Thoughts on Thoughts

The final preseason game was won by the Packers 24-10 over the Los Angeles Rams (still doesn’t make up for losing to them in the playoffs when they were in St. Louis and intercepted Brett Favre 6 times) and the nattering nabobs of pro footballery have come out to give their opinions on this, that and the other and as far as the Green Bay Packers are concerned the local media still hasn’t seen daylight after drinking the Ted Thompson Kool-Aid and waiting from him to bend over so they could take their usual spot up his ass.

Super Bowl Deja Vu and Other Packers Matters

Before I get to the Packers the Super Bowl came and went with the Patriots winning. I thought the Falcons had a very good chance to win, but I saw a parallel to the Packers when the Falcons gave up a late score in the first half when the Falcons defense eased up as if The Dom was their Defensive Coordinator.

I was watching the game at The Cellar and when the Patriots kicked that field goal to make it 21-3 I made the announcement the game had turned and the Patriots were going to win.

The New Face of the NFL Has Gold Feet of Clay

I've had time to think about Super Bowl 50 and how it ended. Cam Newton, literally the Golden Boy NFL MVP, not only was shown that he could be beat, sorry Falcons, but it also showed that he, like almost every other player these days, is playing only for himself in a game that stresses team more than any other professional sport.

During the season Newton was reveling in the attention he got each week as the Panthers won game after game leading up to talk of the perfect season. He could do no wrong and couldn't wait to stand before the press after each game and answer what would be the same questions week in and week out. He would flash that $Million smile and "his ego grew three times each day" if that was possible for a man who came in with an ego the size of the Super Bowl audience world wide.

However the week leading up the to the big game Newton grew tired of answering questions every day (kind of foreshadowed something didn't it) and made the comment, "It's confusing. How can I reword questions I've been asked so many times? Goooooolly, it's not like the questions have changed since I saw you 24 hours ago. I had an unbelievable sleep and yet I'm up here again. It's cool. I sound like a broken record."

FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS, PART QUINCE

(click on your computer's SAP app to find out which PART this is)

SUBLIME

This Old Dog Beat The Young Pup

Super Bowl 50 featured "Superman", who all the pundits were calling the best quarterback in the game today - see what happens Aaron Rodgers when you give up that mantle - and "The Sheriff", who was called the worst quarterback to start a Super Bowl by FoxSports - who we know is the bastion of truth, justice and the American Way.

When the dust settled Peyton "The Sheriff" Manning was standing on the podium with the Lombardi Trophy while Cam "Superman" Newton was doing his best Marshawn Lynch and Bill Belichick impressions answering - and I say that while laughing out loud - questions before abruptly getting up and ending the post-game interviews in mid-question showing the real Cam Newton and not the fake modest Cam Newton who answered question after question after question even though it did get tedious and he said so during the week before the game.

Super Bowl Prediction and Hall of Fame Thoughts

Superman Cam

The smart money is on the Carolina Panthers to win Super Bowl 50. If I was actually putting money down I would have to back the Panthers even though I don't like Cam Newton.

However, Super Bowl 50 has a Super Bowl III feel to me, if not to anyone else in punditry or the rest of the civilized world for that matter. The last line I've seen has the Panthers favored by 5.5 points and not many people are picking the Broncos.

For those of you born after 1980 the Packers had won the first two Super Bowls pretty handily and the Baltimore Colts (yes, there was a team in Baltimore before the Browns moved in the middle of the night to become the Ravens) were the Panthers of 1968-69 going 13-1 behind backup quarterback Earl Morrall, who had taken over for the legendary future Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas, who had injured his passing arm in the preseason.

“Yes, Virginia, There is a Super Bowl”

Super Bowl 1

It's been brought to my attention that the Super Bowl is being played this Sunday. I knew one was going on but it didn't rise to something I thought I needed to comment on because it was between two teams I have no allegiance to, between two quarterbacks I don't like and, for that matter, it isn't a Super Bowl I'm much interested in since the Packers aren't involved.

Super Bowl 2

PACKER ALERT! Besides disliking Cam "Superman" Newton on a person level, it griped my butt when the Packers in week 9 could have been the first team to beat the Panthers, but lost a shootout after Aaron Rodgers got scared and didn't see a wide-open Randall Cobb in the right corner of the end zone for a TD to set up a two-point conversion, which Head Coach Mike McCarthy would have had to go for since the Packers needed it to tie the game and send it into overtime.

I Give Up

Dom Capers cheering my giving up

One of my missions in my Green Bay life is to see Dom Capers on another team or at the very least not the Packers Defensive Coordinator any more. I have stated that fact over and over and over again, but now I am stating a new fact that this will be my last word on the subject until I can sing to rooftops, "Ding, Dong, the Dom is Dead."

 

I may not like Capers and his too complicated schemes, but I do give credit where credit is due and the defensive game against Seahawks last Sunday night reminded me of one of my favorite defensive coordinators Fritz Shurmur's games and that is the highest compliment I can give.

 

The hallmark's of Capers reign of terror in Green Bay has been the inability to stop the run. the inability to cover a tight end and the inability to play coverage overall. Against the Seahawks the scheme Capers used stopped Marshawn Lynch (however, age and hubris may finally be catching up with him like Brett Favre suddenly turning old between January 24th and September 9th of 2010) and for the most part played good coverage.

 

The game I'm referring to was played on January 6th, 1996 in San Francisco - the year before the Super Bowl. The 49ers had one of the best passing attacks in all of football (channeling Chris Collinsworth again) with Steve Young, Jerry "NFL's All-Time Leading Receiver" Rice and John "The Catch" Taylor.

Brett Favre, The Man, The Myth, The Legend, The Gunslinger

The long nightmare of Brett Favre's mouth seems to have finally come to a close. Don't get me wrong. I love the man, the myth, the legend, the gunslinger, the greatest Packers quarterback (by statistical analysis), the face of the Packers, the man who brought the team out of the Wilderness Years and made Green Bay relevant again.

 

I watch the games in my town in what is now known as a Bears bar. This makes watching the games a Maalox event because Bears fans are absolutely the worst people (even worse than Seahawks fans only because they have been at it longer) to watch games with in general and to be a Packerbacker in the same room with them. They go out of their way to hurl insults at us when we just want to watch the game and don't make comments about them (unless provoked, since I have been known to make comments back, but only if hurled at first).

 

Anyway the excellence that is Favre (interceptions withstanding) seemed to have really got under their fur. Anti-Favre comments are the majority of their insults, but since he left they seem to have settled on just insults in general.

 

But I digress again. A little more historical context. I'm not a fan of Ted Thompson (the list of many reasons will be another rant) and I felt (seems I'm in the minority on this one) he wasted Favre's last years, especially the 2007 season when we lost to the Giants in overtime at Lambeau.

Back from the Great Depression

It's been eight days since the Super Bowl and I'm just beginning - and I do mean beginning - to come out of my Great Depression following the Great McCarthy Collapse.

 

As I watched the Patriots luck out a win I couldn't help to comment to the other Packerbackers I was watching the game with that the Packers would have won their fifth Lombardi Trophy. I was immediately shut down and told not to go there. But I did. The Packers would have beat the Patriots. I have no doubt.

 

So knowing that fact I'm still in a depressed mood and will be for some time. Normally I could dwell in the shadow of the Valley of Death until the draft, but thanks to McCarthy we have stuff to talk about. And I would have been talking about the firing of the special teams coach and the possible relinquishing of the play playing by the man himself other matters were settled today in the NFL and I feel compelled to comment on them first.

 

Today Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy's appeal of his conviction of domestic abuse was dismissed because the hittee wouldn't pursue the matter. While it's bad enough this sad excuse for a man gets to resume his career at some point after - in his mind - being found not guilty, it says more to the sad state of the modern woman in our society.

 

Ever since the women's liberation movement and all the gains women have won as they escaped the home and entered the business world comes crashing down because of women like Hardy's whatever she was or Ray Rice's fiancée and all the women and girls who work the sex trade as strippers or online sex girls - I'm not counting actual prostitutes because...well for this argument that end of the spectrum is left off the table - and the entire trillion dollar legitimate women's industry.