Another Stellar Football Weekend

Let's talk about Michigan first.

This season is sapping my excitement for football right out. I can't even bring myself to bitch and holler at the TV during Michigan games anymore because I know how they're all going to turn out. When Henne went John Navarre and sacked himself on the last play of the game, I just laughed (and Johnny did that on the same field the last time we played the Badgers). It was a fitting end.

If it weren't for the hockey coverage and The Fort message board, I'd probably be cancelling my Rivals membership right now, because I just don't give a damn about football recruiting anymore. How many years have we brought in these great classes, only to see it not pan out on the field. Burgess and Crable and Mundy oh my! We're set for the next 4 years. Except that Burgess is only now starting to become a decent linebacker, Charles Drake Mundy hurt his shoulder--not by tackling someone I assume--and it may have actually helped the team, and the only thing Crable has contributed was his absolutely hilarious "WHY WE ONLY GOT FOUR GUYS????" comment during a Michigan Hockey penalty kill. I'm fully confident that we could bring in 15 5 star guys next year and still manage to go 9-3 every year.

If we lose to Michigan State this weekend, as is looking pretty likely, there need to be some answers. That'd be 3 losses in the first 5 games of the season, 2-5 over the last 7 games, and we'd be able to say that we've lost our last game to MSU, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Iowa, and our bowl game. That's not an elite program. That's not a second tier program.

I love Lloyd Carr to death, but I'm starting to wonder if this shouldn't be the end of an era. I know the man has made back to back Rose Bowls, won back to back Big 10 titles, but holy crap. If it's not the end of Lloyd, it sure as hell better be the end of some of his staff. I know he said before the season that he'd never let anyone tell him what to do in terms of his staff, but something needs to be changed in this program.

We're losing more regularly, we haven't escaped our first road game unscathed since I was a freaking senior in high school, and I've got my degree from U of M now. We're staring 4 out of 5 against Ohio State in the face. We've lost 3 of 4 to ND. We've lost 3 of 4 bowl games. And on top of that, we're a freaking underdog against Michigan State. What dude?

What do these numbers have in common: 31, 34, 28, 45, 30, 28, 38? Those are how many points we've given up in our bowl games since the national championship year. That works out to a 33.4 average. That's not acceptable.

As for the game itself....first off, anyone harping on Michigan going for it on 4th and goal from the 1 and not getting in should punch themselves in the face. I understand some people saying that on the road, you take the points. But I also don't believe for a second that when Henne and co. stayed out on the field that nearly every Wolverine fan out there wasn't applauding the decision, and saying that Lloyd finally got some balls. It didn't work, so be it.

The 9 second field goal...Lloyd said that he wasn't aware that they put time back on the clock. Well if he didn't, then he's dumb. Just dumb. It's a dead ball penalty but you don't think they're going to put time back on the clock? If he thought they weren't putting time back on, then he should've been in the refs' face to get him to put time back on. Not an excuse.

Henne still looks awful. I can't believe how that guy has regressed. Breaston is invisible, and Manningham should be starting. If Breaston is that banged up, maybe he should stop fielding every damn punt that's skipping along the ground before he gets himself killed.

I still love how Max Martin runs. If that kid could just hold on to the damn ball.........We miss Mike Hart bad. I think a healthy Hart will go a long way toward making Henne and the others look better, but there's still no reason that we shouldn't have beaten that joke of a team by 10+ points.

The defense looked pretty good again I thought. It was just at the end of the game when they had been on the field for the whole half that they started to fold. Next week is the big test though. We'll see then if they've actually learned anything in the last 8-9 months. I'm worried.

As for the Packers, I could pretty much just repost my post about last week's game, "The Little Things" because it was the same thing again. I'm going to say this again. The NFL needs to do something about these turnovers that can't be reviewed. The Packers lost 7 points because of it. They ruled Griese's arm was coming forward and blew the play dead (very late I might add) as an incomplete pass. Too bad the replay showed it wasn't even close. That should've been a fumble and touchdown. But they couldn't even get the ball when they reviewed it. Sherman's challenge was upheld and the result was a loss of 7 yards for the Bucs. Yippee. There's just no arguing that something needs to be done about that. If instant replay is supposed to correct huge errors by the refs, then they need to find a way to review down by contact rulings, and plays where they rule the QB's arm was coming forward. 7 points is the difference in that game--and it would be in a lot of NFL games in this era of parity. They can't take plays like that away from teams every week and not expect it to have an impact.

Favre needs to realize that the team he plays for just isn't that good, and instead of trying to carry them to a victory every week, just rein it in a little bit, and not force things. They can't overcome 2 or 3 picks every single week. He needs to stop throwing the ball up for grabs when he doesn't have JWalk there to come down with it. The defense is much better than I thought it would be, but there's nothing you can do when the Bucs run 22 plays in Packers territory out of 25 in the first half.

The guards are horrible. There's just no room for Ahman Green to run. I wonder how much longer they can go with Will Whittacker at RG, especially when their 4th and 5th best offensive linemen are sitting on the bench in Kevin Barry and Scott Wells. Sherman has to be considering the idea of moving Tauscher to RG and putting Barry in at RT. I know they don't want to do that, because it would basically eliminate their U-71 package, but to be honest, it hasn't worked at all this year. I think teams have figured it out a little better, and it's kind of obvious when they run to the side of the 3rd tackle every single time. They don't pass out of that formation, they don't run to the other side in that formation. Yes it helps to have a 6th offensive lineman in there, but when 2 of them are crap and the defense knows where you're going to run, the benefit goes away in a hurry.

Wells looked pretty good at center last year, and they were projecting him as a guard. He's gotta be better than Klemm. Klemm is pretty good as a pass blocker, but that guy can't move and they need someone that can do that for their run plays.

The defense though...man. If they can get Jim Bates some talent in this offseason, I'd love to see what he could do. They did a great job on Cadillac until the last drive, and the pass defense didn't do too badly either. They're exactly middle of the pack in YPG, exactly middle of the pack in PPG given up, and middle of the pack against the pass and against the run. And that's with an extreme lack of talent. The only thing missing is takeaways. They've only got 1 in 3 games (though 2 were called back by down by contact and shouldn't have been). But that will come with more playmakers on that side of the ball. They need another pass rusher and they need a playmaker in the secondary. I'm fully convinced at this point that Bates is the answer, and I hope they can keep him around long enough to let him make a true impact.

I can't believe the parallels that are running between Michigan and the Packers. If you told me before the year that GB's defense would be 14-16 in most major categories, and that Michigan's defense would play the way they have, and they'd combine to lose 5 of their first 7 games, I would have been shocked. These were two of the most highly regarded offenses in the country and neither has performed even close to expactations. It's disappointing.

I'm not sure what else can go wrong for the two of those football teams. Losing on a missed PAT after you lose 10 points directly from bad no-calls (an intentional grounding flag was picked up that would've knocked the Bucs out of FG range and forced a punt). Ugh.

One more note: You don't always get to hear this kind of thing in the crowd, and it's one of the reasons that I like timing the Michigan soccer and field hockey games so much. In the monsoon yesterday at the Michigan soccer field, Steve Burns put in Tolo Olowolafe with about 20 minutes left in the game. The ball went in on goal and Olowolafe pulled up. The goalie ended up bobbling the ball, and Burns yelled "Tolo! Play that ball right into his hands, he's bobbling everything!"

With just over a minute left in regulation time, Jake Stacy played the ball into the box, the goalie came diving out to play it and it skipped off his hands. Olo was chasing the ball down and after it came off the goalie's hands he had a wide open net for the winning goal. Big win for the Wolverines to open the Big 10. They lost 5-0 to Northwestern last year in the B10 Tourney and the Wildcats returned pretty much their whole team. Nice win in those conditions, capitalizing on their only shot on goal of the game.

Starting to get excited about hockey. The Wings are looking great in the preseason, and Michigan hockey plays their first exhibition game on Sunday. Nothing like dropping 15 goals on a Canadian team to help you forget this joke of a football season. That game could get really ugly. Toronto lost 15-1 to Lake State last season. I'm looking forward to it.

NHL Preseason...it's FANtastic!

I didn't get to watch too much of the Wings/Avs preseason game thanks to the Lost double-dip on ABC, but I watched a good portion of the Wings/BJs game last night. I know you can't take too much from a preseason game, but a few thoughts from the last couple of nights:

-First off, IT'S SO GREAT TO HAVE HOCKEY BACK!!!!!

-I wouldn't wish a groin injury upon any man, but the longer I can go without seeing Chris Osgood in the Wings' net, the better.

-Niklas Kronwall..wow. That kid's a player. I don't care if he was playing against mini-mites out there, it's obviously. You may not be able to tell a ton from preseason games, but you can tell this kid is a stud. And playing in Sweden's Torpedo system for a few years isn't going to hurt him with the new rules in the NHL. He's already taking full advantage of the lack of 2 line passes. At one point, he shot a pass from his own goal line down the ice to Draper at the opposing blueline for a breakaway. And since it was Draper on the breakaway, you know how that one turned out.

-Jimmy Howard is going to be good too. He let in a softie, but the talent is there for that kid to be a big game goalie. The game tonight isn't on, but we're up 2-0 on Dallas after 2 and I guess he's kept the Wings in the game (which is very believable with the roster they're using tonight...Holmstrom and Schneider are the only regulars in the lineup).

-The Wings have such a nice balance back on defense. Schneider, Lidstrom, Kronwall, Delmore and yes Fischer can all move the puck really well. Then they've got Lilja (who I haven't seen yet...he's hurt), Chelios, Rivers who are all solid in their own end (not to say that Lidstrom and Schneider aren't!). Delmore can really move the puck, but that kid can't play a lick of defense. Think Danny Richmond here. He had 3-4 real bad giveaways. They don't call him Any Elmore for nothing....no D at all. And there is the reason that he was struggling to catch on despite pretty darn good offensive numbers.

-Lang is just a pure sniper. Everyone seems to forget that he's on the team, and he's really probably their best forward. It's going to be really nice having him in the lineup for a full season. Lang/Datsyuk/Zetterberg/Lidstrom/Schneider power play? Yes please.

-Hudler looked great. Our badass coach thought he played well, but that it was an effort that was overdue.

“I said, ‘Are you the guy I saw at the start of camp, or are you the guy who’s competitive right now?’” Babcock said. “If you are prepared to compete and you have that skill level you are going to be good.

“I watched him a few times in the minors last year and he wasn’t good at all. He has to decide.”

“Hudler had some jump today, but why doesn’t he play hard all the time? If you can be good one time, you can be good all the time, so what’s going on there mentally?”

-Tomas Kopecky looked pretty good last night too. This was a guy who was right up at the top of our prospect rankings, and has gone into a tailspin since then. He played pretty well last night though. He's going to need a lot more of those efforts if he's going to make the league, but at least it was something.

-Franzen has 2 tonight. I wish I could see this kid. It's 2-2 now. Howard's given up 2 in the third. But keep in mind we're playing NO ONE tonight. I'd be pissed if I paid to go to that game and see the Grand Rapids Griffins play.

-I love the new rules. Absolutely love them. There's no reason that 2 line passes and tag up offsides shouldn't have been in the game all along. We're going to have some sub 2 1/2 hour games this year. They're just flying along.

-In other preseason action, tonight Eric Nystrom got his first NHL "goal". Congrats Ny! I hope he makes the Flames. I guess Danny Richmond scored for Carolina last night too. If he makes their team, am I required to put him on my Michigan team in NHL2k6 when the roster update comes out?

-Tambellini practiced with Michigan yesterday after getting sent down by the Kings. No word on if Red was grunting in his office, and putting a scope on him the whole time.

-Next Sunday is the Michigan exhibition opener against Toronto. If they use that screwed up rule about having the center line determine when the zone is cleared, after the blueline is gained, Michigan is going to score 15 goals and our power play is going to be like 80%. I can't wait. It's always fun to bust on the Canadian teams and then piss em off by not playing their anthem.

-The IndyCars are at Watkins Glen, love those road courses! They had rain today, and I kind of hope it rains on Sunday there. I love watching races in the rain and it's been forever since I've seen one. I just bought a piece of Bryan Herta's 2000 racecar on ebay. Whooo!

"He said 'We have a deal'"

According to Mlive, TSN, and Yahoo, Pavel Datsyuk is coming back to the Red Wings "Unless [ken holland] has a major curve thrown at [him]"...

Cool.

If it happens, I'll boo his ass for the first game, and after that I'll welcome him back with open arms. I'm fine with a two-year deal and I'm not sure why Holland was so dead-set against it all along.

Greenstin played him like a fiddle.

Michigan's Walking Wounded and an I Told You So to NASCAR

In Lloyd's press conference today, he stated that Ryan Mundy is likely out for the year, due to a shoulder injury that obviously didn't come from tackling someone. He then had this classic answer to a question about the rest of Michigan's walking wounded:

On Michigan's other injured: "I can't tell you. Until we practice … every week you've got a new game plan, different challenges. We've got to be prepared to go with people who have practiced. Whether or not any of those guys will practice, I can't tell you.

"What I can tell you is, I haven't had any reason to believe they will, or won't. What I'm saying is, they all want to play. They were all getting treatment yesterday [Sept.18]. They all were getting treatment this morning, this afternoon.

"I know this – every one of them will do everything he can do to be prepared to play. Now, Doug Dutch came down with a 103-degree temperature last Friday and was ruled out of the game. I expect Doug back."

What a roundabout way of saying absolutely nothing! I love Lloyd.

Also today, NASCAR announced their penalties for rough driving and using naughty words in yesterday's race. Robby Gordon got docked 50 points for trying to back his car into Michael Waltrip after a wreck and almost nailing Tony Stewart (which would've led to a fight, and it would've been awesome since Stewart would've gotten his ass kicked) then proceeding to throw his helmet at Waltrip's car. Oh, and he said a dirty word. Waltrip got docked 25 points for a naughty gesture. And Kasey Kahne got docked 25 points and put on probation for the rest of the season for drilling Kyle Busch after Busch wrecked him.

NASCAR dipshit President Mike Helton had this to offer:

“There have been a growing number of incidents lately where drivers have taken matters into their own hands. Such unsafe and inappropriate behavior has to stop,” said NASCAR President Mike Helton. NASCAR will use whatever means necessary to stop it.”

And Mike? Where did this all start? Oh yeah, at Bristol when you let Dale Jarrett "take matters into his own hands" and didn't do anything to him, even though he ruined Kevin Harvick's season in the process of getting revenge on Ryan Newman. He could've nipped it in the bud, by simply parking Jarrett for the rest of the race like I suggested (not here...because I never felt like writing about my favorite driver getting his season ended for no reason, but in a profanity-laced tirade to my father after the incident). Helton's an ass-clown. Whoops, I used a dirty word. I guess that's a 25 point fine in my NR2003 season. Crap.

The Red Wings open the exhibition season tonight against the kind-of-sort-of defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning. Do they still get to be the defending champs? Have they kept the Stanley Cup all this time? Inquiring minds want to know.

Not pictured in the MGoBlue photo gallery from the men's soccer game yesterday is a picture of the Kentucky coach absolutely spazzing after getting ejected, telling the official "I'm going to send the tape in and they'll see what a cheater you are!" to which the ref replied "The only thing that they'll see is that you are a lousy coach." High comedy. Also not pictured are the refs arriving late, and the UK coach getting carded for freaking out about it.

The Little Things

"The little things, the little things mean everything"-Matthew Ryan

Quick thoughts about the Wolverines game before I get on to the Packers:

--It's hard to tell too much based on the competition, but I really like the way Max Martin runs when he's not fumbling. I also like how Manningham looks, and I liked the Antonio Bass at QB sets. It was nice to see Breaston almost take one to the house.

--I didn't like Michigan putting Leon Hall back returning punts when we had a 45+ point lead. If there's one player on this team that we cannot afford to lose, it's Hall. So why expose him back there in garbage time?

I don't have a whole lot else to say about that game. Henne wasn't great again, and I could've done with a couple more deep balls to try and work out his timing with Breaston, but apart from that they did what they needed to do. Won big, played good defense, got a lot of guys some significant PT. As long as the injured offensive linemen are good to go next week, I can't complain about that game.

And I whole heartedly agree with Mgoblog. That was by far the best halftime show I have ever seen. Whoever came up with that should be very proud of themselves, because it was frickin hilarious. And pretty much everyone I overheard thought the same thing.

Onto the Packers game:

My biggest pet peeve in football that in the NFL, there's no way to review a play in which the runner is ruled down by contact. This goes back to Jerry Rice's fumble in the 1999 Wild Card game against the Packers, which was ruled down by contact. If it was called correctly, the game is over. Instead the 49ers win on the last play. Now back then, instant replay didn't exist so it didn't matter so much. But six years later, that particular call continues to irritate the hell out of me.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen it, where a player is ruled down by contact and on the replay shown, it turns out that the ball came out. What's irritating is that on almost every other turnover, replay can be used to determine if a change of possession should take place. Did the guy actually intercept the pass? Did he get a foot (or two) in bounds? Was the QB's arm coming forward? Did the running back's knee hit the ground before he fumbled? All of those things can be reviewed and overturned. Except for "did the player fumble before his knee hit the ground". The only idea I have to fix that is for the ref to let the play play out, then issue his ruling on the field. If he thinks the guy was down, let the fumble play out, then blow the whistle and say "the ruling on the field is that the player was down by contact" and let the coach challenge if he thinks otherwise. That way, there's at least still an option to review it.

I thought my team finally caught a break with that rule in the Notre Dame game. Much to my chagrin, in college that play is apparently reviewable, provided that the fumble is recovered before the whistle blew. If I'm not mistaken, if Henne's fumble occurred in an NFL game, it would not have been reviewable.

Today, it made a difference in the Packers/Browns game. Cleveland fumbled, GB recovered. It was ruled down by contact. The Browns got a free field goal out of it, and the difference in the game was two points. Now, I'm not stupid enough to think that if Cleveland turns it over, Green Bay automatically wins by one. So much happened from that point on, that it's impossible to say how the game would have played out (it's not like the 49ers/Packers playoff game where the game was over if the right call was made). But that brings me to the title of this post. The Little Things.

Basically what it comes down to is that Green Bay is not a good enough team to have things like that go against them. They're not good enough to have a team be given three free points. They're not good enough to overcome a red-zone interception of Favre, taking away 3 if not 7 points. They're not good enough to continually give teams free first downs on illegal contact calls (legit or not). They're not good enough to have their rare forced-turnovers taken away (either by penalty (Al Harris) or by a quick whistle (the fumble).

The margin for error is so slim with that team, that these little things just add up. When you combine the 3 free points Cleveland got with the 3 points Favre threw away when he tossed that jump ball up (not to mention the 7 points Cleveland scored on the ensuing play), and add it to 4 potential points that were taken away when Driver was clearly interfered with on a third down pass that he didn't miss by much, you're talking about 1o points (or 17). Some teams can overcome that. Unfortunately, mine is not one of them. And it's too bad because that's a game that could've been won. Better teams don't make mistakes like that, and better teams don't need a perfectly officiated game.

That said, barring a tie in either game tomorrow, there will be only 3 teams in the NFC sitting at 2-0. And they're still only 1 game out of first in a bad, bad division. 7-8 wins may end up taking the NFC North, as all four teams are pretty bad. Especially the Vikings, holy crap. But as much as I want GB to rebound and win the division for the 4th straight year in a row, it might be best if they just hit rock bottom for a year. They'll have 30-40 million in cap space for next season, and adding an impact player or two through the draft might be just what the doctor ordered.

The other thing that really bugs me (and this goes for any sport) is consistency with the officials. I don't care if you want to call it illegal contact every time there's contact after 5 yards. I don't care if you let it go unless it makes a difference in the play. But for Crissakes, call it both ways. It's not that hard. There's no excuse to let things go like Driver getting pushed off his route 15 yards downfield when you've been calling penalties on the defenders the entire day. It's just stupid. Oh, and it bugs me when coaches can't figure out whether to go for 1 or 2. It's not that hard, and you're paid hundreds of thousands--if not millions of dollars. It's just math and common sense.

Random fact about the Packers game: Favre now has the record for most TD passes in a single stadium with 181 at Lambeau. He passed Elway's 180 at Mile High today. And he joined the 50,000 passing yard club. That's roughly 28.4 miles. Yikes.

Hockey SID Matt Trevor is putting up "Getting to Know You" profiles of all 11 hockey freshmen. Some of the quotes in there are just hilarious. The best part of the feature is at the end of each one, he tests them on how quickly they can name the other 10 freshmen.

Datsyuk still hasn't made up his mind, but the silence out of Russia leads me to believe he ain't coming back.

Nascar is cracking down on people wrecking other drivers intentionally 3 weeks too late. They parked Kasey Kahne for the entire race today, after he wrecked Kyle Busch. I'm sure Kevin Harvick is saying "Thanks a lot" after Dale Jarrett ruined his season at Bristol and only faced a 2 lap penalty. Junior, Harvick, and Gordon got a nice jump on next season...all finishing in the top 15.

My Datsyuk Conspiracy Theory

Once again, I'm relaxing my "No posting about Datsyuk" moratorium because I had a notion.

Datsyuk was supposed to decide where he was playing Sunday. It got pushed back to today. Now Datsyuk is saying he needs another week to think about it. In the time since the first reports that he signed with a Russian team came out, Ken Holland has not only upped his offer over the maximum he said he could go (and over what other players of Datsyuk's caliber are making), he also offered Datsyuk a contract that will make him an unrestricted free agent after just two seasons.

This was an absolutely brilliant move by Datsyuk's agent, if he had this planned from the beginning. Think about it....at the start of summer, there's roughly 400 free agents out there in an uncertain market. Holland and Datsyuk's agent start talks, and it appears that the offer was in the low $3 million range. They were at a stalemate throughout the summer, and in creating that stalemate, Datsyuk's agent held Holland hostage. Holland couldn't sign any of the plethora of players out there, because he wouldn't have enough cap room to get Datsyuk signed. Throughout the summer, more and more guys signed. Suddenly, the only guy left on the market that's worth a damn is Peter Bondra.

Then, Greenstin played his other card. Leveraging Russia against the Red Wings. Now, Holland is faced with a situation where the guy he's waited all summer to sign (and spurned loads of other free agents) has an offer just as good, if not better, to play in his homeland, tax free. So now he's forced to cave on not only money but also on the term of the contract.

It was brilliantly played by Greenstin, whether this is what he intended or not. The only question now is where will he end up. A theory going around some of the Red Wings boards I read is that he doesn't want to play for Dynamo, he wants to play for Onsk. So he's kind of using the Wings as HIS plan B, in case the arbitrator rules that Dynamo holds his rights.

In essence, he and his agent have put the Red Wings in the position that they need him more than he needs them. And he's done it in a world where roughly 2/3 of the league didn't have a contract. Very craft. He played Holland like a fiddle. Shocker.

Oh, and in addition, once Datsyuk had apparently signed a deal to play in Russia, that upped the emphasis on signing Zetterberg. So Holland offered him more than he probably wanted to pay--and probably more than Zetterberg could have gotten if Datsyuk signed in Detroit. Unreal.

Packers/Lions Week 1

It took me less than 3 quarters to fire my hat into the wall. It usually takes longer than that, but yesterday had me ready to snap. I'm still speechless...I have been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to figure out how to follow up the previous sentence, and I don't have the words to do it.

Let's start with the good: Green ran well, even though he didn't get many opportunities to carry the ball (more on that later). BJ Sander is going to be a great punter (even though that was a lousy hold on the first FG). He had six punts for a 41.3 yard average, but more importantly, the ever-dangerous Eddie Drummond could only return those 6 punts for 12 total yards. Longwell is still money in the bank.

And the defense. Holy crap, the defense. They actually got some pressure on the QB (not sure how KGB got shut out in the sack department. I thought they'd credit him with at least 1 sack...2 half-sacks put together). The linebackers played decently well. And the secondary held the Lions "vaunted" receiving corps to 6 catches and under 100 yards. Williams, Williams, and Rogers were pretty much non-factors in the game. Mike Williams had a 3 yard TD, but that was his only catch of the day, and from the way the media was spooging over the Lions WRs coming into the season, you'd swear they were all going for 100 and a score every game. Mark Roman looked like a completely different player from last year. He actually made some plays, was a sure-tackler, and didn't go Ryan Mundy on us.

The bad: Favre was way off in that game. He missed about 4 deep balls down the field, and the only one he hit (to Walker) was called back on a push off that probably wasn't actually a push-off, given how that game was called. Wouldn't know though because Fox never showed a replay. He missed a couple more wide-open WRs. The three turnovers are excusable, IMO. The first (the fumble) is on Mike Sherman for not challenging it. It was clearly a forward pass. The second was a case of #1) Ferguson "Pinkstoning" the ball and #2) Not having a good replay of it. From the end-zone cam, it looked like the ball hit the ground. But I agreed that there was not enough evidence to overturn the call on the field. If they had ruled it incomplete it would've stayed that way. As such, they called it a pick and it stood. Fair enough. And the last pick was on a fourth down at the end of the game where he's just throwing it up.

Also bad was JWalk. Losing one of the top 5 receivers in the game for the rest of the season doesn't make me feel good about where this season is going. Thankfully Terrance Murphy should be back soon, and from all accounts he looked great before he went down. He's got deep-threat speed if nothing else. The bright side of JWalk being out is that I bet Drew Rosenhaus is pissed. That, if nothing else makes me smile.

The offensive line is going to get Favre killed. I'll be shocked if his consecutive games started streak doesn't come to an end this year, if that keeps up. Granted the Lions have one of the best front-fours in the league, but the interior of the line was just getting blown up. The most troubling play for me was when Tauscher got beat to the outside by Kalimba Edwards. Tauscher shouldn't be letting guys come in untouched. Favre was pissed at Will Whittacker after one play.

The playcalling was horrible. They had a nice start. The first drive they completed a couple passes, and ended up not being able to convert a second and 1. The second drive was 14 plays and got down to the goalline before the fumbled FG attempt. After that--I guess after the scripted first 15 plays--the offense sputtered.

They scored a FG on the next drive, but after that they went: 3 and out, halftime after a kneel-down, a fumble on a 3rd down sack that would've been a punt if Favre hadn't "fumbled", 3 and out, 3 and out, 3 and out, 3 and out, "interception" after 1 first down, interception after a nice drive to end the game.

The Packers had 0 first downs in the second half until the 3rd play of their 6th drive. The playcalling was uncreative, and the coaching staff panicked and started trying to make it all up on one play. Michigan did a similar thing against Oregon a couple years ago. They got down big, started throwing to play catch-up, but when they made it a one-possession game, they still didn't entertain the idea of running the ball. I remember we were down about 7 with 10 minutes left in the game and still never ran it. Favre threw the ball 44 times in this game, and for most of the game, the Packers were within one score. Green had close to 5 ypc, and that doesn't include about 30 yards in runs wiped out by penalties. They still insist on Favre chucking the ball downfield too often. He's never been a great deep-ball thrower, and after Walker went out he really didn't have a "deep threat" on the field. Not a good gameplan by Sherman and Rossley.

The ugly: The penalties. 14 for an even 100 yards. Not including several that were declined. The Lions had 4 and 3 of those were in the last 19 minutes of the game. So either the Packers are now coached by John L Smith, the Lions are the most disciplined team to ever play football, or we have a serious problem here. I have always shuddered when Jeff Triplette does a Packers game, much in the way Michigan fans tremble when Scott Hansen is out there in hockey.

Ahmad Carroll got flagged 4 times for using his hands on the receiver, and honest-to-God I think one of them was legit. I know he has a reputation, but they showed the replays of 3 of them, and there was nothing remotely looking like a penalty there. One time, Mike Williams pushed off of him using his elbow, but somehow that's illegal contact on Carroll. The big problem I have with this is that it's a free first down every time. If you're going to hold a player to that standard, then you god-damn better well hold everyone to that standard. The Lions four penalties were a BS PI call on Bryant, 2 block in the backs, and a legit PI call on Boss Bailey. So the officials are telling me that at NO point during that game did a Lions defensive back lay a finger on a Packers receiver after 5 yards? Please. The Packers put the ball up 44 times. And with the frequency that they were flagging the GB defensive backs, it's absolutely absurd that the Lions NEVER got called for one of those. Before GB's fumbled FG, Driver was mauled in the end zone on 3rd down. No call. They showed Bly chucking one of GB's receivers 10 yards down the field. No call. At 2:36 of the 4th quarter, Bly blatantly interfered with Ferguson. Nothing. Those are just the ones I noticed.

Final Thoughts: You can't blame the refs totally for this one, though I can't remember the last time I saw penalty numbers that skewed. Even Lions fans have to admit they got some gifts yesterday. The offense didn't execute, and they didn't capitalize on their few chances in Lions territory. They went on an inexcusable stretch where they went 3 and out on six straight possessions and followed that up with 2 turnovers.

That said, I came away from this game feeling great about the Packers. They usually only have about a 40% chance of winning in Detroit as it is, and the Lions usually win on opening day, so the loss is ok. They didn't lose any ground to the Vikings--who by the way didn't look like a Super Bowl contender, go figure. But losing Javon Walker is just a killer. In terms of his size, speed, jumping ability, and hands, he might be second to only Randy Moss. That's 2000 yards, and 21 touchdown the last 2 seasons going out of the lineup. Driver is capable of being a #1 WR. He made the Pro-Bowl doing it a few years back. Ferguson can get open, but after that the WR corps is really really thin. Hopefully Murphy can come in and make an impact, but rookie WRs seldom do.

I haven’t even mentioned the Lions thus far. Take nothing away from their defense. They’ve got a great front 7 and pretty decent DBs (Bly is excellent). They put constant pressure on Favre and didn’t give him time to find his open guys. The offense I was less-than-impressed with. Harrington actually had a pretty good game, but the triumvirate of Rogers, Williams and Williams did nothing against Green Bay’s shoddy secondary. I haven’t been drinking the Kool-Aid all along and I’m not about to start. Rogers hasn’t done anything in his career but break collar bones. Mike Williams is going to end up at tight end, because he’s just not fast enough to be effective at WR. His one catch came when he got open on a little out in the endzone and gave Joey Heisman a big target to throw at. Roy Williams is gonna be a great one though. But even he didn’t show anything yesterday. I was also surprised that Jones didn’t have a better game. He closed the year by leading the league in rushing the last 7 games, and Green Bay doesn’t have a great run defense. Even still, they were the better of the two teams offensively, and I can’t believe I just said that.

I just can't believe the Packers and Wolverines combined to allow 34 points this weekend and my teams went 0-2. Never would have believed that one before the weekend. The 47 total points scored in those 2 games is less than I would have expected in one game. The defenses kept the offenses in it and the offenses blew the chances they had. That's probably the worst offensive performance we'll see out of both teams all year, so I guess it's good they happened the same weekend.

Lastly, Torry Holt was channeling Brendan Morrison after the Rams loss yesterday to San Francisco.

And for the record, it was the "push-off" negating Walker's 50+ yard catch & ACL tear that had me chuck my hat into the window. After that I accepted that nothing was going to go right and they weren't winning that game. The rest of the game was just a big joke to me.