Studs and Duds, New Year's Eve, 2023:

[George Cumby]

Gonna' be a long stud list.

Stud:

Tucker Fucking Kraft. That stiff arm gave me a stiffy. Six catches for 48. I don't see him drop many. Engaging in the ruckus after the game endeared him to me, he stiff armed that dude, too.

[MadScientist]

Stud: Love, Jones, Reed, Melton, OLine

Dud: Toure, Carlson

[call_me_ishmael]

These WR always look like they're running free. Is that the scheme? Or how did we go from no one open last year to gazzels wide open this year?

[texaspackerbacker]

Duds: just Toure. Carlson close but not quite a dud. I don't like the way his kicks always seem to curve, sometimes left, sometimes right, and he doesn't seem to be able to control which of the two.

Numerous Studs: From the top down, Gutekunst for putting together what I called at the beginning of the season a loaded team. For a while, it didn't look that way, but now things are shaping up, not to mention doing a bang up job of bringing in scrap heap players. LaFleur for his play calling - I criticized him last week and other times, but tonight either he was damn good or the Vlkings D was just damn bad, maybe both. Players other than the obvious: Balentine got a lot of deserved praise, but Valentine, wow, the guy was mostly hanging right there with one of the league-best WRs. Kenny Clark played at a particularly high level. Many many others.

[CaptainKickass]

Tucker Fucking Kraft

Nickname time.

Every time he makes a play I've been yelling...






EASY CHEEEEEEEEEEESE!!!!!

[Fritz]

Studs:

George Cumby for his line “that stiff arm gave me a stiffy.”

Tex for getting the team back on track and calling me out for my game prediction and general negativity in the game thread.

Joe Barely. Hate to say it, but that was one patched-together defense after McDuffie went down, but Mullen just couldn’t get them going.

Matty The Flower. Someone said the receivers always seemed open - some of that is on Minny, but without Rodgers, The Power of the Flower has been unleashed. He’d be a great offensive coordinator. . . . Whether he’s a great head coach depends on what he does to improve the defense next offseason. Joe’s still gotta go.

Midtown for making this site a reality and keeping it so.

Duds:

Tex for his shittiness to Rastak, who is a good man and brings a lot to this place. Let’s razz Ras, sure, but Tex, your crude nastiness was ugly and doesn’t say much for you.

Toure for his deer-in-the-headlights punt fumble. That guy has had every chance to step up and take the bull by the horns, but instead he just gingerly inserted the tip of his forefinger gently into the bull’s asshole. I mean, maybe he’s just not that good, and his career will be short. Maybe I got carried away with the vivid imagery there.

Jaire Alexander for not being a part of the team, for being a me-guy.

[texaspackerbacker]

Sorry about that, Fritz, but I just don't like having what I see as a piece of shit enemy infiltrating. It's inexplicable what ya'all see in him. I guess we have to agree to disagree about that situation.

Good overall analysis.

[Fritz]

Stud: Love, Jones, Reed, Melton, OLine

Dud: Toure, Carlson

Carlson leads the league in missed extra points. It's almost weird, as if he's good for one a game.

Toure is only active at all any more because the rest of the position group is hurt. Dude's been passed by Heath Malik and Bo Melton and the water boy.

I would also like to add Rich Bisaccia to the "Duds" list. there was one long run-back at what could have been a key moment. Plus the Toure fumble, plus the missed extra point.

[Bretsky]

Sorry about that, Fritz, but I just don't like having what I see as a piece of shit enemy infiltrating. It's inexplicable what ya'all see in him. I guess we have to agree to disagree about that situation.

Good overall analysis.

Tex, you are wrong about Rastak. He's brough a ton to this forum, packer backer or not

For many years, he led the Packerrats Draft rooms taking hours to post profiles, detailed profiles of collegage players and the Packer picks after they were drafted. I miss that nobody does that before.

We've had all kinds of shitty trolls over the years; some of the Bear Fans come to mind.

I would never mistake Rastak for one of these trolls

[call_me_ishmael]

It's a bananas, stupid take. Ras is a top 10 poster here. Tex hasn't sniffed top 10 in sports takes.

[Joemailman]

Ras proves you can cheer for the wrong team and not be an ass. Sometimes other people prove just the opposite.

[texaspackerbacker]

Sheeeeesh - ya'all can have him hahahahaha.

[Joemailman]

Best, worst PFF grades.

https://packerswire.usatoday.com/lis...-vs-vikings-2/

Top 5 offense

1. WR Jayden Reed: 92.7
2. QB Jordan Love: 90.8
3. WR Bo Melton: 89.5
4. RB Aaron Jones: 83.6
5. RB A.J. Dillon: 78.6

Reed created 89 receiving yards, 43 yards after the catch and two scores on just 15 routes run. Love had four “big-time throws” and was excellent against the blitz, under pressure and off play-action. Melton caught six passes for 105 yards and a score on 24 routes run. He had one drop (on fourth down) and on contested catch. Jones rushed for 120 yards. He had four runs over 10 yards, five forced missed tackles and 77 yards after contact. Dillon forced three missed tackles.

Top 5 defense

1. OLB Preston Smith: 90.3
2. LB Isaiah McDuffie: 87.1
3. DL TJ Slaton: 83.5
4. S Jonathan Owens: 75.6
5. OLB Rashan Gary: 73.1

Smith had four pressures, one sack and one forced fumble over 20 pass-rushing snaps. McDuffie delivered one sack, one pass breakup and one stop over 15 snaps before leaving with an injury. Slaton had two hurries as a pass-rusher and two stops against the run. Owens had two tackles without a miss and broke up his only targeted pass in coverage. Gary led the team with eight pressures. All eight were hurries.


Bottom 5 offense

1. C Josh Myers: 37.4
2. TE Josiah Deguara: 51.1
3. RG Jon Runyan Jr.: 53.6
4. LG Elgton Jenkins: 54.4
5. WR Samori Toure: 57.8

Myers got flagged for holding and allowed a season-high six pressures. Deguara was the team’s second-lowest graded run blocker. Runyan allowed a pressure and had poor run-blocking grades. Jenkins was solid as a pass-protector but received poor grades in the run game. Toure caught one pass for -6 yards.


Bottom 5 defense

1. OLB Kingsley Enagbare: 47.7
2. CB Carrington Valentine: 51.9
3. LB Eric Wilson: 52.5
4. S Darnell Savage: 56.7
5. DL Kenny Clark: 58.4

Enagbare had three pressures but earned a poor run defense grade on the edge. Valentine gave up three catches in coverage and missed two tackles. Wilson missed two tackles and allowed three catches. Savage missed two tackles. Clark had six hurries but was penalized twice and missed a tackle.

Special teams

Eric Wilson played 17 snaps and earned the top special teams grade after delivering two tackles on kickoff coverage. Six different players had at least one special teams tackle, and the Packers didn’t have a miss or a penalty. Anders Carlson missed an extra point attempt. Samori Toure muffed a punt, resulting in a turnover. The Packers also gave up a 47-yard kickoff return to open the second half.

Quarterback

Jordan Love: 90.8

Love was credited with four “big-time throws” and zero “turnover worthy plays,” and he completed 9-of-11 passes for two touchdowns under pressure. His adjusted completion percentage was 81.3. Love earned an elite grade on throws off play-action and throws over 20 yards in the air. He didn’t take a sack and was responsible for 16 first downs or touchdowns. Love also rushed for a score. Love’s overall grade was his second-highest of the season, trailing only his 91.8 grade against the Chiefs.

[run pMc]

These WR always look like they're running free. Is that the scheme? Or how did we go from no one open last year to gazzels wide open this year?

It's Flores scheme - either send the house or drop everyone. If he blitzes and your blocking picks it up, you can gash them. GB did that.

Jordan Love played really well, especially in terms of the mental processing and not letting a loud hostile NYE crowd affect him. Made good reads, didn't see a lot of missed protection calls. Only thing I will say is he desperately needs to work on his footwork. Too many jump passes -- if he stays on his feet Bo Melton catches a better pass on 4th and 1 and walks into the endzone.

Aaron Jones is good. Real good. Even when the OL screws up he makes it work. His vision and feet are so much better than Dillon's. Dillon had a decent game, he's not dynamic at all but he has gotten really good at pass pro.

The OL in general did pretty well. They handled a lot of what Flores tried to throw at them and bought Love enough time to hurt a banged up secondary without Byron Murphy. Myers and Runyan weren't great but I wouldn't single them out as especially bad. The run blocking overall is below average on this team and they need to address that.

I thought the DL played pretty well, and (at least early in the game) Barry did send a few pressures. Was nice to see some twists and stunts as well... but Barry did call a lot of the same old rush 4 and drop 7 defense that a better QB would have exploited. Quay Walker is better going forward and sideline to sideline than dropping into coverage. He's got a lot of talent, but zone coverage is not his forte. Eric Wilson was ok at best in relief. Any more ILBs get hurt they'll have to play a 5 man front or dime with a safety.

O'Connell made a mistake starting Jaren Hall. I was encouraged when they announced that. Mullens can be a turnover machine, but he's not a rookie and with Jefferson/Addison not afraid to chuck it out there against the *allentines. No run game and a bad QB situation is not a recipe for success, but Joe Barry is perhaps the solution lol. The fact that GB jumped out to an early lead is what really helped them. If Mullens or Dobbs had started I would have been more nervous.

Kirk Cousins is making himself some money. MIN is going to have to bid against DEN for him lol

Also, I don't mind Ras posting here. He's more respectful and provides takes that are better than some here.
It's also nice to get perspective from other fanbases.

[CaptainKickass]

Reed is the first rookie in NFL history to post 100-plus rushing yards, multiple rushing TDs, 60-plus receptions, 650-plus receiving yards and eight-plus receiving TDs.

Note that the stat says "NFL History" and not "Packers History".

Clearly Reed is in the STUD category. He's gonna be fun to watch continuing to develop.