I Wonder If the Packers Will Ever Win Another Game

• The Green Bay Packers lost to the Washington Redskins 42-24 on Sunday night.

• In other NFL news, the Dallas Cowboys continue to -- oh fine, we can talk about the Packers game, though “game” implies there was some sort of competitive spirit involved. Once again, the Packers came out slow, by which I mean barely with a pulse. They went three-and-out, three-and-out, and three-and-out to start the game. How, I don’t know. If you’ve lost three in a row and your chances at making the playoffs are rapidly dwindling, wouldn’t you come out with some fire? Given our defense, I thought the game was going to be tight, but I would have put money on the Packers offense coming out sharp, given what was at stake. But no, guess not.

THIS GIF WAS MEANT TO BE USED HUMOROUSLY DURING THE GOOD
TIMES, NOT TO DEPICT YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD PLAYING TERRIBLY.

• The poor got poorer, or, in the case of the Green Bay defense, the bad somehow got even worse. Already without top defensive backs Sam Shields and Damarious Randall, the paper-thin secondary also lost Demetri Goodson (to a gruesome looking knee injury -- seriously, don’t click on that unless you’re okay with seeing a man’s knee go 90 degrees in the wrong direction) and, later, his replacement Kentrell Brice. Already without leading tackler Jake Ryan, the never-been-good linebacking corps also lost linebacker Nick Perry (returned) and Blake Martinez.

• Here’s a sad little clip of linebacker Kyle Fackrell (#51) racing onto the field to help “defend” and … well, he doesn’t ever really get the chance.

• The offense was okay in spots. James Starks -- credit where credit is due -- I thought had some nice plays, but didn’t get many opportunities in the second half, what with Green Bay getting the snot beat out of it. 

"Oh gosh, what do we do??"

"I don't know!"

"Should we tackle him?

"Maybe. But maybe we should let him pick up an extra yard or 10 first."

"Good idea."

• And Jared Cook, in his first game back since injuring his ankle in Week 3, played so well -- until. Oh, Jared. The tight end had 105 yards on six catches and provided a spark the Packers sorely needed, and I was so happy for him -- until. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. By the time Cook fumbled the ball, the Packers were down 11 with under four minutes to go, so it was a long shot anyway. But it was a painful nail in the coffin for the Pack. It was disappointing to see Cook’s strong night marred by a turnover, but in his defense, this is a pretty bad-ass move by Josh Norman.

• Yes, Cris Collinsworth, we understand that it is windy. Truly, we believe you.

• The offense, in increasingly typical fashion, kind of loafed about before coming alive for stretches. They put up 424 yards, which is pretty good until you consider that the Redskins put up 515. More damning was the Packers’ 50% success rate (or, as I like to call it, their 50% fail rate) in the redzone. Washington, meanwhile, scored touchdowns on four of their five trips to the redzone, and a field goal on their fifth.

• In the offseason, Kirk Cousins wanted a long-term deal that paid him like a top NFL quarterback. Washington wasn’t so sure that that’s what he was, so they offered him multi-year contract at about $16 million per year. Cousins said, “thanks but no thanks,” and the Redskins signed him under the franchise tag. That means that Cousins is the highest paid quarterback (in base salary) this season at just under $20 million, but he’s got no deal after 2016. As it turns out, betting on himself this year has gone pretty well so far, and on Sunday night, he had just one question for Redskins general manager Scot McCloughan:

• That's a little uncomfortable. But while I do kind of like Cousins because he’s such a odd little goofball, the answer, Kirk, is that I do not like you very much right now.

• In other news, I was shocked but pleased that Packers picked up with former Seahawks running back Christine Michael off of waivers. The Minnesota Vikings also put a claim in, but we have a worse record so we got him. (Hah! Take that, Minnesota!!)

But now that he's ours, we can't tease him about having a girl's name anymore.

• You wanna know something weird? In 2016, NFL kickers have missed just one field goal from 32-33 yards out. But they’ve missed 48 extra points from the same distance.

• If you needed another reason to like Cris Collinsworth (which you don’t), you have it in his Twitter takedown of perma-man-boy Bill Simmons. Simmons, though generally a fan of Collinsworth, occasionally has gone after him in his petty little way. When Simmons posted a condescending tweet about Collinsworth’s commentary last week, good-natured Cris took a shot at Simmons’ erstwhile TV show, which was cancelled due to poor ratings:

Zing! 

• Man, whenever I get down, I just think about the Cleveland Browns. This weekend Ben Roethlisberger won in Cleveland, and he now has as many wins in Cleveland as any Browns quarterback has in the last 17 years. In his career, Roethlisberger has faced 12 different Browns quarterbacks.

• And now their current quarterback, rookie Cody Kessler, just got his second concussion of the season, which puts his season in jeopardy and maybe even more.

• Josh McCown is set to start in place of Kessler, but watch him get destroyed by Stephon Tuitt and tell me how he doesn’t also have a concussion!?!? Seriously, I don't think he should be playing anytime soon.

• Normally, the Chicago Bears falling to 2-8 (tee hee) would make me happier, but people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. The Bears were always on the hook for Jay’s salary this year, but not so next year, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to envision him being in a Chicago uniform in 2017. This week, Cutler had to deny that he’s “lost his teammates’ support.”

"Nonsense! I never had their support."

• Awww, now I feel bad because I just read that Cutler’s season may be over after he suffered a shoulder injury on Sunday. Sorry, Jay! I hope you heal up quick!

• Nooo, Luuuuuuke! Poor Luke Kuechly suffered a concussion on Thursday night in the Carolina Panthers’ 23-20 victory over the New Orleans Saints. It’s particularly worrisome because Kuechly missed three games last season due to a concussion. Presumably he’ll miss at least some time (please, Panthers, make him miss time, even if he clears protocol), which is a huge blow to the Panthers, for whom he has played 99.3% of defensive snaps this season. It was a heartbreaking and disturbing scene to see one of the game’s best players sobbing on the field.

Oh, Luke! I'll be your shoulder to cry on!

• I know the Carolina Panthers’ motto is #keeppounding, but tweeting that right after your star player gets concussed and when you lead the league in most concussions, you might want to leave off that hashtag.

• The good news is that Kuechly's teammate did post a photo of a much happier looking Luke the next day.

• Someone take pity on Cam Newton and tell him to do something about that nasty goatee. it looks like he accidentally dipped it in some honey mustard.

Just think: that was a conscious decision that took time and effort and money.

• The Tennessee Titans’ center is such a teacher’s pet. In the Titan’s loss to the Indianapolis Colts, a penalty flag was thrown, and the referee announced the penalty: “False start … everyone but the center.” I’ll bet his mom was always yelling, “Why can’t you be more like your brother?” at his siblings, too.

• The Minnesota Vikings have a terrible offense that is very bad at scoring. As such, they should have lost to the Arizona Cardinals, but the Arizona Cardinals declared with one voice, “Not on our watch!” And so they allowed not one, but two 100-yard non-offense touchdowns. One was a 100-yard pick-six from Xavier Rhodes and one was a 104-yard kickoff return from the terrifying Cordarrelle Patterson. The Vikings won by six. Argh!

• But the NFC North gods were not yet done smiting the Green Bay Packers because then there was the Detroit Lions-Jacksonville Jaguars game. The Lions had the ball, up 26-19 with 8:19 and are dragging out the clock as much as possible. Seven plays and five minutes later, they’re facing 3rd-and-6 and midfield, but the Jaguars stick ‘em! Woo-hoo! Now, they’ll force a punt and have about three minutes two-and-half minutes left with two timeouts and the two-minute warning left to score. But first, Detroit insists on trying that silly we’re-going-to-pretend-to-go-for-it-on-fourth-down-even-though-everyone-knows-we’re-not-really-going-for-it “trick” that never works. And the Jaguars jumped! Incredibly, eight-year veteran Sen’Derrick Marks jumped offsides, giving the Lions a whole new set of downs that allowed them to take the clock down to 22 seconds. Detroit won by seven. Argh!

• Poor Andrew Luck inevitably has a concussion and looks unlikely to be ready for Thursday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The upshot is we’ll get to see some Scott Tolzien action! 

• Look, I like the Oakland Raiders a lot, but the Houston Texans got royally worked over by the refs on Monday night. On the opening drive, Texans receiver extraordinaire DeAndre Hopkins would have had a touchdown if the refs hadn't blown the play dead, thinking he had stepped out of bounds when he hadn't! Then, in the fourth quarter, Houston CLEARLY  had the first down (see below), but the refs spotted them short and the Texans went for it on 4th-and-inches and again got the first down, and the refs again spotted the ball short! I'm so furious on behalf of the Texans!

• Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Steve Smith caught his 1,000 career catch, which is pretty awesome. He celebrated by flirting with Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett, who bashfully turned away and blushed demurely.

• All I want for the next 10 Christmases is for the Dallas Cowboys to trade away Tony Romo and then see Dak Prescott experience a Colin Kaepernick-like free fall. (Nothing personal, Dak.) Pleeeeeeaaaase, Santa, I’ve been such a good girl.

• The Cowboys won defeated the Ravens for their ninth straight win. The real highlight of the game for most of the internet, it seems, was Dak Prescott proving himself to be a polite young man who picks up after himself.

• Ugh you guys just don’t understand how rough it is to be a Green Bay fan in Dallas these days. These disloyal bandwagoners who will turn on Dak the second he loses a game, have 20 years worth of unsupported trash talk that they can finally spew without the entire world mocking them. And I have to sit in the middle of it all and listen to it because we’ve entered some sort of Twilight Zone where the Cowboys are good and the Packers are bad!

• I suppose there’s one person in Dallas who has it slightly worse than I, and that’s Tony Romo. His teammates have moved on without him:

"If Coach asks if you like me or Dak better, I need you to
say me, okay? Please? No, I need you to promise."

• His coach stopped listening to him ages ago:

"But you see, interceptions actually help us because they make our defense better, you see?
Plus, when I throw it over there, and the defender picks it off, all the offensive
guys have to get back to defend, too, so it's actually sharpening their skills, too!"
"Uh huh."

• Now he has nothing left to do except sit on the bench and look through the scrapbook he made of the good years:

• And remember when he was king.

• Up next: the Green Bay Packers will help the 5-5 Philadelphia Eagles get back on track next Monday night by making their rookie quarterback look like Tom Brady.

The defenders are so far away that they're blurry.

Double-Digit Wins!

• In their victory over the Oakland Raiders, the Green Bay Packers reached the double-digit mark in the win column and secured a ticket to the playoffs. Yay!

• As for how the Packers are feeling, that depends whom you ask. Coach Mike McCarthy got snippy with reporters focusing too much on the negative: “The style points, you can flush that. I'm sick and tired of talking about the negativities. We've won 10 games. We lost three games on the last play of the game and Denver beat us. That's the overview of our season, and we've got a chance to win 11 next week."

• Aaron Rodgers and the rest of the locker room, however, weren’t overjoyed at their play. Rodgers said they were ineffective, while TJ Lang acknowledged that “we feel like we’re not playing up to our talent level.”

• Lang also pointed out 14 of their 30 points came from the defense -- well, essentially. Micah Hyde returned an interception inside the 20-yard line, and Demarious Randall recorded a pick-six. Those two lost possessions skewed the numbers against the offense a bit, but if you take away those, the offense managed one touchdown and three field goals against a sub-.500 team.

• There wasn’t a lot to love about the offensive game, but I’m sick of typing the exact same thing every week, so let’s focus on the goods: James Jones had a nice game! Back in Oakland, Jones had six catches for 82 yards and a touchdown. Reporters wanted to hype up Jones before and after the game about playing against the team that cut him, but JJ wasn’t having any of it: “I don’t hold no grudges on nobody. I just go out every game and try to play well. It wasn’t trying to get back at the Raiders. I love the dudes over there.” I love how chill and good-natured he is about everything.

Cali cool. The hoodie helps.

• Randall Cobb also had a nice game. His effort doesn’t necessarily show up in the box score -- 40 yards receiving, 18 yards rushing -- but he had some crucial catches, and his runs opened up the field a bit more. Second-year receiver Jared Abbrederis also played well, catching all three targets that came his way.

It probably easy to be so good when you have huge, strong, sculpted biceps.

• I insist on watching Green Bay games all the way till the clock hits zeros, even if the outcome is decided, but ooohhh mmyyy goooosshh this was the game that wouldn’t end! It felt like the third Lord of the Rings movie! The teams were just trading timeouts and penalties! I thought it was maybe just in my head, so I went back and checked: the last three game minutes took 25 real-life minutes!!! TWENTY-FIVE.

• Raiders quarterback Derek Carr has serial killer eyes.

And face.

• Injuries continue to be a problem for the Packers. Left tackle David Bakhtieri left the game with an ankle injury (Ahh! No! Please, not Don Barclay!!), and center JC Tretter was limping heavily near the end of the game. Kinda stinks considering how banged up the offensive line has been all season. This is how they came into the game:

This might have something to do with why the
Packers couldn't run anything this week.

• A few days after announcing yet another “setback” for Ty Montgomery on what must be the worst ankle sprain in history, Green Bay put the receiver on IR, ending his season. To take his place, the Packers activated tight end Andrew Quarless. Yay!! Andrew Quarless!! Oh no. I’m actually hoping Andrew Quarless is going to save the day.

• The best part of a rather boring game was seeing Charles Woodson. IloveyouCharlescomeback. I, of course, was not happy to see James Starks fumble (again), but I appreciated that Charles was the one who forced it. He also almost intercepted Rodgers, but his teammate grabbed it away from him. Watching Woodson go around and hug all the Packers after the game was, to me, the most interesting part. I won’t admit how hard I was scouring the screen for Woodson talking to Jordy. (I didn’t find them, obviously. Otherwise, that's all that this week's blog would be.)

Awww they all love each other so much.

• AAHHH Charles Woodson just announced he’s retiring at the end of the season! Even after 18 years, he’s going out on top. Woodson’s career highlights include the Heisman, a Super Bowl, Defensive Player of the Year, 65 interceptions, 11 interception returns, and 33 forced fumbles. I’m going to miss him! Mostly I’m sad because I’m not going to get to use this picture much anymore:

Also I NEED him to get a pick-six in the next two games.
He's only one away from tying the record!
PLEEAASSE Philip Rivers  or Alex Smith, throw him a pick-six!

• I always cheer for Ryan Fitzpatrick because the guy scored a 1580 on his SAT, has an economics degree from Harvard, has had a four-touchdown game with four different teams, has five kids -- at least one of whom is a budding math genius -- and is known for never taking off his wedding ring. Naturally, I enjoyed watching Fitzpatrick and the New York Jets mathematically eliminate the Dallas Cowboys from the playoffs on Saturday night. I especially enjoyed how the Jets waited until there were 36 seconds left in the game to kick a field goal to go up three points. Just enough time for Cowboys’ fans to think, “Hey, maybe this is possible. We have one of the best kickers in the league, after all. We just need to get into field goal range. Plus, we finally benched Matt Cassel. That guy’s awful. Now we have Kellen Moore. And I don’t want to jinx us, but our division’s so bad, that there’s still a tiny sliver of hope that something crazy could happen. I mean, if we win this game, then win our last two and get some help from other teams… but it all starts with tonight. Maybe, just maybe, Kellen can pull this off.” And then Moore threw his third interception of the night.

• Before Matt Cassel was benched, he achieved a truly spectacular feat. He threw an interception (surprise), but even though the ball was intercepted, Cassel was still called for intentional grounding! The penalty came because there was not a Dallas receiver in the area. There was another flag for having an ineligible receiver downfield. The whole play was like the Cowboys’ season in a nutshell.

• Maybe it’s because I’ve watched this Vine dozens of time, or maybe because in the last six games he’s completed 75% of his passes, has 12 touchdowns, two interceptions, and an average passer rating of 120, but I think I’m becoming a believer in Kirk Cousins.

• Detroit Lions defensive end Devin Taylor’s shoes really clash with his suit.

• The New York Giants were so close to beating the now 14-0 Carolina Panthers. Carolina’s final two opponents are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons, so New York was pretty much the last chance to defeat the Panthers in the regular season. Carolina was up 35-7 with five minutes left in the third quarter before New York began mounting an improbable comeback. They scored a touchdown, forced a three-and-out, scored a touchdown, and blocked a field goal! All of a sudden, it’s a two-score game! But then Eli Manning, in a very Eli Manning-y way (JK it actually wasn't his fault), threw an interception in the endzone, thus taking all the wind out of the Giants’ sails. BUT THEN, Carolina fumbled the ball, New York scored a touchdown, forced another three-and-out, and scored another touchdown! Oh my gosh! It’s 35-35 with 1:46 left. Carolina goes into we’ve-won-13-games-thank-you-very-much mode and, after returning the kickoff 26 yards, completes passes of nine, two, 16, and 12 yards, just like that. The Panthers are at the 35-yard line with 32 seconds left. That would be about a 52-yard field goal; doable, but tough. The Panthers decide to go for one more play … and the Giants decide not to cover Cam Newton, ya know, the quarterback who has more rushing yards than James Starks. Newton picks up an extra 10 yards, and the Panthers kick a field goal to stay perfect.

• The game wasn’t even where the real drama was between the Panthers and Giants. New York’s fabulous receiver Odell Beckham Jr was matched up with one of the best corners in the league in Carolina’s Josh Norman, and the two struggled to get along. Seriously, it got really ugly. Beckham was called for three unnecessary roughness penalties (Norman was not an innocent bystander in all of this), plus should have been flagged for at least a couple more, like when he grabbed Norman’s ankle as he was walking away, or when he threw a punch at Cortland Finnegan, and Finnegan was called for the penalty. The most egregious instance -- and one that should have led to Beckham’s immediate ejection -- was when Beckham, doubling back on a play, came charging at Norman and blindsided him with a dangerous hit to the helmet. Beckham was rightly suspended for a game.

• The gangrenous NFC East has captured everyone’s disgust as a division, but let’s not overlook the AFC South, which is actually somehow worse (maybe we’re just used to that?). Just when you thought the Indianapolis Colts and the Houston Texans couldn’t be more terrible, both their quarterbacks get injured. Or, to be more accurate, both their backup quarterbacks get injured. So in came the Colts’ third-string QB, Charlie Whitehurst (though Matt Hasselbeck would return) and fourth-stringer Brandon Weeden for the Texans. If Hasselbeck isn’t ready to go next week, the Colts are in some trouble. Whitehurst is the backup, and the emergency quarterback -- receiver Griff Whalen -- was placed on IR on Monday. Things might actually be more dire for Houston, who lost quarterback TJ Yates to a torn ACL. Their season now lies in the hands of Weeden.

• The net gain in the box score on this play is -3, but the ball travels about 100 yards before being recovered by the quarterback who threw it in the first place.

• Poor Justin Blackmon; the kid obviously needs help. The talented wide receiver has a very long history of off-field troubles. He was arrested for a DUI in college, then again his rookie year. The next offseason, he was suspended for testing positive for marijuana. He missed the first four games of the next season serving that suspension, then a few weeks after he came back, he failed another drug test, leading to an indefinite suspension. Several months into that indefinite suspension, Blackmon was arrested for marijuana possession, and went through a rehab program. The league denied his request for reinstatement early this offseason. Then, on Saturday, the 25-year-old was arrested for yet another DUI. I hope he has someone in his circle who cares enough about him to try to get him help.

• Watch #76 on the Chicago Bears in this video. All the way through.

• Next week, the Packers play the Arizona Cardinals and I’M SCARED. If only we still had these two.