HarveysWBs

There’s still room on the Sweet Meteor of Death bandwagon. 0-2 after losing to the Jets and that meteor starts looking visible without a telescope.

When I look at this team, all I see is pain. I don’t even think they “suck.” Would that that were true! The true pain isn’t in sucking. No, the Packers are worse than that, friends. They’re tragic. To suck in sports could actually be generative. It could provide clarity, draft capital, or the conviction to change. At the very least, a state of “suck” can be comedic. The Packers don’t truly suck, and haven’t for decades. Most of the time, they’re fatally flawed, which is the nature of all tragedy. Sometimes the flaw waits like an o-ring on Apollo 13, ready to hit you from nowhere when you least expect it (Bostick in Seattle). Sometimes the flaws are in plain sight for a year or more (the current offensive line). But inevitably the team will maintain a general baseline competence mixed with just enough brilliance (usually from the passing game, or maybe a hall of famer on defense) to prop up at least a feeble justification for staying the course. And so, like Sisyphus, we’ll keep rolling the cursed boulder up the hill again. To anyone who thinks the bottom is going to fall out on this team, I can only say you haven’t been paying attention. We’re really better, and so much worse, than that. I want another Super Bowl this year, but failing that, I want three wins or less. Nothing is going to change otherwise. But we’ll get neither glory or suck: nine or ten wins, maybe eleven if it breaks right, a glimpse of potential, followed by humiliation. Then the ritual gaslighting in the offseason. Take up your boulder and push.

Because it may be germane to the discussion of the two critical play call decisions (the RB toss play on 3rd and 11 and the 4th and 1 QB sneak), MLF said in postgame that both of those were checks at the line of scrimmage, implying that they had different (and presumably more aggressive) plays preferred, but that the defense gave Jordan a scouted look that suggested the check would work better. Both times, the defense was ready for the adjustment and won the chess match. To me, that does not entirely exonerate LaFleur for those decisions (since it is up to the play designer to provide an effective menu of plays and to prepare the QB to make the best decision there) but Flores was on his game in the second half. Love and LaFleur share that responsibility in those two instances. The bigger issue remains consistently losing the second half, and specifically the fourth quarter. It is a narrative amply supported by years of anecdotal and statistical data. The media knows it, the players know it, and LaFleur knows it. It hasn’t changed, there have been no signs of improvement, and every new instance just reinforces the feeling that it will keep happening, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. I cannot fathom a worse way to lose week one after the debacle in Chicago ended last season, barring a horrible injury to Love. It is hard to imagine the team pulling out of this vicious cycle with the current regime. Most fans likely understood this a long time ago.

Thank goodness for baseball. I can maybe have some expectations for some team for the next month. Maybe.

Monk had absolutely no clue what he was doing. It’s so utterly predictable. This organization doesn’t even deserve my hate. They should only get indifference. Gute has consistently underperformed on offensive line construction to the point it has cost multiple postseason games and it never gets fixed. We change defensive coordinators more than some people change their oil, and we’re consistently middling at best. And LaFleur has no sense of the moment, which trickles down to his team.

Missed a false start on LT on the 2-point conversion, too, but w/e I guess. I’m just tired. Nothing ever changes with this team.

What are we even doing here? New York want to step in, or…?

If Cooper takes the leap this year, that could be so huge.

Going for it was absolutely the right call. QB sneak, however, wasn’t. To LaFleur’s credit, he became much better about when to go for it last year after really backsliding on that for several seasons before that. But you have to have a better call than that. That was completely uninspiring (unless Love checked to that after reading the defense).

Brutal drop, c’mon Golden.

So I guess we’re just hoping Parsons comes back and drags us to a title, then?

So special teams got some hype in the preseason, but we get a lot more of the same I guess.

He had a nice move in the hole earlier in this half. But I think it is telling that Brooks got the start. I think part of it is trusting Brook’s pass protection. But if you’re not clearly better than Brooks, that’s a problem.

I hated everything about it except the result, so that’s about right.

It would be really nice if we have all four pass catchers healthy for 90+% of the year. But even if they do, I’m still afraid the offensive line will make this a moot point.

Not sure why we wouldn’t use our first TO there at the minute mark, but same old same old

Oh its definitely week one

Another joke personal foul. Ridiculous.

Agreed, but I’ll take the sack instead.

Hmmm…messing around on the road against an inferior division rival. Where have I seen this before?

Parsons has raved about him from day one. Maybe a classic Gutey late bloomer?

This is Hochuli’s field, we’re just playing on it.

I wonder if one way to parse the power numbers is that the Brewers hit so few solo home runs (which I’ve read is where they really are league outliers) due to the OBP approach to at-bats when no one is on base, but change their approach a bit when there are ducks on the pond. In that sense, it is less that the players can’t hit home runs as it is that they prefer to be choosier with aggressive swings. To wit, Turang’s bomb came with two on, and Bauers with one. Not solo shots. Perhaps the “can’t hit home runs = doomed in playoffs” narrative is a bit overblown then.

Week 1 is always a little weird around the league, and I know that the MLF discourse has traditionally been that the Packers start particularly slowly. So I reviewed all the week 1 performances under LaFleur and they are as follows: 2019: 10-3 victory in Chicago (not a good Bears team, of course) 2020: 43-34 victory in Minneapolis (barn burner, but also weird no-crowd situation during COVID) 2021: 3-38 loss to Saints (bizarre Jacksonville game because of hurricane Ida) 2022: 7-23 loss in Minneapolis (the beginning of the end of Rodgers’ tenure) 2023: 38-20 win in Chicago (sort of surprisingly positive result in light of Love’s struggles in the rest of the first half that season; Love and the team were widely considered to have improved greatly by the end of the year) 2024: 29-34 loss to Eagles (Brazil game, terrible field surface, and Love gets hurt late; the injury likely did not affect the outcome of the game but slowed his development that year and probably affects how people remember that game) 2025: 27-13 victory over Lions (decisive and tone-setting victory in some ways, though the Lions were not as good as expected by the year’s end) My analysis is that the narrative of slow LaFleur starts was largely a product of Rodgers’ decline and the Love transition, combined with some truly bizarre circumstances, especially with the road and overseas environments. As such, I don’t think it has much to tell us about this week one visit to Minneapolis other than to reinforce that it can be tough to win in that stadium under normal conditions. I expect the Packers probably win 55 or 60% of the time, but my confidence is lower than that in this particular instance. The injury report on the o-line is a bit ominous. Morgan should be fine, but Bako-Bewele and Banks look iffy. If either miss considerable amounts of this game, the Packers offense might be on the struggle bus against a maniacal blitz scheme (likely made even more aggressive by questions in the Minnesota secondary). If they’re both out, I’m only half sarcastic in thinking it might be best to give the Vikings a Pyrrhic victory and send Taylor in to play the second half. The Packers look set to walk a really fine line between excellence and horror this year, which may be the theme of LaFleur’s entire tenure.

Since 1970, when the Pilots became the Brewers, they are 4432-4553 (.493), while the Cubs are 4401-4574 (.490). In that time, the head-to-head matchup favors Milwaukee 239-230, and 3-2 in the playoffs after last year. The Brewers have won eight non-COVID division titles (about to be nine), while the Cubs have won seven. The Brewers have ten playoff appearances, and the Cubs have eleven (about to be eleven and twelve, respectively). The two teams each have one pennant. But, of course, there's 2016. The teams are really close. The last four years especially have given Milwaukee a slight edge. But that one big piece remains to really break through. So, as someone who lives amongst an unfortunate number of Cubs fans, I understand and largely agree with the desire to avoid the chance of an offseason of Cubs crowing (my gosh, the Bears fans are more than enough). But this year, the Brewers have as good a chance against anyone as they ever have. I'll be nervous as heck watching any matchup, and maybe 5% more nervous if it is the Cubs. But it is time to finish the job, and I hope this is the year.