Ah, #&$%#%@!

The Sid Luckman era may have finally come to an end. The only way this trade flops for the Bears is if Jerry Angelo would have spent both of the teams ' '09 and '10 picks on defensive players.

A-Rodg may be back to being the second best quarterback in the division.

Three for Three!

The first triumvirate weekend of the year results in total success. The footballing Badgers get a sloppy but exhilarating victory over their oldest rival, the Packers whoop up on their oldest rival, and the men's basketball Badgers narrowly avoid disaster by falling back on senior leader Marcus Landry. Inspiring stuff.

In re the Packers:
- This was like the Colts game all over again, except the Bears are a lot worse offensively than the Colts. The Packers ran the ball well, had nice passing lanes set up by the run, and basically held onto the ball for two-thirds of the game-- 37 minutes. The Bears ran the ball decently, but they had trouble converting third downs, and the Packers held onto the ball forever when they had it. Hell, they only punted twice, and only turned the ball over once (that underthrown pass to Donald Driver that Brian Urlacher picked off-- Rodgers should have made a deeper throw or run with the ball). Every other drive ended in a score. Crazy.
- What is up with the Packers offensive line? It's like Jekyll and Hyde. Although, to be fair, their run blocking against Tennessee and Minnesota was decent, it was just their pass blocking that was bad. And the Bears pass rush has been pretty pathetic all year. So maybe they're just pretty good at run-blocking and mediocre at pass-blocking?
- The Packers' run defense actually wasn't that great-- the stats show the Bears gained 4.2 yards per carry. The D just did a pretty good job on third downs. Anyhow, to be plain, the run defense issues aren't suddenly fixed. It wasn't just Nick Barnett having a down year that made the run D poor.
- I really liked the fullback runs on short distances. Now that they've shown the play a few times though, they'll just have to be careful about being too predictable with it.
- I also liked how Charles Woodson went and retrieved the ball on Jason Hunter's touchdown. Chuckie thoughtfully realized that Hunter (an Appalachian State grad, and a guy with at least one season on the practice squad) would probably want to keep the ball.
- I did not like how obvious the Packers' blitzes were. If I can see them coming on TV, I mean . . . come on.
- Always nice to beat the Bears. Great to beat them in a meaningful game. Excellent to get rid of this "Lovie Smith is undefeated in Green Bay" specter. Wonderful to beat the Bears handily and look good in all three facets of the game. Now they just need to perform consistently, starting next week against the Saints on Monday Night Football, where a ball control offense would again be a good idea.

In re the male basketballing Badgers:
- This game was scary stuff. Losing at home to Long Beach State to start the season would have been a North Dakota State-esque embarrassment. Definitely not the way they would have wanted to start the season. So, phew.
- Why was the game close? Well, partly because Beach nailed a ton of contested threes in the first half, and their main guy, Donovan Morris, had a NBA Hang Time "He's on fire!" stretch in the second to pull them back into it. But also, this Badger team made a lot of errors-- failing to get the ball into the post enough, not doing a very good job on the boards, taking some semi-reckless shots and/or making some sloppy offensive decisions (I thought Jason Bohannon was guilty of several of these), and committing associated turnovers that led to easy points for the Beach.
- Of course, Marcus Landry was the man, particularly in the second half. He saved the Badgers with his shooting and help defense. It's nice to have heady, talented seniors.
- So freshmen Rob Wilson and Jordan Taylor are definitely playing this season. Both of them saw time, and both of them made their first shots. Wilson's was a three, and Taylor's was a shot-clock-running-out prayer that hilarious banked in high off the glass. Wilson did get pulled immediately after missing a quick, ill-advised shot in the second half.
- Jon Leuer made a great, athletic drive to the basket at some point in the second. He looked like natural scorer on that play. As time goes on he should be really effective dribble-driving past the centers and power forwards who try to guard him. But Jon also had an ugly, overaggressive turnover. I'd like to see him get more time on the floor, both to get him more offensive experience and because UW will likely UW need the size for rebounding purposes.
- Good to start with a win, and I hope Beach validates the closeness of this game by being a good team in the Big West this season. I also hope the Badgers learned some things from this game that will help them improve going forward. Next game is Tuesday night against Southern Illinois-- but it's not the Carbondale, Illinois based Salukies who have been perennial tournament threats. No, it's Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, which is currently enjoying its first season at the Division I level.

Captain Neckbeard, v. 2.0, Returns

If you don't speak my weird brand of gibberish, the above title means that it looks like Kyle Orton will be playing on Sunday. See here.

The Bears Remain Moronic

The Chicago Bears. In addition to their inability to evaluate offensive talent, the Bears are well known for their stinginess. Examples abound, from tricking the Chicago Park District into renovating Soldier Field to hiring bargain basement coaches. Sometimes thriftiness is the right thing to do-- for example, the Bears were right to let the vastly overrated Bernard Berrian walk in free agency. But then they do supremely silly things, like, I don't know, making Robbie Gould the highest paid kicker in the NFL! Seriously, what? Gould is a pretty good kicker, but no superstar. It's true he's made the Pro Bowl during the Bears recent Super Bowl year, but that was largely because the Bears' offense stunk and he made a lot of short field goals. And his kickoffs have never been spectacular-- only 15 touchbacks on 228 career kickoffs. And the most damming statistic-- Gould has never made a field goal of more than 50 yards (an elite NFL kicker should nail 50+ yarders pretty often). Ouch. Gould is an NFL kicker, no doubt. But the highest paid kicker in the league? What a joke. Five bucks says Taylor Mehlhaff is outperforming Gould by the fall of '09.

"Well Isn't That Special"

If you didn't manage to watch the Packers' 33-14 victory over the Rams yesterday, you might look at the final score and think "sweet- a beat down." But it really wasn't. It was a close game, within one score until the final 20 minutes, and one where the Packers, especially their offense and run defense, looked startlingly mediocre. What led the team to victory was excellent pass defense, especially in the second half, and fabulous, absolutely fabulous special teams play. And I'm talking kickoff returns and coverage, field goals, punt coverage, straight kickoffs, everything.

Consider-- the Packers had three kickoff returns (the Rams scored twice, and once to start the game). They averaged 43 yards per kickoff return, and that's with a dumb Trammon Williams penalty bringing one back an additional twenty yards. That's silly good. They also averaged, with Will Blackmon back there, 10 yards per punt return. Also solid. And Mason "I only look like a serial killer" Crosby nailed four field goals, two from beyond forty yards, and pinned the Rams deep again and again. Consider--after Packer kickoffs, the Rams started at the 23, 16, 5 (after Charlie Peprah forced a fumble that the Rams recovered), 19, 21, 21, 20 (touchback), and 20 (touchback). Folks often say that a team's special teams performance is indicative of its depth. If that's the case, the Packers are pretty darn deep.

Of course, depth is only helpful if you have difference makers to support, and yesterday the Packers' biggest difference maker didn't look right. Although Brett threw two TDs, and broke Marino's record for career passing yardage the team's passing game didn't perform well, even though St. Louis was also stymieing the run. Maybe it was all the exotic blitzes that St. Louis was running, but the offense was sluggish, to the tune of less than 24 minutes of time of possession, less than 300 total yards, and three turnovers. Hopefully, it was the bizarre gameplan the Rams threw at them and maybe lingering issues from Favre's elbow whack. But they'll need to be far better if the team's going anywhere in the playoffs.

Speaking of playoffs and exotic blitzes, it was excellent to see the Cowboys lose yesterday, even if they don't end up blowing their lead in the home field advantage competition. The Eagles played great defense, throwing a lot of exotic, but disciplined blitzes at Dallas. Maybe that's the key to beating those maroons-- confuse them. The Packers have been experimenting on defense more often in the past few games, so hopefully they'll have some tricks to pull out if they meet Dallas again.
What the Dallas loss means in the short term though, is that the Pack will likely not rest its starters against the Bears next Sunday. That's the Bears team starting their third string QB and their second string, career back-up, running back, and that will be coming off a short week (they play tonight at Minnesota). The optimum scenario for the Pack is to smell blood, pummel them good early, and thus be able to rest their key guys anyway, as they did against the Rams with guys like Pickett, Woodson, Clifton, and Collins sitting out the last quarter or so. You'd think they'd be fired up to redeem themselves after the October pants-pooping episode.