This week’s worry – Packer Special Teams

[mraynrand]

Yeah, I don't have a single worry when it comes to this game.

this!

well...and key players getting hurt...but that's every game.

Green Bay Packers 38 at Indianapolis Colts 41
Sunday, November 16, 1997

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/199711160clt.htm

Packers coming off the Super Bowl win and playing a winless team. I was 12 that year and ever since I worry about EVERY game.

This message board has a standing agreement to never bring up the name Paul Justin. Ever.

It was a joke, but the factual part was the post-Super Bowl Packer defense made the Colt's Paul Justin (backup at the time) look like Peyton Manning for an entire game. The only explanation is that Marvin Harrison builds good quarterbacks.

Marvin Harrison is also well armed. So I hope he is not traveling in the midwest after reading this.

I was just 'commenting' on the self-contradictory nature of your edict not to bring up the name of 'He who must not be named.'

I was at that fateful game in Indy, in which Gilbert Brown was deliberately injured by COLT defensive linemen who (unseen on the telly) proceeded to 'high-five' each other after cut blocking the poor guy (Tampa had done it early in the season, and Gilbert was a continual target for these disgusting cheap shot efforts - racll that he was cut blocked and knocked out of the ATL playoff game after two or three snaps due to the same kind of cheap shot).

Anywho, if you look up in the upper deck, there I am with my Count On Losing This Sunday poster, simmering in the Irony of it all (and getting into a fight with an overweight, asshat Colt fan. My last words to the guy: "Don't stand out in the cold too long in that line waiting for your playoff tickets." I'm guessing he died of an MI before the Superbowl victory).

[pbmax]

Actually, now that I re-read it, you are right: I did blow that joke. I wanted to poke fun at never talking about that game, but then I got distracted by my inability to remember the QB who took them apart. Stupid Google easy of use.

Actually, the hits on Gilbert remind me of something that troubles me about the NFL. They take aggressive and often overly complicated steps to address issues that make the news. Overtime, QB hits, concussions, etc.

But on issues that are less visible and less understood (inline blocking) they still allow a wide array of dangerous moves and blocks. Paul Zimmerman used to bemoan the fact that the NFL still allowed cut blocking inside the tackles. He kept asking why they simply did not outlaw blocking below the knees and never got an answer. I do not think its a coincidence that a plurality of older players with severe physical difficulties are interior lineman, not QBs or defenseless WRs. Though the list of those affected in not exclusive of those positions.

/off soap box

I too am worried the Packers will play down to the level of the Bills. Just like the Badgers are now playing down to the level of San Jose St. while they are actually playing the Arizona State Sun Devils.