GREEN BAY PACKERS 2021: GAME #4
Vs. Steelers; Sunday, October 3, 3:25 Packer (Central) Time (1:25 Pacific)
First, a "confession," of sorts: When I predict the game's final score, I will ALWAYS pick the Packers to win. Even if Rodgers, Jones, Adams, Alexander, Gary, Campbell and Clark were all injured, I would still pick the Packers to win. The second thing you should be aware of is that I know virtually nothing about the other 31 teams in the NFL. I feel about the Packers the same way Bucky Dent felt about the Yankees. IOW, to paraphrase him, I say, "There are the Packers, and then there's everybody else."
It’s true that there are a handful of teams that I have an especially negative opinion of, such as New England (“Bellychunks and the Cheaters”), the Vikings (“Anthony ‘No-Host’ Barr and the Cheap Shots”), Tampa Bay (“Warned Saphead and the Cheap Shots”) and the Dismal Swamp Redskin Peanuts, as well as the Seattle Sea-hoax, Cowboys, and Raiders. But the rest are all simply in the “meh” category—if they are playing one of the teams listed above, I like them that week.
Of these growl-inducing, teeth-grinding teams, the Packers naturally play the Vikings (twice) this year, as they do every year; otherwise, they play the Redskin Peanuts and the Sea-Hoax.
Oh, and by the way, showing my Packer-centricity: “The Rock” is not Dwayne Johnson. It’s Larry McCarren.
So my predictions have very little analysis behind them. They're mainly more of a “gut feeling” mixed with hope than anything else. IOW, I predict more with my heart than my head. It's true, my predictions for games 2 and 3 were pretty close, but I was way off in game 1, the trouncing by the S'aint's, which was truly an abysmal anomaly. Although I have not read verification of it, surely the polarities were reversed, the Gulf Stream stopped circulating, and Dolly Parton sang death metal during that game. It's the only explanation for that bizarre and macabre outcome.
So, with that said, on to the next prediction, made Monday, 9/27 for the game on Sunday, 10/3:
Packers 27, Steelers 20
Tuesday, 9/28
Although my favorite outcome of any game has Green Bay winning 56-0, I think the close game Sunday night, and even the bad calls (mainly two execrable non-calls), may have actually benefited the Packers in the long run. Why? Two reasons:
1) The exciting nature of the finish got the team fired up. They’ve got their mojo and swagger back. They now know from recent experience that they can come back even at the very end of the game, in “hostile territory,” and with inept or corrupt officiating working against them.
2) The latter situation can engender the “us against them” mentality, which can fortify esprit de corps, a feeling of solidarity.
As for those two non-calls: Did the officials not flag the egregious hit on Adams because they didn’t think it was intentionally brutal? If so, I don’t think intent should matter much (how could anybody but the perpetrator really know what the intent was, anyway?). The point is (or should be) to keep the players safe from severe injury, and if such a hit were always penalized, the players would be much more careful about committing such.
It’s really unconscionable the way Adams has been dissed by the officials over the years. By that I mean that they have not looked out for his health. This isn’t the first time he’s been targeted with no consequences. It’s as if they are collectively sending a signal: “It’s OK for you to go after Adams—we’re not going to call it.” Just getting calls wrong is one thing (as Rodgers and the ex-Washington Redskin Peanuts player and now Packers president Murphy have said, the bad calls that go for you or against you pretty much even out over time), but when they result in physical harm or danger to a player, that’s an entirely different and more important matter. Evil coaches and players want to take out the star players, such as Adams, by injuring them; the refs should see to it that such attempts, or even the appearance of such attempts, are immediately addressed. Remember Warned Saphead taking out an unsuspecting Chad Clifton, and ‘No-Host’ Barr apparently deliberately snapping Rodgers’ collar bone and then making a rude gesture at him after he was injured? The NFL wants to put a microscope on “excessive celebration,” but a blind eye is turned to such mayhem? There should be a lot more ejections and meaningful fines when such things occur.
On a less serious but still irritating note, the intentional grounding on Grappletoe that wasn’t called in last week’s game was also ridiculous. Unless the 49ers have a gopher, mole, vole, or worm among their receivers, there’s no way that pass was within the required distance of a receiver. When he is on the verge of being sacked, the QB should either have to “take the sack” or throw the ball close enough to one of his receivers so that he has a legitimate chance of catching it (and the defense has a legitimate chance of intercepting it). Just throwing the ball at the ground is cheating and should not be condoned by the zebras or the NFL.
Oh, well. Speaking of QBs the Packers defense will face, next up is Ruthlessburger.
So, the Packers have 1) momentum, 2) home-field advantage, and 3) the better QB. It should go well. Not just this week, but this season, as Al Stewart’s song and album expressed it:
Thursday, 9/30
There was a good article on packers.com about Allen Lazard today. He’s one of my favorite Packers. When I first heard his name, I thought a faux-Frenchman was talking about a reptile, but now I know exactly who they mean.
After the long kickoff return which “Bing” Crosby saved from being a touchdown, Lazard made himself available to play on special teams.
But, on a side note, I don’t know if it was so much a bad play on the part of the Packers’ kick-return unit as a stupendous play by Trenton Cannon, who looked like he had gotten shot out of himself. I don’t know if even MVS (pre-hamstring MVS, that is) or Jaire Alexander the Great could have caught him.
Anyway, that article about Lazard had what I call an “editing fail” in it. I don’t know if those cats have editors or edit their own stuff, but check this out:
Bosa could bull him over, rather than bowl him over? What the Hec Ramsey?!?
I know, I’m showing my age there.
If this was a “once-in-a-blue-moon” kind of thing, I would let it go, but this cat makes these types of mistakes fairly frequently. If he was “just a guy” (such as an independent blogger) that would be one thing, but he’s a professional writer, so I would think this sort of error would virtually never occur.
Then again, on second thought, maybe he deliberately wrote “bull” instead of “bowl”—for example, if “Explosa” Bosa was engaged in a “bull rush.” So … sorry, Charlie (his name’s not really Charlie, but his name has been changed to protect him, whether he’s innocent or not) if I missed your intent there.
Anyway, hopefully the next thing I write will be about the game itself.
Saturday, 10/2
Update to “The Z Files”: I read that Za’Darius Smith had back surgery. He could be out for months, possibly for the season. To quote Kip Dynamite (hear his voice in your mind’s ear: “Dang It!!!”). He is one of the best, and most entertaining, cats to watch. He’s sort of a Sack-O-Matic. He will be missed!
Sunday, 10/3
Game day. MVS is on IR with the discombobulated hamstring. The field is now less stretchy for the Packers. But this will give Lazard, Cobb, Taylor, Tonyan, perhaps Deguara, et al—and ESB, who has been elevated from the practice squad—more opportunities.
So injuries seem to be mounting for the Packers, but that’s probably true of most teams. Injuries, like bad calls, tend to even out. Neither can be used as excuses; or even when they can (when they are especially egregious), it does no good to harp on them; it just sounds like sour grapes. Of course, the team can and should send in bad calls to the NFL — “taking it to court” is sometimes the best way to prevent future discrimination.
On the field, though, you just gotta “keep playing.”
Five hours to go … Go Browns!! (over Vikings) and Go Lions! (only one exclamation mark and no bold emphasizing, over the Bears).
1:58 Pacific
They finally put the Packers game on, well into the first quarter (the stinkin’ Jets game went into overtime, and they continued to show that; they should have switched. The Packers ain’t Heidi).
They just scored a TD on a “bootleg” by Rodgers. Why in the Hec Ramsey do they call it that, anyway? 7-7
Preston Smith out with an injury; bad news for an already depleted group. The Packers are now Smithless for the first time in years.
2:03 Pacific
Keke causes fumble, Kenny G. Clark recovers! And P. Smith is back — like Adams last week, was only out for a bit.
2:12 Pacific
TD to Cobb on 3rd and 10! 14-7 Packers.
2:25 Pacific
14-10 Packers after a FG.
Browns beat Vikings! But Bears beat Lions. Still, as long as the Packers win, they will be in sole possession of the Central lead.
2:47 Pacific
Green Bay up 17-10 after a Crosby FG. It was almost 17-14 Pittsburgh after the Steelers apparently blocked the attempt and scored a TD. Whew!
Three FG attempts in a row had blocks or near-blocks from Crosby’s right. Opposing teams must be seeing something/exploiting something or someone on that side.
The Packers need to change something there, or it’s going to bite them eventually.
3:15 Pacific
Terrible no-call after T.J. Lightbulb tripped Rodgers. Packers settle for a FG, now up 20-10.
3:29 Pacific
After a bad punt by the Steelers, the Packers started on the Pittsburgh 40 and scored on another pass from Rodgers to Cobb. 27-10 Packers.
3:55 Pacific
Bojorquez punts for the first time today early in the fourth. A 57-yarder.
4:30 Pacific
Packers win 27-17 after an interception by Stokes puts it away.
The worst part of the whole day was when Jaire Alexander the Great got injured. Hopefully it’s not serious/long-term.
NFC Central standings at the 23.5% mark of the season (17 is just a weird number of games):
Packers 3-1
Bears 2-2
Vikings 1-3
Lions 0-4
Up next week: Bengals in Porkopolis:
After that comes division rival Chicago, followed by the Redskin Peanuts, then a Thursday night game against the currently undefeated Cardinals, thereafter a mini-bye followed by a game against the Kansas City Chefs (if the Redskins have to change their name to the Redskin Peanuts, then I reckon the Chiefs will have to eventually become the Chefs—I’m imagining a helmet with a Chef’s hat depicted on it; or they could just wear Chef’s hats, and forego helmets).
Or would that be disrespectful to chefs / not politically correct to name a football team after that profession? I guess having a traditional chef’s hat would be stereotyping.
To take it to the limit (reductio absurdum), teams will eventually need to have e.e. cummings type names, such as “The Nobodys” or “The Everybodys” or “The Somebodys” or the “Late for Dinners.”
Monday 1:23 pm Pacific
I couldn’t see much of the game, but I watched the highlights and read the articles. Not much to add, except that I was close on the score again (1 point off each team’s total, and “spot on” as regards the margin of victory.
Next up: the Bearcats, or Bearlys, whichever you prefer.