Favre tension release (what I learned)

[RashanGary]

1. Brett Favre did do a great job last year of taking advantage of his playmakers. He also did a great job of getting the ball out quickly, often times on perfectly thrown slants that teams knew were coming to make up for our awfull run game. I think I underrated his importance in the short passing game. That slant kept many drives alive and now we're stalling where we used to continue drives.


2. I don't know if it can be chalked up as something learned just yet (more of an observation) but Rodgers is doing a really good job. They are not running the ball well. The offense is still in the upper third of NFL teams despite having a really bad run game and bad defense. He's limiting mistakes, but making a few. He's making plays with his arm and his feet. He's been poised for the most part. He's taken what the defense is giving, but when the run game has not worked and teams geared to stop the pass, he's struggled forcing the quick, 3 step throw that used to sustain drives for us. We're missing the Favre of last year right now, but Rodgers has played really well and we have a lot to look forward to in my opinion.


I'll backtrack and say Favre did help this team more than I thought last year. Rodgers is doing a really good job, but it's not as good as Favre last year and it hurt more than I thought it would. There are real problems on this team that would have prevented this team from winning the SB with our without Favre and they are more concerning and maybe more relevant. In the face of this season playing out, I think I owe the Favre lovers a pat on the back for being more right about his impact than me. I was wrong. Not completely but wrong enough to have to admit.


I'll still say I'm optimistic about the general direction of this team. Rodgers will keep getting better for a couple seasons before he plateaus. He has a really good starting point so that is exciting. They're going to have to progress on the offenisve and defensive lines to really take that next step. They're not a great team right now. They're a young, promising team coming off a complete overhaul the last few years. They have some strengths and some weaknesses. They have a strong schedule and should finish middle of the pack. I think they're a little better than that and the problems can be fixed with some development and a couple good offseasons. WE have to keep the young, talented core while strengthening some other areas. It's tough not to watch playoff football and it's tough to watch Favre doing well in NY, but this team is going through the youthfull growing pains and should continue to get better for a few years. It's going to be a fun season even if it's not a playoff season. Watching the young guys grow is fun.

[Scott Campbell]

Great post.

[Partial]

A night of rollin' with Partial and the Packer Rats ( my gang, and my band ) will wisen a man right up.

[Pacopete4]

Great Post!

[RashanGary]

A night of rollin' with Partial and the Packer Rats ( my gang, and my band ) will wisen a man right up.

Rock band is the total team activity. When one person would go off, the whole song suffered by being out of sync and it spiraled. That was fun as all hell!!

To anyone considering the game "rock band", I strongly recommend it. If you ever wondered what it would feel like to be in a rock band I don't think you can get much closer. I still feel like I'm up on stage belting out an outragous guitar solo to a screaming crowd. When you do something really well the crowd goes wild and the whole song just starts rockin'. What a great game! Probably better if you do it with friends and have a few beers. You don't want to overplay it because then it would lose it's luster. Save it for parties and get togethers.

[Fred's Slacks]

WOW! Scott and Paco agree on something!

I also think this is a great post. As good as I feel Arod is playing, it is difficult to replace 16 years of experience. Favre was, and still is, a great quarterback. Very few actually thought we would be better off with out him this year. It was a tough management decision and they saw enough promise in Arod to make the move and live with the growing pains. I think most of us thought we were good enough to over come the growing pains. Right now, we are not.

[Bretsky]

great post

[Pacopete4]

A night of rollin' with Partial and the Packer Rats ( my gang, and my band ) will wisen a man right up.

Rock band is the total team activity. When one person would go off, the whole song suffered by being out of sync and it spiraled. That was fun as all hell!!

To anyone considering the game "rock band", I strongly recommend it. If you ever wondered what it would feel like to be in a rock band I don't think you can get much closer. I still feel like I'm up on stage belting out an outragous guitar solo to a screaming crowd. When you do something really well the crowd goes wild and the whole song just starts rockin'. What a great game! Probably better if you do it with friends and have a few beers. You don't want to overplay it because then it would lose it's luster. Save it for parties and get togethers.

never played it but the way you talk about it make it seem like u won the lottery.. I might have to play this game call "rockband"

[MOBB DEEP]

WOW! Scott and Paco agree on something!

I also think this is a great post. As good as I feel Arod is playing, it is difficult to replace 16 years of experience. Favre was, and still is, a great quarterback. Very few actually thought we would be better off with out him this year. It was a tough management decision and they saw enough promise in Arod to make the move and live with the growing pains. I think most of us thought we were good enough to over come the growing pains. Right now, we are not.

i think it ws mainly texaspackerbacker that mentioned arod being a better qb for the pack about 45 days ago

pack will be above average for quite a while; and challenge for SB a couple of times and arod will only get better (as MOST qb have to do when his age)

great post JH; other than the slant/run game i would mention #4's aura under center too. we cant minimize how thats an important element on pro teams (as there is SO much talent in nfl)

[HarveyWallbangers]

It was nice meeting you, JH. I came away thinking you were a good guy. It's kind of weird to think something about somebody based on their web persona, and then they turn out to be a little different in real life. I was more impressed by you after actually meeting you.

[cpk1994]

Re: Favre tension release (what I learned)

1. Brett Favre did do a great job last year of taking advantage of his playmakers. He also did a great job of getting the ball out quickly, often times on perfectly thrown slants that teams knew were coming to make up for our awfull run game. I think I underrated his importance in the short passing game. That slant kept many drives alive and now we're stalling where we used to continue drives.

I agree with the rest of your post but this is the part I take issue with. McCarthy for whatever reason, has completely gone away from the slants. It is mind boggling that he would call that play for Favre all day, but refuses to call it for a young QB needing to get in rythm. Its my biggest been beef with McCarthy this year. If McCarthy went back to them, maybe they could continue drives instead of stalling them. Thats why I can't estimate Favres importance in the short passing game when ARod isn't being called to throw slants to make a good comparison.

[PackerBlues]

Hang in there JH. As much as I hated to see Favre go, I still think that the team is heading in the right direction. While this season may not go as well as we might like, at least quite a few of our back-ups are getting repititions, and as lame as it sounds, one more good year in the draft added to the draft pick we get for Favre, should really be a great help to this Packer team. Add to that our cap room, and next season should be a lot better.

Let me just add that we shouldn't write the Pack off just yet......... and I still hate Ted Thompson.

[Gunakor]

Re: Favre tension release (what I learned)

1. Brett Favre did do a great job last year of taking advantage of his playmakers. He also did a great job of getting the ball out quickly, often times on perfectly thrown slants that teams knew were coming to make up for our awfull run game. I think I underrated his importance in the short passing game. That slant kept many drives alive and now we're stalling where we used to continue drives.

I agree with the rest of your post but this is the part I take issue with. McCarthy for whatever reason, has completely gone away from the slants. It is mind boggling that he would call that play for Favre all day, but refuses to call it for a young QB needing to get in rythm. Its my biggest been beef with McCarthy this year. If McCarthy went back to them, maybe they could continue drives instead of stalling them. Thats why I can't estimate Favres importance in the short passing game when ARod isn't being called to throw slants to make a good comparison.

It seems that with a more mobile Rodgers starting this year MM has used the bootleg more often to create time for downfield patterns to develop. Rodgers can throw the slants accurately and on time, and I agree that MM should call them more often. His WR's are quite capable of making plays themselves. But I can't fault MM too much for wanting to take advantage of Rodgers ability to get outside the pocket and create time for something bigger, and taking off in the open field when nothing opens up. It's another wrinkle that opposing DC's have to consider.

[RashanGary]

It was nice meeting you, JH. I came away thinking you were a good guy. It's kind of weird to think something about somebody based on their web persona, and then they turn out to be a little different in real life. I was more impressed by you after actually meeting you.

It was cool meeting everyone. I think the highlight for me was rockband with you and Partial. Well, that and just meeting everyone, putting a face to the names. I'm gettin a Wii and that game for Xmas.

[Rastak]

It was nice meeting you, JH. I came away thinking you were a good guy. It's kind of weird to think something about somebody based on their web persona, and then they turn out to be a little different in real life. I was more impressed by you after actually meeting you.

It was cool meeting everyone. I think the highlight for me was rockband with you and Partial. Well, that and just meeting everyone, putting a face to the names. I'm gettin a Wii and that game for Xmas.

Rock band is very cool. I think they will allow downloaded content for the WII next spring but the 360 has it now. They have at least 300 songs available between rockband 1, 2 and all the downloadable content. 18 AC/DC songs at the end of the month. Very fun game.