New Orleans

[George Cumby]

Thing is, the good blocks are very good blocks. The kid barely has his feet wet as a pro, and he has some very good blocks on tape. That puts him light years ahead of Finley, Quarless and every other TE the Packers have had as rookies recently. He appears to have made huge strides from what he looked like most of the preseason. Inconsistency is to be expected from a rookie at any position, especially in blocking by a TE who apparently did little blocking in college.

A coach's kid. He's willing, if not yet able. JMike was able but lukewarm, although I do recall him decelerating someone early in his career.

[pbmax]

A coach's kid. He's willing, if not yet able. JMike was able but lukewarm, although I do recall him decelerating someone early in his career.

He got quite good at chipping. If he got to a guy already engaged with a lineman, the Dline guy was in trouble. But he was less interested in one on one blocking.

[King Friday]

Aaron Rodgers eats defenses like this for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Saints have huge offensive numbers because they HAVE to score 40 just to win. Rodgers throws for 195 and 3 TDs and sits out in the 4th quarter.

Saints will come out with some emotion and keep pace early, but their defense will be gassed in the second half and Lacy is going to pound them to death.

[Infamous]

Saints will come out with some emotion and keep pace early, but their defense will be gassed in the second half and Lacy is going to pound them to death.

Unfortunately, the exact opposite happened

[Packerfan64]

The Packers defense is superior to the Saints defense, so I expect to see 28+ points from Green Bay. Brees will have some success but I don't see them scoring more than 24.

[pbmax]

FYI, New Orleans is ranked 21st, Green Bay is 3rd. It seems to be a rule that ST and Defense can't be good at same time. ST ranking falling as D picks up.

	TEAM	tDVOA	lstWK	DAVE	RNK	W-L	oDVOA	oRNK	dDVOA	dRANK	stDVOA	stRNK
1	DEN	48.7%	1	44.2%	1	5-1	31.4%	1	-18.2%	2	-0.9%	20
2	BAL	28.5%	2	26.1%	2	5-2	16.2%	4	-8.8%	6	3.5%	8
3	GB	26.1%	4	25.6%	3	5-2	19.9%	2	-4.4%	10	1.8%	14
4	SEA	22.7%	3	21.0%	4	3-3	15.5%	6	-8.1%	7	-0.9%	21
5	IND	19.4%	13	18.1%	5	5-2	8.7%	8	-5.6%	9	5.1%	4
6	PHI	14.5%	6	12.6%	7	5-1	-2.9%	18	-6.3%	8	11.1%	1
7	DAL	13.7%	10	12.2%	8	6-1	16.5%	3	1.3%	19	-1.6%	22
8	SD	13.2%	8	13.2%	6	5-2	15.7%	5	4.7%	23	2.1%	11
9	KC	9.9%	14	7.2%	9	3-3	6.6%	10	-1.4%	14	2.0%	13
10	MIA	6.8%	17	4.8%	11	3-3	5.6%	11	-11.1%	3	-9.9%	32
11	NE	5.7%	11	6.2%	10	5-2	1.8%	16	0.1%	16	3.9%	6
12	DET	5.2%	7	4.0%	12	5-2	-11.3%	26	-24.9%	1	-8.4%	31
13	CIN	2.7%	5	2.2%	13	3-2-1	1.9%	15	1.7%	20	2.5%	10
14	PIT	2.2%	20	2.0%	14	4-3	5.6%	12	7.4%	26	4.0%	5
15	ARI	0.6%	19	-0.5%	15	5-1	-11.2%	25	-10.0%	5	1.8%	15
16	BUF	-0.4%	18	-1.0%	16	4-3	-16.5%	29	-10.5%	4	5.5%	3

[pbmax]

	TEAM	tDVOA	lstWK	DAVE	RNK	W-L	oDVOA	oRNK	dDVOA	dRANK	stDVOA	stRNK
17	CLE	-0.9%	9	-3.4%	20	3-3	5.4%	13	5.8%	25	-0.5%	18
18	ATL	-1.8%	12	-2.6%	19	2-5	7.6%	9	16.0%	31	6.6%	2
19	CHI	-1.9%	16	-1.4%	17	3-4	1.5%	17	-1.8%	12	-5.2%	28
20	SF	-4.5%	15	-3.4%	21	4-3	-3.2%	21	-3.4%	11	-4.7%	27
21	NO	-4.6%	25	-1.5%	18	2-4	11.8%	7	17.7%	32	1.3%	16
22	NYG	-5.6%	21	-5.3%	22	3-4	-2.9%	19	1.0%	18	-1.7%	23
23	HOU	-9.2%	24	-9.1%	23	3-4	-4.9%	23	-0.3%	15	-4.7%	26
24	WAS	-10.3%	23	-10.7%	24	2-5	-3.0%	20	0.3%	17	-7.1%	29
25	CAR	-12.4%	22	-11.4%	25	3-3-1	2.3%	14	14.0%	29	-0.7%	19
26	TEN	-14.1%	26	-13.3%	27	2-5	-5.2%	24	5.3%	24	-3.6%	25
27	NYJ	-14.7%	28	-13.7%	28	1-6	-16.2%	28	2.3%	21	3.9%	7
28	STL	-15.7%	27	-12.9%	26	2-4	-4.6%	22	12.2%	28	1.1%	17
29	OAK	-22.3%	29	-21.4%	29	0-6	-16.0%	27	8.4%	27	2.0%	12
30	MIN	-29.2%	30	-23.7%	30	2-5	-29.8%	32	2.8%	22	3.3%	9
31	JAC	-29.8%	31	-27.9%	31	1-6	-28.7%	31	-1.4%	13	-2.4%	24
32	TB	-49.0%	32	-39.3%	32	1-5	-25.8%	30	15.0%	30	-8.2%	30

[pbmax]

Also of note, Football Outsiders has Miami ranked 10th overall and Advanced NFL Stats has described them this way:

Brian Burke @Adv_NFL_Stats · 11h 11 hours ago
Just peeked at the efficiency rankings. MIA #2??? But consider #1 pass D, #9 run D, #1 run O, and #2 least penalized. But pass O bad (#31).

[KYPack]

I was going to post about that play in the Fin game, King.

P is right, I don't JMF made a block his rookie season.

One of you TE's, make the jump, a TE threat is all we need to make this O unstoppable.

[Fritz]

It'll be interesting to see a couple things: one, how this D does indoors on a fast track, and two, how Bulaga does indoors, on the road, on a fast track.

[pbmax]

Advanced NFL Analytics has the Packers at 4 and New Orleans at 15. Interesting, according to their efficiency ratings, Packers D ranks higher than Packer O (6 to 10) which is good because New Orleans has the 2nd ranked offense, but 28th rated D.

RANK	TEAM	LAST WK	GWP	Opp GWP	O RANK	D RANK
1	 DEN	1	0.68	0.53	1	1
2	 MIA	4	0.61	0.49	14	2
3	 IND	15	0.61	0.52	4	7
4	 GB	9	0.59	0.51	10	6
5	 SEA	3	0.58	0.56	6	16
6	 DAL	6	0.57	0.50	3	22
7	 DET	7	0.55	0.48	21	3
8	 KC	14	0.55	0.56	22	14
9	 BAL	11	0.55	0.47	9	9
10	 WAS	12	0.54	0.48	5	10
11	 SF	5	0.54	0.52	18	5
12	 CIN	2	0.54	0.49	8	17
13	 SD	10	0.53	0.47	7	15
14	 CLE	8	0.51	0.48	11	19
15	 NO	13	0.51	0.45	2	28
16	 NE	16	0.50	0.49	17	11
17	 CHI	18	0.49	0.50	16	26
18	 HOU	21	0.49	0.50	13	27
19	 CAR	17	0.48	0.50	20	18
20	 TEN	19	0.48	0.53	24	23
21	 PHI	24	0.48	0.50	25	12
22	 PIT	20	0.47	0.47	12	21
23	 BUF	23	0.47	0.51	28	4
24	 NYJ	25	0.46	0.53	27	13
25	 NYG	22	0.46	0.49	23	25
26	 ARI	26	0.45	0.52	26	24
27	 JAC	31	0.43	0.52	31	20
28	 STL	30	0.42	0.48	15	30
29	 MIN	27	0.41	0.48	32	8
30	 OAK	29	0.38	0.51	29	29
31	 ATL	28	0.36	0.47	19	32
32	 TB	32	0.33	0.46	30	31

[Bossman641]

Under Payton (meaning excluding the Bountygate year), Saints have won 19 straight at home and are an insane 17-1-1 against the spread. We absolutely need to get off to a fast start Sunday night.

[mission]

Under Payton (meaning excluding the Bountygate year), Saints have won 19 straight at home and are an insane 17-1-1 against the spread. We absolutely need to get off to a fast start Sunday night.

Sounds like they hired some hackers to get in on the visitors' radio signals.

[pbmax]

Sounds like they hired some hackers to get in on the visitors' radio signals.

I am going with this if the Packers lose.

[pbmax]

Ryan Wood ‏@ByRyanWood 36m36 minutes ago
#Packers Insider blog: Secondary less than full strength with Morgan Burnett, Sam Shields not practicing. http://www.packersnews.com/story/spo...cing/17722699/ …

I apparently missed something regarding Burnett's status. Anyone got an idea?

[rollo]

Saw something about Burnett's injury being related to his calf, no other info though.

[QBME]

Saw something about Burnett's injury being related to his calf, no other info though.

Yep - calf is all they're saying.

[Guiness]

Any information on the severity of Shields injury? All I've seen is 'knee'.

[rollo]

Looks like McCarthy brought up the injuries during his press conf today but I didn't see anything specifically mentioned or asked about Burnett. Maybe there's another report out there that is more in depth than the one I just read though.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Hey, most people should be thrilled. Last summer, lots of people were calling for Wunderkinds Micah Hyde and Clinton-Dix to start ahead of Burnett.

Guess Burnett has showed you idiots.

Actually, I think I was one of the people hoping Burnett would get beat out. He really has been a pleasant surprise. Maybe the competition lit a fire? More likely, he was better than we thought all along, and his shitty partner at safety last year put more pressure on him.