Hotdogs can be slippery characters. They can squirt out of buns like a soapy bar of Irish Spring. Forget trying to hold onto a football with them. And they don’t like to bend; one will break long before you can contort it into a “L” and place it on your forehead.
Thankfully, we don’t have to wear the hotdog letter of shame on our heads this week, as the defense stepped up (kinda) and Favre started putting some points on the board. However, it’s not December yet, so Ahman Green and his hotdog fingers are putting the ball on the ground. I missed a small portion of the game, but counted 2 Green fumbles - one ruled down before it slipped from his greasy digits (this one was probably a lucky break; with the right camera angle that one was the Lions ball), and the other gave the Lions a chance to tie or win the game with seconds left.

It’s got to be hard on all the players when 72,000 Packer fans simultaneously suck the air out of Lambeau, gasping whenever Green gets the ball pre-December, holding their breath in anticipation of another fumble. Give the guy 30 carries in a game and you’ll have hand out paper bags at the gates to save people from hyperventilating.

Can we fly Tiki Barber in to talk to Green? I think Barber realized what Green hasn’t yet figured out: fumbles beget fumbles. If a defense knows you’re prone to putting the ball on the ground, a guy will take a chance at missing a tackle for the opportunity to swing an arm at the ball-carrying arm (which is predictable with Green, because he’s gone public - he can’t carry both ways). For every carry someone’s going to make a run at that ball. Get good at locking up that ball like Tiki, and the defense learns that the odds of causing a fumble is about nil. Better just wrap him up and not worry about making the big play on Barber.

But not Green. He’s a walking, talking incentive-maker for any defense.

Favre connecting with Greg Jennings is fun to see. I haven’t seen enough to know if Jennings makes great cuts or is just a great at the deke, but he’s able to find seams and get open, and is track-star fast once he has the ball. He looks to be an excellent get. I hope they’re able to keep him around for a long while. We just need to get Favre on the treadmill a few times a week, because if Jennings is around, Favre is going to have to make at least one celebration sprint into the endzone per game.

“I’ve got to stop doing that because I get so tired,” said Favre, who turns 37 next month. “I have to be smarter. Mike [McCarthy] said, ‘Great job, but you have to quit running around like that,’ because I couldn’t talk to him, I couldn’t breathe.

So it looks like the Packers still have a boy to whip in the NFC North. They haven’t faced the Vikings yet, but I expect them to give the Pack a much stiffer fight than the toothless Lions. Next week they face the Eagles on Monday Night. There will be no 4th and 26’s on that night, my football friends. The outcome of that game will be determined well before the final seconds tick off the clock.

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