Yellow Laundry

I had some difficulties prior to the game last night. The last year or so, I have settled into a new era of pregaming. I used to just sort of wander around with a beer, get a brat or whatever. I don't have the commitment to organize a gigantic tailgate, and don't know anyone that has one. But in the past year, I have been trying to leave home about 3 hours prior to kickoff, getting a seat at BWW, eating some wings, drinking some beer. It is warm, relatively fast, and relatively cheap compared to most other pregame options. Last night however, I was taught a lesson. The lesson is that when there is a Monday night game, people either don't go to work that day, or leave at noon, and start drinking immediately. Now admittedly, we didn't get on the road in a timely fashion. My wife didn't get home from work until about 4:30, and it was around 5 before we left. Traffic was horrendous, which is a little unusual for the route we take and the time that we left, which I attribute to "rush hour" traffic. It was about 5:30 before we parked the car. Every place we went to try to get a seat was ridiculously packed. Had it been a Sunday morning, we may have found a seat. We ended up buying a beer, walking around, and giving up and going to the stadium like an hour early. I had never done it before, but we went into the atrium, which worked out pretty well. What made it all worth it was the $8.50 hot super bowl of Chili John's Chili, which is in my top 3 of Green Bay staples. (along with Kroll's and Cranky Pat's (f/k/a Frank and Pat's). I would have paid $12. It was that good. (You can buy it in the store but my wife hates it, and I can't find the 1/2 lb packages any more, and a full pound (of which 1/4 is grease) would kill me). Add to that a handful of my wife's cheese curds and a Honey Weiss and I was fat and happy when we finally went to our seats.

A couple of other notes for pregame. On the way to our seats, approximately 93% of people were smoking in the concourse. Which is both a) annoying and b) illegal. I wanted to just start punching people in the face. I realize that there are probably more important things for police to deal with, but fucking christ, a little effort here? People were so drunk they weren't even hiding it.

Inside the bowl it was obvious that I was correct that everyone either had the day off completely or left work at noon and immediately started drinking. Like in the car on the way home from work. It was pretty good. It definitely tends to lead to a louder crowd. And standing up to let others go to the bathroom every 30 seconds. I did see a kid that could not have been older than 17 get into a drunken shouting match with a lady behind him that would scream at him every time he stood up. Lady, if you don't wish to stand up, stay home. Do I like standing up the entire game? Not particularly, but if the guy in front of me stands, I don't have much of a choice, do I? And alot of that game (most of the second half) was exciting enough that people wanted to stand. The "down in front" thing drives me crazy.

The game itself was interesting. The offense was a little off kilter for most of the game, but managed to put together a couple of penalty aided drives. Rodgers didn't have his best game, but made enough throws to win. The defense was awesome. Essentially shut down Ray Rice (who reminds me alot of Maurice Jones-Drew). Made Flacco look foolish. Managed to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 pass interference penalties (I actually lost count after 34). The officiating was horrendous on both ends (maybe TV showed differently)? I know it was the second most penalized game in NFL history, but ALOT of those calls are usually not made. And ALOT were really, really late. Enough went the Packer's way for me to not complain too hard, but it is annoying. The penalties led to what might have been the longest game ever too. It was well after 11 before it got done.

Huge win. Crowd was awesome. Weather wasn't that bad. Probably not in the Top 10 coldest games I've been to. There is a 90% chance I will be going to the Seahawks game as the economy has murdered the prices of tickets on the secondary market.

Oh, and can we audition some kickers?

Special teams nearly killed us again. Problem not solved. Not even close.