on shoving it up his doubters’ asses. He has been steadily building up with this new offense, and he was obviously phenomenal (“perfect” rating) against Oakland-LA-Oakland-LA - Santa Clara - Oakland-Sausalito-Las Vegas(?). His few “misfires” looked a lot like balls that hit guys on the hands…
It is now all about the Packers. They are in a position to dictate their season, their fate. Rodgers’ explosion and a number of guys coming off injury are reasons for further optimism. This team has yet to play a complete game, with all phases performing at optimal levels. Not even close. But so far, incomplete efforts have led us straight to the top, and we are currently King of the Mountain. But things can change quickly, proverbial axes may fall, and everyone remembers how that childhood game works…
Go, Pack, GO!!!
(Kraig Pringle)
PACKER BACKER SHOUT OUTS!
We are a Packer Family and as a family it is important to be able to celebrate with others the important happenings in our lives.
One of our newest members, Heather Bailey #550, would like to start this Shout Outs column. She just started this week and needs your help to compile a database of personal information like birthdays and anniversaries, births and weddings (hopefully not in that order), graduations and promotions and anything other happy, joyous event you would like to share with your fellow Packer Backers.
Of course, recent and upcoming information is important but it goes beyond that. Heather hopes to have a 365 list of GPB happenings. The more information you give us, the more your fellow Packer family can celebrate with you.
So let’s get this started! Send any and all of your important personal dates and events to Heather Bailey at heatherbailey80@gmail.com and let the shouting begin.
