M*A*S*H Report Packer Style

Randall Cobb Non-Catch Injury

People seem to want me to comment on Randall Cobb admitting he had a punctured lung and is now doing well and Aaron Rodgers doing well after his minor knee surgery, despite the fact I felt there wasn't much to say about those non-stories.
The story would have been if Cobb died or had his lung removed or the doctors had repaired the wrong knee or amputated Rodgers' leg. But for both of them to say things are fine seemed to me that it didn't require any in-depth analysis since I already mentioned a few posts ago about Rodgers having knee surgery and mentioned at the time Cobb was injured I thought he had a punctured lung, despite the official word being a chest injury. You don't spit up blood with a chest injury.

Another Thought on the Final Game

Someone In Arizona Was Happy And It Wasn't Olivia Munn

The final two games of the 2015 season left hope that the future won't be so bleak, but also left a bad taste in my mouth as old problems and tendencies raised their ugly heads with another early exit from the playoffs when the Packers should have been playing at the Panthers this week for another chance to return to the Super Bowl, despite having a team that is NOT really Super Bowl quality.

Mojo is Back

The Smiles and Mojo Were Back

I didn't get a chance to see the Packers win over Washington until Monday because I was covering a women's college basketball game and didn't get over to the game until the score was 32-18 in the fourth quarter.

Aaron Rodgers addressed what had happened and who am I to say anything different, “This is huge for us, it really is. I talked a lot the last couple of weeks about being able to turn it on. A lot of you probably thought that this was lip service. But we just needed a game like this to get our mojo back. We got our confidence going. I said this week, it just takes one — one performance to get us going back in the right direction and believing we can make a run.”

Offensive mojo has been lacking since Week 3 of the season and team mojo has been lacking since coming back from the Bye Week. I finally watched the entire game and it seemed to me several things were going on.

Sad State of Affairs

As Always Aaron Rodgers is the Key to Victory

The Packer season has at least two games left with the Packers assured of the third seed or the fifth seed in next week's playoffs.

If the Packers win then they host the wild card playoff game against the sixth seed, which would be against the Vikings if the Seahawks beat the Cardinals or against the Seahawks if Seattle loses. If the Packers lose then they hit the road against the fourth seed Washington.

The best scenario might be to lose and go to Washington that hosting either Seattle or Minnesota. It's sad to think about how far the Packers have fallen under Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy when it would be better to play a road game than play at Lambeau Field.

Sober and Somber

Lions snap 24-year old losing streak at Lambeau Field

It's a gloomy day and it has nothing to do with the rain coming down outside. The Packers have officially hit their low mark of this season with the loss to the lowly Lions for the first time at Lambeau Field since 1991. There are no knights on white horses coming to save this season, so it's now left to the players on the field, the coaches on the sideline and up in the sky box to dig deep down and come up with a solution, if there is one.

 

Packer Backers are very superstitious with our rituals and wearing the same clothes, etc, etc, etc, but something Timmer said during the loss to the Panthers, "nothing we do means anything," hit the problem right on the head. I guess I was the only one who heard him because he wasn't saying to anyone, he was just lamenting to himself about the futility of the fans and I would add pundits to do anything about the play of our beloved Packers. The Packers are now in free fall with a chance of a long losing streak in the offing.

 

Dodged a Bullet

T. J. Lang added to injury list

The Packer injury train keeps chugging along with three new players getting on boards. Right guard T. J. Lang went down on the last drive on the second quarter when he was rolled on a screen pass. Nose tackle B.J. Raji hurt his groin in the second quarter when his foot got caught in the grass and tried to play in the third quarter, but the pain was too much. These two injuries seem to be not serious and the coaching staff has to make the decision whether its worth the risk to play them against the Chargers with the bye week coming up.

Focussed Thoughts From a Random Mind

The Packers were in Beast Mode on MNF

I got up Wednesday morning starving to death (still suffering from the after effects of food poisoning) and wanting to avoid making my picks for this week's prep football games for my newspaper, because I have dropped four back of the new leader after making a terrible mistake in last week's picks during my first day of food poisoning picking a team that had no hope of winning, so I was so bummed that I didn't even open Saturday's paper to see the scores.

 

But life goes on and today is the deadline for the picks, so I made a cup of coffee (which hasn't slaked my hunger) and made my picks and without thinking about it too much (which I do most of the time) put them in stone (clicked) and sent them off.

 

Can You Say 2-0, Baby!!!!!!!!!!!!

The losing streak is over. The Seahawks have finally been plucked. The Bears (0-2) lost and the Lions (0-2) lost to the Vikings (1-1). After two games the Packers lead the North and are tied for the lead in the NFC and the NFL.

 

Full Disclosure up front. I predicted a 35-24 loss while wishing I was wrong. I got my wish, but you all have to understand something I'm the pessimist in our Packer Backer group while Timmer is the optimist and Andrew jumps off the couch and cusses as he blocks our view of the TV. We all do our jobs. I, of course, AM the "Pouring of the Beer" with help from Andrew, Andrew, the pouring machine.

 

The Green Bay Packers did a lot of good things Sunday night, including overcoming the glaring deficiency of Dom Capers not making adjustments at halftime and the opposing team always coming out and owning the third quarter.

 

However, this time the Packers fans, James Starks, Aaron Rodgers, Randall Cobb and my vote for game MVP Jayrone Elliott stepped up in the fourth quarter to bring the victory home.

 

Other big time contributors were right tackle Don Barclay (Turkey Leg), wide receiver Ty Montgomery (Turkey Leg), nose tackle B. J. Raji (Turkey Leg), wide receiver James Jones (Turkey Leg), tight end Richard Rodgers (Turkey Leg) and linebacker Nick Perry (Chicken Leg).

 

I also want to give a complete Butterball Turkey dinner to the Packers special teams. Mason Crosby didn't come close to missing a kick from every distance going 4-for-4 on field goals (54, 44, 21, 18) and 1-for-1 on extra points (33). The kickoff coverage team had the Seahawks bottled up inside their 20 on six of his seven kickoffs. Punter Tim Masthay had a good night. Finally and more importantly there was not a penalty on special teams.

I have noticed over the years that the Packer fans at Lambeau Field aren't very vocal and it seemed Coach Mike McCarthy did too, because he made a point during the week to ask for some noise Sunday night. Lambeau Field was rocking, except for the third quarter, but they came back in the fourth quarter when the Packers needed them the most. TWO THUMBS UP WITH A BEER BELLY CHASER.

Post-Game Analysis: The Offense - Receiver Edition

WIDE RECEIVERS:

(Targeted 20 times with 12 catches for 132 yards and one touchdown)

 

Davante Adams Surrounded

The starting trio of Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb and Davante Adams were targeted 10 times. Rodgers likes Adams and threw to him seven times, but he caught only 3 for 17 yards. Nelson caught both passes thrown his way (25 yards) and Cobb caught his only pass for 16 yards.

 

I noticed last year that Rodgers seemed to favor Adams more as the season progressed and it seems to continue this year as the defenses cover Nelson and Cobb or not. I just hope he doesn't forget them, because they always seem to find a way to get open as evidenced by catching all three passes thrown their way for 41 yards.

 

When you look at numbers the Packers have a lot of wide receivers on the roster. Behind the Big 3 there are eight on the roster three returning from last year's roster and five newcomers.

 

The first one to talk about is former 2014 5th round (176) choice Jared Abbrederis. A home-state boy all the way around born in Wautoma and played at the University of Wisconsin where he played in 53 games, starting 39, and finishing as the all-time leading receiver in catches (202) and second in yards (3,140) and touchdowns (23) as where as the all-time leader in kickoff return average (25.8) and fifth all-time in punt return average (10.7). This was an excellent choice, but after missing his rookie season with a knee injury he has now been sidelined with a concussion. It seems his career is over before it got started.

ONE STEP FORWARD AND MAYBE TWO STEPS BACK

I am singing the praises of General Manager Ted Thompson (and anyone who knows me is aware of how much effort it takes for me to do that) with the release of the great pretender nine-year starting linebacker A.J. Hawk. In fact, when I started to write this joyous post my document crashed and I lost it. Now that shows how much I hate praising Thompson.

 

As I was driving back from a high school regional boys basketball game I was covering for a great metropolitan newspaper I heard on ESPN radio about Hawk being cut. I started singing, "Ding, Dong, the Hawk is gone." Thank goodness I was in the middle of nowhere, because I'm sure I would have been pulled over for being creating a driving hazard. I have been the leader of the "Dump Hawk" movement for at least five years.

 

Brad Jones & A.J. Hawk

I have intense feelings about the career of A. J. Hawk. He came out of Linebacker U (Ohio State) as the fifth pick in the Ted Thompson's second draft. Being drafted that high Hawk immediately became a starter at right outside linebacker. He remained on the outside his second season and moved to middle linebacker in 2008 when Nick Barnett was hurt.

 

He remained inside in 2009 when the Packers changed to a 3-4 defense. He has been a starter since his first year and has been extremely durable missing just two games and only six starts. His only missed games came in the middle of the 2011 season with a calf injury. Even last year he ended up playing in all 16 games, starting 13, despite being benched in game 9 when Clay Matthews was moved inside. He previously missed two starts in 2009 and one in 2010 and those must have been because Capers opened the game with a passing defensive alignment).

INTEREST HEATING UP FOR COBB

Randall Cobb

It seems someone does love Randall Cobb and I'm afraid its not the Packers. Reports today (Feb. 24) are the Raiders have put out the welcome mat for the Packers' No. 1B wide receiver/slot receiver/halfback, who was coming off an injury plagued season where he missed 10 games in the middle of the season with a broken shin only to put up big numbers during his contract year with career highs of 91 catches, 1,287 yards and 12 touchdowns.

 

The lack of movement on a new contract during the season was curious considering Cobb was going to attract attention and his demand of $9 million contract is very reasonable and isn't a budget buster. Thompson will have around $30 million cap money to spend and maybe more when he purges the roster of the expensive deadwood (i.e. hopefully Count Hawkula), so what's the deal?

 

First, it seems Thompson saw an $8 million saving when rookie wide receiver Davante Adams moved up the depth chart leaping over Jarrett Boykin to claim the No. 3 spot and then turning it up a notch at the end of the regular season and in the playoffs proving he could be the go-to man on the outside when Jordy Nelson was being double-teamed. I think that is the reason no contract talks were started during the season.

Free Agency and Ted Thompson

It seems General Manager Ted Thompson feels good about letting Randall Cobb hit free agency. I've got a problem with that for two reasons. It will drive up the price if the Packers do re-sign him, but more importantly Cobb will end up signing elsewhere.

 

Randal Cobb

 

Thompson pre-empted Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson when it was their time to test the free agent waters and ended up with relative sweetheart deals. He could have done the same with Cobb as most reports kept saying Cobb was waiting for the front office to make a move and most Packers want to remain Packers.

 

From the lack of contract I have to conclude the development of Davante Adams has caused Cobb to be expendable. Like I said I have a problem with that. Except for the broken shin Cobb has been a durable player and last year took the step to become a superstar. In the Packer offense there is a need for three No. 1 receivers and right now before Cobb walks (and I think the odds are better than 75 percent he will and much to my chagrin will probably end up in Seattle to replace Percy Harvin) leaving just two.