areacodes

Would that really be considered fans at that point? Well, it isn't happening now, is it? Small crowds can be defined a bunch of ways, I guess. Maybe "ticketed fans" would be a better way to phrase it. I was really questioning if friends/family would qualify as “fans” based on your original question not crowd size. I’d think you could say 0% chance of fans in the stands and be correct even if friends/family were eventually allowed in.

Zero? Not even 200 for friends or family in a suite? No chance of that? Would that really be considered fans at that point?

Is there really going to be many maintenance days with a 60 game schedule?

Were people really not expecting to have star players test positive and miss time? They’ll self-quarantine for two weeks or whatever and hopefully get back out there. It’s not as if star players didn’t get hurt during normal seasons and get replaced with “guys we’ve never heard of” before. Yeah, it is a short season and that could have a larger impact but at the same time - it is baseball and “guys we’ve never heard of” have had hot starts or a surprise half season. This season is going to be different, but we’ll (hopefully) have baseball.

Couldn’t they just alternate the home/away team? Have a four game series between the Brewers/Twins at Miller Park with the Brewers being the home team for two and the Twins for two. With no fans in the stands, the main advantage will be what team is batting in the bottom half of the inning.

If that is your opinion of Manfred, nothing in any article will paint the players in a bad light for you. I’m not sure how anyone could have any other sort of an opinion on Manfred. He’s either a really terrible Commish that doesn’t care much about the actual sport or he’s a puppet for greedy owners that care more about making money. Pick one, he sucks either way. Being a puppet or terrible at his job is different than calling him a snake. I didn’t even comment about his ability or anything along those lines (FYI - I think he is a poor commissioner). My only point was, if you go in viewing him as a snake - you aren’t going to see any fault with the players in their response.

If that is your opinion of Manfred, nothing in any article will paint the players in a bad light for you.

I think what will determine the ceiling for the Badgers seed is whether or not the committee will factor in Potter not being eligible in the first half of the season.

I don’t think anybody thinks they are perfect and they have definitely had bad apples, poor characters and shady things happening in the past... and it will happen again at some point. That still is a large leap from that to an issue of racism within the team/program that was brought up.

We have no idea what is happening within the program. We have no idea what was experienced by past players. We do know that the UW-Madison campus has numerous ongoing issues with diversity. It was just in the national news a few weeks ago. I don't want this thread to spin into politics but we have to acknowledge that there *could* be underlying issues in the program that we are not aware of. I mean a coach just got fired for using a racial slur, and a departing player cited issues going back several years. That sounds like a pretty big deal! I think some context needs to be included about him using the racial slur. Yes he said it, and has admitted as much, but it wasn’t used at a player but instead was used in the telling of a story. That matters when debating if there is racism in the staff/program. None of us, that I know of, have an insider relationship with the program so obviously we don’t know exactly what is going on but I can’t imagine the black coaches would have stood by idly if there truly was blatant racism within the program - it just doesn’t add up.

Anybody know if the new restaurant is up and running? I can’t find anything on the Brewers website about it and on the Miller Park Guide still lists Friday’s. My wife is interested in seeing what they have and I’m down with taking a trip to Miller Park even if it is in February.

Some quotes from Erik Helland from the JS: LINK Sounds like Helland should have done more than just apologize when it first happened - maybe inform Gard or somebody else in the AD as he didn’t say anything until almost a month later. But if it truly was addressed and an apology was accepted by the players directly involved it seems a little excessive that he’s losing his job over it and that King brought it up when it was second hand to him. That King went on to thank him in his Instagram post announcing his transfer to then say the quote below seems odd to me as well.

That's easy. $$$$$$$$ I don’t think there is much money to be made changing the name of a street.

Magic number for a playoff spot is 11 games. Looks like they have 7 games left before the All Star Game, can they clinch a playoff spot before?

The talk about the points scored in the first half had me interested, so I looked it up. Phoenix Suns dropped 107 on 11/10/90 breaking the record of 90 set by the Denver Nuggets 3 days earlier. The three highest combined first half for scoring all occurred within 8 days of each other and each included the Nuggets. Suns/Nuggets - 174 on 11/10/90 Nuggets/Spurs - 173 on 11/7/90 Warriors/Nuggets - 170 on 11/2/90 Sorta crazy that that all happened within about a week of each other... and now we can get back to the Bucks pulling away at the end of the game.

I’d argue the GM isn’t some insignificant front office guy. They are a pretty big part of the organization.

I believe it’s an unsportsmanlike conduct if a team takes more than one delay of game penalty without running a play. Not sure if the play clock would continue after that penalty or not, but it would move them back 15 yards. If they didn’t care about field position and the clock would continue to run after the penalty, I could see a team doing that. But you would be moving back pretty quickly at 15 yards per clip. Would the coach get ejected then for multiple unsportsmanlike conduct penalties then if they did it a couple times? Interesting... Couldn’t you just do what the Titans did and take a delay penalty and the have a false start and do that again? Maybe stay in the huddle and run another player out to join the huddle with like 6 seconds left on the play clock and get a 12 men in the huddle penalty? What other pre-snap penalties are there?

The numbers say that going for two is the better move. Go up by two scores. Worst case, you fail and they get a touchdown. They will just kick the extra point to tie (most times). Very little risk, with winning the game as the upside. Two scores to me still means the TD and the 2 point conversion. Worst case, NE beats you running one back and going for 2 if you leave it at 7, not 8. The upside I'll agree with you... game over if Tenn goes up by 9. That’s not what two scores means. Do you consider being up 7 as two scores as well since they need to convert the PAT? Against most teams I’d be 100% okay with the move and I didn’t disagree with it yesterday... but the Patriots are one of the teams I’d consider kicking the PAT only because I could see Belichick being one of the coaches to go for 2 to win the game if they miraculously scored, even at home. And they would most likely make it. I also loved that Vrable took the penalties and drained nearly 2 minutes off the clock before punting (though he probably should have gone for it even though it worked). Belichick seemed so salty about that even though he pulled it earlier in the year.

Because of the name on the back of his jersey. That is a good point.

How was that not intentional grounding on Brady?

So you're using a stat comparison to show that Jimmy G isn't playing at a higher level than Rodgers but then you compare Deebo Samuel to Davante Adams? Come on, that's nuts. Deebo is a rookie WR with a lot of promise. Davante has been one of the top WRs in the league for several years. The 49ers don't have a Davante Adams WR equivalent. Not yet. I meant Sanders. And this year, they are pretty close overall. I think Adams is better than Sanders but Kittle to anything we have at TE is much larger.

I thought the Packers offensive weapons weren’t any good? Says who? If you've read my posts on the Packer offense, I've been on record repeatedly as saying that with Adams, Jones, and this offensive line, Rodgers should be able to get this offense to play at a much higher level than he does. Yes, they need to add a receiver this offseason but there are some solid pieces already in place. Sorry, I know I was responding to you on that but it really wasn’t directed at you. And yes, you have 100% been on the elite OL all year long and I also agree that Jones is a weapon when we use him. But I know you’ve read the IGTs all year and lots here have said our offensive weapons are essentially trash. You did, however, say that Garoppolo was certainly playing at a higher level than Rodgers and it isn’t true. He also has a comparable WR in Samuels and we have nobody like Kittle. Yet Rodgers has similar TDs and yards with significantly less picks. With that said, Rodgers has had a year that I’m sure everybody would agree isn’t up to what we hoped it would be and he was missing receivers all over the field today. Some of those we just off and some were pretty bad.

But he does have a Davante Adams, an Aaron Jones, and a top tier offensive line. I thought the Packers offensive weapons weren’t any good?

Let's take a step back and see if they actually win tonight first before giving them the next 3 super bowls, ok? It's still Jimmy G at qb. What's wrong with Jimmy G? He's certainly performing at a higher level than our quarterback. I don’t know... their numbers look pretty close to me and Rodgers doesn’t have a Kittle to catch the ball.

I don’t think there were many people making those claims that were looking for a discussion about being a historically weak high seeded team. It seemed that most were pretty well entrenched on the thought that they are the worst ever and have been stating stuff like that for weeks. I guess I'm not sure what your point is on this. The best thing you can say about them is that they find a way. Their offense is mediocre, their defense is hit and miss and their special teams was historically terrible up until the last few weeks. They've won a ton of close games and there's just not anything they do particularly well. Are they the worst 13-3 top 2 seed ever? I dunno, it's all subjective but they would be in the discussion. That's not being down on the team, that's just the reality of their journey this year. It's still great to be a top 2 seed 13-3 team but I don't think it does any good to bury our heads in the sand when it comes to our deficiencies. That said, just giving yourself the opportunity can be enough...the Ravens weren't a particularly great team when they won it all, just got a run of great play from Flacco. My point is there are teams out their like the Patriots who are in similar situations who have statistically better teams who aren’t getting the same results and are losing to mediocre or worse teams. I don’t think anybody has really buried their head in the sand regarding the Packers deficiencies but I do think there are times where it is overblown. The offense has not been impressive, but they don’t usually turn the ball over, have a decent run game that can be explosive at times and a really good red zone offense - all things that I feel are essential to helping you win in the post season Likewise with the D, they may give up some yards but they are top 10 in scoring D and the Smith Brothers can cause havoc in the backfield... again positives in winning in the post season. Last, the return game was awful for most of the year correct and I’d say the punting has been pretty mediocre since the first Bears game... but Crosby has been pretty much automatic this year and that is a big part of special teams. But your last point is spot on. It is about getting this opportunity and going on a run. Let’s see if we can do it.