Thoughts on Green Bay Packers @ Detroit Lions, 9/14/2008

The following blog post has been brought to you by a near-epic chokejob to the hands of the Detroit Lions.



Oops...wrong sport. But still, it was pretty ugly at the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth.

But anyways, time to get started on this edition. Here are my thoughts.

• While Aaron Rodgers appeared to have better passing numbers than his last game, the stats are a little misleading. He did have 24-38 for 328 yards, but there were a lot of dropped passes and misfires, especially in the second half. And also, he's been known to hold onto the ball a little too long, as evidenced by the sack-and-strip from the blind side with Dewayne White. And for the second consecutive game, a center-quarterback exchange went awry with Jason Spitz. That needs to be eliminated before it becomes a big problem.
• But because I don't want to dwell on a negative so much, Rodgers was as good as advertised from his second drive on during the first half. He hit 14 of his first 17 targets during those first four scoring drives, including some situations where he eluded the rush and still delivered a strike to his receiver (the James Jones TD and another Jones first down catch come to mind). For the second week in a row, Rodgers reared back and showed off his arm (to the misfortune of him being compared to Brett Favre here), hitting Greg Jennings on a pass that flew 60 yards in the air. He also found Donald Lee on a seam route for a good chunk of yardage, being able to thread the needle in that zone. He'd then throw a perfect pass to Jordy Nelson, burning his man. And then there's his scrambling ability that I've been raving about all this time.
• It also helps that Greg Jennings was still his beastly self. But I don't think I need to reiterate that.
  
• But Rodgers had to throw the ball a lot today because of the nonexistent running game that did exist against this team in the form of Michael Turner last week. I'm not quite sure if Ryan Grant was still being bothered by his hamstring, but the numbers didn't look promising at all. 20 yards on 15 carries? I need to throw up. But at least Brandon Jackson had a redeeming game, going 61 yards on 7 carries and a touchdown, so it wasn't completely a disastrous day on the ground.
• Did Calvin Johnson just run past our DBs again? I don't know what to say, but that dude's just a freak of nature. Big, strong, fast, and made a nice catch for his first touchdown. But the coverage of good receivers worries me if Johnson did this to the team twice in the same quarter. What's going to happen when Terrell Owens, Reggie Wayne, Andre Johnson and others does this to the team? (Not that I worry about Andre Johnson, but still...) At least we haven't ha da problem with a good pass-catching tight end like we always do, but that may happen next week with Jason Witten.
• Another special teams snafu almost cost this team massively. Derrick Frost lets a snap through his hands when he's about to punt from his endzone. That just can't happen.
• For the second week in a row, Mike McCarthy playcalls like he doesn't want to lose, rather than to win. I forgot to note this, but the massively conservative playcalling during leads makes me wonder whether the head coach's first name is actually Joseph. Especially when Cory Redding was eating our running backs alive (specifically Ryan Grant). And even during the Vikings game, they couldn't run the clock out sufficiently. How about a screen pass instead of running behind the imbecile offensive guards on this team? Mix the shit up, please!
• At the end, at least we know that the Detroit Lions realized that they were in the lead...and promptly became the Detroit Lions. After taking that lead, it's like they shit the bed on defense and Jon Kitna gained about 20 pounds. Greg Jennings continued being a beast when the Lions forgot how to tackle, so he ran for about 60 yards. Then Mason Crosby kicked a field goal. Then...Kitna somehow donned a white helmet with a blue stripe down the middle, white pants, and a navy blue jersey with a big "14" on the front and back, and threw it to someone from the school with the winged helmets twice...one of which went back for a score. And then he threw one to someone from a HBCU, and that went back for a TD. Jon Kitna being Jon Kitna. Stick to your unfulfilled guarantees.
  

But anyways, 2-0 is 2-0, and I'm happy that this is the case. But if the Packers have any chance at beating the Cowboys, then there needs to be massive improvements during all three phases of the game.

Boom...outta here.

~KG~