Let’s take a short break from our struggle to maintain the American way of life and consider a subject thoroughly irrelevant: the fortunes of the Green Bay Packers.
A glance at the NFL NFC Conference standings at the time this is typed shows that if the playoffs were to begin this weekend – a silly notion, but stick with me – Green Bay would hold the top seed in the NFC. Having seen the Green and Gold play a few times – not all of their games, mind you, but most – one thought immediately comes to mind: that if the playoffs did start this weekend, Green Bay would be the team that all the other playoff teams would most want to play. To say that the Packers have seemed less than a juggernaut thus far … well … sums it up.
I did watch (on tape delay, of course) Green Bay’s recent victory over the Arizona Cardinals. Looking at the Cardinals’ record and not being aware of their back story, one might assume that the narrowness of Green Bay’s victory underscores my case. Here, I would differ. Arizona has apparently had a bunch of close and tough losses, and the Cardinals played hard. They’re a significantly better team than their record, and the Packers can be proud of their victory. Arizona backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett had a truly impressive performance, but watching the game made me feel in one respect that it was déjà vu … all over again.
I have lamented more than once in these pages over the years that the Brett Favre Packers should have won more Super Bowls than the one they claimed, but they had a weak link that for years the Dallas Cowboys exploited: in the 1992 NFL Draft, then-Green Bay General Manager Ron Wolf drafted Cornerback Terrell Buckley out of Florida State University rather that Cornerback Troy Vincent out of the University of Wisconsin, and while Mr. Vincent went on to have a distinguished career, Mr. Buckley didn’t experience the success that the Packers had hoped for. In crunch time in big games between the Cowboys and the Packers, then-Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman would seemingly simply pass to whichever of his talented wide receivers Mr. Buckley was trying to cover. The results were predictable. The Green and Gold didn’t finally win a championship, despite having Mr. Favre, Reggie White, and a host of other talented players, until they drafted Craig Newsome, who took Mr. Buckley’s place.
And again: in 2010, although the season ended in the only Green Bay Championship in the Aaron Rodgers years, at midseason the team was going virtually nowhere; a primary reason was that a truly remarkable cornerback and classy guy – Charles Woodson – had reached the point that he no longer had elite corner cover skills. He was regularly being beaten. Out of desperation, the team moved him into the slot – where, with his football smarts, he proceeded to wreak havoc on opposing offenses – and threw the completely unheralded Sam Shields, who had been a wide receiver in college, into the corner spot. Mr. Shields unexpectedly proved to have truly elite cover corner skills. With their Aaron Rodgers offense and a Woodson-in-the-slot, Clay Mathews-led defense, Green Bay morphed from a marginal playoff contender into a World Champion.
Since I spend little time on Green Bay during the offseason even when we’re not struggling to save American democracy, I wasn’t sorry when I heard some time after the fact that the team had parted ways with its celebrated cornerback, Jaire Alexander. When healthy, Mr. Alexander is a premier corner, but he wasn’t healthy often enough. That said, Linebacker Micah Parsons’ entrance – Mr. Parsons has been truly impressive — and Mr. Alexander’s departure has flipped the script for the Packers’ defense; last year, the secondary was the team’s defensive strength, its pass rush its liability; this year, Mr. Parsons has galvanized the Packers’ “front seven” while the secondary has been less impressive. Against the Cardinals, Mr. Brissett went after Cornerback Nate Hobbs, whom the team signed to replace Mr. Alexander, with impunity. Perhaps he was just having a bad day – it happens, and I haven’t seen all of the Packers’ games – but Mr. Hobbs looked a lot more like Mr. Buckley than he did like Mr. Alexander.
All that said, let’s move on to Green Bay’s upcoming visit to Pittsburgh for its Sunday night matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Packer fans – y’all know where I’m goin’ with this😉.) While any game against the Steelers, given the team’s outstanding pedigree, is a formidable challenge, this one will be … different. We know now-Steeler Quarterback Mr. Rodgers. He’s a fr… well, we know him 😊. Although he left Green Bay under seemingly-less acrimonious conditions than did Mr. Favre before him, and has said that he holds no animosity toward Green Bay, that this Sunday’s game will not be “a revenge game” for him, we know that he gets up for particular challenges, and that he will be ready to go on Sunday evening. He’s now two years into the rehab of his Achilles injury. I haven’t seen him play a down this year, but don’t have to. I’m guessing that between his injury and his age, he’s not as mobile as when he was the most accurate passer on the run in NFL history, but I’ll venture that he can still move around under pressure when he has to. There is no savvier quarterback in the NFL. No matter what Mr. Rodgers says, I am confident that he well recalls that in his first matchup against Mr. Favre after Mr. Favre left Green Bay, Mr. Favre won.
I fear that Mr. Hobbs might as well take off his normal Packer jersey and wear one with a big, red X on it. Given Mr. Parsons’ and the rest of the Packers’ pass rush, the Steelers will have to keep back additional pass protection, but that ball is going to come out quick (speaking fan-speak, rather than grammatically 😉 ) or be thrown away. You know it. I know it. I am confident that the Packer Defensive Braintrust and Mr. Hobbs know it.
Because of Mr. Rodgers, I will venture that this Sunday’s game, although the Steelers are in the AFC, will be as big a test for Mr. Love and the Packers as any they face this season. If there is any good to be gleaned from Green Bay’s performances against the Cleveland Browns and the Dallas Cowboys, it’s that the team must realize that it can’t afford to be overconfident. I’m not sure I accept the slim odds currently favoring the Pack.
We’ll see what happens. This one will be fun. If the Packers win, maybe they have something. If they don’t, I’m guessing that despite their current record, they probably don’t. (Since the game is in the evening, I’ll watch it live, perhaps even past my Medicare-aged bed time 😊 ).
Enjoy the weekend.
McCoy's Noise 