CheezWizHed

Yeah, just look back to Rodgers/Adams... There were games when they were unstoppable... but then run into a good playoff defense that triple covers Adams and what do we do? Would I turn down Chase or JJ on this team? No, but balance is needed

I mentioned this in the Game 7 thread, but I think Jacobs needs more outside runs. The defense has been crashing into the middle every time he gets the ball. The TD he broke out behind Watson was created because the outside containment was crashing to the OL. You can clearly see a difference on how the D plays the run when Wilson is in there. If they are less predictive with Jacob's runs, he will have more room to run.

Four games in seems a bit premature to call that... go look at KAT's stats from last night and see what Turner has brought so far (FYI, KAT averaged 25 pts/game vs the Bucks last year). Turner's D has shown up... I suspect his offense will take some time finding his spacing around Giannis.

Looks like Rollins heard your post and put up 25 pts for you. 😃 Porter and Giannis played really well together last year (to the point where I was advocating Giannis and Dame play as little as possible together). But I think Rollins has the most upside, IMO. I've been on his bandwagon for a couple of years. And since he is just 23, he still has some upside to go.

The Panthers are a surprising 4-4... but less surprising when you look behind the scenes (and who they beat) Bryant Young still looks like the same QB he has been the last couple of years; save for scoring a few more TDs. Low completion percentage, short throws, and an interception in over half the games played. Young didn't play last week and Andy Dalton is his backup. Probably more dangerous is their RB Dowdle who put up over 200 yards on the Dolphins. A league average defense per yards given up, but dead last in points. If the Packers get ahead early, this should be a cakewalk.

And most of the rookie WRs that exceed that number are on bad teams that have no other WR/TE options. Golden is on pace to hit 614 yards this year. Watson: 611 his rookie year - Rodger's last year Doubs: 425 - also Rodger's last year Reed: 793 yards - Love's first year and Watson only played 9 games that year.

The one to Kraft, the pass rush hit him, but it was certainly a dangerous throw. I blame him taking too long one the blitz more than the throw. To Watson, I wouldn't call 50/50. Watson was the only one that could even touch that ball, let alone catch it. Now, you are right that Love falling back and to his right... then throwing back left is generally dangerous. And if he had a bit more on the throw, Watson walks in for a TD.

There were three things I noticed as major shift from previous games and a fourth that continues on... This is the first time in a long time that the Packers made half-time improvements. Seems like most of the time, whatever they did going in, is what they did going out. They made some legit shifts One of those shifts was Love's response to the blitz. As good as Love is, he won't take the next step until he can appropriately handle the blitz. First half - seven-step drop, hope someone is open down the field 30 yards, throw short as you get hit (or a lame duck that Kraft turns into a miracle). Second half - short slants, crossers, or checkdowns. This was a MAJOR reason the offense turned it up. First half - 1 out of 6 on third down - blitzed every play. Love (and/or MLF as play caller) needs to bottle the second half response to blitzes. There was a LOT of Valentine out there. He wasn't perfect... in fact maybe only marginally better than Hobbs. And I don't recall seeing Hobbs in the slot either, so he was either injured or getting a wake up call. Special teams penalties. Seriously, just kneel already. A couple of other observations: Tucker Kraft! Jacobs needs to have more outside runs. I know it isn't his strength, but just about every game this season, people have clogged the middle to bottle him up. Certainly, the Steelers backed off the run when Wilson was in there, but he made a lot of hay outside too. Just mix it up! The TD bounce wasn't quite designed, but certainly worked because players were crashing to the middle. Welcome back Watson! Both on receiving and blocking! Nice to have a quiet day from TJ Watt. Rodgers (both before and after) was pretty mellow and careful with his words. Nice to have Wyatt back.

So only losing 21-7 vs 6th-rated Oregon has to be a win, right? Not sure if that should be "blue" or not...

I certainly won't defend Favre's actions on his exit. They were certainly those of a 2-year-old. I went from "let him play as long as he wants - he is a legend" to "I've had enough...moving on". But Rodgers wasn't exactly a choirboy when we drafted Love, nor when we drafted a bunch of new WR/TEs for him (i.e. refusal to do OTAs to get to know them)... Maybe more of a mutual parting, but if he had gone to the Vikings, it would've signaled a very similar reaction... just about as bad as CC going to the Cubs.

This statement really confuses me. Did we win 90 games this season? Check. 97 Did we have our pitchers on IL in the middle of the season? Let's see: Freddy - No Woodruff - Yes. Beginning of the year until July Miz - Yes Early Aug for 2 weeks Quint - Yes late Sept for 2 weeks Priester - No Megill - Yes Late Aug-Late Sept So I guess we did that too. There was a point where I felt like they were doing it deliberately to get people rest mid-season with whatever minimal injury they had. Too bad Uribe and Ashby didn't get that rest late in the season.

Rodger's schtick got really old those last couple of years. I was done when he refused to attend OTAs right after we drafted several new receivers (Watson/Doubs). The flip side is that we are seeing the team play a bit sloppy - which Rodgers wouldn't have put up with. Love does need a little of Rodger's fire. Favre was with the Vikings, so that was a whole different level of "in your face". Rodgers would've gotten the same if he signed there this offseason. I wonder if the Vikings are kicking themselves now... I would love to beat Rodgers on Sunday and in the Super Bowl. And will happily applaud his addition to the ring of honor. Valentine has nearly been as bad as Hobbs was Sunday. Hoping that was Hobbs' worst day. Also Hobbs+Valentine < Hobbs+Bullard. Brinson outsnapped Stackhouse the last two games and I think he has been a decent improvement. He gets some pressure against the pass and is no slouch against the run either. For a backup DT (and a rookie 6th rounder), I think he is solid. Give him a couple of years to work on technique and he might become a poor-man's Clark. Stackhouse actually improved last week too. Limiting him to short yardage helps.

I'm not trying to defend Chris, but I know that in my position as a people manager you need to try to spin bad news to sound as positive as possible. Perhaps they can't fire Fickle for financial reasons, so showing public support is one way to make good of a bad situation. Or perhaps he is doing some (attempted) PR work to calm down recruits. Or maybe it is all spin and they are interviewing in the background. Hard to know what is going on behind the scenes for these situations. Come on! As a US Citizen that likes sports, you MUST LOVE (American) FOOTBALL!!!! 😂

You have to follow the conversation thread and not just read one comment (LOL). The premise was that if the Brewers (team 384 OPS vs LAD) had hit as well as Durbin (I used 777 OPS for the playoffs - looks like adambr2 was using his LAD series 973 OPS) they could've swept the LAD (who had a 748 team OPS). Or the simple version... if we would've outhit them, we probably would've outscored them... and perhaps even swept them.

The logical spots to find upgrades are: 1) Shortstop Bo Bichette - well a guy can dream... A total of 4 players listed at SS there (I'm sure some UT players could manage too) Falefa is probably the only upgrade we'd consider here. 2) Third Base (backdoor SS upgrade with Durbin to 2B and Turang to SS) Alex Bregmen is probably the main FA target at 3B and thus, expensive. Miguel Anuhar? 3) CF/LF - depends on where you want Chourio to play. Cody Bellinger? Kyle Tucker? Dream on... Trent Grisham is probably priced out of our range too. CF Yastrzemski at 34 might be reachable? Rob Refsnyder is 34 too Seems like it is the bigger few guys, a couple 1.0 WAR players and a host of negative WAR players. Probably a low chance to bring in a needle mover there. 4) 1B - Replacing Bauers, though he did have a strong year. Naylor or O'Hearn would be great, but just about the top of the market. Maybe Dominic Smith? 5) DH - unlikely given Yelich's contract.

Positional play thoughts: QB: Not Love's best game, but was good. Seemed to handle the clutch opportunities better - especially late. Was mediocre early. Maybe he is like Favre and needs one good shot to wake him up? That run where he took a full force Budda Baker seemed to get him in the game. The timeout to prevent a delay of game was 13 seconds on MLF and 22 seconds on Love... seems more like Love's problem especially when he doesn't realize it is running out and he is still making adjustments down to the 1 second mark. RB: Jacobs is a beast. This season would be VERY different without him. Even 1/2 of Jacobs is good. They need to stop running Wilson like he is Jacobs. Two very different guys where Wilson needs to run more outside and less up the gut. The last two games, it looks like Brooks is bringing zilch to the team. WR: Golden looked like he was going to have a huge game after the first couple of drives, but then didn't do much else. Doubs quietly had a good day. I'd bet Heath doesn't last the week with Watson taking his place. TE: Tucker Kraft - MORE COWBELL PLEASE! The rest - meh. We really need to find a blocking TE that can sneak out and catch the odd short yardage pass reliably (like Marcedes Lewis) for the 2nd TE. Musgrave can't block (nor seems overly coordinated to run and catch a ball at the same time) and Fitzpatrick doesn't seem to have the comfort level of the coach to catch a pass. OL: I'm interested to see the numbers here (snap and PFF). I didn't see Rhyan out there this week (but might've missed him if he was in briefly). Morgan seemed to have a good day run blocking and was OK in pass block - a few key pressures at least. Tom didn't seem to be his usual either. Walker looked a little off or slow too. Banks had a penalty, but didn't see any bad plays. DL: Star of the game was Parsons. He had some contorsions of his upper body that were freaky. I swore a couple of times, his upper half looked like a wet noodle where his lower half just ran around while the T was trying to block his upper half. His upper half would just bend and contort so that there was nothing to really push against (i.e. wet noodle) and then pop back up when the lower half got around the T to sack the QB. Brinson looked solid again. Stackhouse even held up -probably better when he has fewer snaps - and did excellent on the 4th and 1 stop. Gary had the strip sack, but seemed pretty quiet otherwise - solid, but not a ton of pressure. Barryn looked active out there but made some mistakes. It will help to get Wyatt back for pressure up the middle. LB: Walker made a bad personal foul, but part of it was missing the pass and coming down on the QB's facemask. Otherwise, he had a good game. I do wonder how much of the communication issue we see is on him as the QB of the defense or just lack of practice together (injuries in TC). Covering TEs was atrocious out there. Way too many wide open throws to McBride. I'm thinking this on Cooper unfortunately. He looks a bit lost going backwards into coverage. And he isn't playing with the speed and decisiveness of last year. DB: Hobbs - woof. What a bad day. Nixon - still pretty average play. Gave some up, but not much. Made a nice play - forced fumble or broken up pass - either way it was a good one. McKinney, Williams, and Bullard - solid play. Nothing great, but nothing terrible either. I just get the feeling this unit isn't communicating or comfortable where each other should be. Double teams and zones seem to leave some BIG gaps yet. ST: 61 yards. Havrisik made himself some money these last two weeks. I wonder if he might be tradable when McManus is healthy? A 7th round or 6th for 7th swap?

You are destined for politics my friend! 😂

It's just the Packers vs Aaron Rodgers on Sunday night football... I'm sure it will be boring. The 4-1-1 Packers take on the 4-2 Steelers when we still seem to be figuring out how to play football on the road - including flight maintenance. (Hopefully MLF fires the airplane maintenance coach to shore that up). Aaron Rodgers get a little extra motivation against his old team, but he stands more statuesque behind a mediocre OL these days and could be susceptible if the Packer pass rush comes out strong. DK Metcalf will present some problems as the 6'4" speedy WR will be a handful for our diminutive DB group that still looks like they don't know how to work together well, yet. Another big question would be the status of our injured players... Will this be the game that Watson returns? Will Lloyd see his second professional snap yet (hyperbole)? Will Wyatt firm up our DL quality and amp up the pass rush? Yeah, nothing to see here... please disperse!

Just remember that Barry Alvarez also hired Gary Anderson, so he isn't really perfect either. Hopefully Mac just learns from that hire to dig deeper. I don't think it really matters about how many recruits we lose... when you have a hole in a bucket, you can't keep pouring water in because they keep pouring out. Got to plug the hole first. If it looks like Fickel has lost the team, then pouring in new recruits isn't going to help.

Not sure why I'm wasting my ink because if you don't understand that higher OPS generally leads to more runs, I'm not sure what I can do for you.

I'm sure it will be fine. He isn't one to hold a grudge...

I think there is a lot of opportunities for both. Brinson over Stackhouse has been a win. Getting Wyatt back will help. I'm hopefull that the DB can improve from just communication (multiple injuries in TC didn't help) and McKinney making a few plays (dude has been a ghost this season at least as far as making big plays). Cooper seems to be having a sophmore slump. His coverage has been terrible. Offense should improve with a consistent OL. Adding back Reed and Watson will also be huge. Perhaps even Lloyd.

There is your dagger!

Dumb mistake by Brisset to run that. Lost a lot of time. Thank you!