2020 Week 03

Packers 42 Lyins 21

Well, it didn’t start out the way we wanted or expected it to with the Lyin’s marching down the field not once, but twice to start the game and all we had to answer was a field goal.  But by half time, the universe had balanced itself out with a missed field goal by the Lyin’s, giving the Pack a 17-14 lead going into the locker room.  Then one play into half #2, Jones runs for 75 yards.  It would have been more but the goal line stopped him, some-thing the Lyin’s couldn’t do then or for the rest of the game.  A few minutes later Stafford, in a play Jay Cutler would have been proud of, threw a short TD pass, to the wrong team and the Pack was up 17 and reality set in the Lyins’ bench.

It looked early on the loss of Kenny Clark was going to give the Lyin’s some hope.  They managed to gain 80 rushing yards in the first half, but only 9 in the second half.  Now one can say ‘well the Packers got the lead so the Lyins had to pass’.  Maybe so, but Stafford had 115 yards and was sacked 3 of his 4 times in that half.  That’s 124 totals yards given up in the second half by our defense, an effort that should not be lost in the lights-out performances by the Aarons.

We all know what Aaron & Air-ron did but let’s not overlook the efforts put out by Williams & Dillion.  Williams had 63 yards himself and Dillon added another 17, including a 12 yard run at the end of the game that turned the lights out for the Lyins.  The depth we seem to have at running back will continue to help Air-ron be his old self again.  The only concern of the day came from Davante having hamstring issues.  We will know as the week progresses if this is something to be concerned with or if it was only a safety precaution.  Let’s hope for  the latter because the Packers did put Equanimeous St. Brown on the IR list putting the Packers two receivers down, but a new WR threat has emerged.  Air-ron was able to spread the ball around to 9 different receivers, including his new threat, Aaron Rodgers.  It was a short pass that went for –6 yards but Aaron was able to haul it in giving Air-ron the confidence to come back to him in the clutch.

The viqueens are in their mid-season slump already looking at a potential 0-16 record  Same goes for the Lyins.  The only thing stopping both from attain-ing the prefect record is they play each other twice (let’s hope for two ties).  Duh bears con-tinue to struggle, but win over teams ranked  #29 (Lyins) & #31 (Giants).  Next up for them, the #24 Fail-cons; I be-lieve their luck is about to run out.

Packers have a tough game this week, going down to ‘Nawlins on Sunday night.  Winner of this game may well hold the upper hand come playoff time.  It will not be a “Big Easy” for the Pack but they will prevail.  Why? Well you know… we all

Bleed Green My Friends!

(Packer John)

 Just Sayin’ 

Well, we are off to a good start. 2-0. Yeah, the defense let Detroit drive right down the field on their first 2 possessions and take a pretty good lead, scoring 14 points in the first quarter. But then the defense tightened up and played pretty good. They only allowed 7 points the rest of the game. Not too shabby. As I look at different forums around the internet, there seems to be nothing but complaints about the defense. Personally, I think we have one of the best defensive backfields in the league. I also think we have a pretty good set of linebackers as well.  Our Defensive Line is where we have the most to improve. If Kenny Clark is out of the lineup, I have a feeling the DL is going to have a rough time. If he IS out for a while, then it is going to be up to Mike Pettine to come up with ideas and schemes to compensate. These previously mentioned forums also have quite enough complaints about him as well. As far as the offense goes, they seem to be in fine form after 2 games. They have 1,000 yards of offense in the first 2 games. WOW ! !  I think that has only been done 2 or 3 times in NFL history. As I understand, there have been 6 “officially” dropped passes. And while I don’t consider that horrible in the grand scheme of things, the 2 by Sternberger against the Lions certainly fall into that category. Fortunately, Robert Tonyan looks like he is coming on strong and Marcedes Lewis is the old “Mr. Reliable”. Aaron, both of them, look to be in mid-season form. Actually, AR12 looks to be in MVP form. And Jonesy seems to be playing for a new contract.  

The aforementioned forum dwellers seem to want the Packers to sign every player that is released from every team. That is what it seems like. What a lot of these tunnel-visioned people fail to realize is that the NFL has a Salary Cap. A HARD salary cap. It is currently at $198.2 million for 2020. Sounds like a lot don’t it? If I had that much to use on my personal budget every year, I could upgrade a lot of things. So, with 53 players, that is $3.7 million per player. Not bad. But then one starts looking around. Our top 10 players make about $123M. Now, that leaves $75M for 43 players. The next 10 make $31M. Now we are down to 33 players splitting $44M. There are 16 players on the Practice Squad this year. Their pay counts against the salary cap. If someone goes on IR, they don’t play, but they still get paid and count against the cap. And, if someone goes down and goes on IR, a team might sign another player to take his place. The new player signs a contract and counts against the cap. Even if a player is promoted from the Practice Squad, their pay goes up significantly. PS players make a minimum of $8,400.00 per week. Signing them to the active roster, they make a minimum of $610,000.00 per year.  Related to that, if a new free agent player is signed during the season for some reason, the team must have some cap space to sign said player. So most every team is going to have some unused cap space laying around for emergency use during the season. Now, you add into that situation several players that the Packers have playing the final year of their current contract. Among others, we have LT David Bakhtiari, who is at $14.7M, Corey Linsley: $10.5M, Kevin King: $2.2M, and Aaron Jones: $2.1M. King and Jones are in line for a very significant raise. And with the projected salary cap for 2021 expected to  DROP  to $175M, common sense would say that we can’t keep everybody that will be free agents… 
Just Sayin’  
(Jimmy Smith)

 GPB In Our SPARE TIME

Two games in the books—two W’s for the Pack!  Over 60 Packer Backers met at Spare Time to cheer our Pack on to victory, including Spare-Time Steve, his wife and kids.   I even enjoyed watching the Lambeau Leap without the crowd behind them.  I also enjoyed welcoming some new fans into the fold. 

604 Melanie Crawford,
605 Caroline Boroughs,
606 John Nelson,
607 Nancy Nelson. 
Glad you joined our rowdy bunch!

A wide variety in the 9 door prizes chosen by the lucky members whose numbers were drawn.  601 Michelle Zahn and 221 Barb Gambrell both chose shirts, and 561 Dawn Joachim is wearing her new hat.  324 Larry Schilz will keep his toes warm with his new slippers, 262 Tom Zumbach will keep his dollars warm in his new wallet, and 505 Heather Sharp will snuggle under her new blanket.  398 Bill DeMuth will carve dinner with his cutlery.  516 Jackie Boyd will sip her morning brew from her new mug. 

599 Ella Demuth correctly submitted the answer to this week’s trivia question.  She is the lucky recipient of a $25 gift card from our Friends at Spare Time.

We filled a 50₵ board and two $1 boards this week.  Winners on the 50₵ board were 117 Nick Papala, 537 Wayne Boyd, 532 John Blando, and 408 Zach Nelson.  Winners from the dollar boards were 127 Kent Sargent, 220 Jimmy Smith, 117 Nick Papala (2), 458 Susan Sabin (2), 101 Jamie Ware, and 572 Craig Phillips. Enjoy those winnings you lucky folks!

Next Sunday’s game is against the NO ‘Aints, and it’s a night game—8:20 kickoff to be exact.  Now I know this gets late for us old folks, and some people have to go to work on Monday morning, but please, please come and join this old lady for at least the first half.  I love cheering for my team and I love cheering with you.  Let’s keep the “thick” of the saying alive….. Marge 328

 Packer’s    vs.      NO Aints

 About 19 years ago, a young boy had a dream.  He wanted to play football for his favorite team, the San Francisco 49ers.  His favorite player was Steve Young.  He could picture it, running out onto the field, leading his team to victory.  He knew though that he would have to get into a good school with an awesome football program.  So he got a highlight reel together and sent it off, expecting the offers to come pouring in.  After all, he was a great player. 

Silence, Deafening Silence, Crickets, somewhere in the distance a dog barked.  He did get a letter though, from Purdue University:  “Good Luck in your wish to play Division I football. “ 

That kid didn’t go to work at the local gas station.  He got mad.  He went to his local Junior College.  There he threw 26 touchdowns in his freshman season at college leading the school to a 10–1 record, the NorCal Conference championship, and a No. 2 national ranking.

So he got recruited by a college in his state who was there to actually recruit a tight end.  He FINALLY got his scholarship but he was still mad.  As a junior, the young man led his team to a 10–1 record and top-five ranking at the end of the regular season, with their only loss a 23–17 loss at No. 1 USC.  In that game, he set a school record for consecutive completed passes with 26 and tied an NCAA record with 23 consecutive passes completed in one game. 

After feeling disrespected by the Bowl selection board, and losing a close Heisman Trophy vote, he decided to forgo his senior year and enter the draft.  As luck would have it, his hometown, favorite team had the first pick and they needed a Quarterback.  So they selected…Alex Smith, QB, Utah.  The young man tumbled in the draft, many teams passed on him.  Teams that needed a quarterback.  One team picked him, at No. 24.  This team didn’t need a quarterback, they had a Hall of Famer already.  But with the 24^th Pick of the 2004 Draft, the Green Bay Packers selected Aaron Rodgers, QB, California.  Aaron got mad again, but he had matured and banked that fire, keeping it for when he would need it. 

Then this past draft, with Aaron still at the height of his abilities, the Packers traded up…to pick a project QB.  Aaron is mad again!  He has passed for 604 yards in just 2 games, he holds a QB rating of 119.4,  and passed for 6 TDs.  He has led the Packers to score 42 or more points per game so far. 

This Sunday Night, The Packers are in New Orleans, socially distanced and being led by an angry QB.  Aaron has always been overshadowed by Brees, at least by the media, in my opinion.  I predict big things from Green Bay.  The Packers are coming off an impressive victory against the Lyins (see Packer John’s article), doubling up on them and making that one a laugher. 

The only dark spot was the fate of Davante Adams.  Adams left last Sunday's game against Detroit with a hamstring injury, and while he was testing it out on the sideline to see if he could return, Head Coach Matt LaFleur decided to hold him out with the Packers in command in the second half.

He did not practice on Wednesday, but that's no indication one way or another on his playing status at this point. "It's too early to tell," Adams said. "It's feeling better. I think we're making good progress every day. But we're just going to wait it out and see.

While the Packers are hoping to get Adams back, the Saints are in the same boat with their top receiver, Michael Thomas, who is trying to recover from an ankle injury and missed New Orleans' Monday night game at Las Vegas.

Aaron Jones was named FedEx Ground Player of the Week, led all running backs in the league and gained a blistering 236 yards, 168 rushing, including BREAKING IT OFF, for a 75 yard TD, another one for good measure and catching another one from the very angry Aaron Rodgers. 

Despite all of this, I do think this game will be close, but Aaron is angry and the NFL should be afraid because Aaron Rodgers is throwing ropes and showing that he will leave when he is damn good and ready! 
GO! PACK!! GO!!!
(Ken Hill)

 Help Wanted

 Thanks to everyone that has taken the time and effort to help make game day something special.  Without your help, we would not be the club we are.  There is still room for more of you to pitch in.  Helping set up takes 15 minutes.  You show up about 1¼ hours before game time and the good thing is you get the seats you want for the game.  Packing up after the game takes even less time.  Office help is always in need.  Linda and I can’t make most night games. Even if you just help with name tags, it is a big help!  Then there’s playing MC, leading a few cheers, calling prizes and pool winners and this can be done all from the comfort of your table.  There is a Game-Day sign up sheet on the office table.  Bring your pen with you.  

The mid-week activities include, restocking and buying prizes, updating our data base and keeping the money in order.  All this can be done from the comfort of your own computer.   

Last is the Newsletter.  Coming up in a couple of weeks is our bye-week edition where we ask you to send in articles about your best Packer moments or comments on the Pack or the club.  This is the perfect chance to get your feet wet without a commitment.

I have said this before, Linda & I will be stepping down from most of our duties at the end of this year.  We want to know the club is in good hands before then.  If you’re not sure, ask me, ask Linda.  Give it a try, if it works out, Great! If not, at least you tried.

Thanks ~ Packer John & Linda

 

Welcome back to football and to our Shout Outs!

Let's give a BIG Packer Backer Happy Be-Lated Birthday to Smilin' Al Pringle (Kraig Pringle's Dad who is still alive and in hiding). He celebrated his birthday on the 13th,  our opening game! 

Let's also wish a Very Happy Birthday to Andy Pringle (Kraig Pringle's Bro-ther).  He'll be celebrating his birthday this Thursday the 24th!

If you want to send a shout out to the club you need to send a shout out to me, at heatherbailey80@gmail.com

(Heather Bailey)

Big 10
Badger Football is Back!

 That’s right the Badgers are back leaving the Pac 10 to ponder their options.  But the season isn’t quite back yet. It  won’t actually start until the 24th of October, then there will be no bye week and Champions weeks will consist of 7 games, East & West #1’s play for the Big 10 Championship plus the #2’s play each other, #3’s, #4’s etc. making a total of 9 season games.  The 12/19 games also means the teams will be eligible for bowl games; so 10 games wll be possible for some teams.  Will the badgers win 10 games this year? And so, here it is, the

UW 2020 Football Schedule

October 24 Illinois

October 31 @ Nebraska

November 7 Purdue

November 14 @ Michigan

November 21 @ N’western

November 28 Minnesota

December 5 Indiana

December 12 @ Iowa

December 19 Champions week

?????     Bowl Game    ?????