THE MMQB: Green Bay gets behind early but then rallies for 25 unanswered points and the win

So me and Mrs. MMQB were sitting watching the Packer game on Sunday night, both of us a little subdued. Me because I put 40 miles on the bike in the morning and her because she’s working hard to put the gardens to bed while the weather is nice. Oddly enough, we had no guests over to watch with us, so that contributed to the quiet evening as well. Our torpor seemed to be matched by the team we were watching: Our Packer defense might as well have stayed on the sidelines for all the good they were doing trying to slow down Matt Ryan and the Falcons. Likewise, the Packer offense sputtered and stalled. Before I could say, “I need another beer,” the score was 14-0 in favor of Atlanta and it looked like the beginnings of a rout.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the first Packer loss of the year: The Falcons lost some of their drive and some of their execution and they let the Packers right back in. Notice I intentionally did not credit the Packer D because early on, the only thing stopping the Falcons were the Falcons. The Packer offense looked only a little better but couldn’t close the deal, despite Rodgers getting on track, and had to settle for three field goals. I’m not knocking the points, but on all three of those drives, there were opportunities to make plays and those plays didn’t get made.

Once the Packers offense started to get warmed up, the defense began to rise to the occasion. There was consistent pressure and hits put on Ryan, (he was only sacked once, though, and that was late in the game), and that messed up his timing with his receivers. That pressure directly caused the two interceptions the Packers came away with.

So we went from a 14-0 spanking, to a 14-9 contest and then Aaron Rodgers woke up and turned on the jets. He ended the day going 26 for 39, 396 yards and two TD’s but it was his overall mastery of the game that won it for Green Bay. He hit twelve different receivers, most notably James Jones for 140 yards, including a 70-yard TD. Most NFL teams don’t have 12 guys catch a ball in an entire season! The two scoring throws both came in the second half and pushed the Packers out in front to stay. Mason Crosby tacked on his fourth FG of the night for insurance and it was official: Down by 14, the Packers scored 25 unanswered points to come away with a HUGE win!

Chris Collinsworth said something in the fourth quarter that resonated with me and I will paraphrase him here: Champions find ways to win. A lesser team would have folded up their tents started thinking about the flight home after appearing so inept and getting down by two TD’s. Not the Packers. They kept pecking away and pecking away until they got it close and then EXPLODED to win going away. When you have a team like the Falcons and they are clicking, it’s hard to do anything to slow them down. Everything they did on offense on those first two drives worked almost to perfection. The run wasn’t happening but why do you need to run the ball when everything you throw up is being caught, due in no small part to the fact that the Packer defenders were not covering ANYBODY? But somehow, this team found the will to hang in the game, trusting that Aaron Rodgers and the offense would find ways to put up points and the defense would find ways to disrupt the Falcons.

When Chad Clifton went down, I had a sinking feeling and that feeling was nurtured when a newly-aggressive Falcon defense began treating Rodgers like a chew toy. And it was the interior linemen who were messing up the worst! I shuddered as Sherrod came in and Newhouse shifted over but I must say as the game wore on, the acquitted themselves well. It will be interesting to see if they both end up playing the majority of the snaps in coming weeks and how they develop. And I hope that is “interesting” in a good way. 

By the time Rodgers gathered his team in victory formation and knelt down, Mrs. MMQB had long before gone to bed but my team’s performance had opened my eyes and made me sit up, wide awake. Nothing like a come-from-behind win to get the blood flowing!

Hate Wednesday: The Seattle Seahawks

We all LOVE the Packers: “Hate Wednesday” is a continuing series wherein I expound upon my deep-seated hatred of other NFL football teams. I’m a Packer fan and Packer fans have long memories. Sometime it’s very simple and sometimes it’s complex. You may have other reasons to hate these teams. These are mine…

Seattle Seahawks: Any Packer fan with a lick of history will know that the Golden Age – Act II began when Ron Wolf reached out and plucked Mike Holmgren out of the Forty-Niner staff and made him head coach of the Green Bay Packers. Then came Favre and Reggie and the rest is history. Coach Holmgren had a system and he had great players and he melded them into an NFL powerhouse, much like Vince Lombardi had done three decades earlier. And the results – a dominating team that appeared in two Super Bowls and won one – were undeniable. But that wasn’t enough for Mike Holmgren! He not only wanted to be the coach of the #1 team in the NFL, he wanted to be the general manager as well. Since the Packers already had a stellar GM in Ron Wolf, Green Bay suddenly became a dead-end job. Along came the Seattle Seahawks and made Holmgren the offer he couldn’t refuse: Head coach, general manager, in charge of the whole shootin’ match. Some say that in the final Packer game of his tenure, a playoff loss to San Francisco, Holmgren was merely going through the motions, knowing that the Seattle job was his for the taking. Who knows where the Packers might have gone if Holmgren had been content and Seattle had not been so enticing? We were subsequently saddled with the inept Ray Rhodes and then Mike Sherman who, ironically, would become Packer coach/GM and we all know how that ended. It wasn’t all Seattle’s fault (I put a lot of the blame right on Holmgren) but it’s reason enough to HATE the Seahawks.

That noise you don't hear? That's the Packers sneaking up on you.

When you come off a Super Bowl-winning season, you have a great big bulls-eye on your back: every team in the NFL is out to prove themselves, like the new gunslinger coming to town, looking to prove he’s faster than the old gun. Everybody circles your name on the schedule when it comes out and everybody makes that little extra effort, knowing that knocking off last year’s best team will go a long way to cementing their own reputation.

But this is a funny, funny season in the National Football League. There is a lot of chatter and background noise…

• The lock-out wiped out all but the last few weeks of preparation for this season.
• The free agent frenzy was compressed to only a few days.
• A few perennial doormats (Detroit and Buffalo) have had a great deal of early success, gobbling up all the attention.
• The so-called “dream team” formed in Philly captured the imaginations of so many “experts” they became the team to beat.
• ESPN, ABC, SI, FOX Sports and everybody else is providing “CAM NEWTON, ALL THE TIME!” coverage.
• Daily updates on the status of Mike Vick’s various ailments, complaints and injuries.

So here we are, after the first quarter of the season and the best team in football is actually flying under the radar! You know I’m talking about the Green Bay Packers and I hate to use that tired cliché but it’s totally true. Yes, you get the obligatory spot on SportsCenter where they show the highlights and mention how great Aaron Rodgers is playing. You get the Packers sitting atop everybody’s “power rankings” or whatever they call it. You get Peter King to give you 35 words on just how dominant this offense is, given all the weapons they can field. But the rest of the time the 24/7 sports news circus is more focused on Tom Brady’s haircut.

But it’s not sexy to gush over a team that took on all comers to end their championship season last year and are looking even better this year. It’s not news worthy to point out the fact that the Packers are 4-0 and could easily be 7-0 by the time the bye comes along. It doesn’t sell Toyotas and Miller Lite to showcase a champion acting like a champion again.

Does it sound like I’m complaining? Well, I guess I am, a little. I’m a Packer fan. My team is perfect so far. I WANT the attention, the accolades and the glory heaped upon them! But I am also aware of the fact the big old bulls-eye painted on my teams back has largely been obscured by the insensate ramblings of the media over great (but not successful) rookie QB’s in Carolina, purchased superstars in Philly (who don’t look so super so far) and the unlikely rise of the Detroit Lions. That last is certainly a worthy story but all that smoke being blown around is obscuring and hiding the fact that the Packers are playing lights-out football and any time the SB Champ can actually sneak up on some teams, it’s got to play to their advantage!

So keep up the good work, national media! We’ll take all the accolades in February!

Best Logo EVER!

If you love you some Wisconsin sports teams, you had a really good weekend. If someone doesn't have t-shirts with this logo for sale by Friday, the American Capitalist system is DEAD!

I don't know who made it, I REALLY want to give credit where credit is due. Whomever you are, anonymous logo-designer, I salute you!

ARE you tired of some football... about Cam, Vic and Brady

I’ve got your medicine to help you get over the Cam, Brady and Vic cover stories that you are forced to watch every Sunday Morning – stop watching ALL Pregame shows and reading Peter King’s crap during the week. They need-to-feed the Joe public’s national attention feed-bucket and it’s hungry for new, flashy super stars and stories every week. I stopped listening to KFAN up here in Minnesota and I sleep better, my wife is happier and my skin looks great. I couldn’t tell what’s going on with the Queens BUT who the hell cares.

Former Packer Johnny Jolly Arrested...Again

From http://www.packernews.com/:

HOUSTON — Disgraced former Green Bay Packers defensive end Johnny Jolly is set to appear in a Houston court Monday on a new drug charge.Houston police arrested Jolly, 28, about 11:30 p.m. Saturday on suspicion of possessing a controlled substance and tampering with evidence, both felonies, said deputy Toby Devine of the Harris County Sheriff’s Department in Texas.

In 2010, the NFL suspended Jolly without pay for violating the league's substance abuse policy from a 2008 drug arrest. In March, Jolly was arrested and charged again after a traffic stop. Police said they found a bottle containing 600 grams of codeine under a passenger seat and another bottle containing an unidentified substance.

Jolly attended high school in Houston and played for Texas A&M. He was selected by the Packers in the sixth round of the 2006 draft. The 6-foot-3, 325-pound Jolly, who lives in a Houston suburb, started all 16 games for Green Bay in 2008 and 2009.

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Comments from The Lot:

Some people are just stupid and should be locked up to keep themselves from harming others. Could have worn green and gold, been a highly paid star, playing for a world champion team in a state that loves its sports stars unreservedly. Instead he wanted to be a punk drug dealer and wear an orange jumpsuit and live in a concrete cell. He got his wish! Have a nice life.

The MMQB

The Green Bay Packers were able to complete the Wisconsin sports-fan tri-fecta: The Brewers won their first game in the NLDS by handling the Diamondbacks, the Badger football team handled the Big Ten debut of the Nebraska Cornhuskers in dominating fashion and the Packers took care of the Denver Broncos 49-23. (as an extra-added bonus, the Brew Crew have beaten the ‘Backs to take a 2-0 lead in the NLDS. What is better than a tri-fecta? Quad-fecta? Help me out here, horse racing fans)

So when your team hangs almost 50 points on a team they should handle easily, a fan like me should be all happy, and excited, right? Well, I am happy (a big victory against a lesser opponent is a good thing) and I am excited (Packers 4-0 and that’s a good as they can be) but I’m more than a little concerned about our defense. To wit:

• For some of the first quarter an all of the second, the Packer defensive secondary was entirely lost: they couldn’t cover at all. Bronco receivers were wide, wide open and we made an ordinary QB like Kyle Orton look like Tom Brady. A few weeks ago, the excuse was the lack of Tramon Williams. This week, I’m sure it will be the absence of Nick Collins. My take: We have stars on defense but the rest of the team has long streaks of being merely ordinary.

• Have you seen such pathetic tackling? How many times have did you count three, four, five missed tackles on the same play? This was not your typical Packer performance in the tackling arena. Bad basics, bad mechanics, bad positioning.

• Lack of a pass rush and general pressure on the quarterback was very, very troubling. If they are taking Matthews away, there are six other guys on that defensive front that should be taking advantage. But where were they? The Packers managed only one sack and only a couple pressures and Orton was able to sit back in the pocket, order a pizza delivered and then pick out whatever receiver he felt like hitting.

Here is my thing: While the Packer offense is hitting on all eight cylinders (most points scored in the first four games of the season in franchise history) these defensive lapses and lacks are really not all that important. They are rendered moot because Aaron Rodgers and his posse are busy ripping off yards, TD’s and wins. But we are going to come to a game, in the very near future, when some defense will figure out a way to shut down that offense. They will take away Finley or they will force Rodgers into making multiple mistakes or maybe our man A-Rodg will simply have an off day. On THAT day, our Packer defense, so mighty and strong last year, will be forced to make that win happen and, from all I’ve seen over 4 games, I do not believe they are up to it. Don’t get me wrong: I’m loving the big plays, the picks, the ability to stiffen and deny the opponent in the red zone. But the fundamentals of tackling, covering and pressuring in the quarterback, so important to the Super Bowl season last year, are nowhere to be seen and it is worrisome to me.

“Enough with the negativity, MMQB”, I can hear the Faithful shouting. And they are right. As much as those concerns bring a sense of foreboding, the great plays the Packers are making fill me with a sense of destiny: 

• Aaron Rodger went 29-38 for 408 yards and four (4) TD’s. Plus he ran two scores in himself. That is the first time the long, storied history of the NFL that any QB has accomplished that much yardage, that many scoring throws and two rushing TD’s. I am sick and tired about hearing how GREAT Tom Brady is. I’m getting a bit nauseous whenever I hear about Matthew Stafford and I am developing a severe allergy to the name Cam Newton. There is no QB in the NFL who has played better than Aaron Rodgers. Period. He is the best there is and proves it every Sunday. 

• We had right (8) Packers with catches today. For most teams, that would be some kind of record. For the Packers, that’s just another Sunday. The Broncos seemed to be paying special attention to Jermicheal Finley and held him to only had three catches for 28 yards. But all that means is Jennings (7 catches for 103 and 1 TD), Nelson (5 for 91 and a score), Cobb (2 for 75 ), Jones (3 for 48 and one TD), and Driver (3 for 20 and one TD) all step up and blow the opponents away.

• Special mention of Donald Driver: The Man Double-D went out with what to me looked like a career-ending injury when Aaron Rodgers ran in for his first of two TD’s on the ground. Not only did Driver return, but he caught a bullet from Rodgers in the front of the end zone for the final Packer score. Not only is DD good, he’s really, really tough. 

• The Packer defense, despite all the faults I listed earlier, were able to come up with three picks and a forced fumble, one of those turnovers a pick-six by Charles “Future Hall-of-Famer” Woodson. This is the way that the Packer defense is overcoming their shortcomings: they are coming up with big, big plays and they are doing it when it’s most impactful.

There will be a big game next week, featuring the Packers at the Falcons. Atlanta has not been the team they were expected to be but they are still a very dangerous opponent, especially at home. Green Bay went in there last year in the playoffs and had MONSTER win. If our defense can come up with a way to perform fundamentally, the Packer offense is more than a match for the Falcons. If not, this might be the toughest test of the young season.