Remember on Friday that I pointed out that the NFL regular season and the postseason are not the same thing.
If last Packer season didn’t prove that, Sunday’s 37–20 NFC second-round loss to the New York Giants did. All the Packers’ 15–1 regular season did was get them a number-one seed for what turned out to be a one-game postseason.
The irony is that the Packers’ much maligned defense, with the egregious exception at the end of the first half and the fourth quarter, didn’t play that badly. The defense forced three Giant field goals instead of touchdowns and two turnovers. Eli Manning’s last touchdown pass in the best postseason game of his career came right after Ryan Grant’s fumble.
Sunday’s problem was the one thing that had been excellent all season — the offense. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers looked as if he hadn’t played in three weeks, missing receivers with whom he would have connected in the regular season. The team that finished second in the regular season in turnover ratio committed three turnovers. The Packer offense played as if the football was made of molten lava, with eight dropped passes. As New Orleans (five turnovers) showed Saturday, you cannot turn the ball over and expect to win in the postseason.
As Packer fans recall after the Giants’ last postseason win at Lambeau Field, playoff losses suck because a return playoff trip does not necessarily follow. (Recall that half of the 2010 playoff teams did not appear in the 2011 playoffs.) As the financial types say, past performance does not necessarily predict future results. The chemistry of this year’s team won’t be the same next year, just because things change. Players get better or worse or leave, and assistant coaches leave to improve their own careers, and their replacements are not guaranteed to be improvements.
And so, as defined by my wife, winter begins. (And no, Miss Wisconsin’s winning Miss America is not better than winning a Super Bowl.) However, things could be worse: You could be a fan of Da Bears or the (headed-to-Los-Angeles?) Vikings.
We have reached the NFL postseason and one of the oldest non-divisional rivalries in the NFL, the Packers and the New York Giants.
The Packers’ and Giants’ postseason history dates back to the Don Hutson years, when the Packers went 2–1 in NFL Championships (Giants 23–17 in 1938, Packers 27–0 in 1939 and 14–7 in 1944). The first two NFL championships of Vince Lombardi were over his former employer, 37–0 in 1961 and 16–7 in 1962. And then there was the 23–20 overtime abomination four years ago, the last game of Packer quarterback Brett Favre.
The New York Times appears to have some regard for their home team’s opponent:
The phone rang well after midnight in the Sports department. It was January 2008, and the Giants had beaten the Packers in overtime in the N.F.C. championship game.
A Packers fan was on the line, calling from a bar, after having had a few.
But he wasn’t angry. He was calling to congratulate the Giants and Giants fans. He said the Giants had won fair and square, had won the line of scrimmage, and on behalf of friends at the bar and of Packers fans, he wanted to wish the team well.
(He made a joke about not being so kind if the Vikings had beaten the Packers.)
Nothing like that phone call had happened in my time in our office and hasn’t happened since.
Fans must marvel at the NFL’s ability to rotate its playoff teams. Six of the 12 2011 playoff teams — the Packers (making only their third consecutive playoff appearance), New Orleans, Atlanta, New England, Baltimore and Pittsburgh —played in the 2010 playoffs. That means six teams are new — San Francisco, the Giants, Detroit (visiting the playoffs for the first time since 1991), Houston (making the Texans’ first playoff visit in franchise history), Denver and Cincinnati. That also means six 2010 playoff teams didn’t make the 2011 playoffs — Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Indianapolis, Kansas City and the New York Jets. Yet, since the Packers returned to regular playoff visits in 1993, only in 1999 have neither the Packers nor the Giants made the postseason.
I sarcastically called the 2011 Packers the worst 15–1 team ever because of the number of complaints about their defense, irrespective of the fact that their defense did not cost them a single game this season. Yards do not show up on a standard stadium scoreboard; points do. And as noted here before, the best predictor of winning an NFL title over the past 21 season is point differential; in 15 of the past 21 seasons, the team that finished first or second in point differential won the Lombardi Trophy. The Packers finished second in point differential last season and this season.
One sign of the Packers’ regular-season dominance is the fact that the Packers beat every NFC playoff team (twice in Detroit’s case) except the one team they didn’t play, San Francisco, plus Denver from the AFC. To paraphrase the financial types, though, regular-season performance does not necessarily predict playoff results, as the Packers showed by losing to Minnesota (who they beat twice in the regular season) in the 2004 playoffs, the Giants in the 2007 playoffs, and Arizona in the 2009 playoffs.
NFL observers have been comparing the Giants’ recent play to the 2007 Giants, which after a so-so regular season had to win playoff games on the road against higher-seeded teams before upsetting New England in Super Bowl XLIII. Grantland’s Charles P. Pierce:
It has been a revelatory month for the Giants, who are now playing better defense than anyone in the league. [Osi] Umenyiora and Justin Tuck are both back from nagging injuries. (Tuck had a come-to-Jesus meeting with coach Tom Coughlin a few weeks back that may have turned the entire season around.) The improvement in the front seven has taken the pressure off a dodgy New York secondary, which played with great confidence [against Atlanta], jamming the fleet Atlanta receivers and busting [quarterback Matt] Ryan’s timing to hell and gone. And on the other end of that defensive line is Jason Pierre-Paul, a man with no discernable last name, who might be the best defensive player in the NFL. Watching him play for the first time is utterly revelatory, like the first time you saw Tim Lincecum paint a corner, or Kevin Durant leave a defender groping at the air. You jump out of your seat when he makes a play, even in the relative anonymity of the defensive line. And with all that, he’s still incredibly raw. “It’s still amazing,” New York’s Justin Tuck told ESPN’s Johnette Howard recently, “what he doesn’t know.”
The more interesting comparison is to last year’s Packers, which had to win their last two regular-season games and then beat, in order, the third-, first- and second-seeded teams in the NFL on the road to get to Super Bowl XLV. The Packers’ three 2010 playoff opponents were all teams the Packers had played in the regular season.
The fact that the 2007 Packers beat the Giants in the regular season but lost in the NFC championship is an exception to the way Packer things usually are, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Since ’09, the Packers are 10-3 in rematch games against opponents, including 7-2 in the second or third meeting with their NFC North brethren. Before ’09, they were 6-4 under McCarthy – the only playoff loss the NFC Championship Game against the Giants – making them 16-7 overall in rematches.
McCarthy said last week that his staff believes it comes up with superior game plans when it meets a team for the first time, but the record obviously shows that it does pretty well the second time, too. Often, it’s just a case of the coaches noticing areas where they could have done better and adjusting accordingly.
The Packers finished 15–1 despite giving up the most yards in the NFL this season. Some claim that means the Packers have a terrible defense. If they’re saying that about the Packers, they also need to say that about the AFC’s number one seed, New England, which finished next to last in defensive yardage. And yet both the Packers (the first team to give up the most yardage and yet get a conference number one seed) and the Patriots were in the middle of the NFL pack in the more important statistic, points given up.
Green Bay and New England not only finished at the top of the heap with bad defenses statistically, they are on a combined 48-7 streak. Offense sells tickets, defense wins championships? …
Obviously, New England and Green Bay have top offenses, ranked second and third statistically, after New Orleans. What jumps out about the Packers and Patriots is their yards per pass attempt. Green Bay gains 9.3 yards per attempt, the NFL’s best, while New England gains 8.6 yards per attempt, second-best. The most efficient rushing team this season, Carolina, gained 5.4 yards per attempt, and finished with a losing record. The second-most efficient rushing team, Minnesota, with 5.2 yards per attempt, finished 3-13. Gaining the most yards per try with passing plays is the winning football formula of the moment. …
Are Green Bay and New England of 2011 flukes? Both pass the ball with such efficiency that it doesn’t seem to matter how many yards their defenses allow. Both often jump to big leads and don’t care if their defenses give up yardage late. In the 2010 season, the Chargers finished first on defense and failed to make the playoffs — take that, purists!
Defense is not about how many yards you give up. It is not entirely about how many points you give up, either. It is about making one more play than the opponent’s offense. That explains why, despite being dead last in yardage, the Packer defense was 14th in points given up. The “one more play” was often an interception, in which the Packers led the NFL. (Ask San Diego’s Philip Rivers or Detroit’s Matthew Stafford.) Turnovers are how yards don’t become points.
Another point in the Packers’ favor is not just their home field advantage, but the traditional home field advantage of the AFC’s and NFC’s top two seeds. While the Giants were holding off Atlanta, the Packers spent the past two weeks fixing various things and preparing for the two teams. That’s why the biggest home field advantage is in the second round of the playoffs, not the wild card round and not the conference championship round.
There is one other thing that must be brought up. That is the death of Michael Philbin, the 21-year-old son of Packers offensive coordinator Joe Philbin. ESPN Milwaukee’s Jason Wilde reports how McCarthy handled this with his team:
McCarthy had almost reached the end to his answer to Wisconsin State Journal columnist Tom Oates’ question – Do you have an idea of how this has affected the team emotionally? – about three minutes into the 10-minute press conference when his emotions got the best of him. (You can watch the press conference in its entirety on Packers.com.)
“We talked about that as a football team today and frankly the topic was the ability to separate. It’s part of our program. It’s nothing we haven’t spoken on before,” McCarthy replied. “We talked about the importance of having the ability to separate personal challenges and your professional challenges. And it really goes in line with the family-first philosophy. Everybody’s feeling it. There’s no question on what level. That’s really for the individual to speak on. But professionally, I’ve been very pleased with what we’ve been able to accomplish. We had a very productive day Monday with everything going on on Monday. And today just a ton of energy (at practice). Clearly from a tempo standpoint, the execution was probably one of our finer Wednesday practices.
“And I think the reality of this just gave everybody a punch in the heart to let you know the reality …” That’s when McCarthy stopped, took a deep breath, bowed his head and then continued, his lip quavering. “… how fortunate to be where we are.”
Today is Michael Philbin’s funeral. As for Sunday, said McCarthy, “Frankly, Joe and I haven’t even talked about his responsibility and will not. He’s with his family and he’ll return when he feels he’s ready to return.”
McCarthy has obviously surrounded himself with high-quality assistant coaches and players. No one with any character would equate the importance of a football game with the importance of your child’s life. And yet you have to believe Joe Philbin would feel absolutely awful about the possibility of his absence’s adversely affecting his team to the point where it lost Sunday. I believe the Packer players won’t let that happen.
Two minutes into Sunday’s Lions–Packers game, I commented that anyone who bought tickets to the game (including, I’m guessing, a fair number of non-season-ticket-holders, given the date of the game and the fact the game didn’t mean anything to the Packers) was getting ripped off.
Never mind. If you weren’t entertained by Packers 45, Lions 41, there’s something wrong with you. No Aaron Rodgers, Greg Jennings, Randall Cobb, James Starks, Clay Matthews or Charles Woodson? No problem. The combined 1,125 yards broke the old record set in the 48–47 win over Washington in 1983. (Packers president Mark Murphy played in that game for the Redskins. The next day’s headline in the Washington Post was hilarious: “The defense rests.”)
To repeat: The Packers were missing seven starters (including offensive lineman Bryan Bulaga) against one of the better teams in the NFC, and still won. (And, by the way, finished their season by sweeping the NFC North.)
As numerous commentators predicted afterward, backup quarterback Matt Flynn may have made himself a career on another team for next season. All Flynn did was throw for a team-record 480 yards and a team-record six touchdown passes, the last to Jermichael Finley with 1:10 left, ending a game-winning drive that went 80 yards in 1:29. And despite giving up 575 yards of offense, including a record 525 yards passing by Matthew Stafford, the Packers got the one defensive play they needed, a Sam Shields interception with 25 seconds left.
Rain. Sleet. Snow. Below-freezing temperature readings and swirling winds gusting over 30 mph at kickoff.
So, naturally, two quarterbacks who’d never started a game before at fabled Lambeau Field combined to pass for 1,000 yards and 11 touchdowns Sunday.
Right.
The Detroit Free Press’ Drew Sharp quoted Lions coach Jim Schwartz:
“They couldn’t have played worse,” Schwartz said about the Lions’ secondary. “We covered poorly. We tackled poorly. We played man-to-man poorly. We blitzed poorly. We played zone poorly.” …
They’re still in the playoffs, but this loss exponentially increased the odds that it will be an abbreviated stay. Had they merely accepted the Packers’ graciousness, they would have ensured themselves a much easier first-round opponent — the inevitable NFC East champion. But now, the Lions (10-6) must go back to New Orleans (13-3), where it already has been suggested that Drew Brees’ production against this Lions’ secondary could be measured in miles rather than yards. …
This was a junior varsity version of the Packers that the Lions couldn’t beat.
That phrase “there’s something wrong” has been a theme the second half of the season. ESPN noted that the Packers set a record for giving up pass yardage in a season. The Packers finished 32nd of the 32-team NFL in yardage given up — just the third time the Packers finished dead last in defensive yardage, in addition to 1956 (4–8) and 1983 (8–8) — although they were 14th in points given up. One reason for the difference between yards and points is the Packers’ turnover margin of +24, behind only San Francisco. The Packers also had the fewest penalties (tied with Indianapolis) and had the second fewest penalty yards.
For those who believe those who don’t learn from football history are doomed to repeat it: The Packers scored the most points in team history and the second most points in NFL history this season, behind only the 2007 Patriots. But none of the top four single-season scoring offenses won that season’s Super Bowl.
On the other hand, it was noted later that New England is the AFC’s number one seed at 13–3. None of those 13 wins was over a team with a winning record. One of the functions of the sports media is to pick on whoever is the flavor of the day, when they’re not being front-runners, that is.
The better harbinger is what’s happened to the NFL’s 15–1 teams. The 1984 49ers and 1985 Bears won their seasons’ Super Bowls, while the 1998 Vikings and 2004 Steelers lost their conference title games.
Niyo makes the most pertinent point about the Packers’ defense:
And that, in a nutshell, is what today’s NFL has become. It’s a shooting gallery, with trigger-happy quarterbacks and their offensive coordinators calling the shots, more often than not.
How else do you explain what we’ve seen lately, with Brees breaking Dan Marino’s decades-old single-season record for passing yardage last week, only to have the Patriots’ Tom Brady do the same Sunday? And to have Stafford, a 23-year-old essentially completing his first full season, nearly match them both, throwing for 520 yards and five touchdowns Sunday to finish the regular season with a whopping 5,038 passing yards.
How else do you explain the fact that the top-seeded teams in both the NFC (Green Bay) and the AFC (New England) were ranked 31st and 32nd in the league, respectively, in total defense? New Orleans was ranked 26th, one spot ahead of the 1–15 Indianapolis Colts, by the way.
The Packers have two weeks to get ready for probably the winner of the Atlanta–New York Giants game Jan. 15 at 3:30 p.m., which means they’ll face two teams they’ve already beaten this season. (The other possibility is Detroit again if the Lions upset New Orleans Saturday night, but see the previous comment about how many miles the Lions defense will give up to the Saints.)
This is not a normal NFL season. Keep that in mind when thinking about the Packers’ chances to repeat as Super Bowl champions. Stop worrying about the Packer defense and remember this from earlier this season: In 15 of the 21 previous seasons the Super Bowl champion finished either first or second in the NFL in point differential. New Orleans was first this season, +208. Green Bay was second, +201. So my prediction based on that is that either the Saints or the Packers will win Super Bowl XLVI.
The last Presteblog of 2011 is called That Was the Year That Was 2011, a tradition of the Marketplace of Ideas column from 1994 to 2000 and then of the Marketplace of Ideas blog from 2008 to 2010.
The title comes from the British TV series “That Was the Week that Was,” a weekly satirical series that made David Frost and Roy Kinnear popular:
While the TWTYTW 2010 blog no longer exists (ask my former employer what happened to it), a video version of sorts does still exist courtesy of FDL Podcasting:
There was one prediction that I didn’t make — the creation of this blog for the reason you all know. For what it’s worth, this blog is nine months old today. This was not how I planned to spend three-fourths of 2011, but someone once said that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
I also didn’t predict that I’d be on Facebook, and I don’t believe Google+ existed when this blog began. The former has been more satisfying than the latter, largely because Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with people I’d lost track of, in one case, from middle school. (That, I should point out, includes the one Facebook Friend I deFriended, and the one Facebook Friend who deFriended me. The latter was because my political views angered him for the last time; the first was because he was as much of an idiot on Facebook — unless you think a 45-year-old fan of “The Jersey Shore” is not incredibly strange, that is — as he was in high school. C’est la vie.)
This is an opinion blog, which means readers get opinions here every day, whether about federal or state politics, American or Wisconsin business, food and drink (I’m in favor of both), motor vehicles, the media, music, sports (particularly the Packers and Badgers), and whatever else comes to my mind. As I’ve written before, after the best thing someone can tell a reader — something like “I enjoy your work and I agree with you” — the second best thing someone can tell a writer is something along the line of “I read your stuff, and you are absolutely wrong.” (I’m getting a lot of that recently; can’t imagine why.) The worst thing someone can tell a writer is something like “You write? I’ve never read your stuff.” My blog software tells me that people are reading this blog, whether they agree with what I write or not.
I continue to be what (at least) two people have called me: a “media ho’.” I occasionally appear on WTMJ-TV’s “Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes” …
… and Wisconsin Public Radio’s Friday Week in Review, and, twicethis month, WTDY in Madison. That is the logical result of never saying no to a media invitation, I guess. This is also a personal blog, so readers have gotten to read (or, if you like, have had to endure) the unusual facets of my past in small-town newspapers (including my biggest story), radio and sports announcing.
I’m pretty sure the largest number of blog entries this year (other than the daily “Presty the DJ” pieces) involved state politics. We endured several state Senate recalls (all but two of which were unsuccessful) because of the efforts of Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans to undo the disaster area that was state finance under the Doyle (mis)administration and the 2009–10 Legislature. The 15 percent of state workers who work for government had a different opinion, as Christian Schneider notes:
The year began with an appeal for more civility in politics, in the wake of the shooting of Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Yet when the Capitol explosion began in mid-February, Walker and legislators of both parties started receiving death threats. State Sen. Spencer Coggs called Walker’s plan “legalized slavery,” and state Sen. Lena Taylor (along with dozens of protesters) compared Walker to Adolf Hitler. A Democratic Assemblyman yelled “you’re fucking dead” to a Republican colleague on the chamber floor following debate on Walker’s plan. Protesters targeted Walker’s children on Facebook, and Republican Rep. Robin Vos was assaulted with a flying pilsner.
So shocking was Walker’s plan that President Barack Obama criticized the governor, deeming it an “assault” on unions. Yet if Walker was a first-time union assailant, Obama continues to be a serial offender — federal employees aren’t allowed to collectively bargain for wages and benefits. …
During the summer, unions spent over $20 million to unseat six Republican state senators who voted for Walker’s plan. This exposed exactly why it’s about the money. Government employees merely serve as conduits for taxpayer funds to work their way to the unions, who then spend money electing obeisant legislators to negotiate favorable contracts. Shockingly, lefty “good government” groups appear not to have a problem with this blatant purchase of favors.
It was a year that granted the definition of the word “democracy” a previously unimaginable elasticity. While bullhorns around the Capitol blared “this is what democracy looks like,” 14 Democratic state senators fled to Illinois to prevent democracy from occurring. Later, a single Dane County judge would overturn Walker’s law, which irony-deficient Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca called “a huge win for democracy in Wisconsin.” The law would later be reinstated by an incredulous state Supreme Court. …
2011 was the year that public-sector bargaining became a fundamental human right, bestowed on the people of Wisconsin from the heavens. “We will not be denied our God-given right to join a real union,” thundered Marty Beil, head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, in February.
Yet God apparently first appeared in Wisconsin in 1959, when Democratic Gov. Gaylord Nelson signed the nation’s first public-sector collective bargaining law. It was a shrewd political move — four years earlier, unions had financed 55% of unsuccessful Democrat William Proxmire’s gubernatorial campaign. The year before Nelson created the law, Democrats had a $10,000 deficit in their state account; four years later, that had turned into a $50,000 surplus. At the time, it looked a lot less like a divine right and more like a naked political favor. (God has yet to visit 24 other states, which either have limited or no public-sector collective bargaining at all.)
Public-sector unions want you to believe that they are synonymous with public-sector employees. They are not. No self-respecting professional teacher should want to have anything to do with teacher unions, the biggest blight upon our educational system. That’s my opinion, but that was also the opinion of the late Steve Jobs.
One should never expect the unvarnished truth during the political process, but unions and their apparatchiks took falsehoods to new depths during Recallarama. Unfortunately for unions, evidence contrasting their assertions existed online. Unfortunately for Democrats and unions and other lefties, the more than $40 million they spent succeeding in reducing the state Senate Republican margin from 19–14 to 17–16, or 16 Republicans, 16 Democrats and one RINO, Dale Schultz.
One should never expect ideological or philosophical consistency from human beings, so keep that in mind when you read tributes to the Occupy ______ types. Most of the same people falling all over themselves praising the protesters were singing quite a different tune when the tea party movement began in 2009. Other than the obvious ideological differences, the biggest difference between Occupy _____ and the tea party movement is that the tea party movement succeeded in electing its candidates in November 2010. Occupy _____ has not one single electoral win and not one single political accomplishment yet. That includes Red Fred Clark, who a majority of 14th Senate District voters foundwanting.
One should never expect politicians to do what they say they’re going to do immediately (or perhaps not at all), but Walker doesn’t deserve an A grade yet. The state’s business climate rankings are better than they were a year ago, but 24th, 25th, 38th and 40th, with a C grade, is not nearly good enough. Until Wisconsin gets consistent top five rankings, Wisconsin will continue to trail the nation in business creation and per capita personal income growth, Wisconsinites will continue to suffer from excessive unemployment and insufficient income, and state and local governments will continue to lack the kind of revenue that comes from a healthy economy.
Speaking of the economy, it is in “recovery,” if that’s what you want to call it. The brilliance of the Obama administration is demonstrated in the current national unemployment rate of 8.6 percent, after nearly three years of the stimulus that stimulus supporters guaranteed would reduce unemployment below 8 percent. Since everyone who was paying attention knew that one major argument for the stimulus was to trade job creation now for higher unemployment (during a theoretically recovered economy) later, you can safely conclude there will be no improvement in unemployment for the foreseeable future. The “jobless recovery” has been predicted for three decades; well, it’s here now, which means that the economy will not be noticeably better in consumer spending generally or purchasing of big-ticket items specifically.
As usually happens, a number of stories didn’t get the attention they should, as WND.com notes:
1. The true rate of unemployment and inflation and the real state of the U.S. economy, which is far worse than reported.
The figure was five times the 2010 gross domestic product of the United States and exceeded the estimated gross domestic product for the world by approximately $14.4 trillion, according to economist John Williams.
The difference between the $1.3 trillion “official” 2010 federal budget deficit numbers and the $5.3 trillion budget deficit is that the official budget deficit is calculated on a cash basis, where all tax receipts, including Social Security tax receipts, are used to pay government liabilities as they occur.
“The government cannot raise taxes high enough to bring the budget into balance,” Williams said. “You could tax 100 percent of everyone’s income and 100 percent of corporate profits and the U.S. government would still be showing a federal budget deficit on a GAAP accounting basis.”
What’s more, the seasonally-adjusted rate adjusted for long-term discouraged workers – who were defined out of official existence in 1994 – was more than 22 percent in November.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics broadest measure of unemployment, which includes the short-term discouraged and other marginally attached works, along with part-time workers who can’t find full-time employment is more than 15 percent.
Methodological shifts in government reporting also have depressed reported inflation. If inflation were calculated the way it was in 1990, the annual rate would be nearly 7 percent. …
7. The real impact on the U.S. economy of Obama’s $787 billion stimulus.
While the Recovery Act boosted the economy in the short term, the extra debt generated by the stimulus “crowds out” private investment and “will reduce output slightly in the long run – by between 0 and 0.2 percent after 2016.”
The Obama administration had promised that at the peak of spending, 3.5 million jobs would be produced. …
8. The harmful impact of unions on the American economy.
“The most fundamental fact about labor unions is that they do not create any wealth,” he said.
Sowell pointed to a bill the Obama administration is trying to push through Congress, called the “Employee Free Choice Act,” as the best example of “the utter cynicism of the unions and the politicians who do their bidding.”
“Employees’ free choice as to whether or not to join a union is precisely what that legislation would destroy,” he said. …
While private-sector workers, using secret-ballot elections, have increasingly voted against being represented by unions in secret-ballot elections, government unions continue to thrive as taxpayers “provide their free lunch.” …
In September, Teamsters union President James Hoffa, addressing a large Labor Day rally, brazenly proclaimed that labor unions – especially the huge government employee unions like the 3-million-member National Education Association and 2-million-member Service Employees International Union – provide the ground troops in the ongoing war to “fundamentally transform” America into a socialist utopia.
“President Obama, this is your army! We are ready to march! Let’s take these son-of-a-b*tches out and give America back to an America where we belong,” he shouted, referring to the tea party movement.
The Obama administration has been generously “funding” the union army since the inauguration, from the General Motors bailout, which blatantly favored union workers, to Obamacare, whose burdensome new regulations don’t apply to many unions thanks to special White House waivers. Obama’s early executive order required all federal agencies to accept construction bids only from contractors who agree to use union workers, and he packed the D.C. bureaucracy with union officials.
Thank heavens for the current state of sports in Wisconsin. The Brewers got into the National League Championship Series (a place I predict they will not revisit soon), the Badgers are playing in their second consecutive Rose Bowl Monday (for my prediction, see this space Monday morning), and the Packers are the number one seed in the NFC playoffs a season after their fourth Super Bowl win. (I’ll have more to write about their next Super Bowl opportunity in January.) For those of us who endured such football as in 1988 (the Packers were 4–12 and the Badgers were 1–10), this still has an air of unreality to it.
Other interesting (and better) things happened in 2011. Our family set a personal record by heading for the basement three times as the tornado sirens went off for a non-test. The first happened while our German/French (now Italian) foreign exchange student was here. My, uh, freer schedule allowed me to go on field trips with our kids, including a church camp.
On to the year to come. I predict that the current economy will not be enough to get a majority of voters to fire Obama and his toadies. (Even if I run.) Too many Americans are still enthralled with the promise of Obama, even though the performance is best noted by his failures, and even though his biggest accomplishment (if that’s what you want to call it), ObamaCare, is tremendously unpopular with voters. (Perhaps they’ll start noticing when their employers drop employee health insurance, which will begin happening this coming year.)
The second reason for my prediction is that the Republicans are not exactly blowing the socks off voters through the interminable presidential-candidate-selection process, are they? There is no way in hell I will vote for Obama, and nor should you, but I can’t say there is a single GOP candidate I support for any reason than the fact that that candidate is not Obama. The fact that other voters feel like I do will be shown by support for a third-party — maybe more than one, in fact — candidate for president, including possibly Republican-turned-Libertarian Gary Johnson, Republican-about-to-turn-Libertarian Ron Paul, and Donald Trump.
Democrats shouldn’t jump for joy, though, because Republicans will not only retain the House of Representatives, but they will win the Senate in November. The demographic realities of the 2012 and 2014 Senate races will mean that, if my prediction (Obama’s winning with less than 50 percent of the popular vote) is correct, the gridlock you see in Washington will continue for most of this decade. I hope you enjoy it.
By the end of 2012, Wisconsin Democrats and their comrades will discover that Recallarama part deux was bad strategy, because whatever money they spend on defeating Walker in a recall election (which will result in Walker’s winning, by the way) cannot be used for (1) the U.S. Senate election, featuring socialist U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D–Madison); (2) efforts to unseat freshman U.S. Reps. Sean Duffy (R–Ashland) and Reid Ribble (R–Sherwood); efforts to win back (3A) the state Senate and (3B) Assembly by recall or by the November election; and, oh, by the way, (4) Obama’s campaign in this supposedly swing state.
It would be nice if Democratic and Republican office-holders and candidates would engrave in their brains article 1, section 22 of the state Constitution, which I repeat here for those Wisconsinites ignorant of it:
The blessings of a free government can only be maintained by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
My longer-term prediction is that this scorched-earth politics of ours will be reality for the foreseeable future, both at the national and state levels. Politics today is a zero-sum game — one side wins, the other side loses. How do you get past that, particularly when one side seeks to steal from the other? (That is exactly what Occupy ______ wants to do, either because they believe that’s how to solve unsolvable income and wealth inequality, or because they’re thieves at heart.) The 2011 Legislature is the direct result of the 2009–10 Legislature and its abuses of taxpayers, and whenever Democrats regain control of the Legislature, they will stick it to Republicans and their allies however, whenever and wherever they can. That wasn’t how politics worked when I was a UW Political Science student, but it is now.
The way I always end That Was the Year That Was is with these words: May your 2012 be better than your 2011. That may seem to be a low standard. That may also not be possible.
The Packers are not the only ones in the NFL threatening to make history with their 13–0 start (and 19-game winning streak, second longest in NFL history) — three quarterbacks are, reports the Wall Street Journal:
It’s not that there’s one quarterback threatening to smoke Dan Marino’s 27-year-old single-season passing record. There are three.
Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, who’s averaging 336 passing yards per game, and Tom Brady of New England, who’s at 329, are both on pace to surpass Marino’s mark of 5,084 yards. Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, who’s arguably having the best season by a quarterback in NFL history, is projected to come within eight yards.
The trend of footballs filling the air shows the influence of the NFL and college football on each other:
Starting in 1978, the NFL tried to open up the skies by enacting a rule that prohibited defensive players from making contact with receivers more than five yards downfield. The rule sent passing totals soaring over the next five seasons, culminating in 1982 when San Diego’s Dan Fouts averaged 321 yards passing per game—another record that’s in jeopardy. Defenses have caught up at various points, but later rules tweaks (many of them designed to protect quarterbacks and wide receivers) continue to make passing better. The way the rules are, says Fouts, now a CBS analyst, defense may never regain the advantage.
Still, the performances of this season’s three virtuosos can also be traced to something many NFL coaches and players are too haughty to mention: the powerful shaping influence of the college game.
Brees, Brady and Rodgers—who are all between 28 and 34 years old—are products of a time in college football when offense was being reshaped by the spread: a scheme that features the quarterback taking shotgun snaps with as many as five receivers and an empty backfield. The 1990s—after decades of buttoned-up militarism—were college football’s version of the psychedelic ’60s. Free-thinking coaches finally stepped away from the bedrock values of the power-running game to fully embrace the pass.
What prompted the NFL to liberalize the passing rules? It probably reveals itself in a comment to the story:
As a fan, the passing game is a lot more fun to watch than seeing a tailback run into the wall at the line of scrimmage and gaining 2 or 3 yards. … Passing equals action, and action is what fans want to see.
For all those purist football fans who actually enjoy games like the LSU–Alabama grim defensive struggle of earlier this season (LSU won 6–3 in overtime), one need look only at the NFL’s TV ratings to see that fans like the most passing- and offense-dominated NFL in league history. Most football fans are probably agnostic about what the correct run-to-pass ratio is, but they do like to see big plays, and big plays are easier to accomplish through the air than on the ground.
Think of it as free markets and competition at work in two different areas, the entertainment dollar being the first. Want to get people to spend thousands of dollars on season tickets, mandatory–voluntary contributions for said season tickets to college athletic departments, and logowear? Give them something more exciting to watch than three yards and a cloud of dust. (Or rubber pellets, in the world of artificial grass.) But it’s competition for players too in a world of 12-month one-sport athletes. One of the newer NFL trends is signing college basketball players to play tight end, most notably San Diego’s Antonio Gates and New Orleans’ Jimmy Graham.
This season’s offensive trend initially was credited to the NFL lockout, which banned coaches and players from meeting from after Super Bowl XLV until a settlement was reached and training camps hastily opened. Consider that last weekend the Packers set a single-season scoring record, in their 13th game. (That’s more points in 13 games than any Glory Days team, in the days when NFL teams played 14-game regular seasons, or any Packer team since 1978, when the season grew to 16 games.)
Today’s NFL passing game is the merger of two NFL offensive schools of thought — the Sid Gillman vertical passing game of the ’60s American Football League (traditionally seen in the Oakland Raiders teams of Al Davis, a former Gillman assistant), and the Bill Walsh “West Coast Offense,” which used the pass to not just move the chains (usually by finding the holes in the opponent’s defense) but control the ball through short passes and screen passes. Running the ball now seems limited to two situations — when your quarterback can’t throw very well, and when you’re trying to maintain the lead. The third ingredient comes from the college spread offense, the concept of widening the field by putting receivers everywhere and forcing defenders to not only cover the whole field, but worry about receivers bunched together.
Packer fans may think the Packers as a premier passing offense began in the Ron Wolf–Mike Holmgren era. But the early ’80s Packers under coach Bart Starr were at least entertaining to watch because of quarterback Lynn Dickey, receivers James Lofton and John Jefferson, and tight end Paul Coffman. Holmgren’s predecessor, Lindy Infante, had teams that could similarly move the ball through the air, but could do nothing else.
Well before then, the Packers had Don Hutson, who even 65 years after his retirement is still in the conversation about the best receivers in the history of pro football, catching passes from Hall of Famer Arnie Herber, the NFL’s three-time single-season passing leader, and Cecil Isbell, who threw touchdown passes in 23 consecutive games. Vince Lombardi is known for “run[ning] to daylight,” but his two Super Bowl wins came not because of running backs Paul Hornung (who was injured and about to retire) or Jim Taylor (who departed for New Orleans), but because of Starr’s arm and play-calling abilities. (Starr was known for successfully throwing deep on third-and-short plays. And the Ice Bowl-winning 68-yard drive featured five passes for 59 yards.)
UW Marching Band members and alumni have an alternative verse of “On Wisconsin” that, believe it or not, was created before the Don Mor(t)on Veer from Victory Reign of Error; it starts with …
On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin,
Bounce right off that line!
Run the ball three times a series,
Punt on fourth and nine!
Barry Alvarez’s UW football teams were exciting to watch because they won (including over teams UW wasn’t used to beating, such as Michigan and Ohio State), not because of the points or yards they put on the scoreboard. Winning tops all, of course, but in today’s entertainment world sports fans will not pay good money to be bored at the stadium. (Are you paying attention, Milwaukee Bucks?) Mor(t)on failed not merely because he won just six games in three seasons, but because his Veer from Victory offense was boring to watch, yet unsuccessful. That meant that UW games between 1987 and 1989 lacked both success and, except for the UW Band, entertainment value, which explains the precipitous attendance drop that threatened to destroy the entire UW athletic program.
(Side note: In a fit of … I’m not sure what, I purchased the book written by Mor(t)on and his former boss, former Minnesota coach Jim Wacker, The Explosive Veer Offense for Winning Football. This shows the value of the book: By the time Wacker got to Minnesota, he had dumped the veer for the run-and-shoot. I wonder what I should do with their book.)
While everyone thinks of the Badgers as a white-bread pound-the-ball team, it should be noted that four of the five Rose Bowl teams in the Alvarez–Bielema era wouldn’t have gotten to Pasadena without their quarterbacks. Darrell Bevell (1993) and Scott Tolzien (2010) were smart quarterbacks with enough arm to find their receivers. Brooks Bollinger (2000) and Russell Wilson (2011) were dual threats, able to beat teams with their arms or their legs.
Wilson, one of the best stories of college football this year, is the one player, I’d argue, that got the Badgers to Pasadena. Running back Montee Ball is about to set the single-season touchdown record, but if this play doesn’t happen, we’re talking about a bowl game somewhere other than sunny southern California:
When Alvarez coached the Badgers, they had one receiving threat at a time — Lee Deramus (who briefly played for New Orleans), Tony Simmons (who played for New England), Chris Chambers (who played for Miami) and Lee Evans (who plays for Buffalo). Under offensive coordinator Paul Chryst (a former Badger quarterback and tight end who played for the aforementioned Mor(t)on and son of a former UW assistant), teams now have to defend both the run and the pass, which makes either easier. Football is still about execution, but if defenses don’t know what’s coming, that leads to uncertainty, and uncertainty leads to tentative play.
The aerial trend has even reached Wisconsin high schools, in a state with football weather frequently inhospitable to passing, or so you’d think. Football-power states such as Texas have had seven-on-seven summer passing leagues for several years. And yet earlier this year I saw something I hadn’t seen in 23 years of covering high school football in this state. I announced a game in which one of the teams opened with seven consecutive passes, throwing on 12 of its first 13 plays and 17 times (as opposed to seven runs) in the first half. And scored 28 points on offense, by the way.
I’m not sure that Fouts is right that NFL defenses will never recover from the current offensive onslaught. Every so often a team comes along that, due to players or superior coaching, appears unbeatable — the 1985 Bears, the 2003–04 Patriots, or the 2007 Patriots, for instance. (For that matter, the 1996–97 Packers.) The NFL should stand for “Not For Long” given how long dynasties now last. (The term “dynasty” now should apply to teams getting into the playoffs, not winning Super Bowls, given that exactly eight teams have ever won consecutive Super Bowls.
The offense vs. defense trend could be described by mixing your sports metaphors, as a jiujitsu match, a tug of war, or a two-person race. with continual back-and-forth. The difference is that offensive coaches figure out ways to respond to defensive plans, and defense always trails because, after all, offensive players know where they’re going; defensive players have to react to what the offense does. Enjoy the games, and bet the over.
What are the Packers’ secrets? First, the personnel:
• Great players: All championship teams must have a few. Rodgers and Charles Woodson will be Hall of Famers. If they continue to perform at their current levels, Clay Matthews and B.J. Raji could be, too. Donald Driver and Chad Clifton have had great careers, and Greg Jennings is getting into that territory.
• Undrafted players: The Packers have 16 on their roster … Football is a team sport, and for team sports, little-known role players are as important as great players. Unlike highly drafted crybabies who think the rules don’t apply to them — Exhibit A, the Detroit Lions — undrafted players listen to the coaches and give you what they’ve got.
• Home-grown: Since Ted Thompson took over as general manager in 2005, he has rarely traded away draft choices. All NFL general managers say they want to build through the draft, then many blink and give up picks. Thompson never blinks, holding his picks and trading for others. In Thompson’s seven drafts, he has selected an average of nine players per draft, versus seven that the league hands each club. He has had 17 first- or second-round choices in that period, versus the 14 the league hands out. And the Packers scout the sixth and seventh rounds as intently as the first. Many Green Bay players were late choices, selected by a point in the draft where many teams were just winging it.
• Green Bay won the Brett Favre mess: Had the Packers not shown Favre the door, Rodgers would have departed. Offloading the franchise’s most accomplished player was wrenching. Leaders make decisions for the future rather than the present — if only those in Washington, D.C., thought this way — and Green Bay made a smart decision for the future regarding Favre.
• The only NFL roster with five tight ends, as TMQ has noted before: Green Bay has five tight ends, and has won 18 straight games. Why don’t other NFL teams notice this rudimentary fact? Multiple tight ends allow for multiple offensive sets that confuse defensive game plans. All contemporary defensive coordinators have some experience dealing with multiple wide receiver sets. Most don’t have experience dealing with multiple tight end sets.
• Aaron Rodgers: Quarterback is the most important position in football, and Rodgers is football’s best quarterback. Accuracy and decision-making are the key attributes of an NFL quarterback — practically all of them have strong arms — and Rodgers excels at both. He throws accurately while moving, creating roll-out opportunities. He runs, but only in an efficient manner, mainly when he sees a clear lane to the sidelines. On a third-and-5 against the Giants, Rodgers saw a clear lane to the sidelines and ran for the first down, then stepped out of bounds. This is the way Joe Montana used to run. When the quarterback consistently picks up first downs by efficient runs that don’t expose him to hard hits, the offense prospers. …
Now Green Bay’s tactical secrets:
• Sideline passing: Both Manning brothers excel at hitting receivers along the sidelines; for Rodgers, this has become his forte. Twice against the Giants, Rodgers hit Jordy Nelson with perfect strikes smack on the sideline for big gains. On the Packers’ touchdown drive that made the score 35–27 Green Bay, both big plays were sideline receptions.
The deep sideline pass is the hardest throw in football, so only the best offenses feature this action. When a receiver is smack at the sideline, the quarterback knows there will be only one defender — by definition, there’s no defender on the sideline side. Working the sideline is a way to create one-on-one matchups. The throw must be perfect. If it is, the sideline route is the hardest for even the best cornerback to defend.
• Pass first, then rush: Victory can happen with a rush-first offense, as the Broncos are showing. But passing plays gain more yardage per attempt than rushing plays. Green Bay employs this simple insight to start most games pass-wacky; once the Packers have a lead, they switch to rushing to grind the clock. Passing early to build a margin, then running late after the opposition defense begins to tire, is an ideal formula. It’s the Packers’ formula.
• Canadian influence: Green Bay quarterbacks coach Tom Clements played quarterback for Ottawa, Hamilton, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg of the Canadian Football League. In the CFL, it’s move the chains or lose. First downs matter more than deep strikes. The Packers’ offense operates as though it assumes only three downs, like in Canada. Plus Joe Philbin has been the offensive coordinator in Green Bay for eight years. The Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots offenses of the past decade were successful partly because of coaching stability.
• Funky defenses: Pittsburgh, Baltimore, the Ryan Brothers and others have been using oddball fronts with two or one defensive linemen, married to a zone rush. Green Bay employs this tactic too. In a zone rush — a better term than zone blitz — five to eight defenders are in a position to rush. Only four actually do, but the offense doesn’t know which four will be coming. At least one defender who looked like a rusher before the snap drops into one of the slant lanes, since every quarterback’s standard anti-blitz tactic is the quick slant.
Against the Giants, on one down Green Bay showed a conventional 3–4 front. Then two defenders walked up for what appeared to be a six-man blitz. At the snap only four rushed, with Matthews dropping into a slant lane that Eli Manning thought would be uncovered. The Giants had a receiver open deep, but because a rusher was in Eli’s face — after the choreography, Jersey/A had five to block four but lost track of one rusher who came toward Manning unopposed — he never looked deep. Manning threw what he thought would be a safe quick out; Matthews intercepted the pass and returned it for a touchdown.
Lots of funky fronts and jumping around pre-snap cause Green Bay to surrender yardage — statistically, the Packers’ defense is not flashy. But these tactics also generate defensive touchdowns, against [the Giants], against the Steelers in the Super Bowl and in other games. Nothing drops a 16-ton weight on your head like watching the opponent’s defense score.
There are two other big factors:
• Mystique: The Packers have won four Super Bowls, 13 conference and/or league titles. Green Bay has the oldest consistent winner in football. The place is Titletown. Vince Lombardi is looking down. The Packers exist in a college-town atmosphere — they are even the sole NFL franchise with college cheerleaders, not professional cheerleaders, on the sidelines. The aura around the Packers is unmatched by any other NFL organization.
• Bicycles: Packers players ride bicycles to the opening of camp, an annual summer ritual attended by thousands of children. Cheesy? Well, it is Wisconsin. Corny? Gets the season off on a fun note. And Packers faithful sure are having fun.
Fox Sports’ Terry Bradshaw called Sunday “a good day of football.”
Bradshaw’s statement more accurately could be understated “a good weekend of football” for Wisconsin football fans, who in 24 hours saw (1) the Badgers clinch their second consecutive Rose Bowl berth with a nail-biting 42–39 Big Ten championship win over Michigan State, and (2) the Packers go to 12–0 and clinch the NFC North title with a nail-biting 38–35 win over the New York Giants.
A year ago in my previous blog I wrote that 2010–11 might be the best year in the history of football in the state of Wisconsin. (The opposite would be 1988, when the BADgers were 1–10 and the pACKers were 4–12. WTMJ announcer Jim Irwin wasn’t employed to announce Badger and Packer games; he was sentenced to do the games.) A Rose Bowl loss and Super Bowl win (similar to 1962–63, when the Packers won their second Glory Days NFL title and lost the Rose Bowl) might just be topped this year, given how the Rose Bowl and NFL playoffs go. It could even be argued that this was the greatest weekend in the history of football in the state, given what was accomplished between 7:17 p.m. Saturday and 6:45 p.m. Sunday.
Saturday night’s game started pretty well, and then came the second quarter, which angered a certain Twitterer so much that he wrote that he hoped that Missedagain State lost to Oregon 1,000–0 in the Rose Bowl, concluding with the command to “FIRE BIELEMA!” In my defense, I imagine similar sentiments were being expressed, along with what Mr. Spock termed “colorful metaphors” in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” after the trainwreck that was the second quarter. Truth be told, Wisconsin was lucky to be down just eight points at the half.
Beyond the only measure that should count, his record, Badgers coach Bret Bielema doesn’t always inspire confidence among Badger fans. Perhaps it’s his less than stylish sideline appearance. (Maybe Bielema should emulate coaches of old and wear a suit and tie on the sidelines.) Perhaps it’s the appearance of a less-than-grade-A intellect and/or outsized confidence that reminds some of arrogance. It more likely has to do with the throw-things-at-the-wall losses to Michigan State and Ohio State earlier this season, and previous-season losses that appeared to be the result of being outcoached instead of being outplayed. (See the outsized-confidence comment.)
It could be argued that no other Badger quarterback in the program’s history could have won Saturday’s game. In just one season, quarterback Russell Wilson could legitimately be described as the best quarterback to have ever taken snaps for the Badgers. He demonstrated that against a really good defense in the Big Ten championship game, which featured …
The Wisconsin State Journal’s Tom Mulhern passes on some impressive Badger player quotes:
“Perseverance builds character,” UW junior cornerback Marcus Cromartie said. “We’ve definitely got a lot of character on this team, as you can see in this game. We just never gave up. We left the locker room (at halftime) saying we weren’t going to lose this game.” …
“Coach said it at halftime, ‘There’s something about Michigan State, we can’t seem to play a second quarter against them,’ ” [offensive guard Travis] Frederick said. “We weathered the storm and were able to come out and pick it up in the second half.”
A couple seniors said some words at halftime, including defensive tackle Patrick Butrym.
“In difficult times like that, you speak to your leaders and say, ‘OK, now it’s time to be a leader,’ ” Butrym said. “When you face adversity, especially like we did in the first half, we did not play well at all. The way we played was so disappointing.
“We were like, ‘Look, we’re eight points down, we’re down by a touchdown, we get stops, we’ll be fine.’ I had a lot of faith. Never doubted us.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Gary D’Amato suggests a name change for the game that matches the champions of the Big Ten’s Leaders and Legends divisions:
Let’s just call it the inaugural Heart Attack Bowl.
Its early momentum gone, its superlative duo of quarterback Russell Wilson and running back Montee Ball throttled by Michigan State for 2½ quarters, the University of Wisconsin somehow rallied for a stunning 42-39 victory Saturday night.
Book those tickets for Pasadena, Badgers fans.
Bucky is headed to the Rose Bowl.
They might play the Big Ten Football Championship Game for another 100 years and not get a game like this one. It was an instant classic, a back-and-forth affair that validated the very idea of a playoff between the winners of the Leaders (UW) and Legends (MSU) divisions.
UW’s dream season was interrupted by a two-game nightmare that included consecutive losses at Michigan State and Ohio State, both by a matter of inches on the field and by only a few seconds on the game clock.
Rather than doing nothing, however, the Badgers rallied to earn themselves a rare do-over in college football. By battling back from their deflating double loss in a season that otherwise consisted of double-digit victories, they not only gave themselves an opportunity to make history, they gave themselves a second chance to make a point about their upwardly mobile program. …
A victory in its rematch with Michigan State at Lucas Oil Stadium would allow UW to make history in the Big Ten’s first title game. More than that, it would go a long way toward proving that it has become an elite program nationally and that its first loss to the Spartans was a fluke decided by a Hail Mary pass and the loss to Ohio State happened because UW couldn’t get the first loss out of its system, not because it couldn’t match up with those teams. …
Although UW made more mistakes Saturday, it was plain to see that Michigan State, with its top-flight passing game, highly ranked defense and speed to burn, was responsible for most of them. These were two very good teams throwing knockout punches at one other.
Every time the Spartans closed one avenue for the Badgers, however, they managed to open up another one. The dynamic duo of Wilson and tailback Montee Ball took turns carrying the offense, the defense made some late stops when it had to and punter Brad Nortman did just enough acting to draw a late flag on Michigan State that ended the suspense.
As if that wasn’t enough suspense, there was Sunday’s game, in which the Giants scored first, then the Packers got the lead but couldn’t hold it against a team desperate to win to stay in the playoff race. One would not think that scoring the game-tying touchdown with 58 seconds left was giving your opponent too much time. And yet, bang, bang, bang, game-winning field goal, and the second-longest winning streak in the history of the NFL, 18 games extending to the Packers’ win over the Giants a season ago.
This is the point where you could point out that the Packers still continue to hemorrhage yards and points as has been the case most of the season. You could also point out that quarterback Aaron Rodgers was harassed all day, which made him less than usually accurate. And the drama at the end wouldn’t have had to happen had kicker Mason Crosby made a field goal he should have been able to make at the end of the first half.
Keep a couple things in mind, however. Of these 18 wins, only seven have been at Lambeau Field. Ten have been on the road, including the Thanksgiving win over Detroit and Sunday’s win, plus the neutral site Super Bowl XLV win. The Packers are also playing teams that are fighting for their playoff lives — the Lions on Thanksgiving , the Giants Sunday, Oakland next Sunday and, to end the season, Da Bears and the Lions again. And as a sportswriter observed after Super Bowl XXXI, if you win the Super Bowl one year, you play in 16 Super Bowls the next year. The Packers are getting every opponent’s best effort and best game plans because they’re the defending NFL champion. And they keep winning.
The Packers have had to sweat a bit at other times this season, but never like this. Green Bay had won four previous games by margins between six and eight points, but this was a singular challenge in that the Packers were tied in the final minute, with the ball in their hands and the chance to execute their two-minute offense. And they ran it to perfection. (There’s that word again).
“Two-minute drive is something we practice every week, and really, it was the drive that we needed,” McCarthy said. “It’s something that I think Aaron Rodgers does an excellent job of. He did a great job running the drill and managing the clock, the receivers made even better route adjustments, good protection, just a classic two-minute drive.”
All in just 58 seconds, as if to say Green Bay only needs about half the time required by a mere mortal football team in that dire situation.
This can’t be a good development for the rest of the NFL, seeing the Packers check off the category of pressurized game-winning two-minute drive from its to-do list this season. Green Bay needs more confidence like it needs more snow in January, but the Packers just took a significant step with this victory, and it had everything to do with what for Rodgers was a signature game-ending drive. …
“That’s what you want,” [coach Mike] McCarthy said of the two-minute opportunity. “That’s what you train for. That’s what you’re looking for. You are going to have to complete two-minute drives to win championships. Trust me, I would have taken the win a little easier, but that’s a great investment in your football team to get a win like that.”
The other thing that comes to mind is how different football has become today. Without looking, I am confident that Lombardi’s Packers never won a game in which they gave up 35 points. There also have been few games (and I suspect whichever games fit in this category have been recent) where Wisconsin gave up 39 points and still won. (And with Oregon in the Rose Bowl, I suggest you bet the over, however high it is.) Defense is still being played, but somewhere the prevailing attitude seems to have shifted from “defense wins championships” to “defense that doesn’t involve blitzing and turnovers is boring to watch.” Either that, or the definition of successful defense now is giving up one fewer point than you score, regardless of whether you score seven or 70.
Photos from the Wisconsin Badgers and Green Bay Packers on Facebook.
From the perspective of Packer and Badger football fans, it’s hard to imagine this weekend going any better than it did.
(Not to mention Ripon College men’s basketball fans, whose team upset 17th-ranked Illinois Wesleyan for coach Bob Gillespie’s 499th career win.)
On Thanksgiving, the Packers beat Detroit 27–15, proving my point of last week that it’s not the yards, it’s the points. The Lions outgained the Packers 409–349, but negated their yardage advantage by committing 11 penalties (four of which resulted in Packer first downs) for 82 yards while throwing three interceptions.
The most notable of those penalties was on defensive end Ndamukong Suh …
… who may get suspended for more than just the three-head-butt one-kick performance that ended his day, as OnMilwaukee.com’s Doug Russell says:
Suh began by saying that he only would “apologize to my teammates, my coaches, and my true fans for allowing the refs to have the opportunity to take me out of this game.”
From that defiance grew absurdity.
“My intentions were not to kick anybody, as I did not,” Suh continued, remarkably with a straight face. “As you can see, I’m walking away from the situation.”
“I was on top of a guy being pulled down,” according to Suh. “I was trying to get up off the ground. You see me pushing his helmet down because I was trying to remove myself from the situation. As I’m getting up, I’m being pushed, so I’m getting myself in balance and getting away from the situation. I know what I did and the man upstairs knows what I did. Not by any means did I mean to step on him.”
Uh-huh.
It is possible that Suh lives in an alternate universe where everyone is to believe everything another says, as nonsensical as it may be.
“I don’t do bad things,” Suh opined, apparently forgetting the $42,500 in fines he has racked up so far this season with certainly more to come after Thursday’s events. “If I want to hurt him (Dietrich-Smith) I’m going to hit his quarterback, as I did throughout the game.”
One other thing that can be labeled as ‘ugly’ has to be the NFL’s record keeping. Because my official box score shows Suh had exactly one tackle, with zero quarterback hurries, sacks, or hits.
The strongest comments about the Suh Stomp may have come from Fox Sports’ Mike Pereira, the former head of NFL officiating:
Suh’s not dirty, he’s filthy.
This guy has a history. An ugly one at that. Just look at the facts:
Since coming into the league in 2010, Suh has committed nine personal fouls, more than any other player in the NFL.
Before the Packers game, Suh had already been fined more than $42,000 for three personal fouls this season. With his total now up to four, he’ll probably be suspended without pay.
A personal foul is one thing, but what Suh did Thursday was as a non-football act. When a player hits another player with a late hit or commits a helmet-to-helmet hit, those are considered football plays. Stomping on somebody or spitting on someone — those are considered premeditated acts. …
Suh met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently to discuss his on-field play and afterward said he had a better understanding of how to play the game within the rules.
I would say he needs another lesson — or two. Maybe three.
The Suh Stomp stood out instead of another fine performance from Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers, about which Russell has a nice anecdote:
On Tuesday, Milwaukee Brewers leftfielder Ryan Braun won the National League MVP Award. After calling his family and his agent, his next call was to Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, whom Braun described as someone who “has become one of my best friends.”
Braun also said that he fully expected Rodgers to return the favor when he wins the NFL MVP Award. After Thursday’s performance, Rodgers is another step closer to that honor.
One reason is what fans don’t see during games, as identified by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Lori Nickel:
Donald Driver was getting dressed for the game at St. Louis two years ago when Aaron Rodgers came over and handed him the game program.
“Read this,” Rodgers said.
The article referred to Green Bay’s veteran receiver being past his prime and too old to make any impact.
Driver, who has made a 13-year NFL career out of proving his detractors wrong, felt his blood boil. And then he caught four passes for 95 yards and a touchdown. …
The Packers’ elite quarterback is familiar with the power of motivation.
From the kids on the high school bus who said he’d never make it to the colleges and their rejection letters to the teams that passed on draft day to the boo-birds on Family Night. People said he couldn’t run, was made of glass, couldn’t rally in the fourth quarter and couldn’t live up to the legacy of you-know-who.
He’s used every one.
And now he finds ways to motivate his teammates.
With a look, or a word or a simple show of support, Rodgers prods his teammates to give more. There is no one formula for reaching 52 other guys. And that’s the secret. Rodgers studies his teammates to come up with the best method to push them.
“That’s why he has so much success,” backup quarterback Graham Harrell said. “It’s not just how well he plays but how he can get other guys to play around him.”
Helping the Packers further was San Francisco’s 16–6 loss to Baltimore Thursday night, which means the Packers now have a two-game lead in the battle for the NFC’s number one seed, and Chicago’s 25–20 loss to Oakland, which means the Packers lead the NFC North by four games over the Lions and the Bears with five games remaining.
The path to 16–0 is far from simple, given that the Packers have four games left against teams fighting for their own playoff spots — at the Giants Sunday, Oakland Dec. 11, Chicago on Christmas night and Detroit on New Year’s Day. But you have to love the confidence of coach Mike McCarthy, who said after the game, “I don’t feel any pressure, this is a good place to be. Who doesn’t want to be 11–0?”
The Packers’ win and Bears loss sandwiched the Badgers’ come-from-behind (really) 45–7 win over Penn State that clinched 0ne Big Ten division title and moved the Badgers to the first Big Ten football championship game against Michigan State, the other division winner, in Indianapolis Saturday night. (Interestingly, Lucas Oil Stadium also hosts Super Bowl XLVI.)
This seemed unlikely for a team with two Big Ten losses, even though the Badgers had two losses on just two plays:
But coach Bret Bielema’s one-game-at-a-time approach paid off. The Badgers didn’t stop playing, and Penn State’s loss to Nebraska opened up Saturday’s opportunity.
The biggest reason this season has turned out as it has is because of UW’s one-year-wonder quarterback, Russell Wilson, as the Wisconsin State Journal’s Tom Oates notes:
“This,” he said, “is definitely one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”
Right back at you, Russell.
Wilson, the transfer from North Carolina State, never stepped foot on the UW campus until July 1, but his arrival is one of the best things that ever happened to the Badgers. He supplied the program with a jolt of energy early in the season and was one of a tough-minded group of senior leaders who helped rally it after two devastating losses near midseason.
In a winner-take-all game with Penn State on Saturday, UW made history, getting to double-digit wins for a program-record third consecutive season, claiming the first Leaders Division title and earning a spot in the inaugural conference championship game next week at Indianapolis. Wilson isn’t solely responsible for that, but it’s fair to say none of it would have happened without him.
As Wilson played for the last time in front of a crowd that, much like his teammates and coaches, has come to admire him for his character as well as his talent, it seemed like he had been here five years instead of five months. He has certainly made more great memories in one season than most players make in five.
The result is the first in-season rematch in the history of Wisconsin, Michigan State and the Big Ten, as well as a chance to avenge the aforementioned first-loss finish. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jeff Potrykus supplies this anecdote:
UW coach Bret Bielema still reviews the play in his head, over and over and over.
The topic came up recently when Bielema went on his weekly Thursday walk with athletic director Barry Alvarez.
“We had been walking maybe a couple minutes, and nobody had said anything,” Bielema said. “I just said to him: ‘When do you stop thinking about it?’
Alvarez, who endured his share of painful endings in his 16 seasons as UW’s head coach, didn’t have to ask for an explanation. He knew that Bielema was referring to the final play at Michigan State.
His response: Never.
“It’s not like its running through my mind 24 hours a day,” Bielema said. “But it was a great highlight on ESPN for about three weeks there. I swear it was on every commercial.
“I think if you take things personally, you are going to remember things like that your entire life. It’s what motivates us as coaches. … It’s always there.”
Given how things used to be (as in a combined five wins for the Badgers and Packers in 1988), Wisconsin football fans should be thankful for what we’re enjoying now.
The safest bet about today is that Thanksgiving dinner in most Wisconsin households (in our case, with some of these recipes) will be some time after 3 p.m.
Today’s Packers–Lions game is the renewal of what used to be their yearly event, a Thanksgiving game in Detroit. The Packers have played in 19 of the 71 Lions’ Thanksgiving games, including every year from 1951 to 1963.
One of the great things about Packer coach Mike McCarthy is that, like former coach Mike Holmgren, he embraces Packer traditions. McCarthy said earlier this week he thought his team was looking forward to playing again five days after beating Tampa Bay, thus getting what amounts to a second bye week. Other coaches might whine about a lack of preparation time, disruption to their precious schedules or whatever. But if coaches don’t surrender to distractions, players are less likely to.
Others have pointed out the eerie similarities between this season and the last time the Packers were undefeated this late, 1962. The undefeated season ended abruptly with a 26–14 Thanksgiving loss in which Packer quarterback Bart Starr was sacked 10 times. The 1962 game is claimed to be the birth of the “lookout block,” in which Packer offensive tackle Fuzzy Thurston is said to have yelled “Look out!” at Starr upon a failed block just before Starr hit the Tiger Stadium turf. (Starr reportedly called his offensive lines turkeys, or worse, in the huddle after that.)
That turned out to be the only loss for the team that arguably was Vince Lombardi’s best and one of the best in NFL history. So if today’s game turns out the wrong way, as 1962’s game did, consider that as your consolation, along with the fact that the Packers went into today with a three-game lead in the NFC North.
The most entertaining game might have been the 1986 matchup, which swung from a 10–0 Lions lead to a 10-point Packer halftime lead to a 40–30 Lions lead. Packer wide receiver Walter Stanley scored two points for the Lions when, fielding a kickoff at the 1-yard line, he backed into the end zone thinking that would result in a touchback. It resulted in a safety instead. Stanley made up for his brain fart, however, by catching two touchdown passes and returning a punt 85 yards for the game-winning touchdown in the Packers’ 44–40 win.
This week’s winner of the Most Strained Metaphor Award may be ESPN.com’s Kevin Seifert, who compared the Packers to James Bond and the Lions to John Rambo:
The Packers’ surgical precision is embodied by quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who leads the NFL with a 72.3 completion percentage and, these days, limits his on-field emotion to an occasional fist pump. (“The Belt” has recently been reserved for paid advertisements.) The Lions, meanwhile, play every game as if they’re avenging past injustices. They are emotional, often angry and not beyond pushing the far boundaries of the rules.
One approach will prevail Thursday over the other. The Lions will either overwhelm the Packers with energy, trying to win their first Thanksgiving Day game in seven years, or the Packers will slice through that emotion with professional calculation.
A fellow football aficionado, who is not a Packer fan, surprised me earlier this week by predicting a Packer win. He thinks the Lions peaked earlier this season (and they certainly appeared to be running on fumes until their 49–35 win over Carolina Sunday) and is overrated anyway. The Lions appear to be trying to emulate the 1970s Oakland Raiders defense for their familiarity with the personal foul, and the non-Packer fan believes that a couple early personal fouls on the Lions might intimidate their defense.
The Packers’ defense is the sole sticking point in this year’s 10–0 team among many fans. But Sports Illustrated’s Jim Trotter notes what’s actually important:
If there is a more overrated statistic in football than total defense, it has yet to be found. The stat, which is often tossed around by casual fans to differentiate good defenses from bad … sounds good but means little without proper context.
… Teams with high-scoring offenses typically don’t rank in the upper echelon in total defense because they surrender a lot of yards late in games, while the other team is playing catch-up … The Saints won the Super Bowl two years ago with the league’s highest scoring offense and its 25th-ranked defense. The Colts won the title in ’06 after tying for second in scoring and ranking 21st in t
A statistic more connected with postseason success — even more than points allowed — is scoring differential (points scored minus points given up). Fifteen of the past 21 Super Bowl champions have finished first or second in this category. The Pack was second in 2010 and is No. 1 this year with an average differential of 14.3 points per game.
Trotter also points out which statistic negates yardage given up: turnovers, where the Packers are number one in interceptions and tied for fourth in takeaways. Moreover, during their 10–0 start, the Packers have yet to trail in the fourth quarter, and during their 16-game winning streak, the Packers have never trailed by more than a touchdown, which speaks volumes about the NFL’s top-scoring offense. And points are all that count.
The upcoming month will feature a collision of sports and other activities, including other sports. On Saturday, while the Badgers play Penn State, I will be announcing the Ripon College men against Illinois Wesleyan. On Dec. 18, Ripon College hosts Monmouth while the Packers are at Kansas City. (That’s assuming the NFL doesn’t shift the Packers–Chiefs game to Sunday night. In either case, all three games — in fact, all Ripon College conference and home nonconference basketball games can be viewed at www.pennatlantic.com.) If things work out, perhaps I can emulate ABC-TV’s Brett Musburger, who, during ABC’s Kansas State–Oklahoma State game, was doing simultaneous play-by-play of the LSU–Alabama game, which was over on CBS.
Saturday’s game between Wisconsin and Penn State for the Big Ten Hayes Division title (which should be the name of the Leaders Division) demonstrates the truth that seasons can be redeemed from bad losses. Wisconsin lost on the last play and in the last minute of consecutive games, which made fans think the season was lost. (Standards are now such that a non-Rose Bowl season isn’t such a great season, particularly given the buildup to this season.) However, Penn State lost a game, which turned out to be the least of their troubles this season.
In fact, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Penn State’s Board of Trustees considered canceling the season after the revelations accusing a former Penn State defensive coordinator of repeated sexual assaults of boys resulted in his arrest and the firings of Penn State coach Joe Paterno, college football’s winningest coach, and Penn State’s president for their roles in covering up the sexual assaults. The Capital Times comments:
The fact some members of the board at least considered calling off the remainder of the season shouldn’t come as a surprise. It was an idea being floated by some nationally, and the New York Times earlier this month posted a series of commentaries that examined the question, “Should Penn State cancel its season?”
The Chronicle, however, notes the idea to call off the games never gained much traction because there was a feeling among Board of Trustees members that the move would harm the student-athletes who had nothing to do with the ugly and tragic situation.
The decision also would have cost Penn State and the Big Ten Conference millions of dollars in ticket revenue alone. Penn State lost to Nebraska before a crowd of 107,903 at Beaver Stadium on Nov. 12 before beating Ohio State 20-14 before 105,493 at Ohio Stadium Nov. 19.
As crass as that last paragraph may sound, the fact is that so-called “revenue sports” — football and basketball, and at UW, hockey — pay for all the other sports. So losing “millions of dollars in ticket revenue alone” would have affected not just the football players “who had nothing to do with the ugly and tragic and situation,” but other student–athletes, as well as fans of Penn State and its opponents. Nor would that have done anything at all to attempt to make the victims whole.
Unlike many in the media, the Wall Street Journal got it right (as in correct) about Paterno:
As everyone has noted and Mr. Paterno himself now seems to accept, the coach fulfilled his legal obligation, but not his moral duty, to look after the well-being of that child and others who may have been victimized later. He is now paying for that lapse in judgment with a tarnished end to a long and distinguished career.
This is not to endorse all the media moralizing, which revels in schadenfreude that another man of great reputation has been revealed to be flawed. We live in a culture that worships celebrity but seems not to want heroes, or even figures of respect. The icons of our age are the Kardashians.
Mr. Paterno has done enormous good across six decades at Penn State, especially for young people, and that legacy should not be forgotten amid the denunciations. Given the relentlessness of modern public scrutiny, and the thousands of young men who have traveled through the Penn State football program, it’s something of a miracle that Mr. Paterno could coach for 46 years without a previous notable blemish. We doubt it will happen again. It’s also something of a relief that in a culture as libertine as ours at least some behavior—sexual exploitation of children—is still considered deviant.
The events at Penn State are indeed a tragedy, and doubly so because they give new license to cynics who want Americans to believe that no one who achieves prominence in public life can be honorable.
One has to believe the Big Ten fervently hopes for a Wisconsin win Saturday. No one wants the first Big Ten football championship game in Indianapolis Dec. 3 — or even worse, the Rose Bowl Jan. 2 — to be the sidebar of a rehashing of the Penn State situation, but given how the media operates, Penn State’s going to Indy or Pasadena would make Penn State, not the game, the story.
OK, there’s some poetic license in the headline, since by now the Vikings have returned to the Twin Cities to sip the bitter grog that is the aftermath of a nationally televised 45–7 thumping by the Packers.
Life at the top of the NFL must be nice. For at the bottom of the NFC North, the Vikings continue to experience all the agonizing headaches of a below-average team with so many flaws it’s hard to know which to correct first.
On the big stage of “Monday Night Football,” the Vikings sure seemed like the disconcerted neighbor, soaked in oil and trying to fix a faulty engine and a damaged carburetor on a 1987 Cutlass Ciera.
The Packers? They stood in their driveway applying another coat of wax to their sleek Aston Martin.
I’d disagree with the Aston Martin metaphor. (The Ciera might be available from Jerry Lundegaard once he gets out of prison.) A better metaphor would be a Ford F-Series pickup with a diesel engine computer-chip-modified to produce more than 500 horsepower … in green and gold, of course.
The Vikings reaffirmed that their rhetoric is punchier than their play. All the talk about rejuvenation following a road victory at Carolina and a well-timed bye rang hollow as Minnesota mastered the role of patsy in Green Bay’s march toward perfection.
Untimely and undisciplined penalties helped doom the Vikings, who were flagged 10 times for 80 yards. They also were manhandled physically on both sides of the ball. …
Progress was impossible to mine from this disaster. Coach Leslie Frazier will be challenged to pull out of a potential death spiral and rally his team for seven more games, including five against legitimate playoff contenders.
There are times in sports when you have to, as athletes like to say, tip your cap; when you get beat by a superior performance.
This was not one of those times.
The Packers are a great team. They needed only be competent on Monday night to destroy the confused and inept Vikings.
Green Bay’s 45-7 victory at Lambeau Field, which set a record for margin of victory in this rivalry, was more a product of Viking ineptitude than Packer supremacy.
“Disgusting,” Jared Allen said.
“Atrocious,” Visanthe Shiancoe said.
“Obviously the way we played in the second half showed the gap between our teams,” coach Leslie Frazier said.
Fifty-one weeks ago, the Vikings lost 31-3 to the Packers at the Metrodome, and Brad Childress got fired. Monday’s loss won’t prove as transforming, but it was every bit as embarrassing.
Lifeless would be a kind assessment of this 60-minute sleepwalk. From the moment Randall Cobb caught a crease and raced 80 yards for a touchdown 1:18 in, the Vikings’ sideline was a morgue and their execution a mess.
They couldn’t throw against one of the NFL’s worst pass defenses. They couldn’t disturb the Packers’ stellar passing attack. They took 10 penalties. They embarrassed themselves in all three phases on a stage that should have given them every reason to at least show up. …
This is the sort of loss — the most lopsided in 102 all-time matchups between these division rivals — that commands questions about whether a team that played for a conference title two years ago might need two years or more just to compete for a playoff berth again.
So far this morning there is nothing from Paul Allen, the Vikings’ announcer (if that’s what you want to call the guy paid to scream at the team he’s covering on the air). I notice, though, that his Web page claims he’s married to ‘Nagzilla.” Which means he lacks personal class in addition to being a terrible announcer.
It certainly seems that the Vikings’ new stadium push won’t get any help from the players, as happened when the Seattle Mariners’ first playoff visit coincided with a push to replace the Kingdome. Which makes you think, again, that Los Angeles is about to swipe another team from the Twin Cities.
