Opinion
Green Bay Packers to win the division
November 4, 2010
At 5-3, I think that Green Bay Packers fans should be pretty happy with their current situation. We have three losses, with a combined loss total of nine points. Two of those losses were in overtime.
Over the past few weeks, the Student Voice published a column bashing Rodgers and another one kissing up to Favre. Though I could write a novel on my hatred for our rivals to the west, it’s honestly not even worth it. At 2-5, I wouldn’t really know where to start. Favre isn’t their savior anymore, and they have such a wide array of other issues on and off the field. The Packers aren’t perfect either, and there are a few things the Packers need to keep up and improve on in the second half of the season.
Our team needs to stay healthy. I remember the Mike Sherman days when it seemed that everyone on the team was injured at some point during the season. I had some unwanted flashbacks when we had Finley, Matthews, Grant, and Barnett go down within the first couple games. I take full responsibility for the injuries, Green Bay fans. I’m pretty sure I jinxed us after Grant went down saying, “Ah, it can’t get any worse.” Then — like dominoes — a bunch of our stars went down.
When you’re as devastated by injuries as the Packers are, this is when a team can brag about its depth. We are missing two star backs: Bigby and Harris. Barnett and numerous other stars are out, yet we’re still able to shut down Tomlinson and Sanchez in the Meadowlands. Some may have thought that our 9-0 victory was pretty boring, but I thought it was pretty damn entertaining.
There is plenty of room for improvement. Rodgers put the ball in the hands of the receivers a few times last week, and there were too many dropped passes. Rodgers also had quite a few misfires too, but that’s not nearly as troubling as our mediocre running game.
I don’t want to be like every Vikings fan in the world and hate on our head coach, but so many times McCarthy’s play calling baffles me. Obviously, I am not a coach, I’m not going to make it sound like I could have coached the Packers to being 8-0 so far, but there are at least a few times in a game where I’m staring at the television with my arms held out asking myself “What the hell was that?”
The last thing I’ll say is that I’m convinced we will take the division. I’m not worried about the Bears. I’m convinced that we handed them the game with the insane amounts of penalties we had.
Dear Minnesota Vikings: please win some more games; it’s more fun to hate you when you’ve won more than two games. I’m sure a 10-6 or 9-7 record will easily take the division this year. There might be some more elite records in the NFL, but once a team is in the playoffs, its regular season record doesn’t mean a thing. We can clearly see that example with the San Francisco Giants who didn’t have a shot at the World Series until they won their last game.
Keep your chin up Packers fans, things could be better, but they could also be a lot worse. If it seems quiet around here, it’s just all of the Vikings fans choking on their own words about how they were going to dominate this division. I love a good joke.