Yes, I see that, but the point still stands that the Niners are not pushovers.
Just wanted to add that I’ve been a Braves fan since the mid-1980’s, so I know with every ounce of my body how meaningless a fantastic regular season can be. I also was in the stands at the Metrodome for the '98 NFC championship game against the Falcons so I also know that nothing is guaranteed or automatic in this game. I’m truly appreciative of the Vikings this season and have very cautious hopes for us.
In some ways, I think that the Vikings might be more analogous to the '98 Falcons, and the Saints to the '98 Vikings. At least I hope so (except for the Superbowl result).
I hadn’t heard it until just now on the radio, but both Al Harris and Aaron Kampman are out for the season. The Packers are currently on top of the WC race, but their defense just got a lot softer.
Sigh…that’s what I was afraid of.
Kampman hasn’t been a huge factor this year, as he’s still trying to get comfortable playing LB, but losing him certainly hurts.
And, of course, Harris is a major blow.
I’m hoping that we play well on Thursday, but that danged Thanksgiving game has been a trap game for the Packers so often…
Yep, that hurts. Gonna need some young guys to step up. A short week doesn’t help though.
It really hurts in their Nickel and Dime packages. Tramon Williams, who will replace Harris, isn’t nearly as good, but he’s at least passable (except the penchant to give up too many big plays to big receivers). But that moves up the incredibly inept Jarret Bush to Nickel and rookie Brandon Underwood to Dime. They’ll probably activate a practice squad player to fill in behind them.
Kampman seemed to be just starting to really come on in the 3-4 and is a playmaker, but the LB position has a bit more depth than the CB. His loss will hurt, but it shouldn’t be a killer.
But looking at the difference between the defense in the first half and the one in the second half, it’s hard to say those two injuries won’t hurt the Packers.
Well, to interrupt your regularly scheduled Favre programming it’s time that I checked in after having potentially the worst possible Football weekend I could have. The Packers, Vikes and Lions all won. The Bears found a new way to embarrass themselves on national TV. All my fantasy teams save one lost, and that one could still lose if Chris Johnson has another career game on MNF which ironically still wouldn’t be enough to save me in HHM where I own CJ. I was effectively eliminated from any prize money in the FF Money League. My survivor pick in Cincy lost and I am near the bottom in every Pick Em format we’re playing here and most of my predictions in the weekly NFL thread were way off. It was pretty catastrophic all the way around.
However, I had a fantastic time!
To quickly recap, I had to work Friday night and Saturday afternoon/evening and managed a scant 3 hours of sleep in between. After getting off a couple hours early Saturday night I was able to hit the road for the not-so-frozen tundra up north and was able to rendezvous with my group at a bar in Sheboygan at about 11PM. We powered through some beers and shots before heading to a friends place to crash at about 3AM which allowed for about 4 hours of sleep before driving the final hour to Lambeau to tailgate in the AM. Needless to say I was pretty damned exhausted all weekend.
We parked close to the stadium and broke out the cooler and snacks at about 9AM before kickoff and started boozing and having a good time. We had a wide selection of cured meat and cheese products, bloody marys and screwdrivers and plenty of beer. We skipped the grill and much to my chagrin we inexcusably forgot to pack the football and cornhole boxes. Me and about half my group were flush in Bears jerseys (me in my Urlacher and my buddy in Payton with a couple ladies in orange and blue) and relishing the occasional jokes and heckling from Packer fans. Thankfully the Packers have been almost as frustrated as the Bears this season so we gave as good as we got. All in all the Cheeseheads greeted us well and it was downright homey compared to how things would have been if the tables were turned at Soldier Field. The biggest prick we came across ironically was a 49ers fan, which considering the crappy loss last week meant us Bears fans had to eat a little shit from both sets of fans at this game. Still, our Packer fan friend who arranged the tickets was thoroughly embarrassed by us so the mission was accomplished!
Lambeau is pretty cool. I’d never been before and we had excellent seats; club level outside on the visitors sideline near the south goalline. For anyone who’s never been Lambeau is set up a little differently than most football stadiums, the lowest levels of the bowl are ringed in bleachers and are the cheaper options. The club level and VIP seating is around the top with the indoor luxury suites at the very top enclosed in high glass. I was a little surprised to see that the vast majority of the luxury suites and indoor club level seating was completely isolated from the elements without any way to open the glass, on a 55 degree day it was a particularly bizarre design choice.
The outdoor club level where we were at was pretty comfortable with fairly roomy seats and plenty of room to move around and the club tickets allow you access to the private upper concourse where all the heated concession areas are with easy bathroom access. They have waitresses with handy little wireless devices to take food and drink orders at your seats meaning there’s no roaming concessionaires yet there’s no need to leave your seats. I had mixed feelings about this. It felt luxurious and convenient but it also felt pretty antiseptic and betrayed the old school vibe you’d expect from a place like Lambeau. It’s not quite as bad as a modern NBA arena but it’s not exactly Wrigley Field either.
I think I’d have traded the waitresses and plush indoor club area for some extra TVs inside and better jumbotrons with replays. On that note the scoreboards in each endzone are fucking terrible. They are hard to read and hardly ever give you any out of town scores or statistics. The video boards are poor resolution and too small and they do a poor job of giving replays and adding to the understanding of the game. For such a recently renovated stadium I’d have expected more, especially with the attention payed to the other modern stuff.
The tailgating vibe around the stadium was surprisingly mundane and sedate. The weather was epic by mid-November in Green Bay standards and I expected that to lead to a whole host festivities and partying. Maybe a bigger rival would have had more people out, but it was obviously a sellout regardless. As you drive to the stadium you pass dozens of houses and small business renting out their lawns for parking. We settled for a big private lot adjacent to the team’s official lot. It was full and there were people around but there just wasn’t much socializing or roaming going on. I’ve been to way more college tailgates than NFL so maybe my expectations were a little off.
The game was deceptively dull. The Packers seemed to pretty much dominate throughout and there was never a sense of anxiety from the crowd. Even though it was reasonably close for the bulk of the first half the Niners offense was completely inept and the Packers pretty much moved the ball at will and were helped by great field position. If not for redzone struggles it could have been a much bigger blowout at the half than it already was. The second half played out similarly until the 4th quarter when the Packers defense and special teams let down and got the Niners within one score. Even as they were in the process of blowing a big lead there wasn’t much sense of worry from the Packers fans. This was baffling to me, I can’t quite figure out where the intensity was. The late comeback had our group thoroughly amused and gave us plenty of fodder to talk and joke about even if it wasn’t the most compelling game I’ve ever witnessed.
We stayed and partied a bit after the game while the designated drivers sobered up so we missed pretty much all of the late afternoon games. As fun as going to games are it’s a little crazy how used to being able to track every single game being played you get. I was able to check the scores during the game but it didn’t really give you any sense of what was going on, seeing close scores in KC, Oakland and Baltimore just clued me in that I was missing a bunch.
Anyways, enough rambling. It was a blast. We had a great time and Lambeau is absolutely worth the trip. Maybe not as iconic as some would have you imagine but there are a lot of worse places to watch games. One of these days I’ll have to make the trip for a Bears-Packers game and see if the intensity level gets ratcheted up a little. That could be fun. 
Stay tuned for my thoughts on the Bears-Eagles game.
I’m glad to hear it. I always get worried that there will be some drunk asshole who makes Packer fans look bad by riding other team’s fans too hard or act like Eagles fans. Glad you enjoyed it.
After the Green Bay game we pretty much drove straight back from there to Chicago hoping to get back in time for start of the Bears game. With a few stops along the way and some loitering in Sheboygan we ended up having to catch the first half in the radio*. I missed most of the action which meant I missed seeing Bell’s big run, Cutler’s first two over thrown would-be TD passes and another generally crappy red zone performance.
I did see the second half at home, even through I was completely wiped out and starting to get hungover. Things didn’t improve much. The defense generally played pretty well and even though they gave up 24 points it seemed like they’d have given up half as many if the offense had been able to hold up their end of the bargain. They were just on the field too often and with too poor of field position.
Cutler might have had his worst game of the year aside from Green Bay. He didn’t really have interception issues, that last one was a tough situation and a bit of a flukey bounce, but his mechanics were a disaster. He was inaccurate when he read the defense properly and was throwing off his back foot even when he didn’t have pressure. The pass protection actually did a fairly decent job of protecting him with a typically crazy Philly blitz package. He got no help from his run game and he was staring down his targets. He looked frustrated and lackadaisical. Just a disappointment all around.
The coaching is driving me insane. Cutler seems to be regressing and the offensive scheme doesn’t seem to be helping any. Cutler obviously needs someone to reign him in and there obviously isn’t anyone on this staff doing that. Turner’s playcalling is predictable and uninventive and I’m not sure it plays into any of our talents strengths. We’ve got to run the ball somehow and for all the talent issues they still should be making a better effort of it. The most irritating part is that every so often the offense will do something brilliant. They had multiple occasions where we play-actioned and ended up getting a wide open TE behind the defense. Cutler misfired a couple times but the plays were there. That play call for Knox up the sideline was great and Cutler missed it. However all of these underneath routes in the redzone and 2-minute drill are mindbogglingly stupid. They’ll call a timely screen pass once and get a nice gain and then we’ll never see it again. The Eagles will lose their starting CB and the offense doesn’t attack his replacement.
What a frustrating game and another Cutler shit-show in Primetime. I don’t like where this is heading. Hopefully later this week I’ll get to watch the replay on the NFL Network and form a better opinion when I can see the whole game and not be half drunk and half asleep.
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- Weird note about the local Chicago radio broadcast, it seemed like they’ve morphed from doing traditional radio play-by-play to a TV accompaniment. They have a couple of ads where they mention that they have a web app that allows you to stream the broadcast and sync it with the video. I like the guys we have, they have good energy and talking points but listening while riding in a car and trying to track the action I found that I was mostly lost. They do a crappy job of describing plays as they happen, rarely note the yardage gained and lost and don’t generally keep your abreast of the comings and goings of the personnel. As a play happens they will praise or criticize it and get excited but they would only mention the yardage gained, the down and distance and the players involved at the end as an afterthought. It was an odd experience.
Packer season-ticket holder here, despite having been exiled here in Chicago for the past 20 years.
I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it. And, I’m glad that, outside of some good-natured ribbing, my fellow Wisconsinites treated you hospitably. Though, honestly, it feels to me like some of the venom has gone out of the Packer-Bear rivalry in the past 10 or 15 years…it might’ve been a bit different if you were wearing Viking jerseys, especially this year.
I do think that the experience would have been a bit more “iconic” if you’d had seats in the bowl, in the bleachers. (That’s where my tickets are: press-box side, 22 yard line, row 36.)
Yup, it’s more intense. It’s also a harder-to-get ticket, not surprisingly. My father and I usually sell our tickets for the Bears and Vikings games; most years, those two tickets pay for the rest of the season, and then some.
Well, looking back on my predictions in the first post I can say I missed the boat on a few things, was pretty accurate on others and I seem pretty good with my game by game predictions (except for my decision to split games within the NFC North). I have the Vikings out of division record perfect and I have only missed the Packers game against the Bengals (Yes, I poicked a loss to TB a win against the Cowboys) out of the division.
This is pretty spot on. I disagree with Cutler’s accuracy on the whole though, last nights game he had issues but those haven’t been in his MO previously. In Denver, even with a downfield passing scheme, he was always in the top half in Comp%. Generally speaking his issue has been in his unwillingness to give up on plays and willingness to throw into coverage. His arm strength and timing is very good and he’s almost always able to put the ball right where he wants it. Unfortunately that spot isn’t always the smart place.
In this offense the lack of size and ability to shield defenders is killing him. He’s much better throwing the ball against man coverage than underneath against zones and the Bears personnel makes it far to easy to flood the zones. They can’t block or run that well so it frees the LBs to get into coverage making his like hard. The only really elite player they have is Olsen and they are using him all wrong. Because of how small the WRs are they like to split Olsen out wide when they want some size outside. Because Olsen is such a good receiver he can make some plays but he’s not as good as a real big WR would be and they lose him inside when they do this. He’d be better off inside working the middle all the time where his speed and hands create mismatches.
I’m not sure how they fix this, but I think it’s pretty clear that Turner and Cutler aren’t very compatible.
I don’t think Cutler and Forte are compatible either. Forte’s forte (sorry, had to do it) is catching flares and screens and checkdowns, not running the ball, and Cutler’s big problem is his inability or unwillingness to throw flares and screens and checkdowns.
I predicted this in all the fantasy threads before the season when everyone was talking up Forte as a top-5 pick, but did anybody listen? Tsk.
Can’t argue this at all. It’s unclear to me if Cutler is specifically unwilling to check down or throw to the RB in designed screens and flares or if there’s something weird with the playcalling/scheme that makes it impractical. Forte is excellent at both but even last season most of those opportunities came on 3rd and longs when Orton was basically giving up on a play before a punt. Things are similar this year.
I’m not sure if Forte can improve between the tackles running once we rebuild the line or if he’s just to slow, if he can’t maybe we use him as a part-time back in passing situations. I’m not sure if Cutler can be coached to check down more effectively and if plays can be called to exploit Forte’s skill there better. Maybe a new offensive system can improve all of the above.
Yeah, it’s not nearly as heated as back in the day. Not sure why, maybe it’s because it’s been a long time since the Bears and Packers have both been very good at the same time. It seems they are each flip-flopping between winning the division and going 5-11. Then again it was pretty heated back in the 80s when the Bears were always great and the Packers always sucked…but maybe that was all Ditka.
Certainly going to have to give that a try one of these days. Hopefully this is the first of several trips up there, though if we keep getting club seats for free we might have to settle.
What’s the going rate for those tickets? If we’d have had to pay for our club tickets they’d have faced for $240 and god knows what the market price would have been if we’d have flipped them. There were hardly any scaplers/buyers wandering the lots and perimeter that I noticed which was a little surprising.
Ditka and Forrest Gregg. Ugh, I don’t even want to remember those years. Gregg managed to confuse the ideas of “tough football players” and “common thugs”. I was embarrassed to be a Packer fan then.
Unless it’s a late-season game, and the Packers are going nowhere, I rarely see many ticket scalpers. Part of that, I think, is that Lambeau is 98% season tickets*. If you’re a season-ticket holder, and you sell your ticket to some schmoe on the street, and he gets kicked out for being an drunken asshat, you lose your season tickets**.
Anyway, the face value on my tickets is $72 each. Depending on how hot the Viking or Bear game is that year, we’ll typically get $200 or more for each ticket. I think we got $500 each for the Viking tickets this year. (I’m not entirely sure; my father is still up in GB, and he handles the tickets for me.)
- It used to be 100% season tickets before the last expansion, and the non-season tickets they added are reserved for Brown County residents, since they pay the tax that was instituted to help fund the expansion.
** The Pack now has designated Ticketmaster as an “authorized” reseller; if you sell your tickets to Ticketmaster, you’re insulated from the threat of losing your tickets due to the behavior of the random asshat.
I think I’ve been pretty clear on my feelings about Cutler and Forte (and Hester), so I won’t rehash that. But I’m wondering what it would take to get you to finally agree with me and stop looking for excuses for their poor play?
I’m not really making excuses for the poor play. Nonetheless I’m not going to agree that they are complete lost causes either. This is Forte’s second year in the league and has occasionally looked pretty good behind terrible lines. I thought Cedric Benson was a complete waste of air too, funny what a supporting cast can change. I think the Bears need to stop treating him as the second coming and use him as a part of a RBBC instead of the do-it-all they are trying to make him but I’d still rather have him on my team ahead of all but maybe 10-12 backs in the league.
Cutler is young too. There was a phase where a bunch of excellent QBs looked lost and acted immature. He’s got all the tools and I’m hoping he finally starts using them and gets put into a situation where he’s not constantly fighting an uphill battle. He’s certainly got a hell of a lot more upside than anyone the Bears have had in my lifetime and I’d have him ahead of all but about 8 guys in the league.
Hester’s overpaid for sure and he’s being used wrong. But if the Bears released him right now he’d be claimed off waivers by 20, maybe 25, different teams.
What exactly do you want me to agree with? They’ve all underachieved and the team isn’t putting them into good situations to win. As long as you keep taking the position that they suck and don’t belong on an NFL roster I’m going to continue pointing out how absurd that is.
Again, why? He’s a slow, tedious guy who is a workhouse, but who doesn’t break tackles, isn’t fast enough, and has little to no moves. He’s only second behind Steve Slaton in most shitty ypc among running backs with more than 100 carries. While, as a Packer fan, I’m more than happy to see him be your RB every time we play, I don’t see him as anywhere near a top 20 back.
He’s in his fourth year, with 47 starts behind him. It’s not like he’s Chad Henne, Matt Cassel, Shaun Hill, or even Trent Edwards (who all have a higher passer rating than Cutler by the way).
He’s 24th rated QB in the NFL. He is leading the league in picks. And you have him as a top 10 QB? Wow.
Sure there is upside there. Luckily for him, his problems aren’t with the physical aspect, but his fucked up head. He doesn’t make good decisions, he’s a brat, he’s not a leader, and if he gets rattled, he’s useless. Maybe someday he’ll put all that behind him and become a good QB, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that, and the Bears gave up plenty to get Kyle Boller ver. 2.1.
As a return guy, for sure. As a slot receiver, maybe. Think Dante Hall.
- Hester is a great returner, but a below average WR and most definitely not a #1 WR, and that he’s overpaid. 2) Cutler wasn’t, and isn’t, worth 2 first round picks, a third round pick, and a starting QB. 3) Forte is a below average RB who isn’t and won’t be, a starting caliber RB.
I’m not saying these guys shouldn’t be on rosters, but you were the one saying Forte was miles ahead of Ryan Grant and Kevin Smith in the NFC North (still maintaining that)? You’re the one saying Cutler is top 9 QB and Forte is a top 15 RB, both of which are not borne out by the stats or the team’s record. Basically, I want you to recognize reality.