Fear The Chorizo

I'm so confused by the kickoff rules, I was surprised there was even an attempt at an onside kick at all - thought by now the NFL would just have game of rock, paper, scissors where the kicking team had to win 5 straight rounds to get possession.

For as putrid as this team played almost the entire game, injuries, inconsistent play by their franchise qb who still makes some really terrible reads throwing into coverage, this winds up as a 1 possession game where two more missed FGs could've made the difference. This team has plenty of talent, but it's young and injured enough in some key places where it's going to be inconsistent. Vikings are no doubt a decent and well-coached team, but GB beat themselves this game.

Garret Mitchell 2024 ops- 0.818 Frelick 2024 ops - 0.655 Both have roughly the same WAR for the season...it's just that Frelick had about 80 more games played to accumulate that total. Frelick is a winning player, but Mitchell is better - much better.

I have this feeling like the Packers are going to create a bunch of turnovers against this Vikings offense Sunday...feel free to pepper me a few days from now if that doesn't prove to be true.

I think they can be spread out and exploited by a team with solid depth at skill positions, making the uber aggressive pressure packages Flores likes to deploy vulnerable with big plays....their 1 road game so far came against what could be the NFC's worst team. They got off to a fast start last season only to crumble after teams started picking their secondary apart. Vikings also really haven't had to defend the run much at all due to some early big leads in games - will be interested seeing what happens against the team that can offer a little balance, too. Hopefully Love will be back under center, but I wouldn't want them to rush him back just for this game in September if he wasn't feeling close to all the way back with that knee. I'm most interested in how the Packers' D will match up against the Vikings' offense - which has been pretty impressive so far with everyone healthy-ish.

Great seeing the D line wreaking havoc early on in this season...even if against a putrid Oline. The Packers have enough ball hawks in the secondary now to create alot of turnovers if the 4-3 front can generate consistent pressure and the LB's get more assignment-sound in coverage to take away those easy 10-15 yard throws between the hashes. By December, they could be really damn good.

I feel like the Reds have perpetually been in the "they'll be really good next year" approach for the last 4-5 seasons....lots of young talent, to be sure - but a mix of injuries, growing pains with some youngsters, a shaky bullpen throughout and then some core veterans getting too long in the tooth has prevented them from putting it all together. The Reds just feel disjointed. Also, I think their ballpark is a consistent problem to building around pitching, no matter how talented.

I despise this format, because it doesn't put near enough value on the regular season and winning your division. 1st team to clinch a division title and they're likely going to be opening the postseason with a 2 out of 3 series that's as random as it gets. Would much rather prefer finding a way to have four divisions in each league with as balanced a schedule as can be, and go with a no wild card, division winner only format. If that's too old school, then the format with 3 division winners, 2 wild cards and have the wild card be a 1 game playoff round makes more sense to me than this.

This point is also something many people who push the argument that drafting Love was a wasted pick because he sat for a few seasons and the Packers couldn't take advantage of contending with a quarterback on a rookie contract before having to back the Brinks truck up again don't fully account for. They also choose to omit the fact that the first 2 seasons Love sat, the Packers' quarterback won league MVP (and year 1 there was a solid chance there wouldn't have even been a 2020 football season at the time of the draft due to COVID)...so a developmental qb prospect like Love wasn't the worst idea in the world at the time. Besides Russel Wilson (3rd round pick, inserted to a team built on running the ball with a historically great defense) and Purdy (Mr Irrelevant, playing with a roster full of HOFers on both sides of the ball who are now all collectively getting long in the tooth/expensive just as the 49ers have to decide whether or not to pay a 7th rounder $50M a season), what other franchise that have found themselves in or winning a Super Bowl have done so with multiple years of a quarterback on his rookie deal? The Bengals got there early in Burrow's career (#1 overall pick), then instantly had to extend him to a huge contract and have scuffled through the last two years watching him get beat up/injured. Trevor Lawrence won one playoff game and is now playing on an extended contract. Mahomes is the exception to every rule right now (like Brady was a generation ago), but he sat a year and the roster he walked into won 10 games the season before with Alex Smith as their qb. And Mahomes was extended rapidly, too. More often than not, a top 5 qb winds up on a bad roster to start with, and by the time that team is ready to contend on an annual basis he's already getting a huge extension. And if that top 5 qb isn't good enough to rapidly turn a franchise around regardless of the rest of their roster, he becomes an NFL journeyman before his rookie deal even ends.

I still think the 2008 team was best positioned to win it all....until Sheets went down around this point of the regular season. Forcing CC to go on 3 days rest multiple times to ensure a WC berth torched their pitching, and if they would've had a healthy Sheets and better rested CC at the start of any series that team would've been a tough out. 2018 they were 1 game away from the WS, too. It's nice to try and make comparisons to multiple postseason ballclubs I watched instead of having to go back to 1982, when I was a toddler. Playoff baseball is so random, I'm happy they're in with key pieces performing well and give them a good chance of making a memorable run this October. Really wish we had the Yelich of the 1st couple months of this season healthy and in the middle of this lineup still, though. This Brewers team has a great mix of talent scattered all over its roster, does many things well, and can win games in so many ways. I do have much more confidence in their ability to plate enough runs against playoff pitching this year than other seasons where the pitching staff was the driver and if Yelich wasn't right we all knew runs were going to be tough to come by.

One of the knocks on him even while he was mostly dominant in college was that he never really had to go through reads quickly and make the right decision on where to go with the football on time - he relied on talent and being able to make plays after the initial route trees broke down - often by his own intent by not throwing immediately to the open read, ala improvisation. Aaron Rodgers had a really good run of years in GB doing that once he was already on a HOF track and after knowing what everyone was doing on the field (both offensively and defensively) based on NFL experience. He also had to for a few years because his stable of receivers were brutal at getting open themselves with predictable playcalling and declining athleticism. Right now, Williams is still playing like he's at USC, without a full understanding of his own playbook, and no clue what defenses schemed to confuse and pressure him are doing. The Bears have done alot in terms of surrounding him with what seems to be a solid group of skill position players - but their O-line is still a question mark. Solidly agree that he's got the talent to turn into a great NFL quarterback, but the toughest part for him will be changing how he plays the game to fit into NFL competition. Otherwise, he's got alot of Ryan Leaf in him.

I thought the switch to the 4-3 would lead to Quay being shifted to a Will LB position, which I think really suits his skillset...instead due to personnel limitations and lack of experience at that position, he's the primary MLB - which doesn't allow him to pick a lane and fly around - he's busy sifting through blocks and trying to make reads instead, making him passive at the point of attack all too often. I really do hope once Cooper is more comfortable in the MLB role, we'll see Walker on the outside more where his skillset and athleticism can shine.

they do - one of them is about to hit 50HR this year

Agreed, and that sentiment doesn't even take into account the lack of EV comps to ICE vehicles manufactured for consumers in developing countries, where a Civic would be considered luxurious. Sure, people will continually say that "those more budget-friendly EV's will be here and to market soon"...without realizing the sheer scale of what they are assuming can readily happen actually is globally.

Splitfinger fastballs probably are harder overall on the arm because of the tension pitchers need to put on the baseball with the fingers (and tendons going further into the forearm to the elbow) - traditional sliders are also hard on the elbow ("turn the door knob" sort of release action), but as Bauer indicates above grip adjustments can create an effective slider without so much torque on the elbow.

That was how they had such a good 2022 regular season - we all knew they were frauds and were quickly bounced out of the playoffs at home against the Daniel Jones-led Giants that year. They are a team constantly in transition with a thin roster that's log in the tooth a key spots - a couple injuries to the wrong guys and they're going to get exposed.

I think the Bryce Young situation has more to do with a college Heisman winner on a juggernaut college program being overrated heading into that draft, and a bad Panthers team made the wrong selection. There have been plenty of collegiate QBs with all the accolades get picked high and instantly flame out. It's too lucrative an opportunity to pass on being a professional football player that will be drafted in the top 5 to stay in college, no matter what the NIL money amounts to. Jordan Love (a late 1st round developmental pick) had a great half of one season 4 seasons into his pro career and is now generationally wealthy.

absent the fumble by Jacobs going in to score a TD and a missed FG, yesterday was a great game for the Packers that could have easily been a curb-stomping compared to a game that hung in the balance to the last hail mary play. Asking for more out of Willis or a better overall gameplan (both offensively and defensively) is just getting greedy week 2 with a backup quarterback getting the home opener start. GB dominated the trenches a week after it felt like they were getting pushed around a bit too much - great bounceback team W.

Monasterio is the guy who should be DFA'd

Youngest ever to have a 20/20 season in MLB....congrats Jackson!

Week 1 loss looked ugly, yes - had GB offense turned one of those early red zone opportunities from Eagle turnovers into a TD, that game plays out differently and the Packers probably are 1-0. Love played poorly, to be frank - but so did the rest of the team....which is an annual week 1 frustration for Packer fans besides when they play the Bears. Packer defense was far from good, obviously...but it's easy to forget how stacked the Eagles' offense is. A healthy Barkley was dynamic, and I don't think there's a better WR duo in the league than Brown/Smith on the outside. Plus the Eagles still have a pretty good O line. I think that team wins their division rather comfortably this year, despite the annual Cowboy hype. Losing by 1 score, week 1 to a playoff team in flipping southern Brazil on a field that looked like it was 2 inches of fresh sod thrown on top of an ice rink isn't the end of the world.

Meh...not making proclamations in week 1 in today's NFL. There will be another team or two that have something to say about that inevitability. NFL now is kind of a "Wake me up when it's november" to know who's good and who's healthy enough to make a run.

Important to remember the last time the Packers played both of those teams, they were just as if not more physical than both of them.

Naw...everyone in Jets land is getting fired later this year

That's being generous, too