To our soldiers serving abroad, know that we are all thinking of you and giving thanks for your service in protecting this great nation, this country that we call home. Your selfless acts do not go unappreciated, and we all miss you!

With this Thanksgiving I wanted to take a moment to let you know what things that I give thanks for the most. (more…)

The Packers are in a solid position as they control most of their destiny. They beat the Eagles in week one therefore hold the head to head tie breaker there. They lost to Chicago, but have them on the schedule ahead and can even that series for the season. The New York Giants are still relevant and the Packers will play them as well. None of those games however mean anything without a win this weekend.

The Falcons are poised to make a stretch run with only New Orleans standing in the way of what should be a table run. That puts a little more pressure on the Packers to pull this one out and leave Georgia with eight wins. If the Packers can tip the scale towards themselves with this head to head tie breaker, they would stand to position themselves as the front runner for the NFC home field advantage. And we all know, no one but Green Bay likes playing in Green Bay in January. (more…)

The game looked like it may go down as a tough grinding battle as the Vikings drove the field on their second possession and settled for a field goal when the drive stalled inside the Green Bay 10.  The Packers and Vikings spent the entire first quarter and into the 2nd exchanging three and outs and punts until Mason Crosby tied the game up in the second.  The Packers would score the first touchdown a series later and lead 17 to 3 at the half.  It was over with in the third.

(more…)

For those who haven’t the photo of the Green Bay Packers “fake new Nike” jersey can be seen after the jump.  Nike will be the league uniform supplier in 2012, which coincendentally coincides with the Mayan calender event that ends the world.  Maybe that is what the Mayan calendar was foretelling…hmmmmmm.

Anyways, take a look at the uniform and answer the poll on the following page and discuss this in our comments section. (more…)

“I don’t think I can go the whole game but I’m going to play as much as I can,” said Rice

Doesn’t sound as though Rice is all that certain about his hip recovery.

It’s likely that while Rice is on the field however, that Brett Favre will try and feed him the ball.  Rusty or not.  That should serve the Packers well as Rice is not the threat he was last year and the first game back on a team in complete disarray won’t help either.  Rice playing could mean another pick for the Packers.

This game is likely to be the last time that Favre faces the Packers and Aaron Rodgers

It’s hard to believe that the Green Bay Packers are playing the Vikings so soon.  It really seems like a week or two ago that the teams squared off for their first 2010 match-up.  Still, here we are heading over to Minnesota for a re-match of the Packers first win.  Thanks to the goose egg laid by the Miami Dolphins last night, the Chicago Bears sit atop the division awaiting the outcome of Sunday’s game.

For the Packers it should be all about knocking what snot remains in Brett Favre out.  He is done.  He has told some media that this will be his last year.  I believe him…finally.  He doesn’t have the energy the emotion, he is simply a dejected football player who simply should have hung up his cleats a season earlier.  If he could go back in time to the start of the season, there is no way he would have come back. (more…)

Week 11 Packer Fantasy Focus:

Aaron Rodgers - The overwhelming first QB taken off the board in drafts back in August will face the Vikings for a second time this season.  Rodgers threw for 295 yards and two touchdowns in the first meeting back in week 7.  There is no reason to believe that he won’t at least match that same production.  I think that will have a better statistical game this time around.

Brandon Jackson - Sometimes you have to start a 3rd tier runner and that is what Jackson is.  However, he can get you some points when the passing game is working well.  In week 7 Jackson combined for 104 yards and a touchdown.  If your in a bind with some injuries or maybe a key runner doesn’t match up well this week with another defense, Jackson would be safe start to get you some points.

(more…)

Yes, I know it's early!

Is it too early to talk about the draft?  Of course it is but guess what?  It’s a bye week and that means that anything goes.  So here is a very early speculative look at the 2011 NFL draft’s first round.  This draft is provided by Onole of Phinphanatic.com.

Please visit FanSided’s two Mock Draft data sites, DCProSports and NFL Mocks!

2011 Mock Draft v1.2

1. Buffalo – Andrew Luck | QB | Stanford | 6’4” | 235

Ryan Fitzpatrick is showing some good things but he will not be the QB of the future. Andrew Luck looks to be the real deal and Buffalo can’t afford to pass him up. They must also address the offensive line later in the draft and should be able to do that in the following rounds.

2. Dallas – Patrick Peterson | CB | LSU | 6’1” | 222

Where to start? Phillips is gone and no telling who will be the coach but they wont be able to hide the fact that Terrance Newman will be 33 next year. They could use offensive line help, but I don’t think there is top five talent in this draft.

3. Carolina – AJ Green | WR | Georgia | 6’4” | 208

Carolina needs to pick a QB and stick with him. After that they need to upgrade the receivers. Lafell and Gettis my end up being ok and Smith is on the backside of his career. Green is a special talent in the mold of Calvin Johnson, pair him up with a young QB and watch the chemistry grow.

4. San Francisco – Jake Locker | QB | Washington | 6’3” | 230

Locker has struggled at times, but he has the skills to be a top level QB in the NFL. Alex Smith is not the answer and Troy Smith isn’t as well. Chances are Singletary could be gone next year and not as much pressure on a new HC to win right away. Locker could sit back and learn for a bit.

5. Denver – Marcell Dareus | DE/DT | Alabama | 6’3” | 305

McDaniel is on the hot seat, and no matter if it’s him or someone else in Denver the Broncos must improve against the run. Dareus is very versatile and can play inside in a 4-3 and outside in a 3-4. He is very stout against the run and can get penetration as well.

6. Cincinnati – Ryan Mallet | QB | Arkansas | 6’7” | 238

The Bengals really need offensive line help, but there just isn’t anyone worth this pick. Palmer is 30 and doesn’t seem to be the same QB he was before his injury. Mallet could follow the same path as Palmer and sit back a year and learn the NFL game.

7. Cleveland – Robert Quinn | DE/OLB | North Carolina | 6’5” | 256 (more…)

Matthews needs to get into Brett Favres Head early and often

The Green Bay Packers walked all over the Dallas Cowboys last night. It was ugly. So ugly in fact that after all the harassment that John Kitna took last night, Jerry Jones decided that he has seen enough of Wade Phillips and axed the man that only a week ago was given the dreaded vote of confidence. In his stead will be the fallen boy wonder Jason Garrett who was supposed to be an offensive genius when he left Miami five years ago.

Facing Kitna for the first time since his days in Detroit, the Packers wasted little time picking up where they left off with the ageing QB.

Last night game bordered on being a laugher unless A, you were a Packers fan or B, you owned any member of the Packers defense, special teams, Aaron Rodgers, Brandon Jackson, and/or Clay Matthews on your fantasy team. It was that bad and it was that bad early. The Packers jumped to an early lead that they didn’t come close to giving up.

James Jones who I spoke about earlier this week was lights out in place of the injured Donald Driver until a late game dropped pass had announcer Chris Collinsworth finally finding something to dig on. Rodgers threw only 7 incomplete passes all night, one to the aforementioned Jones. In addition to his 289 yard aerial effort, he added 41 yards on the ground. John Kuhn rushed for 50 yards and Brandon Jackson added 42.

The real cheese had to go to the defensive unit who harassed John Kitna the entire game, left the Cowboys with a total of 39 yards rushing from their three runners, and held Miles Austin to 16 yards on two catches. For their effort, the defense forced two fumbles, sacked Kitna four times, picked him off twice, and returned one of them for a TD. The special teams added another one on a call that should never have been made. (more…)

The Packers defense has been solid but up and down all year in one area or another, Bigby should add that boost to that will make life a little easier for the star LB Clay Matthews. With Bigby in the secondary, it may take opposing QB’s an extra second to find an open receiver and that little piece of a minute could be enough for Matthews to get into his face.

We will see how conditioned and football ready Bigby is tonight when the game kicks off.

The contest has been going on for the entire season so it’s too late to win the trip to Hawaii for the Pro-Bowl or any of the end of year stuff but the weekly stuff is still in play.  You also get to choose your favorite team so make sure you select the Packers.

Here is how it works, this is part of NFLNetwork and NFL Redzone so no spam, each week you are asked a series of questions, for example, “How may touchdowns will be scored between the Packers and the Cowboys”.  Each person gets their own set of random questions so you don’t have to worry about a whole lot of needless ties, but there are questions to break those just in case.  Each question has points ranging from 3 to 21 for each question and the questions get a little more in depth as you get to 21.  You accumulate your points each week.

This is completely free but we still want you to go through this link so that NFL Network can track where new members are coming from.  I’m not getting paid for this so don’t worry if you come across it and join from another location.  I simply thought that this was interesting and wanted to share it.  Take a shot at it this week, it’s pretty easy and you just might find it a bit of fun as well.

Work on your skills as a writer, gain the experience to further your sportswriting career.  Join one of the biggest sports networks on the internet.  We have been featured in the New York Times, NFL.com, Fox Sports, CBS Sports, and many more.  This is an opportunity for you to grow and cull your writing skills and use your knowledge that you have on the best team in the NFL.

Email me today and start writing.  Email me today at Bmiller.phan@gmail.com and tell me you want to be a Packer’s writer.

Dallas visits the Packers On Sunday Night

Sunday night can’t seem to get here fast enough.  If your like me you love Sunday afternoons when you can sit back and watch the other games, follow your fantasy players, and know that the day wraps with a Sunday night under the lights Pack game.  This week, that opponent is the reeling Dallas Cowboys and while on the surface it would seem the Packers have this all but won on paper, we all know that these Packers can’t seem to put anyone away this year.

Starting on the offensive side of the ball, the Packers have a choice to make.  Run the ball, control the clock, and simply beat down the opposition, or throw the ball score points, and beat down the opposition.  The Packers will have that choice simply because the Cowboys offense is not a productive unit these days.

Through the air:

The Cowboys rank 10th in the league in pass defense and Mike Jenkins is starting to show signs that he can become the talent that Jerry Jones thought he was drafting.  He doesn’t have a ton of help on the other side though.  Terence Newman is an up and down corner and teams have been able to throw on him.  With Donald Driver sidelined this week, the task will fall to James Jones who, as we wrote about yesterday, needs to improve his consistency.

Aaron Rodgers should be able to find the soft seams for rookie TE Andrew Quarles and I actually think that statistically he could have a better day than the GB WR’s.  Maybe not yardage alone but receptions, and I think he may score a couple of touchdowns as well.

The Cowboys give an average of 205 yards per game through the air, with 15 TD’s allowed and only 5 takeaways, it may be in Rodgers best interest to exploit those weaknesses. (more…)

Inconsistent Play needs to improve

Forget about the Green Bay Packers anemic running game, the bigger question is where are the wide receivers? Greg Jennings?  Greg Jennings?  Greg Jennings?  Driver? Driver? Driver?  Excuse me, I heard from a friend who heard from a friend…you get the picture, it’s like Ferris Buehler.

If you look on the NFL’s official stats page, you will have to actually scroll the wide receiver list all the way down to number 18 to find Greg Jennings and his 5 touchdown receptions.  You will have to click over to page number two to find Donald Driver at 67, Jermichael Finley at 72, and James Jones at 78.  Now with word that Donald Driver will miss this weekend, it makes you wonder how Aaron Rodgers is in the top 5 at his position.  No really he is.  Aaron Rodgers is 5th in the league in passing yards.

So who exactly is catching all of these passes?

It goes without saying that Rodgers is spreading the ball around but with that comes inconsistent play from your top guys.  Case in point, James Jones who will take over Driver’s role this weekend against Dallas said “I need to be more consistent”.  From the horses mouth.  Even Greg Jennings has taken notice of Jones’ inconsistent play.

“I talk to him about it all the time. He knows what he’s capable of getting done, but it’s a matter of getting it done,” Jennings said Wednesday.  “The thing about JJ, he’s harder on himself than anybody in this room and in this building, quite frankly. I told him after the game, we were on the plane, and I said, ‘When you dropped that ball, I couldn’t even look at you. I was pissed.’ That’s how we are. We hold each other to a high standard of excellence. The bar is set high, and you either match that, or you exceed that. But you can’t fall short of that. That’s just not acceptable.”

Driver was still on crutches when the Wednesday injury report came out so that puts James Jones front and center in Sunday prime-time.  He will need to find that consistency going forward as Driver could experience hiccups all season long.  With the bye-week approaching, the team will try and get healthy but they need to beat Dallas first and they need to find a way to get their WR’s more involved.  The fact is that the GB offense is very good at staying in games but they are not managing the field as well as they should and inconsistent play that includes poorly run routes, poorly thrown balls, and dropped passes, don’t help at all.

For Jones, his play needs to improve.  Behind him sits two youngsters ready to make a leap into that role if he fails.  Jordy Nelson and Brett Swain.  Nelson by the way is ranked 91st and Swain?  I got tired of looking but Brandon Jackson and Andrew Quarles are ranked higher and they were in the 100′s.  Tell me again how Rodgers is ranked 5th?

After the exciting blowout win by the Packers over the Jets…o.k. so 9-0 isn’t a blowout but it sure as hell was a lot of fun to watch the Jets squirm like they did, I realized that this team isn’t bad.  They just make bad mistakes at the worst of times.

Aaron Rodgers is one of the up and coming QB’s in this league and it’s no wonder the team can stay in stride with their opposition but they have to be more consistent.  Sure, the loss of Ryan Grant early in the season and for the season really took a bite out of the offense, but good teams overcome bad injuries.  It appears that maybe, just maybe, the Green Bay Packers are finding a way to overcome theirs. (more…)

(more…)

Round 1 goes to the Pack

That loud thud you heard late last night was the sound of the door closing on Brett Favre’s career and the season for the Minnesota Vikings.  With his first win against his former “mentor”, Aaron Rodgers made the Green Bay Packers relevant again in the division and in the conference.  It took 3 interceptions by the Packers defense who recovered from the two picks Rodgers threw as well.  At the end when the whistle blew, the Packers were back in the hunt and the Vikings were drifting further away from any shot at a season recovery.

The Chicago Bears are now tied with the Pack at the top at 4-3 while the Vikes’ are now two games back and sliding.  For Green Bay, it was a solid performance against a division rival.  Surely it would have been nicer to see a more lopsided win, but this is divisional football and those games are always tough.  After the Pack took the lead in the 3rd quarter the team simply got defensive and held their ground as the 4th quarter ended scoreless. (more…)

Rodgers is 0-2 against Brett Favre as a Viking

So much is made these days of Brett Favre being Aaron Rodgers‘ “dojo master”.  Every time the two face off it’s brought up how Rodgers was drafted as the heir apparent and was set to take over the reigns of the team and Brett Favre called off his retirement to return shelving Rodgers for a year and then in 2008, Favre pulled it again and Rodgers was on the sideline.  Then Favre pulled it again and the Packers traded the long time favorite to NY where his popularity waned over the years and became a league wide seasonal joke.  So with today’s return of Favre, I suppose the question should be, is Aaron Rodgers really the product of Master Brett?

Aaron Rodgers spent his first three seasons backing up and watching Brett Favre.  I seemed to recall Favre taking the stance late in his Green Bay career that he wasn’t there (in Green Bay) to coach and that Rodgers would need to watch and learn.  Following the trade of Brett in 2008, Rodgers quickly jumped in the starting role and won over the Green Bay fans almost immediately.   (more…)

Jenn Sterger worked as a NY Jets Hostess and sideline reporter.

The Minnesota Vikings are in town this weekend and it seems that wherever Brett Favre goes these days a circus follows.  There will be assorted boos as he takes center stage tonight at Lambeau Field for the Vikings but regardless of whether Favre is a Viking or simply, now, an ex-Packer, one thing is for sure, his game play on the field is starting to become the side show to his issues off the field.

Two weeks ago it was reported that there were cell phone pictures of Favre sent to NY Jets sideline reporter Jenn Sterger as well as some issues with a few Jets hired masseuse’s.  This all dates back to the lone year that Favre was in NY.  Apparently, in the two years since the pictures and “harassment” took place, no one really seemed to care.  Until the Vikings and Brett Favre headed to NY for the first time since his leaving.  Then, a mere days prior to that Monday night event, both the images and the story break and the focus of what should have been Brett Favre against a former team, turned into Brett Favre the not-so-squeaky clean Hall of Fame QB.  The irony of it all.

Let’s forget about the fact that Sterger or whomever purportedly layed hands on the photos or how they got them, the real issue now appears to lie in the story of Sterger and what could be, and should, be considered a form extortion.

It is being reported that Jenn Sterger is refusing to cooperate with the NFL’s investigation provided that Favre “financially” meets her requirements.  Seriously?  At the very core of this is extortion.  And with this revelation, the timing of the revelations should also be brought into focus and perhaps even an investigation into whether the Jets themselves had any part in it.

The fact that Sterger is requesting a monetary payout for her silence is sickening.  Regardless of what Favre did or didn’t do this is something that should perhaps go deeper than a simple NFL investigation into what it is terming, “workplace mis-conduct“.  Either way, it reeks of bull centered around a woman who has made a career of being a little less than a lady.

This by no means, my opinion on this that is, excuse Brett Favre or any other party to this kind of behavior.  Would it not seem as though the statue of limitations on this would have gone out the window a year ago?  So why now?  Why publicly?  And why would she simply not allow the NFL to interview her over a firestorm that she still denies came out of her camp?  Of course the question would be then, who did she give the cell phone pictures to that would have passed them along to the media?

I supported 100 percent the Erin Andrews incident.  It still disgusts me.  Woman in the media, In my opinion should have the same rights as men but I do feel that by not allowing any press into a locker room until teams or individuals are clothed should be a mandate across all sports.  The comments made recently by members of the Jets to a Latin female reporter were crass as well.  Still, that does not excuse woman who decide to already take a delicate situation and make it worse by their dress.

In Sterger’s case, it’s always been about the dress.  Sterger was an internet sensation for collegiate look-ups due to her Florida State college football game attire as a fan.  It didn’t change when she went to work for NY.

All of that aside, Brett Favre still needs to come into Green Bay and beat a team that is reeling from it’s own demons and the sidebar issues of Jenn Sterger and the folks at Deadspin.com who broke the news will be nothing more than talk in the broadcast booth.