Perspective From The Afterlife

I'm coming straight at you from the right hand of Sports Bottle's god to spout some overreaction, and maybe some glass half-full stuff after my heart exploded in the last two minutes yesterday.

I think I'll start with the negatives since I find myself able to write much lengthier recaps when the Packers lose. It really is amazing how little I have to write about when we win. I've probably already written more today than I had in the last five weeks. Does that make me negative? Maybe. I just think I don't have access to blow the players like the real media does, so it would seem to be a huge waste of everyone's time for me to pat anyone on the back. ANYWAYS

-Jarrett Bush. I mean, seriously. Why is he not playing for the Tennesee Titans? He is incapable of playing corner. Partially due to injuries and I presume partially due to the fact that Pittsburgh ran the Houston Oilers offense from the late 80's, Bush was on the field the entire game. He single handedly cost us 10 points. Both of the long catches he gave up were inexcusable. He completely stopped running on the first one. Both times, he had no clue where the ball was, and it was in the air for roughly 45 seconds. So frustrating. At a minimum you should be able to make a play on the ball with both of those passes. I just don't understand how you let a receiver run past you after 15 seconds. Usually when a guy gets beat, someone else is at least partially to blame. But on both of those passes, it seemed pretty clear that Bush was manned up on the guy.

-Mason Crosby. I'm trying to come up with a good corollary here if he still has a job by Monday afternoon. George Bush did a pretty terrible job at president for a while there (8 years). Matt Millen in Detroit? I think that is a pretty good one. Ned Yost? A 34 yard field goal is nearly automatic in the NFL. Thompson should have been on the horn during the game looking for a new kicker, because Dallas is probably also looking for one this week. I think that he is 1/3 responsible for the loss. I realize that it seems funny to say, and probably a stretch given everything that happened, but that FG was HUGE. There is no way there isn't someone on the street that can hit a 34 yarder 90+% of the time. It is so bad now that I really believe we are better off going for it on almost all 4th downs. That I was sure we would lose if we didn't score a TD on that last drive. I'm going to write my congressmen or something. His ineptitude is getting out of hand.

-503 YARDS???? I mean wow. We couldn't cover ANYONE. We sat in zone, and he destroyed us. We blitzed and Big Ben would break two tackles, locate Bush, and hit a wide open receiver. It was sick. Did the Steelers expose our secondary? Also, the Psycho defense doesn't work against future Hall of Fame QBs, I think we've settled that. Woodson had his worst game of the season by far. I don't believe the referees helped anything. A.J. Hawk and B.J. Raji are not capable of guarding Heath Miller.

-8 carries??? I dislike Ryan Grant. A-Rodg is awesome, and the passing game was unstoppable. So it is hard to complain about the offense. But we ran the ball less than 10 times. In an NFL game. Perhaps we could have kept that ball out of the Steelers hands? I'm pretty much nit picking.

THE POSITIVES?

-A-Rodg. May have been better than the guy that threw for 503 yards. He also torched a top 5 defense. He was amazing. Somehow, some asshole on a radio call in is going to blame him for "not winning in the 4th quarter".

-Jermichael Finley. Even though he wears a disturbing jersey (child size small, name on the back is 1/4 the size of everyone else's), he is really, really good.

-36 points. We did plenty enough to win on offense. I don't think there is any doubt how good the offense is when Rodgers isn't getting killed.

-Clay Matthews. The guy is incredible. 10+ sacks in his rookie year. And he clearly got hosed out of another one.

The Pack refuses to make this easy on anyone. Just when it looked like they were a shoo-in for the five seed, everything went wrong this weekend. If the Giants win tonight, we have a bit of a mess on our hands. We should beat Seattle handily next weekend, but there are no guarantees. Arizona now officially has nothing to play for, so we are getting Leinart in week 17. So we are still in pretty good shape.

I'm not sure you can be that broken up about losing to the Steelers on the last play of the game on a semi-miraculous throw and catch. I just hope the defensive performance was a blip in an otherwise great season. Ben R. was having a pretty great year, so it wasn't like it was completely out of the question for him to play well, I just wasn't really expecting to lose a game that we scored 36 points in. I still think we are OK. As long as we get rid of Crosby.

Non-Degenerate's Picks for Use By Degenerate

Last Week: 11-5
Season: 95-87-1
All-Time: 229-213-3

Ind (-3), NO (-8), Phi (-8), Ari (-12.5), Hou (-12.5), KC (-1.5), Buf (+7), Bal (-10.5), Ten (-3.5), NYJ (NL), Oak (+14), SD (-6.5), GB (+1), Sea (-6.5), Min (-9), NYG (-3)

OTHER STUFF:

-The Pack is going to have its hands full Sunday, although I truthfully am not that worried. If you look at Pittsburgh, the only thing they do that we may not handle is rush the QB. We have done a much better job in the last few weeks of keeping Rodgers from dying. Pittsburgh's offense does not scare me at all. Big Ben is good, their receivers are decent and Mendenhall isn't terrible, but we've handled far better offenses. If Grant can manage his 2.9 yards a carry, Rodgers doesn't get killed, we don't give up any kick returns for TDs (definitely not a guarantee) and we just go for it or punt on every fourth down because a FGA is a waste of time, I think we win. I'm feeling 17-16, and clinching a playoff spot. Which is SWEET.

-Really, if you haven't seen "Jersey Shore" yet, you are missing something that should be in your life. It is "Real World" only not shitty, with Italians, spray tans, steroids and hair gel mixed in. This week, a chick nicknamed "Snooki" who is about 5'1" and not skinny (one of the other castmates said she was shaped like an exercise ball), got punched in the face by a dude. It was showed in full on the previews, but the show itself blacked the actual punch out (which was highly disappointing). Anyway, I highly encourage you to watch it. It is laugh out loud funny, and the best part is the people on it are not trying to be funny.



-I have to go Christmas shopping tonight to get some shit for my wife. And then we have to go tomorrow because we haven't purchased any presents. And like every year, I don't think of buying anything until it is too late to buy it online, and every year I get angry at myself.

I hate Mason Crosby, but....

I cannot stand Mason Crosby. Sports Bottle is absolutely right that we are lucky he hasn't cost us a game. I think it is probably best if we cut ties now so that he doesn't miss a 36 yarder to win the NFC Championship at the Metrodome, and he is murdered 12 million times over by Packer fans. He has made at least 2 games far more interesting than they needed to be. The thing is, he is missing routine kicks. Kicks that you would think most NFL kickers should make more than 95% of the time. It has gotten to the point where we won't even try a FG over 50. And in the NFL, occasionally you need a 52 yarder. A hail mary has a better chance of going in at this point.

Statistically, Crosby has not only been horrible compared to past years, but he is horrible compared to other kickers. He currently ranks TWENTY NINTH in the NFL in FGpct (75%), which is probably a deceiving stat since it includes all FG regardless of distance. It appears the NFL average is somewhere around 85%. To make it ever worse, Crosby is 5 of 12 from over FORTY YARDS!!! That is under 50%!!

I was about to make the argument that he is just as good as anyone off the street, but I'm not so sure. Under 50% from 40 yards and out is inexcusable. I don't think it is jumping the gun to ask for his job. Its not like he missed one short FG and cost us a game and everyone is freaking out. He is just consistently shitty. I don't think he should be required to cost us a game before he is gone.

Prediction: He is on the team next week at Pittsburgh.

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.