Sunday, November 9, 2008

The Bucky Five: One Of The Most Painful Losses Ever

This is the 1,000th post we've made on The Bucky Channel, and we'd once again like to thank you for all of your support. I thought about making it a retrospective posting like I did when we hit 500, but instead I thought I'd rather rain on my own parade. Your 1,000th post on The Bucky Channel is instead a review of one of the hardest losses to take that I can remember as a Packer fan.

5. Rodgers Looked Awful

It's clear to anyone who watched the Vikings 28-27 win over the Packers that Green Bay is never in this game without a couple of big returns. Will Blackmon and Nick Collins did all they could to help Rodgers in his worst game yet, but it proved not to be enough. In fact, this was the first game where I can honestly say Rodgers looked completely lost.

I've been defending him all season, but he looked just terrible today. Granted, the offensive line sucked and the Vikings defense was quite dominant, but Rodgers just looked intimidated out there. To his credit, he never turned the ball over, but that's in part to his lack of desire to throw the ball for more than 15 yards at a time.

I'm going to say this, but I'm going to say it only once. And then we're dropping the subject. But this is a game we win if Brett Favre is the quarterback.

4. Safety Dance

I never think safeties are really that big of a deal because they are only two points. But I was proven wrong Sunday, most definitely. The Vikings had great field possession after each safety, and those two points were the difference today. When is the last time you have ever seen two safeties in the same game? Has that even happened before?

The first safety was left up to interpretation, but I can't disagree with the refs calling one, despite Aaron Rodgers' unnatural throwing efforts. The second one though was really a microcosm of this game: Rodgers not getting rid of the ball and the offensive line being soft as cheese.

3. Penalties

Speaking of those meatheads, how bad did they look as a unit? What kind of strategy is it to let the opposing team's best player, Jared Allen, go untouched en route to your quarterback? A pretty bad one if you ask me.

These said offensive lineman were also key contributors to the teams 10 penalties for 80 yards performance. You just aren't going to win very many games if you haven't figured out to play by the rules, especially more than half-way into the season.

2. The Final Drive

After last week's heartbreaking loss to the Titans, I'm not sure how I'm able to stomach another nail-biter like the one that occurred against Minnesota. I wasn't confident in Crosby hitting that field goal in the first place, because I thought it was just a little too far. Blame the offense for not being able to push the ball any further down the field. Blame Aaron Rodgers for taking the short option to Donald Driver when he had man coverage on everyone else. Blame Mike McCarthy for calling a little too conservative of a ballgame. Blame all of those people before you blame Mason Crosby.

1. Pure Hatred

I hate the Vikings more than any other team in all of football. That I've said before. But today reconfirmed it. It's just so hard to lose to them. Thank God I no longer live in a town like La Crosse which is infected with Vikings fans, and that I'm back on the glorious eastern side of Wisconsin.

Let's talk a little more about my hatred. I officially hate Adrian Peterson to the level of "Will Never Draft Him in Fantasy Again". What an absolute piece of work that guy is. I was so happy when, after Childress gave in to AP and went for it on 4th down, Peterson put the ball on the turf. I was, however, very unhappy when he scored the game-winning touchdown and celebrated like he won the Super Bowl. Someone remind me, isn't taking your helmet off on the field a 15-yard penalty?

Speaking of turds, how about that Jared Allen? Talk about a guy who eats his cereal with Red Bull. Note to everyone, Jared Allen included: Wearing 69 as your number stops being funny after about 9th grade. You know that's the only reason he wears that number, is to draw even more attention to himself. Pretty lame.

As for the Packers, this loss drops them to 4-5, still one game back in the NFC North. By now it's clear the only way this team is making the playoffs is by winning the division, and they have a good chance to get back into the thick of things if they beat the Bears next week. But they really can't afford more than two losses in these final seven games, and judging by the way they played today, it's not going to be easy.

Happy 1,000th post.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lets bring back the NFLN vs ESPN segments!

Anonymous said...

if favres the quarterback he throws 5 picks and we lose by 30.

Anonymous said...

No shit B2. Favre Blows. The story of the game was that Rodgers had no time to throw and the defense couldn't stop the run. It was suprising how well we ran against them and maybe we should have ran more. We have to live with losses like this early in Rodgers career because he's going to be a great qb someday.

Anonymous said...

This game could have been easily won had we had one of our best starters from last year. No, I'm not speaking of the legendary Brett Favre, I'm talking about Jon Ryan. Frost punted seven times in the game. His longest punt was 42 yards. Granted some of his punts were pin-down punts, but he had his fair share of awful punts leading to short fields for the defense to defend. I think part of this loss is due to Frost's anemic punting ability and general tendency to suck. Bring back Jon Ryan.

Ben said...

Firstly.. it was a hard loss.. but it's nothing like last years NFC Championship, 4th and 26, or Super Bowl XXXII.

I agree, Rodgers worst game by far.. it's the idea that he's not going to lose games for you, but he also probably won't win them either. The opposite of Favre.. who will single-handily win games.. but he'll lose a lot on the way. Rodgers needs to find that space.

Oh..and yeah, Peterson over-celebrated and took his helmet off more than once and should've been flagged for it both times. The old Brett Favre rule.

Anonymous said...

pack and cheese is right about those other games being 1000 times worse. there are a few others that are more painful given they were playoffs at home (falcons and vikes), but this was one of the more frustrating games i remember watching.

until the collins/blackmon returns, nothing we did worked. we just flat out got beat and probably shouldnt have even had a chance to win it.

also, a good point about jon ryan.

as a side note, i like mccarthy, and i know were trying to run some clock at the end too, but we set crosby up horribly at the end. theres no way we couldnt have gotten another first down by passing. also on mccarthy, these penalties are getting ridiculous, and i dont know who else to blame right now.

Anonymous said...

i keep commenting on a post that nobody is probably reading anymore, but i know you get an email alert for new comments, so ill keep doing it.

i just wanted to say that i hate adrian peterson just because i have to because hes a viking, but i wouldnt really call him a piece of work. i dont know. if he was a packer there would be no reason to hate him, whereas the same isnt true for a guy like jared allen, or former vikes like culpepper, moss, carter, hovan, etc.

i just think ap is good. of course youll hate him because he just ran 192 yards against our soft d-line and hes a viking, but other than that i dont really have a pure hatred for him.

Anonymous said...

I never had a problem with him until he started barking at Childress to go for it on 4th and 1, and then when they did, he fumbled.

I was so happy that happened to him, that it pissed me off even more when he beat us at the end.

So yeah, my rage is probably a little overblown, as in he's probably not that big of a d-bag as guys like Jared Allen.

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