HarveysWBs

TURNOVER!

And hands to the face of the QB, easily could have been called there. Nice.

I think it is becoming apparent that this team has not had to play much on the road so far. The kinks need to be worked out in an environment like this.

Oh good, glad its not just my tinnitus.

Well, let's hope that was the worst quarter of this game.

Horrific clock management. Play some madden, kids.

Not going to happen. Not at the going rate for stud secondary players.

Pressure is forcing some uncharacteristic plays from 12.

I did not expect the Chiefs to be thoroughly dominant in the trenches on both sides of the ball, but here we are.

And when the pass rush disappears, as it has so far today, the whole defense doesn't work. This is a Matt Moore-led offense (granted, with Reid calling the shots, but still)--very alarming.

There goes Za'Darius "LoCain" Smith again.

So our defense still can't account for TEs. I'm sure that will not cost them down the stretch at all...

So, didn't the ball hit the pylon there?

Mostly 3/4 yard runs and dink and dunk except for a huge miracle catch by the pride of Whitewater on a big 3rd down. Nice toss sweep to Jones for the first score.

Special teams giveth, and special teams taketh away.

Well that was a bad 3rd down play. This Chiefs defense isn't exactly wet cardboard, I guess.

You just learned that today? I had not witnessed the Cleveland line in live action, I had only heard stories of their ineptitude. Those stories were not exaggerated.

Fun fact, when Baker Mayfield tried that toss play we just scored on, it was intercepted. So, today in the NFL I learned: Packers o-line is good, Browns o-line is not good. The more you know...

In light of the controversy surrounding Giannis’ long-term status in Milwaukee, someone should make a “Will-he-stay-or-will-he-go?” meter that can be updated after every game. Solidly in the “stay” zone after the big comeback in Houston, wiggling towards “go” after an uninspired home showing vs the Heat. It would be really useful!

I get this. When there are so few games, one has to try and read the tea leaves to gauge a team’s quality. But it got me thinking: did the 2010 team have any signature wins in the regular season? The opener in Philly was nice, and ending the year with wins over NYG and the bears was big to make the playoffs, of course, but I don’t remember thinking those were ”signature wins” at the time (in fact, I was probably most impressed with the team during that New England game, and it ended up being a loss; sure Rodgers was out, but that was when I started to think that team could be really good). We may not know if any win is a signature win until long after the fact. Maybe Dallas goes on a run in the 2nd half and so curb stomping them in their house will feel pretty good later this year. Maybe we blow out KC tomorrow, but their fade could continue even after a Mahomes comes back. I just don’t think we can be sure of anything right now, other than the Pats are going to coast to the AFC championship again. Fun fact I learned while reminiscing: at no point all year did the 2010 pack trail by more than 7 points. My goodness, what a defense that was. I miss me some Charles Woodson. And BJ Raji. And young CM3.

So, I’m obviously on this board because I’m a Brewers fan and Packers fan. Thusly, I’m a member in good standing of the Fraternal Order of Cardinal Haters. My father hates the Cardinals, as did his father before him, and so on and so forth. The Cardinals embody all that is soulless and wrong in an otherwise glorious sport, as they ceaselessly posture and preen about the right way to play, obnoxiously trumpet their past champions and accomplished players ad nauseam, and have a preternatural ability to squeeze every ounce of baseball ability out of an endless supply of minor league fodder so average in appearance that the incongruity can only be explained by some sort of Faustian bargain (leaving me to wonder when—for the love of all that is good in this world!—will that debt come due). Of course, I need not elaborate any further for you here. But, you see, in my 30+ years of conscious football fandom, I’ve never had to have a hate as strong as the one I hold for the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals. Sure, as a kid growing up in Bear country, I had my fair share of twerp friends and classmates who tried tweaking me about the Packers, but rare is the year when Favre or Rodgers did not absolutely beclown the Bears in at least one, if not two games, and the last laugh would be mine. So my distaste has instead ranged to various other organizations in a fleeting way, going from the Cowboys to the Niners to the Seahawks until I came to the conclusion that, of course, the Patriots are much akin to the Cardinals. Obnoxious coach and fans, media obsession, repeated success with an apparently lackluster roster of players, and so on. It fits my archetype for an object of hatred so easily that I rested on these assumptions for a long time without much thought—until now. The problem is, to put it plainly, the Patriots have entered a realm that now defies comparison. They are monolithic. As an organization, they are not so much king of the jungle as the meteor that wipes out the 31 dinosaurs of the NFL. This all makes them even easier to hate, of course. You root against them like one roots against the Yankees—but on steroids. They’re Thanos and the Evil Empire and John Calipari all mixed into one. But if they’ve graduated beyond the Cardinals comparison then that means the closest thing the NFL has to the Cardinals is...the Packers. They’re a Midwest team, occupying that small market/“flyover” territory, with a storied past, loads of championships; the team prides itself on its distinctively intelligent and passionate fan base with a supposed principled and virtuous way to build an organization and play the game the right way—or even “the Packer way.” They’re universally reviled by every other midwestern team, the fan bases of which insist that arrogance, luck, and cheating/bias of the officials pervade the whole edifice of the Packers. World championships: 13 (Cardinals: 11). Division championships since 1996: 11 (Cardinals: 11). And even when I consider how they win, just this past weekend, the Packers triumphed with precisely one superstar on the field and a bunch of virtual unknowns outside of committed fantasy players—quite a Cardinal-esque way to win. It pains me deeply to say this, but if I were a Vikings fan, or a Bears fan, or a Lions fan, I’d feel the same way about the Packers that any good Brewer fan feels about the Cardinals. And I don’t see any other way to reason myself out of this conclusion.

Vintage Packers defense. Bend, bend, bend but don't break. The question of the rest of the season becomes: can Kansas City, Minnesota, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans—or, even New England—break the Gumby defense? Will that unit torpedo another playoff run, and be one more chapter in a long, tragic book?

Right? My thought exactly. Jacobs is really, really good. But yeah, I’d throw all day.

I think all this can be true without the pick being a blunder. You could have then, and now, make the argument that King’s measurables and potential was—and is—worth the risk. And in the moment, I was really hoping they’d draft Watt. But I get the logic of the King pick, and want to give it more time to breath before I render judgment. Because of all the time King missed, he’s still a really inexperienced player, and I think it’s not unreasonable to expect more growth from him.

What a huge drive. The offense is making me believe. But I want to see a complete game from them first.