The Packers get embarrassed and other NFL thoughts

(1) The Green Bay Packers are not a playoff team. A playoff team does not lose to a team riding an 11-game losing streak, whether at home or on the road. A playoff team doesn’t blow a 28-17 fourth quarter lead. A playoff team doesn’t make repeated offensive and special teams mistakes that allow a terrible team to hang around. The Packers should be ashamed of how they played on Sunday. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised considering how mediocre they have played all season. They have four wins because they have played terrible teams like St. Louis, Cleveland and Detroit. The only decent team they have beaten were the Chicago Bears and they needed Jay Cutler to play like a high school freshman to get that done. I don’t think anyone imagined that they would lose to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after what they had done to the rest of their JV schedule. With the rest of their schedule looking pretty brutal, the Packers face an uphill battle to reach the playoffs.

If they have any intention of playing after week 17, the Packers have to shore up their pass protection. After getting sacked six times against the Bucs, Aaron Rodgers has now been sacked a league-leading 37 times. At this rate, the Packers are still on pace to establish a new NFL record for the number of times a quarterback has been sacked in one season. It is one thing to allow an elite pass rusher like Jared Allen to have his way with you, but it is an entirely different thing to allow the lowly Buccaneers to pressure your quarterback consistently throughout the game. Interestingly, the Bucs applied the most pressure when they needed it most, in the fourth quarter. They got to Rodgers four times in the final quarter, which provided a lot of the momentum that they needed to complete the comeback. As a result of the onslaught on the quarterback, Rodgers didn’t even complete 50% of his attempts and threw three passes to the other side. The final interception was the ultimate dagger, as the Bucs returned it for a touchdown that sealed the victory for the creamsicle look-alikes. Rodgers may have entered the game as the league’s highest rated passer, but the Bucs made him look like Matthew Stafford. Honestly, Rodgers has been a product of his weak schedule. He has been unable to carry the Packers to any significant win and now they have to regroup and find a way to beat the red-hot Dallas Cowboys in week 10.

They will have no shot to beat the Cowboys if their special teams continue to make mistakes and give up great field position. The first blunder occurred early in the second quarter when Tampa Bay blocked a punt and returned it 31 yards for a touchdown. It is especially damaging to allow this type of score because it gives the lesser team the belief that they can win. This is how upsets happen. Normally, the weaker team is unable to win games in the conventional manner, so they have to hope that the stronger team makes mistakes that will allow them to score cheap points. The Bucs used this recipe to perfection because the Packers made mistake after mistake. The second blunder came after the Packers took a seemingly insurmountable 28-17 lead with just over 12 minutes left in the game. On the ensuing kickoff, the Bucs’ Clifton Smith returned the kick for 83 yards that set up a short touchdown drive sparking the comeback. It was clear to me, based on the Packers’ lapses, that they were not focused on the Buccaneers. They probably thought they would be able to waltz in to Raymond James Stadium and roll Tampa Bay like they were the Florida Gators playing Central Florida. I kind of suspected that this might happen, which is why I said before the game that this might be the Bucs’ best chance for a victory in 2009. You have to tip your hat to Tampa Bay because they didn’t play great but they made all the big plays.

(2) After winning their second straight game, the Tennessee Titans have found new hope in the right arm of Vince Young. Makes you wonder if Coach Jeff Fisher should have made the switch sooner instead of stubbornly sticking with the struggling Kerry Collins through a brutal 0-6 start. Young’s numbers are not jumping off the page, but it is times like these that we shouldn’t put so much stock in the raw numbers. For all his faults, Young seems to have a knack for winning football games. He is far from being a polished NFL quarterback, but he still has a 20-11 record in his short career. The big thing is that he appears to have learned something from watching Collins lead the team for the last 1.5 years. I think that he has been told that he is so great for so long that it didn’t hurt for this ego to take a bit of a hit. If the Titans can keep the good vibe going, they certainly have some winnable games coming up that might turn their season around.

They have won the last two weeks because they have gone back to playing the way that Coach Fisher envisioned they would play at the beginning of the season. The Fisher recipe for success, which was followed precisely in 2008, is to limit the mistakes from the quarterback position and rely on a strong running game and stout defense. The last two weeks, Young has completed nearly 73% of his attempts for 297 yards and one touchdown passing and rushing. The most important number is that Young has not turned the ball over once. While his numbers are far from rivaling Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, he seems to be channeling the elite quarterbacks in the NFL when the Titans are in most need of a big play. After a Chris Johnson 81-yard touchdown was reversed on review, the Titans could have hung their heads and accepted defeat. Instead, Young led Tennessee down the field, which included a clutch completion to Justin Gage for 33 yards that set-up a short Johnson touchdown. The most significant thing about the drive was that Coach Fisher decided to go for the touchdown on fourth and inches instead of taking the sure three points. The decision to go for it seems to indicate that Fisher has a great deal of confidence in Young and the positive change that Young has brought to the offense.

In addition to the surprising play from Young, the Titans have got back to running the football with consistency. They rolled up 305 yards last week against the Jaguars and followed up that huge performance with 152 yards against the 49ers. The Titans have experienced this running resurgence mostly on the legs of Chris Johnson, who broke the 200-yard plateau last week and rushed the ball a career high 25 times this week. I’m not sure what the Titans have done differently the last two weeks except play with more confidence. It doesn’t matter how much time you prepare or what type of game plan you attempt to execute if your players are not convinced that they are going to be successful. It appears that the Titans are not only prepared to focus on the running game, but they are convinced that the running game can lead the way to victories. I definitely think that the Titans have something good going, which could ultimately make this season much more positive than the train wreck that it was starting to look like. If nothing else, Tennessee might finally figure out whether or not Vince Young is the quarterback of the future. If their answer is yes, then I have to think that the future is bright in Music City.

(3) If a football team wins their fourth game of the season, but there is no one there to see it did it actually happen. I ask the question because the Jaguars beat the Chiefs for their fourth win of the season in front of an announced crowd of 45, 516, which guaranteed that the game was blacked out in Jacksonville as well as all secondary markets. The mediocre attendance has been a recurrent problem in Jacksonville, where local fans have only been able to watch home games if they were among the thousands inside Jacksonville Municipal Stadium. It doesn’t look like things will improve anytime soon as the Jaguars are expecting that all of their 2009 home games will be blacked out. If this dire prediction comes to fruition, it will mean that the Jaguars would have had nearly the same number of blackouts in 2009 that the entire NFL experienced in 2008. Meanwhile, the World’s Largest Cocktail Party was played in the same stadium in front of 84,000+ fanatics and required the addition of temporary seating. The Jags have lost 17,000 season ticket holders this season and are playing to only 68% capacity, which is the league’s lowest figure. They are actually playing in front of smaller crowds than the Detroit Lions and Oakland Raiders, who both have a clearly inferior on-field product to showcase.

The million dollar question in NFL circles is if Jacksonville can reverse the giant sucking sound and find a way to make the franchise viable for the long-term. It certainly doesn’t help when the City of Los Angeles just cleared all of the final hurdles to build a 75,000 seat stadium for the express purpose of bringing back the NFL. Anyone with half a brain can see that the Jaguars are the leading candidate for relocation. Jacksonville is one of the NFL’s smaller markets, which puts them in the same company as Green Bay, New Orleans and Buffalo, but, unlike those franchises, the Jags have been unsuccessful at broadening their fan base regionally. In addition, Jacksonville has been hit pretty hard by the downturn in the economy and is currently experiencing over 10% unemployment. Also, Jacksonville, with only two companies in the Fortune 500 (both outside the top 200), does not have the significant corporate presence to help prop up ticket sales when the normal fan is unable to pull their own weight. In hindsight, it was probably a reach to place an NFL franchise in a market like Jacksonville. They scored an upset when they were granted the team in 1993, but they need to recapture the interest of the city if they hope to keep the team around. Owner Wayne Weaver is already dropping hints about playing a game or two in Orlando, which is the second largest television market without an NFL franchise. In addition, the sharks smell blood in the water and are swimming around trying to see if Weaver is willing to sell out.

As I write this, a group of Los Angeles big wigs has laid out a plan to contact several teams with stadium or revenue issues to determine their interest level in relocating to the City of Angels. One of those teams will definitely be Jacksonville along with Buffalo, San Diego, Minnesota, Oakland, St. Louis and San Francisco. The NFL is the richest of North America’s professional leagues, but flux is a regular part of the business. In a span of five years, seven franchises were created or moved: Carolina and Jacksonville were born as expansion teams; the Raiders, Rams, Browns and Oilers all moved; and Cleveland got a new franchise. Also, according to the L.A. ownership group, they have already had 3,146 inquiries about luxury suites (there are only 176 in the proposed stadium), 22,000 inquiries about club seats and 105,000 inquiries about season tickets. With 15 million people living within one hour of the proposed stadium, it is only a matter of time before a team calls Los Angeles home once again. My money is on Jacksonville being that team.

(4) A team that is going nowhere in terms of relocation as well as in the standings is the New York Giants. The Giants have now completely squandered their first 5-0 start since 1990 with their fourth consecutive loss. In my mind, the reversal of fortune for the Giants is the result of their schedule turning much more difficult the last four weeks. Through the first five weeks of the season, the Giants faced only one team that currently has a winning record and the collective records of their five opponents is 12-28. The last four weeks, New York has faced three division leaders whose collective record was 23-9. The Giants were able to overcome their own mistakes in the early part of the season, but now the chickens are coming home to roost. The bye week could not have come at a better time for New York because they have to sort out issues with their preparation, game planning and on-field performance.

It would be simplistic to blame their demise on the poor performances from Eli Manning over the last four weeks. Nevertheless, it is fair to give Manning his share of the blame because, for better or worse, he is the leader of the team. During their hot start, Manning looked like an MVP candidate. He averaged 242 yards passing with a 64% completion percentage, eight touchdowns and only two interceptions. He was playing so well that I was even suckered into believing that Manning had turned the corner and assumed his rightful place in the pantheon of elite NFL quarterbacks. The highlight of his season so far was his cool and calm annihilation of the Cowboys secondary in week two. Unfortunately, things have come undone for Eli and the Giants over the last four weeks. Before a solid performance against the Chargers (25-33, 215 yards, 2 TDs, 0 Int), Eli had just completed a stretch of three games where he had completed less than 50% of his attempts and thrown twice the number of interceptions as touchdowns. As you can imagine, the Giants were effectively destroyed by those three opponents. New York cannot afford for Eli to mismanage a game because their defense has not been playing well recently.

The Giants defense has been roasted over the last few weeks before playing fairly well against San Diego. They gave only 14.2 points during their five game winning streak, but have now given up an average of 33.7 points during their current losing streak. These numbers are pretty indicative of the fact that the G-Men played four of the worst offensive football teams in the NFL in the early part of their season and they now have faced some pretty competent football teams recently. The dirty little secret about the Giants is how terribly they have performed in red zone defense. They have given up touchdowns an astounding 22 times in the 29 opportunities that opposing offenses have ventured inside the 20-yard line. Even the Chiefs, Raiders, Buccaneers and Redskins are five of eight in red zone opportunities against the Giants. I really think the Giants defense is missing their defensive coordinator like the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens seemed to be missing their former coordinators. When coaches get poached by other teams, there will always be some sort of transition regardless of where the new coach comes from. It looks like the Giants have not made a successful transition yet. Another contributing factor might be the new faces that the Giants brought in to bolster their defensive depth. They signed the likes of Rocky Bernard, Chris Canty and Michael Boley and these guys might not be great fits or they may be taking longer to catch onto the schemes implemented by the coaching staff. It also should be noted that the Giants have lost some key contributors on defense to injuries. They just got back Boley and Canty for the Chargers game and the defense actually played markedly better than the previous three weeks. Nevertheless, the return of Canty and Boley was not able to stop the Chargers from marching 80 yards for the game-winning touchdown with 21 seconds remaining. As I mentioned earlier, the bye week should provide a nice opportunity for the Giants to reassess their defensive resources and how to deploy them more effectively.

(5) Before I get too deep into analyzing the Seahawks’ victory over the Detroit Lions, let me just start by saying that it felt good to get a win no matter how ugly the process was to get there. Nevertheless, the Hawks should not feel too good about themselves after having to scratch and claw their way to a win over a team that entered the game 1-23 over the last two seasons. This win felt more like a stay of execution. I still don’t think the Hawks are a very good team and a narrow victory over Detroit isn’t going to change my opinion. I was hoping to see the Hawks dominate the Lions like they dominated the Rams and Jaguars earlier in the season. Instead, the Lions had the ball late in the game with a chance to score the go-ahead touchdown. In the end, the Hawks got it done and that is all that really matters in the NFL because you don’t get credit for style points.

Seattle better thank their lucky stars that they had Matt Hasselbeck at quarterback instead of Seneca Wallace. Without Hasselbeck to save the day, the 12th Man would be choosing a spot on the Aurora Bridge to jump from. After Seattle fell behind 17-0 in the first quarter, Coach Jim Mora threw caution to the wind and went all in with his quarterback. The result was a 32-3 run that included Hasselbeck completing a franchise record 39 passes while he set a franchise record for career completions. At one point, Hasselbeck completed 15 passes in a row. Only Warren Moon, with 17 consecutive completions, has done better as a Seahawk. Most of his passes were of the dink and dunk variety, but Hasselbeck showed why he is a tough son of a gun and a three-time Pro Bowl participant. He also continued to demonstrate why he is the heart and soul of the football team. If the Hawks had 10-15 other guys with the determination and leadership ability of Matt Hasselbeck, we wouldn’t be lamenting a 3-5 start to the season. Unfortunately, the Hawks are a flawed team, whose imperfections were on display for the whole world to see. They still make too many mistakes and they still cannot run the ball with any consistency. On Sunday, they turned the ball over on their first two plays from scrimmage, which resulted in 14 points for the Lions. I started to have flashbacks to the Arizona game. They also flubbed an extra point conversion when the holder was unable to handle the snap. In addition, their running game continues to be a disaster. They only managed 55 yards on 18 carries against a team that allows nearly 110 yards rushing per game and nearly five yards per carry. In my opinion, it is time to end the Julius Jones experiment and allow the young guys, Justin Forsett and Louis Rankin, to carry the rock for the rest of the season. I’m a firm believer that experience should not be the only reason that someone gets to continue to play. If Jones is not getting it done, then it won’t hurt to see if a fresher set of legs can jumpstart the running game. We all know that Hasselbeck will not survive dropping back 51 times against the Arizona Cardinals, so the Hawks better find some answers on the ground.

Ultimately, the Hawks won this game because they were playing the Detroit Lions. Most of the NFL would have finished off the Hawks after being staked to a 17-0 lead. For God’s sake, we all saw what a good team does with a huge lead when the Cardinals stymied the Hawks a few weeks ago. The defense played fairly well for most of the game but I can’t even give them too much credit when you factor in that they were playing a rookie quarterback. They intercepted five passes but most of them were gift wrapped with a huge bow on top. They allowed over five yards per carry on the ground and they didn’t generate any more pressure than they did the week before in getting trounced by the Cowboys. This kind of defensive effort will get you by against the dregs of the NFL, but it is not playoff caliber. The Hawks have to prove that they can slow down good teams with their defense. They get another opportunity when they travel to the desert to battle the Arizona Cardinals. Once again, they will be severely challenged by the quick decision-making of Kurt Warner and the acrobatic play-making of the Cardinals’ receiving corps. It would be great to finally see the Hawks win a big game, but it is more likely that the Cardinals will officially put a fork in the Seahawks’ 2009 season.