My Official Green Bay Packers blog

In preparation for the Thanksgiving day game in Detroit, I’ve been reading up on some of the Detroit papers to take the pulse of those fans, the team and their expectations.

They’re flatlining.

On the cover of the Detroit News sports section on Monday morning, in 230-point font, are the words “Giant Letdown.”  Reading through the articles you get the sense that the Detroit faithful are beginning to settle into that comfortable place they always expect to be around this time of year; realizing they don’t measure up on the NFL playoff team yardstick, and watching their team’s record disintegrate to meet those expectations.  Like the hero who’s been caught in a bad spot and given a mickey before he’s taken someplace terrible, the Lions are throwing flailing, half-hearted girl-punches just before their eyes close and their vision fades to black. 

And in this story, the hero dies.

Their religious quarterback is throwing around blame like a priest with communion wafers, their coach is starting to make goofball play selections (like not using their first-round pick Calvin Johnson much at all, one of the most electrifying players of this year’s draft), and their running game is now worse than the Packers was at the beginning of the season.

About 500 miles away the Packers couldn’t be going in a more different direction.  This team is now believing the hype, and why shouldn’t they?  They’ve beaten almost everyone placed in front of them and the margin of victory is growing with each passing week.  Even Brett Favre is getting spooked by how loose and confident this team is playing.  He’s programming Vinny Testaverde’s number into his cell phone so he can tap him for the secrets to his longevity; playing for a team this good is so damn fun he’d like to hang around another couple years.

After the Lions dismantled the Denver Broncos right after we were barely beat them I was looking at tomorrow’s game as an important ramp-up to the match between the NFC leaders the following week.  But as it turns out, it’s going to be just what I said it’d be when I was interviewed by USA Today:  It’s the Lions.  You can’t spell late season collapse without the Lions.*

I look for Favre to be eating pie or mutant turkey or something tomorrow afternoon after beating the Lions by two touchdowns.

*The last part of that quote was edited out by the staff at USA Today for fear of being truthful.  Or something.

Technorati Tags: Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, Thanksgiving, NFL, Lion Meat Tastes Like Chicken

One blogger rule is never to apologize for the length of time between posts. But the truth is, I’m feeling a little guilty. There are some 200-odd daily visitors to the site, and for the last few weeks they’ve been treated to bupkis. So I have some catching up to do. And there’s so much to catch up on that I have to do it rapid-fire, otherwise the drool of boredom will spill onto your keyboard and short out your pc. So here we go:

Packers over the Denver Broncos – starstruck, afraid of meeting their Superbowl daddy from a decade ago or playing down to their opponent, the Packers couldn’t finish against an inferior team until a miracle was pulled from Favre’s jock on the first play from scrimmage in OT. It did make me wonder if all the talk about Favre’s failing arm strength was purposely leaked to get Champ Bailey and crew to bite on short-route fakes, as Bronco DB’s were beaten deep twice. And by the way – Tony Kornheiser fawned over Deanna Favre in the MNF booth like they’d just let him out of the high school yearbook room after spending two years there without ever seeing or touching a girl. He then proceeded to talk so glowingly about Favre that you’d swear that while working on that yearbook he got to touch Favre. Several times. The glowing coverage Favre’s getting is why people across the country wanted him out last year. Enough already.

Packers over the Kansas City Chiefs – Homer calls abound, as Larry Johnson’s “claiming the moon for the Chiefs” move resulted in no penalty, but Charles Woodson’s reputation for pass interference alone is good enough for at least one call against him. Johnson ends up paying for his flag smack when he’s wrestled to the ground later in the game with a leg bent at an unnatural angle.

Packers over the Minnesota Vikings – Packers defense sends a message for a second consecutive week to one-trick NFL franchises: If you have only one offensive weapon when we roll into town, you’ll have zero by the time we leave. Adrian Peterson gets taken down with a clean hit much like Johnson the week before, and leaves the game early, like Johnson the week before.

Packers over the Carolina Peppers – Work forced me to catch this game by radio, and I’m pretty sure that if Julius Peppers didn’t play for the Panthers, this would have been a New England Patriots / Buffalo Bills style blowout. If Peppers wasn’t getting to Favre by blowing past a gimpy Mark Tauscher, he was catching receivers from behind with open-field tackles. No more than 90 seconds passed between callouts of Peppers’ name when the Panther defense was on the field. If Peppers played iron-man style (offense and defense), the Panthers may have won.

SuperDuh – DeShawn Wynn woke up and smelled the pink slip when he realized that the worst stinger anyone else has ever suffered in the history of the NFL resulted in riding the bench for a month, while he was put on injured reserve for the remainder of the year to “help him heal.” The 7^th round pick nobody else wanted started making waves last week, threatening to file a grievance with the league to force the Packers to release him. Hello? McFly?! Do you think your chances are better with some other team? 31 some other teams had 6 chances to pick you before Green Bay in the draft and they passed. The drama queen act you’ve pulled since you got here probably hasn’t endeared you to the other NFL teams looking for a ball carrier. So go ahead, fight for your release – then the Packers can come back and pick you up as a free agent for minimum wage to sweep the empty beer cups out of Lambeau on Monday mornings.

The Packers are tied for the best record in the NFC as they head into Detroit for a turkey day tilt. More on that later.

Technorati Tags: Green Bay Packers, NFL, Bad Blogger

Cle at Pit
Phi at Was
Atl at Car
StL at N.O.
Buf at Mia - The sun even shines on a dog’s ass some days.
Den at K.C.
Jax at Ten
Min at G.B. - As Kansas City learned, one good hit from Hawk or Bigby and your single biggest weapon can be neutralized. Don’t go banking on the lastest pair of fast feet in the NFC North just yet.
Cin at Bal
Dal at NYG
Det at Ari
Chi at Oak
Ind at S.D.
S.F. at Sea

I placed the previous 2 week’s picks elsewhere on a verifiable location, and will post them shortly. Let’s just say I lost my money in week 8 and won it back in week 9.