Week Two in Review

In the poetic prose of the immortal bard Mystikal, that was as fucked up as Santa Claus for Easter. It was a bad loss. I hate that I probably have to start showing the Vikings some measure of respect. I mean not respect in the sense that I respect them as people, players, or a team, but just in the sense that they may no longer be tiny little purple doormats. I just hate that. They have some pretty decent players on that defense and that’s the last nice thing I will say about them. The Packers played like shit on offense for the second week in a row, and did very little to inspire confidence in the coming weeks. The defense absolutely did their part on Sunday, but 14 points is rarely enough to get the job done in an offensive league.

What I Liked:

Daniels is a leader. If the world was fair he'd be an MVP candidate.

Defense: I liked almost everything thing they did. Four different players combined for four sacks, including an all-important tally from an interior defensive lineman (guess which one). Adrian Peterson averaged an awful 1.6 yards per carry, good enough for .2 yards better than the Vikings’ team average. That is fantastic run defense for two straight weeks now. Fantastic. It’s obviously too early to look at team stats, but the Packers run defense is leading the league in every fucking one of them. The defense yielded just 15 first downs all day, which is lower than the worst team average from 2015 (St. Louis Rams). The Vikings converted only 28.5% of their third down attempts, which would have been good enough for 29^th in the league last year. Also we hit the quarterback 10 times, historically enough to break Sam Bradford into 14 pieces. Basically only one Minnesota player was able to accomplish anything on offense, and an average offensive performance by the Packers would have produced a win.

Inside Linebackers: I was as worried about this position as any heading into the season, but these three guys have more than shut me up. Between the three of them; Ryan, Martinez, and Thomas have all of two years of NFL experience. ILB in a 3-4 defense is an active and demanding position, you have to cover tight ends and backs in the passing game, and be a missile in the middle of every running play. It’s been fun watching them split time and make plays so far. This week all three were in the top five tacklers on the team, and none has been exposed in the passing game yet. It’s always cool to see a perceived position of weakness become the opposite. Again, it’s very early, and young players often hit a wall during the long NFL season (especially long if you play for the Packers because we go to the playoffs every year), but it’s been an encouraging start to the year at ILB.

Jordy: He’s still not back to primetime Jody, catching just five of eleven targets, but he clearly improved from week one to two. He caught a vintage 50/50 contested Jordy toss-up for 39 yards and scored again. If he continues to improve he’ll once again be a force to be reckoned with for any defense.

What I Didn’t Like:

Aaron Rodgers: Honestly he looked about as bad as I’ve ever seen him. He consistently looked unsure of himself before the snap, locked onto primary targets, and struggled to find the open receiver. There were too many times when he drifted out of a perfectly good pocket, and too many off balance throws. I have to say he looked a bit like Cutler on a couple throws, relying on his physical tools instead of doing all the small things properly. Once again his yards per attempt (5.9) were very low, over two yards under his career average. He has now gone 14 straight games without a passer rating over 100, which is especially bad considering his CAREER passer rating is 103.8. His passer rating and QBR over the same 14 game span (2 games short of a full 16 game season) have both been worse than in his first year as a starter, and he’s turning the ball over as much as he ever has. In short, he’s currently in the midst of the worst stretch of football he’s ever played as a professional. I don’t know why it’s happening, but I do know that’s it’s not very fun to watch. Sara thinks it’s because his brother won the bachelor and he can’t handle that. My best guess is that he’s directing his laser focus towards the wrong things. What those might be (and what they should be), again I don’t know. I guess it’s time for McCarthy to earn his paycheck and manage the fucking talent.

Run/Pass Balance: Surprise, surprise, we couldn’t commit to the run. Again. Oh everyone talks about running the ball, getting Lacy involved, achieving an appropriate balance, but when the fuck is it going to happen? It can’t be that hard to just call some fucking running plays. It’s early enough in the season that we can probably get away with running the ball too much to prove a point. McCarthy has said before that the running game is a mindset, which is to say ‘sack up and run the fucking ball.’ So sack up and run the fucking ball.

Turnovers: Careless fumbles and crunch time picks lead to losses. All of the sudden we’re too good to play fundamentally sound football? I hate to break it to everyone but we haven’t really done shit in the postseason since 2010. It’s now 2016 and we haven’t played good ball in a year. It really is time to get back to basics, execute simple assignments, and protect the god damn ball.

**BONUS QUOTE OF THE WEEK**

'You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.'

    - Jean Jacques Rousseau