Brett Favre, Thiesmann and The Kids In The Hall

Can't wait to sit in the seats in green bay....witnessing favre's last game. After the bears defense sacks him 10 times he will be done.

 

Was it Tony that mentioned (this was after the lightning delay) that Green Bay could be fortunate to be 4-12 this season?

I really think a healthy Ahman Green makes a world of difference for Farve, much like a healthy Terrell Davis rejuvenated Elway. I'm not implying the Pack will make the playoffs this year, but you never know what will happen in the NFC North.

For Favre's sake, I hope the Pack at least contend.

 

I would be surprised if Najeh even made the team ... too damn injury prone, he hasn't shown that he can carry a majority of the workload.

Green, Samkon Gado and Noah Herron could be what the Packers go with.

 

Leatherface Berman.

Big ups, FB.

And yes the Unitas analogy works. Namath, too.

Favre didn't deal with his will he/won't he situation earlier this year, and I doubt he'll deal with another 4-12 type season very well this season, either.

The over/under on Favre picks has gotta be 30. I mean, he plays, no matter what, right?

Doesn't excuse the Packers for picking Mike McCarthy as their coach.

What the hell has happened to this organization, anyway?

 

Mike Sherman happened. ... and 4th and 26 happened. You can trace it back to that one play as the start of the Packers' downward spiral.

Fuckabuncha Wolf for retiring.

 

And to think this was the same franchise that didn't want Holmgren to be both coach and GM. Seahawks turned out OK.

 

Amen to that. The Packers got trigger-happy when Holmgren left because he wasn't getting GM power. So what do they do? The first Ray Rhodes second coach to go .500 gets the keys to the franchise.

It was short-sighted, and not only that, Sherman's acumen as a GM was sorely lacking, especially in the drafting department. He was icy with players too, making retaining/drawing free agents problematic.

I covered the Packers in the middle of the Sherman period, when they were going 12-4, 10-6-ish. I always told people that there was always an air of tension around those teams. You could sense that the minute something went wrong, it was going to implode. VERY few players had any loyalty to Sherman, and since he was the man negotiating their contracts, there was occasionally open hostility (see Mike McKenzie, Darren Sharper, Javon Walker).

Finally, it blew up last season -- predictably -- when Sherman's GM powers were taken away and the players knew he couldn't Lord over them. The downfall was compounded by injuries, age and a little bit too much reverance for a legend. It must also be noted that the disintegration of a very good offensive line from 2000-03 or so played a major role. Tauscher, Wahle, Clifton, Rivera and Flanagan were very underrated as a unit.

They're in deep trouble this season. And while I also scratch my head at the hiring of McCarthy, the truth is that most of this roster's lack of talent falls on Sherman and his fallow drafts. Many Packers fans won't buy that, though, so I have a feeling the Ted Thompson/McCarthy era will ultimately be brief.

Then the real test comes -- do the Packers become over-reliant on hiring their legends of the 90s as they did through the 70s and 80s when they were reliant on heroes of the 60s? Unless they have a proven track record, I sure as hell hope not. That's when the loyalty of Packers fans becomes a cross to bear instead of an advantage. As a rule, Packers fans and Wisconsin folks in general are forgiving to a fault when it comes to their sports legends.

P.S. Cubs, go fuck yourself! Bears still suck! (Haven't had to utter that line since the early 90s)

 

Very astute take on the situation, Bubs. Even from the outside, it was evident that Mike Sherman did not command any respect from his players -- Darren Sharper was the final blow for me, because there's no way he should have been given any reason to want to leave ... especially to the purple pansy-ass team he went to.

The fact that you're already hearing rumblings from Nick Barnett is also disturbing, but it can be traced back to that pattern that we've seen from Sharper and Walker and McKenzie, et al.

***

On another note, 4th-and-26 was as heartbreaking to me as that beautiful 4th-and-25 pass from McCown to Poole in the end zone at Arizona must have been to that other team's purple pansy-ass fans a few weeks earlier. Can't forget that one. 8)

On a personal note: I covered the Falcons that season, and if the Packers had won that damn playoff game, they would have come to Atlanta for the NFC championship and I would have given both of my left feet to be there as a dedicated Cheesehead (yes, I can be professional on the outside, dammit. Doesn't change the fact that I root for the Pack on the inside.) ... Instead, the ATLers went to Philly and lost in the snow, and I'm still bitter about the whole turn of events. Everything's been downhill since then. Fucking 4th-and-26.

 

Wasn't Holmgren in jeopardy for a long time in Seattle, and didn't the Seahawks reach the Super Bowl only after Holmgren relinquished his GM duties?