NFL 2010 Season Week 15 Picks

Low of 49 in San Diego tonight. Better show up with your sweater.

And the Matt Flynn era might make its beginning this weekend. If it is the case that Rodgers can't play this weekend, this will be the first time since 1992 that the Packers opening day starter missed a game due to injury.

That being said, Tarvaris Jackson breaks his streak of 1 consecutive start and ends up on IR.


Also, I know this doesn't tell the whole story of a defense, but the Packers are allowing only 14.5 points per game so far this season, which would stand as the 4th lowest total since 2002 (that's as far back as ESPN stats went, so that's why I used that date). Of course, the Patriots could probably put up about 40 points this weekend and ruin that whole thing, but maybe the Patriots have met their match.

Sweet, Christmas nutcan. Rodgers is not going to play, mark it down. The last backup to ever play did ok in the long run.

Yea but he turned out to be a dick.

What did Craig Nall ever do to you?

I know it's the obvious angle, but allow me to go English Class on you all for a second.

What an amazing juxtaposition we have in Minnesota. The Metrodome and the Vikings season have collapsed before our eyes. Not only that, but the attempts at repairing each have failed and left everyone scrambling to make due with sub-standard replacements.

[/englishclass]

Seriously though, I'm not for quitting or anything, but watching the crew of workers at TCF and listening to the talk about who will be suiting up on Monday...I mean, I start to question the wisdom of even going on with this whole thing. I mean, really? We're going to have people work their butts off for a week in the coldest weather we'll probably have all year, just to create a field that's only semi-fit to be played upon? Just so we can throw our rookie quarterback/wide receiver/kick returner out there to the wolves, er Bears? For one three hour game?

I like Joe Webb, I hope he does well. And I think it's kind of neat to play the game in the Twin Cities. But part of me thinks, you know, when your stadium and your season get torn apart so spectacularly, maybe you should just cut your losses. Maybe just hang it up for the year and focus on coming back strong for training camp. Get back up on the horse, sure. But maybe the horse bucks you off and kicks you in the groin. At that point, don't you just decide to take a break for the time being?

This Vikings season is really amazing. Think of all that's happened this year. The "wrangling" of Favre from his home, back to the team. Sidney Rice surgery. The Favre calls/texts story. The Childress-Favre drama. Randy Moss returns. Moss-Caterer drama. Moss gets cut. Childress-Fans/Childress-Players drama. Childress Fired. Harvin's Headaches continue. Losses pile up. Favre hurt. Dome Roof collapses. Home game in Detroit. Favre misses start. Tarvaris also hurt. Play in frozen outdoor college stadium with Joe Webb starting and Patrick Ramsey backing him up?

Did I miss anything? I mean, looking back, how weird is it that the Vikings re-acquired and then cut Randy Moss!? Mid season! And that's not even the strangest thing about this year. It's practically a footnote. It's like the 5th most interesting story of the season, at best. This season has had its fill of surprises. LeBron could hold a press conference to announce he's playing qb for the Vikings, I'm not even sure it shocks anyone at this point. It's front page, but like, below-the-fold.

To close, I'll say I've really enjoyed having Favre on the team up to this point, and whether he plays on the field or not from here, I'm glad he's a Viking. I liked some of the stuff he had to say at his press conference today. Link is below. His comments are about a third of the way down the page. I especially liked what he had to say when asked about a "last hurrah."

http://www.vikings.com/news/article-1/Vikings-Quotes---Frazier-Favre-Smith-Cutler---Dec-16/1cd662f6-6f1f-4fef-a435-82c779e69af8

Speaking of watching the workers at TCF...

http://www.gophersports.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?&id=411649&catid=0&KEY=&DB_OEM_ID=8400

Thanks to Shutdown Corner Blog on Yahoo for the link.

I feel like the dome has gotten a bum rap with the roof. Lots of fans and opposition throwing around phrases like "we should be embarrassed." I don't know the figure in the Twin cities, but here in EC our record for most snow in 24 hours went from 13.5 to 22, and the cities had it worse.

The dome is a crap pile that needs replacing ASAP, but not because of this. If a tornado ripped up Arrowhead would anyone say things like "they invested all that money in the renovations and the engineers 'forgot' Kansas City is in tornado alley?!"

Besides, the reality is it looks worse than it is. Of course it collapsed in one "catastrophic failure," it's an all or nothing system held up by nothing but air pressure. Furthermore the roof was only expected to last 20 years, but tests showed the material in general was outlasting expectations, so even if the whole thing needs replacing, that still falls beyond the expectations from when they built it.

And, the roof was essentially designed to "fail", if you will, in this exact way. The ripping of the covering probably wasn't part of that design. But nevertheless, it is fitting that it fell at the time when it did.

Crazy ass finish to the Eagles game. Who kicks it to DeSean with 12 seconds left? Play for overtime.

WOW........ I guess you can never count the Eagles out of the game. DeSean Jackson, my hero!!!!!! I can't believe how the New York GINAS...... I mean the Giants blew a 31 -10 lead, I am glad they did but wow. I almost shit my pants when we won. Now we just need that 1st round bye....... Thanks for the win today Philly......

barf

I think the announcers came down a little too hard on Flynn. I they kept saying that "Rodgers would have had a play there" A) That means the packers normally have a list of plays where the QB can just yell "Echo Echo Echo" and they know what that is, or they have one play for instances like that. If Flynn didn't know those before hand, that's on the coaches. If Flynn wasn't told a couple before the 2 minute drill, someone needs to be fired. Rodger's knowledge of the playbook means jack squat, because if the implication is "Rodgers would have just called something" then they're being silly. They have quick plays Flynn should have known too, or they would have ran out of time while Rodgers yelled "459 Flank Tiger Slant, X go, y wing, check-back 32 heavy!" B) We don't know anything would have gone all that differently. Teams self destruct in a panic all the time in those situations, and the Packers were in no man's land in all aspects. Do they go quick out to get the 1st, or do they have to go endzone?

Edit: You can make a pretty good case, although they looked disheveled as all hell, that the correct move there is to take your time and get one good call in for the endzone rather than panic to try and get 2 plays in and throw something short.

I was trying to figure out myself if that last 20 seconds was an inexperienced QB blunder or a coaching blunder. It could have been a little bit of both. Maybe Flynn just panicked and forgot the plays. Maybe he just wasn't sure what to do since they were facing 4th and 1. What might rodgers have done differently? It's not that silly to think that the QB could just call something quick and told his receivers to "go", because in reality, in a situation like that, the defense is probably just as panicked as the offense. Of course, you need a QB with his wits about him to think so cooly in that type of sutation. In maybe 1997 or 98, the Packer beat the vikings in a very similar situation. With maybe 15 seconds left, the packers came up short on 3rd down in the middle of the field, at about the 25 or 30 yard line, with no timeouts. The players lined up quickly (and panicked), Favre literally told Cory Bradford to "just go", and favre throw a touchdown pass to bradford in stride to win it. That is probably an aberration when talking about 2 minute drills, and Rodgers may not have come up with some genius like that either. But anyway, it is possible.

So in other words, I sort of am curious to hear some of the press conferences this week to see what went on during those last 20 seconds, because it was a shame that they didn't get a better play off than what they did.

They had 23 seconds when the previous play ended, I gotta believe that they could have hustled up to the line, ran a QB sneak to get the first (all told, taking about 8 seconds from the time the previous play ended until the qb sneak happens), then line up again and spike it (probably another 10 seconds runs off the clock), leaving about 3-5 seconds seconds on the clock. Rodgers having his wits about him, and maybe more confident to take ownership of a decision like that, could have taken it upon himself to put something together like that.

Sure, but that's a lot of maybes and even if that works out, still gives you one shot at the win. It looked crazy, but in the end I'm not sure it could have gone much differently.

So Rodgers and Favre adlib a play there with a low % chance of working, and a high % of being an illegal formation, and lose the game with 9 seconds left. May as well spend some time getting a good play off.

Even if everything goes flawlessly from a time management perspective they would have only gotten 2 plays off, but one would have needed to be a first or TD.

Well, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, except that they didn't even get a good play off. So "taking their time getting a good play off" doesn't apply here, because they didn't. So it does seem somewhat likely that Rodgers could have done better in that situation.*

edit:* at least give them a better chance; I'm not guaranteeing any results.

Well, sure, but that's just because McCarthy is an incompetent boob when it matters most. My point was to come down on Flynn for looking to the sideline, when it's actually probably the right move, is pretty weak.

QB sneak would have a been a horrible idea. It was a full yard, and by the time everyone got unpiled and the ball set again the clock might have run out.

I have no issues with the "only one play left" approach in that case. But the QB needs to be prepared to call a play and not look to the sideline in that situation, because McCarthy is an incompetent boob when it matters most. It sure looked like he didn't have a play ready, and Flynn didn't have a play ready, and I'm not sure they even ran a play other than "go get open". Which isn't the worst thing to do if you have QBs and WRs all on the same page, which is where the experience comes in again. Certainly all the blame shouldn't be on Flynn, but you can essentially chalk it up to inexperience, and unfortunately this type of thing is really the only way to get that experience.

Speaking of incompetent, more handoffs to the up back on the goal line == fail x 2.

Flynn thought it was first down.

Ah...the main confusion was that nobody was sure what down it was at first. Donald Driver thought it was first, so did Flynn, until about 18 seconds. Once they realized it was 4th, then the "we go to the endzone now" play went in. So that's what they did, and it only looked bad because the end result was a sack and a fumble. So, right, the announcers were a little harsh.

In other words, the final play probably played out exactly as planned and executed properly up until the point of the sack, with the result being what made it look incompetent.

Daniel LaRusso is gonna fight??? Daniel LaRusso is gonna fight!!!

Dude! I tweeted this exact same phrase before the game on Monday. For the record, mine was about 45 minutes after you posted this, but I hadn't seen it at all. And I was just becoming aware of the Favre thing because I was watching a gripping game of NCAA video game football instead of pregame.

Jon, you're on Twitter?

http://twitter.com/#!/JonP28

I saw both of these the day of and thought they were both equally lame and that you guys should communicate better to avoid such events.

Uh did you just sign up like 2 seconds ago? U need to tweet!

I signed up a while ago, but didn't see the point of having twitter and facebook, so I didn't do anything with twitter.