HarveysWBs

Another January injury to a key contributor right before the playoffs. Can’t make it up. Then again, I also had the same thought as @homer—this team has been playing quite well in the secondary with Valentine and Ballentine, attorneys at ball. But then again, Dallas is a different beast. This is the most complete passing attack our defense has played all season (and is likely to see in this whole tournament). We may be about to find out how much smoke and mirrors Joe Barry has left in the bag.

After the Lions game on Thanksgiving, I was telling a buddy at work that, for the first time all year, I was simply looking forward to watching the Packers play. I had reached the perfect equilibrium between thinking they could win, at peace with the idea that they probably won’t, and genuinely excited to see what they come up with. I haven’t felt that feeling much as a Packers fan, pretty much forever (my earliest football memories are of the 1994 and 1995 seasons, so most years have been high expectation ones for me). After getting a little over my skis after they beat the Chiefs and I assumed they’d win at least 10, I’m back to the golden mean. And I’m not saying this is predictive or anything, but I haven’t felt like this since…2010? I mean, they probably won’t win a single playoff game, but, could they win any given game? Wouldn’t shock me, not even the 49ers, who can lay an egg with the best of them. I’m just ready to have fun now. [Somebody quote this at me when Carlson misses a FG and an ExP, please…]

Good job to the kids! Got get a taste of the postseason!

Rivalries just aren’t what they used to be.

Another cal l could have gone either way. This just feels like a loss.

Bottom line is, we shouldn’t be leaving it to the zebras anyway. This should be well in hand.

Getting hosed

And they decided it so quickly. I just don’t get this one.

Good grief, we’re getting no breaks, and not helping ourselves. Bad combination,

Just ridiculous. But believable.

Imagine what this offense will look like if everyone ever gets on the same page…

Dang it. That’s a killer

What the heck is Valentine doing?

LaFleur’s offseason assignment: play Madden until timeout decisions become automatic. Passcatchers’ offseason assignment: tackling dummies every day until they learn to fight to the sideline.

Well, here we are. Not sure what to say about this game, or this season. If you would have told me in August that the Packers would be right around .500 and a play-in game Week 18, I’d have been pleasantly surprised. If you would have also told me Jordan Love had an outside shot at leading the league in TD passes and would steadily improve heading into January, I’d have been thrilled. And if you had told me the defense had acquitted itself poorly enough to make replacing Barry a (seemingly) foregone conclusion, I’d say that is a pretty successful season. And yet…somehow, that doesn’t quite say it. It isn’t just where the Packers have ended up, but how they got here. So many close losses to (probably?) inferior opponents. So many unexpectedly good wins. If you’re like me, you go into today’s game with the feeling that the 2023 Packers, despite how many disadvantages they were overcoming, could have had considerably more success than they had. And things seem to be coming into place to allow a (little) January run. And yet again…doesn’t it all just add up to a team that doesn’t do what it is supposed to do—losing when they are supposed to win, and winning when they are supposed to lose? This team is the essence of inconsistency, and something tells me they will remain that way until they develop a defense they can count on, which isn’t going to be this year. And if they are rightly favored to win this game, their recent history makes me pretty nervous about that. So I guess I really just have no idea what to expect today. I think the only result that would surprise me is a double-digit Bears win (even against our defense, I don’t think the Bears have the type of offense that can truly pull away in this one). Beyond that, I give us a coin flip chance at best, and am most interested in seeing if Love remains as unflappable as he has been all year in the most pressure-filled game of his career. Should be fun!

No doubt. Bears looked very competent today, albeit against a Falcons squad that looked like it had no interest in suffering through the elements. Gotta show up next week, and looks like we’ll be short-handed on the o-line, to boot.

Would have liked one more TD pass to salt this thing away, but I’m fairly comfortable with this lead.

I don’t know the rule, but I know offensive linemen do that on every play…

Crummy ball spots on those two runs

Not saying, just saying…

We’ve got bad Love so far. Nice, nice

Yeah, I’m sick of the New Year’s Eve schtick already

In news that matters only to me, if Love and Doubs combine to outscore Justin Jefferson by 17 points or more, I win my fantasy league. The fate of my fantasy season is in Joe Barry’s hands. Needless to say, I’ve made a terrible mistake.

I know this is a difficult concept for other fanbases to wrap their heads around, but: 1) There are many ways to create a corporation. The cutthroat, profit-driven, shareholder value over everything model typical to most well-known corporations is not the only way. The Packers are quite open and honest about exactly what their stock is. The lack of appreciating value, limited voting rights, and possibility of stock buy-backs are all clearly stated and not a scam in any way. 2) Nevertheless, the stock is quite real and legally binding (hence, not “memorabilia”) in several important respects, not least of which being that it necessitates financial disclosures that no other franchise in the NFL is subject to. This transparency is of huge value to the fans, as it offers unique insights into how money is accumulated, shared, and utilized, with both direct application to Green Bay, but also the league as a whole by extrapolation. You can bet your bottom dollar that the league would pay unholy sums of money to make the Packers organizational structure go away and never replicated anywhere else in the league so they could maintain far more secrecy in the way finances are utilized. (By maintaining the oft-repeated misconception that the stock is meaningless, you are in fact participating in the NFL’s greedy propaganda campaign—billionaires everywhere thank you). 3) Even if the above points were untrue, the stock sales would be valuable for making it less necessary for the franchise to go to the taxpayers with hat in hand. The Packers have leveraged public financing far less often than their league peers for this reason, and this fact should be championed by any advocate of responsible government. 4) Finally, by tying themselves corporately to a fan base, the organization is not at the whim of a billionaire owner or group, and thus must act in the interests of the community and long-term stability of the organization to a larger degree than any other franchise, certainly in the NFL, and possibly more than any other team in professional sports. No, it does not eliminate greed and craven decision making entirely, but it does, for instance, make it all but unthinkable to uproot the team from Green Bay, and that alone is worth the sticker price to me. Enjoy Arlington.

I have no strong interest in college football. I attended a D-III school, and grew up with the closest major schools being Iowa, Illinois, and Iowa State being roughly equally far away—all programs with practically no appeal to anyone who didn’t attend them. This is to say that I am the definition of a casual fan. What about this whole situation in college football is supposed to appeal to a fan like me? These games used to be a showcase for the best of the best playing in unusual and intriguing matchups. Instead, we are subjected to unwatchable trash. If the players don’t even care, why should I? How is the NCAA going to grow its brand? Heck, forget casuals like me, and tell me how is the NCAA going to even keep its own fan base from disengaging? How discouraging for fans of Florida State or Ohio State to see their season end like this. It just reiterates the sense that there’s really only two or three teams that matter, and there’s everybody else just trying to grab as much fast money as they possibly can. Go team…