Brett Favre’s Strange Journey: 31 Down, One to Go

It’s no secret: Brett Favre is going up against the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football this week.

Most also realize that, with a Viking victory, Favre will become the first starting quarterback in history to defeat every NFL franchise at least one time in the regular season.

From September 27, 1992 (Pittsburgh) to November 4, 2007 (Kansas City), this is a retrospective look at when Favre beat every franchise, with cameo appearances from some names from the 1990’s we all know and love.

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Green Bay Packers Week Two Preview: The Bumbling Bengals

Last week, the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears by doing some things they weren’t able to do last season: stopping the run (second-year phenom Matt Forte had only 55 yards rushing), depending on Aaron Rodgers to stick the ball in the end zone in the last two minutes, and coming up with a big stop after the go-ahead score.

Sure, Jay Cutler helped a lot with the four interceptions and if he hadn’t thrown them, the Bears would’ve won easily. But he did throw them, and they weren’t all the receivers’ fault. That’s neither here nor there, however.

What’s here is a team from Cincinnati that will be looking to remove a bitter taste from its mouth left over from an improbable 87-yard touchdown throw from Kyle Orton in Denver.

Unfortunately for the Bengals, the Packers won’t provide the kind of chaser they’re looking for.

Cincinnati was putrid on offense last year. A lot of it probably was the fact that Ryan Fitzpatrick was the starting quarterback for a good portion of the year, but it didn’t seem like the team took much of a step up in only scoring seven points last week against a Denver team in transition on defense.

No doubt, the aggressive and talented (much more so than Denver, at the very least) Packers defense will be flying to the ball no matter where it is on the field.  

Charles Woodson and Al Harris are good enough to defend Chad Ochocinco and Chris Henry when the Packers decide to blitz, and in passing situations, Green Bay has no problem sitting back and playing for interceptions, especially in their nickel package.

Green Bay’s run defense, which held rising star Matt Forte to 55 rushing yards last week, should have similar success in containing former Bears bust Cedric Benson. Cullen Jenkins created a lot of havoc against Chicago’s offensive front, which is a lot better than what Cincinnati will have on the field.

A lot was made of Green Bay’s offensive struggles last week, but I attribute a lot of that to Chicago’s intensity. It was a nationally-televised rivalry game in week one. If a defense isn’t up for that game, there would be something wrong with that defense.

The game against Cincinnati will be low key in comparison. I see this allowing the Packers to get into an early rhythm against the Bengals in the running game. Ryan Grant’s numbers weren’t impressive last week, but he had an explosiveness that he didn’t have last season.

Hopefully, the Packers can take advantage and get the running game established within the first two possessions of the game. Successful running attacks always set up the passing game well, and Rodgers and his stable of receivers should be able to take advantage of the Bengals’ secondary.

Besides, an offense as talented as Green Bay’s can’t lay two eggs in a row, can it?

Final score: Green Bay 27-10 Cincinnati

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Green Bay Packers Week One Preview: Here Come The Bears

It’s finally here…almost.

The Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears are less than 48 hours away from opening their 2009 regular seasons.  Both have aspirations of winning the NFC North and making a run to Super Bowl XLIV.  The roads for both teams start this Sunday night against each other at Lambeau Field.

For once, there wasn’t a quarterback causing a stir up Green Bay’s way.  There definitely was a stir in Chicago though.

Jay Cutler, unhappy with the way new Denver coach Josh McDaniels failed to hide his dream of coaching Matt Cassell as a Bronco (and maybe with the way mean ol’ Philip Rivers picked on him), demanded to be traded.

Denver found a suitor in the Chicago Bears.

Without question, this is a significant upgrade for the entire Bears franchise, whose quarterback history will not be re-hashed here, but suffice it to say that it’s not a good one.

Cutler will find himself going up against a revamped and, from the looks of the preseason, rejuvenated defensive unit for the Green Bay Packers.  Charles Woodson will be able to show off his Heisman Trophy winning athleticism and All-Pro zone coverage instincts for the first time since coming to Green Bay.

But the Bears aren’t stupid.  They know that the Packers secondary will have the advantage against a group of number two receivers and a kickoff returner masquerading as one.

Instead, the Bears will try to take advantage of Aaron Kampman, who is moving from defensive end to linebacker in the new 3-4 defense.  Look for Bears tight end and top receiving threat Greg Olsen to line up on Kampman’s side trying to take advantage of his inexperience in pass protection.

If the Bears are to win this game, they will need Olsen and running back Matt Forte to control the football and efficiently move the offense down the field in clock consuming scoring drives.  This will make the Packer defense tired and, more importantly, keep Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay offense off the field.

But if Chicago is unable to sustain drives, watch out.  The Bears defense, assumed to be stout because it’s the Bears defense, isn’t as good as it has been in the past.

Brian Urlacher and the rest of Chicago’s defensive front seven is aging.  Same with the Bear safeties.  Top cornerback Charles “Peanut” Tillman is listed as questionable for the game, which could spell big trouble for third-year player Trumaine McBride, who will be forced to cover either Greg Jennings or Donald Driver.

When the Packers have the ball, Aaron Rodgers will try to exploit the short handed secondary of Chicago.  Sprinkle in a little Ryan Grant to keep the safeties honest, and there’s a good possibility of Rodgers having a huge game in his 2009 debut.

In an exciting game pitting the NFL’s oldest rivals against each other, Rodgers and the Packers passing attack will be too much for a dinking and dunking Chicago counter-attack.

Final Score: Green Bay 30-17 Chicago

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Why the Green Bay Packers Will NOT Win the NFC North

Just a disclaimer: Most who read what I write, both in articles and in comments, know that I’m a big Packer supporter. This is merely my attempt to play devil’s advocate and to try to temper my very optimistic views about the team this upcoming season.

Up until the conclusion of the Green Bay Packers’ third preseason game, that team was still considered to be a mediocre team—a team that caught some tough luck but with better quarterback play in the fourth quarter might have finished better than 6-10.

Following the first three preseason games, however, something magical happened around the Packers.

The offense literally could not be stopped.  

The defense got to the quarterback and forced turnovers on nearly every drive.  

Bottom line: They didn’t look like a team that just had a top 10 draft pick.

Many have started to laud the Packers as the team to beat in the NFC North this season.

Others have anointed Aaron Rodgers as league MVP before any snaps of significance have been taken.  

Still others, though in smaller numbers, have gone as far as calling the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl favorites.

That’s right: a 6-10 team from last season is now, at least to some people, a Super Bowl-contending team.

Let’s back up for a second.

First, we need to keep the 2009 Packers’ accomplishments in perspective. Teams have played four exhibition games.

Games used by teams to determine the 51st, 52nd, and 53rd players on the rosters.  

Teams don’t even watch game film of their opponents. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Packers defense confused opposing quarterbacks; the quarterbacks had no idea what to expect.

Same goes for the offense.

Nobody focused on stopping Rodgers or Greg Jennings or Ryan Grant; they just wanted to see what the younger players had to offer and prayed that their key guys wouldn’t get injured.

After all, the Detroit Lions did go undefeated in the preseason last year. So let’s just slow down on the Packers, at least for a couple more weeks.

Furthermore, the Minnesota Vikings haven’t really lost any key players from a team that won 10 games last season.

In fact, they have improved at the most important position on a football team by signing quarterback Brett Favre.

Even without Favre, the Vikings would have had three key components to a competitive football team: a strong running game, a strong defense, and an above-average offensive line.  

No one is really certain if the Packers can say the same.

Grant seems to be back to his 2007 self now that he’s fully recovered from a hamstring injury and had a full offseason of activity. But hamstring injuries can linger, and it only takes one little tweak to put him on the shelf.

The 3-4 defense has looked good up to this point, but again, it was only preseason.  

Once teams get their eyes on some game tape of the Packer version of the scheme, the growing pains associated with such transitions will become apparent.

Green Bay’s offensive line has been shuffled and reshuffled like a deck of cards at a basement poker game.  

Chad Clifton is old at left tackle. The guard spots have never really been settled since Marco Rivera and Mike Wahle left town.  

Mark Tauscher seems to be out of the picture at right tackle. Scott Wells, who had started at center for a few seasons, has been supplanted by the younger Jason Spitz.

There’s just no telling how this ragtag group will operate in the running game or how well they can protect Rodgers, who is absolutely critical to the team’s success because of the current void on the depth chart behind him at quarterback.

The Packers have been quite impressive in the preseason, but they still haven’t really proven anything yet. The Vikings still have to be the favorite in the NFC North because as long as Adrian Peterson is on that team, they always have a chance to be successful.

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Preseason NFL Power Groupings

Borrowing from ESPN’s Bill Simmons and Nino Colla’s MLB Power Groupings, I’m making my first attempt at some preseason NFL rankings that probably don’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.  I have to admit, though: it’s fun to debate them.

Group I: Continued Struggles

St. Louis Rams, Cleveland Browns

I put these two clubs at the bottom of the barrel because of their offensive deficiencies last season and because neither squad seemed to have done anything to improve them.

The Rams have a promising back in Steven Jackson and a quarterback who I thought was pretty good, but they have to play up to their potential for St. Louis to be successful.

Cleveland’s got two starting quarterbacks, which, according to the old adage, means they don’t have a starting quarterback.  They’re also trying to move their best wide receiver who suffered from a severe case of the dropsies, and they already moved a good tight end in Kellen Winslow.

Group II: Nowhere to Go but Up

Detroit Lions, Cincinnati Bengals, Kansas City Chiefs

I think I’m in the minority, but I really like what the Lions did in the NFL Draft with their first pick.  I have a feeling that Matthew Stafford will be better than Mark Sanchez, and will eventually take over the starting job from Daunte Culpepper this season.

Cincinnati struggled mightily offensively, but a lot of that can be attributed to the loss of Carson Palmer to injury.  Whenever a guy from Harvard’s running your NFL offense, you’ve got trouble.  Palmer will be back and Cincinnati will be better off that way.

Kansas City added Matt Cassell to throw to Dwayne Bowe and brought in some veteran linebackers in Mike Vrabel and Zach Thomas to help mentor some of the young players they have on the defensive line, such as Glenn Dorsey and Tyson Jackson.

Group III: Trapped in Purgatory

Oakland Raiders, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Denver Broncos, Jacksonville Jaguars

All four of these teams have a different kind of purgatory that they’re stuck with coming into this season, listed below

Oakland: They’re stuck with an owner who has a “my way or the highway” attitude.  The problem is that his way is like the freeway in Speed that isn’t finished yet.  

Except Oakland doesn’t have anyone as beautiful as Sandra Bullock to jump the gap.  They just have JaMarcus Russell.

Tampa Bay: They got rid of the quarterback schizophrenic, Jon Gruden.  Problem is, they still don’t have a quarterback.  Why they aren’t racing to Hattiesburg, Mississippi to talk to some one near there is a mystery to me.

Denver: Josh McDaniels just seems like he’s not quite sure what he’s doing yet. Obviously he has a great football mind, but he hasn’t gotten the handle on the management aspect of the head coaching job.  

He really botched the Jay Cutler situation.  It’s like he switched schools, told the hot girl at his new school how much better his girlfriend at his old school was than her, and then ended up with that one girl who looks alright, but has kind of a big nose and one of those smiles with a bad gum-to-tooth ratio.

Jacksonville: The problem with the Jaguars is that they have a bunch of guys that are dependable, but nobody at any position who’s spectacular.  With great receivers, David Garrard would be a good guy to have.

Problem is, their best receivers are an old Torry Holt and Cleveland outcast Dennis Northcutt.

Group IV: Day-time TV

Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins

What do you think of when you think “soap operas?”  Because I think of ridiculous drama and not-very-good-acting.

Buffalo will see more newspaper reporters than ever before with the addition of Terrell Owens.  

T.O.’s most recent old team, Dallas, is still run by Jerry Jones, and having him in the locker room or on the sideline always makes for interesting situations, especially with a spineless head coach like Wade Phillips.  

Outspoken head coach Mike Singletary will (hopefully) come up with more gems like this. 

With the Redskins, the peak of the drama might have passed during free agency, but with a continued desire to replace Jason Campbell, I can see it continuing through the season.

And while these teams will be fun to watch off the field, I don’t think they’ll be nearly as interesting on it.

Group V: Questions to Answer

Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, New York Jets, Seattle Seahawks, New Orleans Saints, Houston Texans, San Diego Chargers

The largest group of my rankings, we won’t know much about these teams until the season is five or six games old.  Here are the biggest questions for each team:

Green Bay: Will the first-round draft picks help make the defensive transition smoother?

Chicago: Is Jay Cutler the savior Bears fans are expecting him to be?

New York: Can Mark Sanchez live up to the cheering from Radio City Music Hall on draft day?

Seattle: Will a Hasselbeck-Houshmandzadeh connection bring the Seahawks back to prominence?

New Orleans: Can that defense stop enough opponents to allow the prolific offense to win games?

Houston: Will they find any consistency on offense and defense, and will the AFC South remain one of the more brutal divisions in the league?

San Diego: Is LDT still good?  Can Norv Turner coach?  Will the AFC West remain one of the more pitiful divisions in the league?

Group VI: Back to Earth

Tennessee Titans, Arizona Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens, Miami Dolphins

All these teams had good, surprising runs last season, but I’m not sure if it will carry over to 2009. Tennessee still has Kerry Collins at quarterback and no spectacular wide receivers. They also lost Albert Haynesworth in free agency, who was in some early MVP discussion as a defensive tackle, which is means he was playing REALLY well.

Arizona’s defense played way better in the playoffs than they had in the regular season and I don’t know whether or not they can have that same intensity throughout the 2009 regular season.

Baltimore’s rookie quarterback Joe Flacco was good, but he got a lot of help from a defense that’s another year older and without superstar defensive coordinator Rex Ryan.

Miami used the so-called wildcat formation very effectively, but the defenses will probably catch up this season. The problem will come when Chad Pennington is asked to play the traditional quarterback role and throw the ball farther than 20 yards downfield to Davon Bess or Ted Ginn, Jr, which is problematic in itself.

Group VII: Old Reliables

New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts

Both had solid seasons last year, with the Colts running off nine straight wins to close out the regular season. The Patriots quirkily missed the playoffs with an 11-5 record with their backup quarterback.

This year, the Colts lost their head coach and a wide receiver whose name is synonymous with “Indianapolis Colts,” and even though the nine-win streak was impressive, what came before that had to cause some concern.

The Patriots will have Tom Brady back after a torn ACL, but you have to wonder if he’ll play up to the high standards he set for himself in recent years.

Bottom line, though: Whenever the Colts and Patriots have Manning and Brady, they are always contenders.

Group VIII: Something Missing

Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants

What’s missing from each of these teams should be obvious. In Minneapolis, it’s a quarterback (maybe not for long, though) and in East Rutherford, it’s a receiver to replace Plaxico Burress.

If either team gets what they need, they would immediately jump into the next group…

Group IX: The Favorites

Philadelphia Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, Pittsburgh Steelers

These teams have all the components you want in NFL favorites. Good quarterbacks, strong running games, and impenetrable defenses are all trademarks of these four squads, although some teams are better off than others—Jake Delhomme?  Willie Parker? 

Ultimately, Pittsburgh has the hardware that declares them the best at this moment, but that will most certainly change by October 1st.

Move Over Manning: The Quarterback Revolution

For the last 11 years or so, Peyton Manning has been the starting quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. In that time, he’s accumulated lots of touchdown passes, lots of yards, lots of consecutive starts, and lots of wins.

Tom Brady has been right there next to him collecting Lombardi Trophies for the New England Patriots, and with the addition of Randy Moss, has recently put together an outstanding statistical season of his own.

At the beginning of Bleacher Report time, sportswriters were climbing out of the primordial soup debating which of these two was the better quarterback. It’s a practice that has continued to this more modern time, but it’s a practice that will soon fall out of favor.

I know it’s hard to believe, but Manning and Brady are starting to get old. Brady will be 32 when the 2009 season starts, Manning 33. It won’t be long before Ed Werder and Sal Paolantonio start asking when these guys are going to retire.

But don’t fret, master debaters of Bleacher Report; the NFL’s next crop of great quarterbacks is already starting to spring forth, and a new decade of the “Which quarterback?” debate is about to start.

These are the candidates, whose last names, interestingly, all start with R.

They Want to Have the Super Bowl Where?!

I made the same face Peyton up there is making when I heard this news: The National Football League is seriously considering holding a Super Bowl in London, England.

Let me say it again.

The National Football League, the most important sports league in the United States, wants to hold its championship game, the most important sporting event in the United States, in LONDON, ENGLAND.

Does this bother anyone else?

There’s so many things wrong with this possibility. Many American fans, the ones who love the game the way the Brits love their football, will be unable to attend a game like this. It’s already bad enough that they take away home games from NFL teams to play in London.

And what’s to be gained from holding the Super Bowl in London? They’ve already had the opportunity to embrace the game and they haven’t risen to the occasion once, cheering only on punts and blowing whistles from the seats during the games.

Adjusting to the time difference will be difficult for both fans and players. Travelling abroad is no easy task, and that’s for average people who go on sight-seeing tours. None of us can imagine what it’s like to have to adjust our bodies to do something as physically grueling as professional football.

Also, to play the game in prime-time in the United States would be to play the game in the wee hours of the morning in the United Kingdom.

The most obvious reason, of course, is that the NFL is America’s league. There’s no place for American football across the pond; they don’t want it. And the United States, by and large, wants to keep it to itself.

If the Super Bowl goes to London, why not bring the UEFA championship match to Foxboro or Columbus?

Yeah, it’s that ridiculous. Please, NFL, keep the Super Bowl where it belongs: in the United States.

The NFL Draft: Who’s Ready?

As soon as the Super Bowl is over (and for fans of certain nameless teams based in cities that look south to see Canada, MUCH earlier than that), football fans immediately turn their attention to the NFL Draft.

They learn the draft order. They learn the top prospects’ names.  They hear about 40 times, pro days, and wonderlic tests. They debate on sites like Bleacher Report who their favorite teams should take.

And now, the 2009 edition of the draft is only three days away. The focus of the draft, of course, is to select new players, but there’s so much about the event that makes it as anticipated as the NFL’s opening weekend.

The draft means something different for each of the NFL’s 32 franchises.  For Detroit, this draft represents the beginning of a new, hopefully more successful era after the most putrid season in NFL history.

For New England and Pittsburgh, it’s another chance to bolster an already stellar roster. Other teams like Green Bay and Houston are looking for the last few parts to make themselves championship contenders.

Something else that happens just about every year is that one of the top projected picks in the draft doesn’t get picked up as early as expected. Guys like Brady Quinn and Aaron Rodgers get passed on early, and they’re stuck waiting for the commissioner to call their name.

It’s moments like these, when a player is first faced with NFL adversity, in which fans can get a first glimpse of how a player handles it.

All of that is only three days away, the true beginning of the next NFL season.  A weekend for fans to applaud or criticize their team’s decision makers.  One step closer to the first regular season game of 2009.

It can’t get here fast enough.

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