NFL 2011 Season Week 15 Picks

I guess you can call me a Tebow Believer*. Actually, it's more about the Bronco's defense being able to stop the Patriots and the Patriots defense being bad enough to allow a mediocre passer to do just enough to win.

*don't ever call me that, please.

I also noticed that no one complained (except Jon once on Twitter) about the blatant lack of a facemask call on the last play of the game that would have given the vikings another chance to win it. I assume that deep down (and Jeremy alluded to this in a tweet as well), Viking fans are secretly (if not outwardly) hoping for losses to secure a more favorable draft position. I can't blame you. I felt the same way in 2005 when the Packers were at 3 wins with 2 games to play.

I had mixed feelings about them scoring there, but mainly I didn't mention it because I would have been more shocked if something like that didn't happen. When nothing ever goes your way, it's hard to pick one thing to complain about.

I'm certainly not catching Sarah this week. We have all the same picks except for the 49ers steelers game. Boo.

And it should be noted, while I have a higher lifetime winning percentage than any of the Senior NutCanners, I am picking higher this season than my lifetime average. It should put into context the outstanding season Sarah is having that she is even higher than that. She is besting the best .

I do what I do when I do what I do.

Prediction: 63-2 Packers. And the 2 points comes when Aaron Rodgers falls asleep in the endzone in the third qtr out of boredom.

ESPN has dedicated probably 45% (and I might be going with the under) of their so-far 90 minute NFL countdown broadcast to Tim Tebow. And they had about 2 minutes on the Packers in that span. Just saying.

Yea, that's why I've been switching back and forth a lot this morning. It's a bit ridiculous. I'm good with the Packers being under the radar. Anyone else enjoy the Tebow SNL skit last night?

Interesting stat: Matt's only picked the Packers 6 other times. He's 4 and 2.

Does this loss hurt? Nah. It's not the playoffs.

It hurts in the sense that we can never seem to win in Kansas City and we broke a huge winning streak. (would've been nice to beat the Patriot's streak) I feel better getting a loss now, fixing things in the last 2 games, and heading into the playoffs strong.

I'm taking credit for the Chiefs win this week.

Maybe taucher can come off the couch and play RT again.

Better than giving the Chiefs credit I suppose...

You jinxed me. Totally blew it this week.

Looks like Scott was a jinx machine. You know, if you believe in that.

I only mean this half out of jerkiness and half seriously. But "fixing things in the last 2 games" isn't really contingent on a loss and it's not a guaranteed outcome now that they do have the loss.

I disagree. Their weaknesses were exposed and they have to correct for that. Of course if it means they just need some key plAyers back, then we might be in trouble. I'd also change the ratio to 80/20.

You mean the weaknesses that everyone knew about since about week 3? And if by exposed you mean somehow the chiefs caused the Packers to drop about 12 passes and the chiefs knew that whacking the Packers right tackles would be a good game plant, then exposed they were. If it weren't for all the dropped passes, the game turns out differently. I don't think this is anytime to panic, but I've learned over the course of this that for some reason panic is something Packer fans excel at.

Of course, injuries to their Oline certainly don't help.

I thought the play calling was bad. Kuhn had 2 carries for 0 yards. I hate the fullback dive, but on 3rd and 1 when the defense is all in the line of scrimmage I reallllllllly hate it. Meanwhile, Grant had 12 for 66 yards, Jennings was out, it was windy, nobody could catch the ball, the Chiefs were getting pressure rushing 4, the Oline had injuries, and the Chiefs were dominating TOP. Hmmm...maybe the Packers should've run more?

One of the writers for Packers.com addressed a question similar to this. While to some degree I thought he was being a little to harsh, his response was that the packers are a pass first team, and suddently turning into a running team would be to drastically change who they are. Grant was running pretty well, so it is a bit surprising that they backed off the run in the second half. But, they also were playing from behind the whole game, so running the ball in the second half was less likely to continue. Had they been ahead, perhaps they would have continued to pound it on the ground. But they were playing catch up, and the Packers best game plan for scoring points has all season been through the air.

All that being said, the Chiefs were very effective in their man-to-man coverage. Finley basically said after the game that the way to render him ineffective was to play man-to-man and play it well against him. Although, to be fair about the whole run-the-ball-more-or-pass-the-ball-more, the Packers were down to about 6 olinemen total and they only had 1 tackle left active after bulaga and sherrod went down. They may not have had much success running the ball after that anyway.

I was speaking more about the defense, the Kansas City offense made them look silly.

I can't find a website for it, but the Sporting News predicted in their 2011 NFL preview issue that the Packers would go 15-1 and that the one loss would be to the Chiefs. Weird.

edit: found someone who took a picture of their issue:

Interesting, they must have visited the future. #mostlikelyexplanation

Interesting week of games. The Packer, Giants, and unanimous picks, and all three of them lost. And the Titans were picked by all but one person, and they lost as well.

Clearly they had Marty's Gray's Sports Almanac (the updated version) at their disposal.

Is she?

Playing from behind? They were trailing from early on, but was the deficit ever even equal to a touchdown except for the very end? Abandoning the run when you're down 6 doesn't seem like a valid explanation to me. Granted, I've actually told people seriously (ok maybe 80-20 serious/joking) that the Packers should never run the ball. And for most of the season, it seemed like that made sense. But if running is clearly working better, it seems like maybe they should consider it. But honestly, I watched the Packers between plays of the Vikings game, so I can't really comment on specifics.




I knew they picked them to be 15-1 but I couldn't remember who they had beating them. I figured it would have been the Bears. Kind of strange that it is the Chiefs, but they were a little better last year.

While you are probably right that being down by 2-6 points probably doesn't warrant abandoning something that was working, I would hardly call "returning to the gameplan that has won us 19 games in a row" abandoning anything. Running the ball looked effective, but passing the ball is what got them where they are. Go home with the girl you brought to the dance, right?

In biblical times, farmers would let the land recover every 7 years and not plant or harvest from it.

So in other words, I have no idea.

No, play to win. (It's more like the girl you brought to the dance sprained her ankle, and she doesn't care if you dance with another girl, but you insist that you want to dance with her and of course you lose the dance off then, when instead you could have danced with Cha Cha and won.)

Also to refute your implied hypothesis that pass blocking is easier for a beat up offensive line than run blocking, I present to you some expert opinions to the contrary: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081111150605AAJaG94

I wasn't implying anything of the sort. They are a pass first team. The only thing they were at risk of abandoning was the pass, which would be to say they would have panicked if they suddenly decided to be a run-first team. They had won 19 straight games in all sort of weather conditions and defensive schemes by utilizing the very same scheme that they (apparently insanely, in some people's eyes) continued to use against the Chiefs. You don't suddenly change everything because it was a bit of a struggle initially.

And I didn't say you only dance with the girl you brought. But you'd be a jerk to take a different girl home just because she was a little banged up. Sleezeball of the year would go to that person.

edit: Basically it comes down to this. The Chiefs had a very good gameplan in place, and it required a lot of things to go right (they only won by 5 points). It took near perfect execution on their part. And, the big thing was because the offensive line got so banged up during the game, the Chiefs game plan worked even better. They almost never blitzed duringi the game, bringing only 3 or 4 rushers on 80% of plays. They were essentially banking on letting Rodgers have time but covering the receivers like blankets. Well, with losing 40% of your O-Line during the game, suddenly the thing the Chiefs were sort of "sacrificing" became a huge strength. So now they are getting tremendous pressure as well as blanket coverage. To me it was sort of a perfect storm for the Chiefs, who played (according to them) the best game of their season (some said it was the best game they've ever been a part of), and still only won by 5.

That's what I got out of this. I took this as, "They should keep passing every play because they might not be able to run as well as they had" and my counter point is that with a banged up offensive line the efficiency of the passing game deteriorates more than the running game. So the 5.5 yard per carry might have dropped down to 4, but that would be better than a sack and two incomplete passes.



Well, they did end up taking home a different girl. They brought Win and they took home Loss.



I don't disagree with anything in this paragraph, but I think it was up to McCarthy to realize all of these points during half time and instead of just saying, "We're a passing team, so that's all we're doing come hell or high water" he should have said, "Maybe we should try to pound them with the run a little bit since it's been effective today and the Chiefs are playing to stop the pass". Actually going to back to the first drive of the second half, that is what he did, 3 runs in a row to get to 3rd and 1. But then he called that epic fail fullback dive and after that they only ran the ball 4 more times. So he had the right idea, I just blame that one play for killing that drive and his confidence in the running game.

Well, to my point about them being better passing/running the ball with banged up offensive line, I'll say this: They are an infinitely better passing team than they are running team. So if their offensive line is banged up bigtime, I would suspect that if both running and passing games decline as a result, I still have confidence in their passing game to get by, where their already suspect running game might disappear altogether. Clearly neither worked out that well.

It's not like I was saying that since they have a banged up O-Line that they better pass the ball because running the ball is generally too difficult with a make-shift line. I would bet that both would take a hit. So then I would rely on my potentially MVP quarterback rather than my rather pedestrian running back to over come it.

By my count it was 24 pass plays to 4 rushing after the fullback dive. I'm not saying it should have been opposite of that (or anywhere near it), but that's a bit pass heavy when the passing game isn't working as well as usual.

Also, looking through the plays, the other spot that I really didn't agree with was on the first play of the 4th quarter. They threw an incomplete pass (deep to Finley) on 3rd and 8, then went for it on 4th down from the KC 39. Score was 7-9. It was windy, but maybe a 4 yd run brings a FG into play (or a fake?), or at least gives you 4th and 4.