Week Five in Review

Are…are we a defensive team? The d-backs came up with four picks on Sunday, and ran one back for a score. We’ve given up 13 total points and hit the quarterback 21 times in the last two games. Our offense has struggled over the same span, turning the ball over and converting fewer than a 30% of our third down chances. Arodg’s much-celebrated interception free streak at Lambeau is over, and he should have been picked off three times on Sunday. Eddie Lacy ran for all of 27 yards on 13 carries, and our offensive line is banged up. Seems like we’re a defensive team, eh? Well we’re not. The defense is playing great and I couldn’t be more excited, but the team is still all about Aaron Rodgers. The offense will find its’ stride again soon, that much I’m sure of. In the meantime it’s god damn refreshing to win games when we’re not putting up 35 points a game. I seriously thought we were going to break Nick Foles in half. Aside from a long completion on an adorable little garbage time drive and a ridiculous completion on a fake fucking punt (Zook you mother f…wait, wait, not just yet), the Rams had 73 passing yards. This is not like what we did to Kaepernick last week, Foles is not a riotously terrible quarterback. The defense deserves a ton of credit for doing what they did, this unit might just be for real. Also Charles Woodson picked off Peyton Manning twice on Sunday. He’s now tied with Ed Reed for the sixth most career interceptions with 64. Rod Woodson is the only modern era player with more, but his mark of 71 is seemingly within reach for the ageless fucking wonder Woodson. He plays a beautiful style of football, I mean the guy is 39 years old. This has nothing to do with the Pack but it’s too god damn awesome to include as a footnote. Anything Charles Woodson does is front page shit in my book. Here’s what I liked and didn’t like:

What I Liked:

Pass Rush: Three sacks is pretty good. Peppers and Matthews were on the board as usual, tallying 1 and 1.5 respectively. But we hit the quarterback 14 freaking times! Five different players hit Foles, and a few of those hits were vicious. There are so many reasons that hitting the quarterback is a good thing to do. For one thing, you could hurt him, which is terrific. A lot of quarterbacks get rattled when they’re taking hits; tempers flare, bad decisions are made, picks get thrown, all good things. Two picks and a touchdown were a direct result of hits on Foles, both plays that would have been sacks had he not chucked up hilariously doomed attempts. There are certain stats that if you see them on the box score, you don’t need to see anything else to know who won the game. If you hit the quarterback enough times, you are going to win the game. I don’t know what the magic number is, but it’s probably around 14. The offense was off and it didn’t matter because Foles was running for his life all day.

Ty Montgomery: He’s now stringing together good performances. Four catches on five targets including a touchdown, accounting for 25% of the Packers’ total yards receiving. He’s doing everything right and sure as hell looks like the kind of guy Thompson keeps around for six or eight years. His career is still in its’ infancy, but you basically can’t ask for a better start. This offense is incredibly complex even before Rodgers makes ten checks at the line (including a smirk or nod or some weird shit that these receivers apparently somehow understand), and Ty’s only had a few months to study it. To succeed this quickly is incredible. Clearly he’s producing on the go route in practice, since he’s now been targeted on deep balls in consecutive weeks. If he and Rodgers can get on the same page with that route, might be some shit nomsayin?

Interceptions: We had four of em and ran one back for a touchdown. That’s real good. Also I wish people would stop saying ‘pick six.’ The problem is that it rolls off the tongue so smoothly. Also it’s a devastating play that deserves its’ own moniker. I just feel like someone out there can do better than ‘pick six.’

Datone Jones: Datone Jones you ask? But he didn’t have a single tackle, you continue, only further elucidating your ignorance. Look a little past the stat sheet you fucking idiot! God damn if I combined the brain cells of all my readers it might create an organism intelligent enough to excrete. He blocked a kick and hit the qb three times and got a game ball you idiots. God. Everybody likes to shit on old Datone, mostly on account of his first round pick status, so I just want to be sure to give the man his dues when he has a good game. Of course that’ll probably be all he does this year, but whatever, he’s just a depth guy anyway.

What I Didn’t Like:

Ron Zook: If it’s not one thing it’s another with this fucking guy. The TV networks do this thing where a coach, for some reason that I can’t decipher, reveals an aspect of his game plan just before the game. Then the color commentator says, ‘Well Ian coach such-and-such tells me he’s gonna do blah blah blah and look at how informed and connected I am.’ Then the fans at home feel all warm and fuzzy like they’re somehow in the know, the networks shove in another 30 seconds of commercials without consequences, and Jerry Jones wrings his hands maniacally. Anyway the point is they’ve been doing this long enough that I know about it, which means teams know about it, which means teams have a guy watching the broadcast in an effort to gain an advantage, which means Zook knew the Rams were going to attempt a fake, which means he’s a shitty fucking coach that sucks at his job and should just go back to whatever retirement community we assisted him out of. Where are all the loud mouths constantly calling for Dom Capers’ head? IS NO ONE PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS?!

Aaron Rodgers: Hey Aaron? What, ahhhh, what was that buddy? I couldn’t help but notice you throwing passes to the wrong team. What’s, ahhh, what’s the deal here? I’m gonna just move on from this, but let’s make sure we don’t do it again, okay? Good, glad we were able to have this little chat. Hit the showers Champ.

Jeff Janis: Fuck this guy. He’s a fixture in the ‘what I didn’t like’ category. How do you push that ball into the end zone on a perfect punt? It bounced backwards and was rolling backwards. It’s almost like the special teams coach has no idea how to do his job. Janis is a moron and if I were Ted Thompson I’d be this fucking close to cutting him.

**Bonus Quote of the Week**

“When we talk about morality, and when we talk about justice, we have to, in my view, understand that there is no justice when so few have so much, and so many have so little…You have to think of the morality of that, the justice of that, and whether or not that is what we want to see in our country. In my view, there is no justice when in recent years we have seen a proliferation of millionaires, and billionaires, while at the same time the United States of America has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth. How can we talk about morality, about justice, when we turn our backs on the children of our country?”

- Bernie Sanders

**Extra Points**

• Aaron Rodgers’ streak of pass attempts without an interception at home ended at 586. That is insane and will likely never be done again.
• Myles White was promoted to Giants’ active roster and saw action on Sunday.
• Safety Sean Richardson suffered what appears to be a career threatening neck injury in practice last week. He’s been a key special teams contributor and has played a lot of snaps on defense for us. Hopefully his quality of life isn’t significantly impacted by the injury.
• Guard TJ Lang said via his Twitter account that the injury to his knee is ‘nothing serious.’ I really hope he’s right because he’s one of the most important players on this team.