The 2010-2011 Season!

Ok here are the picks.

Eagles Win: At first I had this at a loss, but then we just look so good in the pre-season.
Bills Win: But Spiller is allowed to rush for 150 yards.
Bears Win: Williams in the Woodson. (wishful thinking)
Lions Win: They are getting better but still not there.
Redskins Win: We figure out how to use the Blitz in our 34 D and rack up some sacks.
Dolphins Win: Wildcat is the only wrinkle to the game.
Vikings Loss: We are going to split the series with them and this game they are coming off a bye week so Favre will have time to work on his receivers.
Jets Loss: Stupid Jarret Bush.
Cowboys Win: After beating them two times in a row we finally have there number.
Bye We wont lose.
Falcons Win: Ryan Grant will be greater Ryan.
49ers Loss: Niners find a way to shut down our our running game that we are for some reason committed to.
Lions Win: Mike returns us to pass first team.
Patriots Loss: They just have a good D.
Giants: Win: Why not.
Bears Win: Flyn and Jackson keep it close as we coast to the playoffs and the Bears head for golf in Florida or what ever the Bears do.

Packers 12-4
That said there isn't a team on this list that I don't think we can't beat on any given Sunday. (was that clear?) Lets say we can beat any team on the list any time we put our mind to it.

Who makes the playoffs?

AFC
Division Winners
Jets
Ravens
Texans
Chargers

Wild Card
Colts
Patriots (I pick these two because they both deserve to be knocked down a peg)

NFC
Division Winners
Eagles
Packers
Saints
49ers

Wild Card
Vikings
Dallas Cowboys

Well that was fun. And I am not going to speculate any further.

Time to look ahead.

Just last night I was thinking about the Green Bay Packers post season history during my life time, and more specifically since I have been regularly watching football. What I noticed was something only a bit interesting.... I wont go as far as to say very interesting... but a bit.

Lets look at some facts lifted from wikipedia.

1995 (first year I started really following football) Beat the Lions, Lost to the Cowboys.

1996 Beat the 49ers, Panthers, on the way to beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

1997 Beat the Bucks and 49ers only to lose to the Broncos in the Super Bowl.

1998 Lost to the 49ers.

1999 No playoffs.

2000 No playoffs.

2001 Beat the 49ers, lost to the Rams.

2002 Lost to Atlanta.

2003 Beat the Seahawks lost to the Eagles.

2004 Lost to the Vikings.

2005 No playoffs.

2006 No playoffs.

2007 Beat the Seahawks, Lost to the Giants.

2008 No playoffs.

2009 Lost to Arizona.

***DISCLAIMER***

I am only choosing to look at this data during my tenure as a Green Bay Packer fan.

So here are what I have determined to be some NFL Truths.

Green Bay dominates the Seahawks in the postseason. (2-0)

Green Bay has is very successful against the 49ers in the post season. (3-1)

After that we are beaten by a variety of teams in the post season, and never the same team twice. (yes I am ignoring 93, 94) Cowboys, 49ers, Rams, Atlanta, Eagles, Vikings, Giants, Arizona.

So at this rate 15 other teams in the NFC - 8 we have already lost to = 7 NFC teams left to knock us out of the playoffs. Now lets be serious, the Seahawks are not going to do it, we own them in the playoffs and if I look back a few years I see that the Lions don't fare well against us either so that brings it down to 5 teams left to upset us in the playoffs. That leaves the Redskins, Bears, Panthers, Saints, Bucks.

Also looking at the data it looks like the re-building years come in twos. I know what you are saying, then why did you make the playoffs this year if it should be a re-building year following a 6-10 season. I will tell you, we were so bad last year that it was enough shame to account for two years which helped the rebuilding to show its effects in the middle of this season.

What is my point you may ask? Here it is, the Green Bay Packers are in the Super Bowl in the next 7 seasons.

Playoff picture

Here is an outline of how it "could" work.

2010 Lose to the Saints.

2011 Lose to Panthers

2012 Lose to the Bears. (this will be a tough year but the Mayans predicted it)

2013 No playoffs

2014 No playoffs

2015 Lose to the Redskins.

2016 Lose to the Lions. (This will be the first time the lions have a season above .500)

2017 I have no idea what will be keeping GB from the Super Bowl. We still have 15 teams getting in line to beat us there but I feel confident that the Raiders wont be one of them so lets make it 14 more losses in the SB.

Note that this does not account for any expansion in the league, (more teams in the NFC).

Maybe I should be looking ahead to the draft, or free agency but I just cant seem to help my self.

Book List.

When one travels the world there is a bunch of time to sit around and do nothing. It can be in the shade, sun, train, airport, beach, mountain top, or the comforts of your hostel. One must fill this time with something other than daydreaming/napping. And when the batteries of the PSP run out one must turn to literature. So here is my reading list for the last 3 months. Normally I only read 2 books a year but there was a time in India where I was reading one per day. On this trip I have had a limited access to reading material so some of these I read because there wasn't anything else to read.

Vince Flynn

They were ok.... more of the same it seemed.

Cussler.

Thank goodness he didn't write it. Then it would have been really bad.... like this one

He must have had something to do with this book, I can't recommend it.

Vanessa happed to steal it from a Hostel in India and we both enjoyed it. You will love it if you enjoy upper crust British wit. Almost like a Hue Grant style of humor, but better.

Wodehouse has a writing style like none other. Very funny. Not sure all of you will like it, but the book is at my parents house if you want to borrow it.

The book I had my expectations set on that turned out to be a MAJOR disappointment was

Bought it in India, the paper was so thin that could could see type on the other side! And it was just boring. Had one nice twist at the end, but then it drug on worse than "The Return of The King". And another thing..... you know how there is the one question that is poised at the beginning of the book and then only answered at then end? Well when you figure out the answer by the 3rd page it make the book feel like a wast of time. By far Browns worst book.

I always wanted to read some of the Master and Comander" books after watching the movie. So I found the first one (there are 21 of them)

I do like it, it is VERY technical and you learn terminology as you go. Also there are many words and expressions I have never seen or heard of, but I did enjoy and plan on reading more. Not sure who would have the patience wade through them but seeing how they might make another movie I want to be prepared.

Here is the true gem that I have uncovered, for all of you guys who miss Jack Ryan novels this wont quite cut it, but it comes close. John Birmingham has created a what if time travel book about WWII. There are 3 editions, that follow this timeline. It is great because it makes you think in the "what if?" mode. Birmingham takes you to new places with Hitler showing anger toward Microsoft products. He just creates situations you never would have thought of.

The first book is a bit slow in parts and can be confusing, you really want them to just get to the fight but they have to sort out a bunch of things. But I did enjoy it.

The second book is better, and just when you think they have the Axis powers on lock down think again.

I have not read the 3rd one so I have no idea how it ends but overall I would recommend it to anyone who wants a good war novel and like Tarantino doesn't mind messing with history.

So that is like 9 books, I wont have to read another book for like 4 years:)

Playoffs? You want to talk about Playoffs?

Well that time of year is here again and for the first time I will publicly make my predictions.

WEEK 1

Packer @ Cardinals

Philadelphia @ Dallas

Jets @ Bengals

Baltimore @ New England

Since 3 of these games were played last week it makes it hard to pick the winners, so I will make it easy on myself, the teams in GREEN all get the win. Packers, Phli and the Jets all get the win. So were does that leave the 4th set of teams that have no green in their uniform? Ah but they do the Patriots have Jarvis Green and BenJarvus Green-Ellis (this was news to me that there were two) so I am going to go with them for the win. Also due to the fact that everyone hates Bill B but he seems to succeed anyway.

Week two

IFFFFF I am anywhere close to being right week two will look something like this..

GB @MIN

PHI@NO

NYJ@IND

NE@SD

I cant help but want to see the Pack steal a playoff win against MN. It will be even sweeter if you can remember the 2004 season when we swept them and then lost to them in the playoffs, what will make it funny is BF will be on the losing side both times. And in my best Daniel Day-Lewis impersonation... "There will be TEARS!!!!" .... you know how BF ends a season, remember that one time in CA, Daniel you held my hand after the Bears game? It will be like that but way worse than the Giants game because of the treachery involved.

Ok on to my next pick, after resting the last 4 weeks or so, both the #1 seeds advance, Saints and Colts are still that good.

New England and San Diego, this is by far the second best matchup of the week but only because of the NFC North matchup. Watching these two teams play is what the playoffs is all about. This year I will give SD win, but that doesn't mean there wont be a fight...... or two also New England might but up a fight to win the game but they will be missing Welker too much.

WEEK 3

GB @ NO

SD@IND

How can I not pick the Packers? But remembering the way Drew lit us up last year.... I will say that if our secondary poops out on us we are toast. If we can pay decent D, we could be in the Super Bowl.

Hmm..... Colts flop now or in the big game, lets say........ now

Week 4

Pro-bowl

NFC@AFC

Green Bay players don't show up because MM has decided to start running the Wildcat and Jordy needs time to work on his throwing motion.

Week 5

Super Bowl

GB@SD The week before the game the Chargers team tests positive for beaver tranquilizers and Roger G decides to replace them with the Denver Broncos. Brandon Marshal is still benched and Terrell Davis is brought back for good luck, but this time the Packers #1 rated rush D is able to handle TD and cruises to its 13th title. Or we can just beat the chargers as well.

Anyone have a problem with this?

First-Annual-Post-Regular-Season-in-Review-Blog

Before the season started these were my picks for the Packers, lets see how I did. (black is my initial post red* is the post-regular-season comments) I also thought I should give myself points for every correct pick, and then additional points if my comments were appropriate. (These will be in green**)

Bears-Win. Season opener and a big welcome to the NFC north for Cutler. Both Aaron's destroy da'bears.
Got this one right, though it was a nail biter. +1
Bengal’s- Win
Wrong, it was a shocker everyone, but now looking back on it with the Bengals in the playoffs I don't feel so bad. It was still a win-able game though.
Rams- Win
If I was wrong about this one I am not sure I would be to embarrassed to do post season analysis. +1
Vik-Queens-Win. Should win this game, 4 or no 4.
Well we didn't, what can you do. At the time it was enough to flee the country in the days that followed but I knew we would lose one of the two games.
BYE - We wont lose.
I was not wrong. Not sure I should give my self a point here...
Lions- Should be an easy win.
And it was. (Don't even remember watching hi-lights of this game) Easy win = shutout +2
Browns-Win. We are playing them in the pre-season, so they might know the tendencies of our 2nd string.
And from what I could tell they dominated our 2nd string, only problem was that we never let them on the field. +1
Vik-queens-Loss. I am going to go with a loss here. I predict that we split the season.
This was the loss I predicted, but paired with week 4 it was a little more than I could take. +1
Bucks- Win. Tampa has to many new players to last the season.
This was the one I didn't see coming, I knew Tampa was going to be bad, but I didn't see them as a winless team at this point in the season. I thought they might have a bit of a D so I even drafted them as a FF D which I took alot of flack for opening week. It turned out that I was wrong twice, yes they were that bad, no we couldn't even beat them.
Boys- Win. Without Owens, Romo is struggling to find a primary receiver while Clay shuts down Witten. Now I know history does not prove this pick, but we have to beat them someday so why not now?
History was not on my side but I went out on faith and was rewarded. Clay was named NFL Rookie of the Week for this game so I think I deserve a +2
49er's- Win. Al and Nick do double duty on Crabtree, the 34 shuts down Gore.
I was painting a house this day and when no one was looking I kept going to my PSP to check the score. Though I have to say the Niners are a much better team than I predicted. +1
Lions - Win. Thanksgiving Massacre part II (or as we like to say "the duce")
Shouldn't get credit for picking this right but I will take it. +1
Ravens- Loss. We might not come out of this alive even with the extra prep days. Flynn sees playing time when Suggs sacks Rogers.
What can I say, I love to be wrong. Glad Flynn didn't see very much playing.
Bears- Loss. Might not pull this off this late in the year. We split with the Bears even tough we keep Cutler in check. Low scoring
Wrong again, 21-14 could be considered low scoring when our average was 28.3(?or something)
Steelers- Loss (Had it in as a win but ment for it to be a loss, thanks to loyal readers for spotting the error) If we have a healthy running game we can win it.
Like my blog it was listed as a win and then at the last min turned into a loss. Think I could take an extra point here but I am not greedy. +1
SeaHawlks- Win. A good way to stop our loosing streak.
Well I was right about that even if our loosing streak was only one game. I will be greedy here +2
Cardinals- Win. We beat the Birds to clinch our play-off spot.
Well I was right that we would win but we already had the play-off spot. I was right about the play-offs +2
So this looks like 12-4. Do I think we can do this, yes. Will we. Most likely not, I will say maybe, 11-5 to be safe, but that should be enough to make the playoffs, if not the division. Well I was close, maybe showing a bit of my green and gold blood when I said 12-4 but who thought we would have lost to Tampa? I am going to take a few bonus points here because I did say 11-5 at the end of the blog which was spot on, also we did make the play-offs but no division win and since 11-5 teams should make the play-offs I will only give my self +1.

So what score do I give myself on my first annual post-regular-season-in-review-blog? 16 points, out of well I suppose 32 (one point for a correct pick one for spot on comments) would be the maximum score.... Well there is room to improve. I did pick 11/16 games before the season started so I don't feel too bad about that.

Stay tuned for a look into post season like only a self exiled Packer fan in New Zealand can give it.

* and ** The colors red and green were picked at random and were in no way intended to be in keeping with a any holiday decorative tradition.

Wild Thing

Where the Wild things are is exactaly what you expect it to be. Dosen't dissapoint, but dosen't impress. Comes off a bid sad, but I still liked it.

Yes to the Pack getting on a role.

No to the running game not taking over.

Yes to the O line, seemed like rogers had a bit of time against a first rate D.

Love you guys.

Priorites.

When checking the web overseas, here they are.

Fantasy Football
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Hotmail

Is it bad that I don't expect much from Hotmail?
Just a thought.