Nobody Calls Me Lazy…

other than my wife. And my mother. Sometimes my boss…

I wasn’t even going to write this — who has the motivation? — but even Mike McCarthy seems to agree with me. “We need to do a better job of finishing games,” McCarthy said. “We’re up 28-3, we can learn from that experience and put the opponent away. There was some sloppiness in our play down the stretch that we can learn from.” (McCarthy also said the team played well in all three phases of the game, but that doesn’t support my argument, so I’m choosing not to emphasize it.)

Let me nitpick one last point before we put this whole thing to bed and gang-scoff about the non-scandal scandal being fanned by PFT. Our Cheesehead friends write: “If you are up on a team 28-3, does it really matter if you are allowing their running back 4.4 yards per carry?” (Andy made the same point in his post.)

Maybe not. But Foster had most of his yardage in the first half, before the game was a blowout. He had forty-nine yards on 12 carries (4.1 average). This isn’t awful defense, but given the lack of weapons for the Panthers and what the Packers were able to do to Adrian Peterson last week, it’s not great, either. And then, as Charles Woodson acknowledged, things got worse in the second half.

Anyway, I think my basic point holds: the Packers played reasonably well on offense, occasionally well on special teams, and not very well on defense. We’ll just agree to disagree about whether the performance yesterday would have beaten the Lions or the Cowboys.

Profootballtalk.com Attempts to Manufacture a Scandal (Continued)

Another very smart post by Greg Bedard here.

Nothing is more irksome than living room know-it-alls who obsess about the NFL (or their teams) offering their unqualified observations to fill the dead time between games. Wait…

Seriously, Bedard is exactly right. The whole thing is a non-issue. The only thing that makes it remotely interesting is the suggestion that the Packers may have injured the NFL rushing leader and sure-thing Rookie of the Year as a result of a “bounty” on him. It’s nonsense, of course, but precisely the kind of thing that gives eats up the airtime the talking heads programs are so desperate to fill. How many times can they show Tom Brady throwing four touchdowns to Randy Moss? It’s just not a dynamic story. Much better for the professional gabbers to weigh in on things for which information is scarce and speculation drives the story. In this case, the PFT guys wrote: “To the extent that limiting a player’s production can be satisfied in part by, for example, tearing the player’s LCL, it’s probably not a good idea for incentives of this nature to be dangled in front of NFL players.” But as Greg Bedard pointed out: Al Harris made the tackle responsible for knocking Peterson out of the game, a hit that would have resulted in him PAYING off the bet, not collecting on it. So even if the incentive were financial — preposterous given that Harris, who makes $5,232,000, would have collected $500 — their “reasoning” doesn’t work.

Although profootballtalk.com hinted that an update was coming, they have not yet amended or expanded their 11:55 AM post in which they suggest that the existence of friendly wagers between Packers may have been responsible for Adrian Peterson’s injury. As someone might say, stay tuned.

UPDATE: No matter how wrong the guys at Cheesehead.tv are about yesterday’s game — were they smoking crack with my brother? — they’re exactly right on this. Nice, to have you guys back.

UPDATE II: Here is the ESPN story on all of this. They broke the story yesterday AM.

UPDATE III: Thompson speaks.

This is why we seek you Pabst…

From the Pabst website:

“What’s next for us? Wine coolers? “Hard” lemonade? Peach beer? No thanks. The only trend we’re interested in is the one we started over 160 years ago: To brewing unpretentious, uncompromising beer that quenches local tastes year after year. And while the import drinkers are down at the gym, working on their six-packs, you can bet our consumers are hard at work on theirs, too - twelve cold, crisp ounces at a time.”

A Non-Response Response to My Post on Yesterday’s Game

Someone’s not very happy about my views on yesterday’s game. The guys over at Cheesehead.tv did not like this comment, in particular: “It was an adequate, if somewhat lethargic performance, that was good enough to beat a really bad team. But if we’d been playing Dallas or even Detroit, it’s hard to see how such an output would amount to a win.”

For having this view, I am apparently “spoiled” and “lazy.” Hmmm. Here is their critique in its entirety.

I don’t even know where to start. First of all, does the author understand that this game was over at half-time? In fact, one could argue that it was over after Tramon Williams scampered down the sideline for a touchdown. Once the Packers had the lead, the Panthers had no chance. And to call the Packers’ performance ‘lethargic’ is just plain lazy. We’ve seen lethargic Packer teams (think of the team that showed up for Mike Sherman in 2005 for a Monday night game against Baltimore) and this certainly is not one of them. And since when has throwing for 3 touchdowns become ‘adequate’? Methinks the Packer Geeks need to relax and worry about things that matter, like enjoying a history-making 9-1 record and beating the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving.

Let me help. A good place to start would be actually addressing the points I made in my post. I did not claim that Packers sucked, as the Cheesehead guys seem to suggest. Here is what I wrote: “The offense played reasonably well and the special teams was uneven — spectacular on Tramon Williams return and Koren Robinson’s 67 yard return, but lacking on Mason Crosby’s two missed field goals. But the defense turned in a subpar performance, especially given the level of talent the Panthers put on the field.”

And when I needed to back up my claims, I did so. “The Packers allowed the Panthers to score more points than at any time during their current four-game skid; 17 this week, twice they were held to 7. At times, DeShaun Foster looked like DeShaun Foster used to look at UCLA. He averaged a healthy 4.4 yards/per carry…” The author seems to think it’s not possible to win a game despite a lethargic, uneven effort. I disagree and suggest the Redskins/Packers game earlier this year as a good example. That our Cheesehead friends chose not to engage those arguments in favor of name-calling might provide some insight as to the strength of their counterarguments.

This is a better attempt, though it’s still lacking. For a Packer defense to give up 382 yards to a team on a four-game losing streak, without the team MVP, starting a quarterback that collects social security, and playing wide receivers that would not start for any other team in the NFL, is simply not a great performance. Sorry. It’s not. It’s not even a good performance. It is, as I wrote this morning, a subpar performance. Whether that happened because the Packers were playing prevent defense, as Andy seems to suggest, or because they were not playing with the kind of intensity we saw in the shutout against Minnesota, is open for debate. I’d argue it’s a combination.

But I am frankly surprised that anyone not blinded by excessive fandom could disagree with my original conclusion: “The offense played reasonably well and the special teams was uneven — spectacular on Tramon Williams return and Koren Robinson’s 67 yard return, but lacking on Mason Crosby’s two missed field goals. But the defense turned in a subpar performance, especially given the level of talent the Panthers put on the field.”

Does anyone think yesterday’s performance would have beaten Detroit or Dallas? That would be an argument I’d be interested in hearing.

I’m beginning to wonder if the guys at Cheesehead.tv even drink Pabst…

Live Blog Sunday — Green Bay vs. Carolina

Still no word from Pabst regarding sponsorship, so we’ll do our best without any PBR Light.

Fact-Checking Fortune Magazine — A Defense of Pabst

So I’m reading this column on the auto industry by a senior editor at Fortune magazine named Alex Taylor III. The author is attempting to explain the woes of the auto industry and concludes that one problem is stale branding.

Despite the best efforts, old brands eventually lose their luster, which explains why we’re not drinking as much Pabst Blue Ribbon beer or Vat 69 scotch as we used to. Marketing vehicles with names like Buick, Pontiac, Lincoln, Mercury, Dodge, and Chrysler is a real challenge that all the savvy and spending in the world isn’t going to solve.

It is possible that Alex Taylor III is not drinking as much Pabst Blue Ribbon beer as he/she used to. But it’s flat-out wrong to claim that “we” are not. According to an article in Cheers magazine, Pabst is one of a handful of beers brands to qualify as an “Established Growth Brand.” (Yes, Cheers is real publication that covers the food and beverage industry.) “Established Growth Brand” includes beer that have posted “moderate or substantial growth in the past four years whose volume exceeds three million cases.” Pabst sold 19.1 million cases in 2006, growth of nearly 6 percent.

What does this have to do with the Green Bay Packers? Not much. But we’re trying to get Pabst Blue Ribbon — America’s Beer — to be our first corporate sponsor and I thought a little truth-squadding of a major business publication couldn’t hurt.

UPDATE: Here is the email I sent to Pabst. We’ll let you know what we hear.

I just posted this on our website, which features, among other things, lots of commentary about our love
for Pabst.

http://packergeeks.wordpress.com/2007/11/15/pabst-in-decline-or-clueless-reporting/

What are the chances of a corporate sponsorship? We’re going to be huge.

Best,
Stephen and Andrew Hayes
“The Packergeeks”