Fear The Chorizo

2019's Packers team got embarrassed by the 49ers by running at will against them in large part because their offense wasn't capable of scoring enough points to force San Francisco out of that type of gameplan, and they were a 3-and-out machine that kept the Packer defense on the field way too much. GB's defense that year also had a huge weakness in the front 7 with MLBs and DL outside of Clark, which was the 49er offenses' strength at the time. They would get killed with basic off tackle and stretch runs because Martinez couldn't move laterally and the line would get sealed off at will. This year's defense can be run on a bit, particularly with misdirection and designed cutback runs, but teams still need to pass the ball in order to move the chains because the MLB personnel is a big upgrade, Clark is having an all pro-caliber year and the other DL are playing much better even if the names are mostly the same as 2019. Plus, the biggest thing GB has going for them is their offense can put points on the board consistently and do so with a ball-control, balanced offense that can function in bad weather if it needs to and keep their defense fresh.

If you have plenty of money to put down 20% and still have a ton of reserve funds I think most should avoid PMI. Sure - but if I were a 1st time homebuyer in my current neighborhood in 2016, that would have meant needing to come up with ~$60K at closing to avoid a PMI payment of roughly $115 a month on a 3.5% mortgage. Instead we put 10% down, dealt with the nominal PMI payment for a couple years that wound up totaling $3K in extra money out the door over that time, and got rid of it after the home appreciated in value by almost $200K. Now in our neighborhood, 20% down would be roughly $100K for the same home - had we stayed in our previous home and location, there's no way our current home would be affordable to us. I'd add the caveat that part of our move coincided with my wife opting to leave the workforce for a few years to enjoy as much time with our young kids (and one on the way at the time) as possible before they got older, so we opted to not make the perfect financial move in order to improve this time as a young family - different strokes for different folks, and as long as you're happy with the reasons why various financial decisions are made it's all good!

You'd be surprise how much lower monthly PMI is if you can swing 10% down vs just 5% - I think people trying to save at least 20% down before even thinking about buying a house may actually cost themselves in the long run when home prices are increasing in markets faster than people can save. If you're in the right market you may be better served buying the house sooner than later at a great interest rate without having a full 20% down, deal with the PMI payments for a year or two and after the home appreciates in value work with your lender to try and get PMI removed based on an updated appraisal.

I might win the prize for buying a home at the wrong time - we bought our 1st home in IL spring of 2008, with a 0 down, 6% 30 year fixed - after the fact we realized we may have been one of the last people to get a $0 down mortgage because it was right as the bubble started popping. The thing we did do right is we didn't listen to our realtor/mortgage broker when they told us we could afford a home in the $500K pricerange (lol), and instead shopped at the pricepoint just over half that much. Our loan terms were terrible (rates were much higher then), but we were able to make significant extra principle payments the first few years before our kids started showing up to plow through the worst portion of that 30 yr mortgage quickly. Doing that for just a couple years helped get the percentage of our typical monthly mortgage payment dedicated to principle elevated much quicker than had we just paid our mortgage on autopilot, and a refinance 3 years in got our rate down to ~4% on a 20 year term without changing what our monthly mortgage/PMI payment was. Would have loved to eliminate all PMI during the 1st refi but the house value just wasn't there due to the crash, but at least that amount was reduced. We were thankfully able to sell our home for the same price we bought it in 2016 and used the accumulated equity for a big downpayment on our current home in MN so we no longer have a mortgage with PMI and it's at a great rate - also picked the right time to leave IL, as the home value of our 1st place is roughly the same as it was when we bought it in 2008, and our current home has basically doubled in value ~6 years after moving here. At some point home values in this market will stop skyrocketing, but I agree that another housing crash like 2008-2011 isn't going to happen - rent prices are actually outpacing home value increases in most markets, so people waiting on the sidelines are winding up having to pay more for nothing while they wait to start building property equity.

After Tampa got to waltz through the nfc and afc east divisions this season, they actually should play some decent out of conference competition.

Already saw an article stating Bama opens next season as the title favorite - poor editing, that article should just state Bama opens the next 10 seasons as the title favorite. Yawn

I think their GM retired....perhaps if there's some level of competence there one of the 1st items of business the new GM will get to do is fire Judge and be involved in hiring their own preferred coach.

Really makes you wonder what McCaskey skeleton burial locations Ted Phillips knows about - how is he still involved in any sort of football operations decision-making with that team? Also affirms my appreciation for the Packers not having a team "owner" or family ownership group - while sometimes it's nice to have a solid owner who has some accountability and move forward with big decisions knowing the buck stops with them, there are just as many situations in the NFL where heritage team ownership is the primary reason an organization can't get out of its own way and build a sustainable contender on the field. The Bears' organizational structure is an absolute joke because the descendants of Papa Bear Halas are buffoons when it comes to running a football team.

Both of Love's picks in yesterday's game are just kind of 'meh' - Rodgers dropped a good pass in stride that actually had a chance to break into a huge play and instead tipped it to a defender, and the one at the end of the game was an overthrow with a free blitzer in his face where taking a sack ends the game. Not a great decision to throw over the middle in that spot with no timeouts, but chalk it up to growing pains/inexperience in that spot. Even the INT he threw at KC, Adams had his hand on the ball 1st on a 1 on 1 ball and the DB made a great play to pick it off - could it have been thrown 6" more towards the back shoulder of Adams and likely led to a big completion and potential TD? Definitely - but it's not like he's misreading coverages and making horrible decisions with where he's throwing the ball. I will say that Love has got to improve throwing accuracy - but some of that has to be rooted in limited gametime reps with starting receivers, too. Rodgers also struggled often when having to throw some of those timing routes to Winfree and ESB because they were often not in the spot they were supposed to be.

It's fair to say that it's premature to totally discount Love since it took Rodgers 2 plus years to establish himself. But, from what we've seen to date, Love has had zero games which can be described as terrific and doesn't look ready to take over as starter. It would be a disaster to switch from Rodgers to Love now. We'll see in another year. You could have stated the exact same thing about Rodgers after his 2nd NFL season had he been handed the reins heading into his 3rd year and been 100% correct.

Though true, it was a different McCaskey in charge back then. George seems to have a very short amount of patience. Far as I can tell, team CEO and President Ted Phillips is still somehow employed by the McCaskey's - given George's ineptitude at front office hirings and the fact he's likely in charge of the next GM/Coach hires since Phillips is not a football guy by any stretch, I'm certain they'll do a bad job once again.

Harbaugh's 'scorched earth' personality style may not sit well with the strong-willed McCaskeys or the Chicago media. The only time the Bears actually won a Super Bowl, their head coach's personality style didn't sit well with those groups either...just saying. For all I care they can continue to evaluate coaching options based on how well they relate to an incoherent family ownership or a local media full of doofuses - that's their perogative and it probably continues to benefit the Packers. I think Harbaugh would be a great fit in Chicago because he knows how things work in that town based on his playing days there and he's got the bonafides to put together a really good coaching staff. And yes, Fields is their QB now, but there's nothing about that roster as is currently constructed to prevent the new GM/coach combo from trading Fields for extra draft capital if they want to work with "their guy" from jump street, too.

It's pretty apparent that Hackett will be a head coach somewhere with all these openings and his name mentioned for a handful of them already to at least interview. I'm hoping Gute is putting calls in to a few of the special teams coaches who have just seen their head coach canned (not MN, their ST unit sucks, too), and told them to take a nice 1.5 month vacation before heading to GB for an interview to coach special teams in 2022.

Harbaugh in Chicago is probably the one NFL job he'd leave Michigan for - but their most important hire needs to be GM, because they are really hamstrung with limited draft picks to do a quick rebuild due to the mess Pace made. Drafting Trubisky and having him flop after spending the draft and financial capital to have a great defense a few years ago crushed their window. They are probably best served to have a scorched earth rebuild to gather as many picks as possible for 2023-2024 and hope the new GM drafts well. Similar situation in Minnesota, although I think they have more mid term cap issues if they keep Cousins around - his 2022 cap hit at the moment is untenable (~$45M), and their roster is too thin behind it to just roll with what they have in the building. Both the Bears and Vikings do have talent at key positions, but they don't have roster depth because of what the GM's that just got canned had to do in order to acquire that talent with free agency spending and trades.

Adams only gets tagged if they are planning to trade him after Rodgers leaves, and that's only to buy them more time to find the best value in trading him. Even with a restructured Rodgers deal should he remain in Green Bay next season, the Packers won't have enough cap room to tag Adams and have him actually play under that cap number for 2022 - they'd resign him to a longterm deal that does whatever it can to push big cap hit issues a few years out.

Awesome news to hear Z.Smith healthy enough to try ramping up for the playoffs - even if he's not close to the player he was, having him in the OLB rotation is a huge boost for quality depth. And honestly if he is healthy, he probably is the best player on that side of the ball not named Kenny Clark at this stage of his career with Alexander still being kind of dinged. One item I've been trying to understand better is what may be leading to Savage's recent struggles in coverage on defense - he's seemed to be exposed in recent weeks a bit, but I also wonder just how much of that has been due to how well GB's corners have been playing on the outside even without Alexander, and opposing offenses are gameplanning slot receiver/TE/RB as the focus of their passing attack. Stokes has been really, really good and we all know Douglas has made some big plays too - getting Alexander back in any capacity really could strengthen their secondary, and it wouldn't surprise me to see him plugged in as a slot corner in obvious passing situations to help with coverage between the numbers.

Tampa is a tough matchup for Philly, because the Buccaneers are just really tough to run on, and the Eagles are a running team - putting their offensive success mostly in the hands of a young quarterback on the road against Brady doesn't sound like a winning formula. If they can get into a low scoring grinder of a game, who knows...but i don't see Tampa losing that game.

Yep, and both understand that as well - Only way Rodgers is back is under a new contract, so his 2022 cap number is much lower and it frees up some flexibility to sign Adams longterm as well. If Rodgers goes, then I'd imagine the play would be to also look to trade Adams, possibly after franchising him.

I thought I saw something where GB's OC could wind up with a job. He was interviewing in JAX, I believe

The playoffs are wide open more than any year i can remember across the board, because even the best teams have flaws and there aren't two teams that have a bye in each conference This is a great year to have the bye, if only because it is one fewer game to win to reach the super bowl than all the other teams and you are playing at home. I'd give the Packers 50% chance at reaching the super bowl and the rest of the field gets the other 50% in the NFC, primarily because of the bye.

NFC North whacking day....my goodness I will say the firings are long overdue both in Chicago and mpls

Favre quit, but I think the Packers were plenty happy to move on to Rodgers. The whole team was high on Rodgers future at the time. I'm not sure that Favre would have won a fair competition in camp. Rodgers is so much better than Love that it's not even a question as to who's better. Rodgers was godawful until year 3 as a pro and wasn't the starting QB in Green Bay until year 4 - Love is in year 2, however he didn't get rookie minicamps or training camp due to COVID that most assuredly hindered his initial development. It's actually accurate to say that at comparable stages in their careers, Love has looked like a much better longterm quarterback option for the Packers.

While I agree Rodgers is playing at an incredibly high level and would be surprised if he retired for good after this year no matter how GB's playoff run ends, but I wouldn't be shocked by it. Gotta also remember that Rodgers has repeatedly mentioned he isn't looking at trying to extend his career well beyond when he's at the pinnacle - and he's about to become a husband who seems interested on starting a family and has plenty of interests off the football field he seems intent on pursuing. Not that those things can't also be done while still playing quarterback in the NFL somewhere, but IMO it seems like he views some of these milestones as the next stage in his life to focus on after football. At the moment I have a harder time seeing Rodgers playing elsewhere in 2022 than him retiring - if I had to put a percentage on things before the playoff run starts I'd say 60% back with GB under a new deal, 25% retire (even if temporary), 15% force his way out of town via trade.

If Rodgers does leave after this season, it won't be a complete teardown but there will be a significant retooling to put themselves back into a more palatable longterm cap situation - that means alot of veteran cuts and likely a franchise tag on Adams before working out a trade. I would imagine 2022 would feel alot like Rodgers' 1st year starting after the Favre exit - a team that needs to find a new identity and likely one good enough to be competitive in what looks to be a down NFC North. Not a Super Bowl contender, but depending how Love develops not one that's going to be in for a long rebuild because there'd still be alot of talent on the roster. I think Rodgers winds up either retiring (after a Super Bowl win) or sticking around and in turn inking a longterm contract that turns his current $46M cap hit for 2022 into a number much, much lower that provided enough cap room to continue walking that tightrope without having to blow it all up.

So Love probably won't be one of the 10 best quarterbacks in NFL history. Got it. That doesn't mean the Packers can't win with him longterm, though. I just have a tough time assessing what he (or any young qb with next to no NFL game experience) will be a few seasons into starting full time. Going to hold off on judging what he could become until he's actually given the chance to be a starting quarterback.