Peter King's MMQB-Brett

[net]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/peter_king/10/10/mmqb.week5/index.html

I tried the icon thing and it didn't work for me..just roll over the blank space above. Article is fairly long.

 

[DePack]

Peter King loves Green Bay in general and Brett specifically. He has great taste. I'm not sure the people in Green Bay realize how great an experience it is to witness a Packer game. People who come in from out of town are amazed at the atmosphere. I'm not talking about diehard Packer fans like myself. I know a ton of eagle fans that are dieing to visit Lambeau. Some have been there and rave about the people and experience. I keep telling them they may get their chance when the eagles finish 11-5, get the first wild card and visit the 7-9 divisional champion Packers in the playoffs.

 

[Obi1]

Peter King loves Green Bay in general and Brett specifically. He has great taste. I'm not sure the people in Green Bay realize how great an experience it is to witness a Packer game. People who come in from out of town are amazed at the atmosphere. I'm not talking about diehard Packer fans like myself. I know a ton of eagle fans that are dieing to visit Lambeau. Some have been there and rave about the people and experience. I keep telling them they may get their chance when the eagles finish 11-5, get the first wild card and visit the 7-9 divisional champion Packers in the playoffs.

Packers 12-4 superbowl!

Defense will be strong rest of the way... Offense is Beginning to jell even without Walker, Green, and the Oliners

 

[CaliforniaCheez]

Peter King got in without having to wait for tickets.

Phil Simms who rarely gets to go to Green Bay loved it when CBS was there. He said people were polite after a loss and even nice. He said other places he has had beer thrown at him when the home team wins. He almost always he encounters people who snarl at him.

Madden always is impressed.

Tickets to a game at Lambeau are extremely valuable. The experience great.

You just don't have that at say the Metrodome. Filthydelphia has a court and jail with judge present for games. Oakland should have a jail but you have to find cops brave enough to man it.

It won't be Green Bay where the incident occurs that will mandate metal detectors at the gates. Eventually you will see systems where all persons entering the stadium will be photographed.

Enjoy it while you can.

 

[IPBprez]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/peter_king/10/10/mmqb.week5/index.html

I tried the icon thing and it didn't work for me..just roll over the blank space above. Article is fairly long.

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GREEN BAY, Wis. -- I smell football.

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The Packers' Brett Favre threw three TDs
in a 52-3 rout of the Saints on Sunday.

Just as the combination of Fenway Franks, stale beer, grass and a combination of infield clay and other dirt means baseball to me, the smell of an October morning in Green Bay means football.

It's 8:15 on a nearly crystal-clear morning in northeast Wisconsin. I walk out of the Marriott Residence Inn and it hits me: perfect fall crispness, the first morning of visible breath escaping the mouth and the faint scent of paper-mill in the air. I think I've covered 34 games at Lambeau Field in my 22 years as an NFL writer. It's the place I'm probably most familiar with, other than my hometown Meadowlands, and to me, it's football.

In the parking lot of the hotel, I look two miles to the west. Lambeau. The only thing in the way of a perfect view is the Georgia-Pacific smokestack. Thus the paper-mill scent. Not overpowering. Just there.

At Lambeau, I do a lap of the parking lot. More smells of football. Coals burning, brats cooking, diesel belching. Crisp air as the overlay. And when the game starts, I feel football. It's just a great place. So much of this game is money-tinged. It's so good to come here and feel the game the way it's meant to be. "I will never play anywhere else,'' Brett Favre says.

I came here honestly expecting to be writing about the twilight of Favre's career, which of course we're into. The man turns 36 today. But in the column I wrote for this week's Sports Illustrated, he addresses his short-term fate (no, there's no news about when he'll quit), and wonders if he still has it and if he can be the man to turn this team around. I'll let you read that after work on Thursday, or whenever the magazine gets to your mailbox.

For today, what really interested me out of the Pack's 52-3 win over the Saints was Favre's dynamic with Robert Ferguson. You may have seen what happened in the Monday night game a week ago. In the second quarter, trailing 16-7 and with the ball at the Carolina 29, Ferguson ran a post from the left side of the formation. He got his shoulder inside cornerback Ken Lucas, and Favre hit him in stride at the Panthers 21. But Lucas got his hands into Ferguson's midsection and wrestled the ball away, sprinting downfield with it. Two plays later the Panthers scored a touchdown. Instead of Green Bay maybe finishing the drive and going down 16-14 heading into halftime, Carolina now held a 23-7 lead. And so the ABC cameras followed Favre to the sidelines. They caught him barking at Ferguson. It looked like he said, "You gotta catch that ball!''

"When I got to the locker room after the game,'' Ferguson said, "I had like 30 messages from friends asking me, 'What's wrong with you and Favre?' That's when I knew TV made a big deal of it.'' "Look,'' Favre told me on Saturday, "I'm not an ***-chewer. I said to him, 'That's your ball, Fergy! You're strong! That's gotta be your ball.' The way things had been going for us, that's the kind of play that can make the difference in a game.''

Final: Carolina 32, Green Bay 29.

After four games, all losses, there were only two wide receivers left of the four whom Favre had counted on exiting camp. Javon Walker and rookie Terrence Murphy were on IR after knee and neck injuries. Now it was down to Donald Driver and Ferguson. "If I don't trust Fergy,'' Favre said, "who's left? Donald? You can't play with one guy.''

"I never felt like he lost confidence in me,'' Ferguson said after Green Bay's rout of New Orleans on Sunday. "I never lost confidence in myself, even though everyone outside of here was making a big deal of that one play. It's a play I gotta make, but it didn't kill me.''

In practice last week, Ferguson said Favre threw to him more than in any week since he'd joined the team in 2001. And on Sunday, midway through the second quarter, with the ball at the Saints' 25, Favre sent Ferguson deep on a post route, with safety Josh Bullocks shadowing him closely. "Usually Brett will throw that ball with lots of air under it,'' said Ferguson. "This is the first time, I think ever, he threw it like a bullet. I was surprised. I was surprised he even tried to throw it in there, because there really was no space. The guy [Bullocks] was right on me.''

Favre rolled to the left. Now, there's been much made about him knowing he has to play a little differently now because his team has to play mistake-free football to win. (Except against the Surrendering Saints, of course.) And so Favre threw a laser, but to a spot only his guy could make the play. Perfect throw. Touchdown. Euphoria. The locker room can be a delicate place sometimes. Friends and family are wondering why Favre would light up Ferguson on national TV. And so I asked Ferguson after the game: "You OK with Favre now?'' "Oh yeah,'' he said. "He did what leaders do. It's not always going to be nice on a team. We're here to win. When you don't make a play, like you're supposed to do, a leader has to let you know it's not acceptable. I knew that.''

Favre is 36 now. Twice since 1997 he's had back-to-back games with seven touchdown passes or more. He's on one of those streaks right now. Just when you think the guy's ready to go down the tubes, he's back, playing like it's 1997.

THE FINE FIFTEEN
This week's top 15 teams in the NFL:

1. Indianapolis (5-0). Was that a bit of saliva I saw dripping from Dwight Freeney's facemask as he looked across the line at Alex Smith, the 21-year-old kid making his first NFL start in San Francisco?

2. San Diego (2-2). If the Chargers play tonight like the Padres played against the Cardinals, the final score will be Pittsburgh 98, San Diego 3.

3. Philadelphia (3-2). Donovan McNabb will go to Arizona and rest during his Eagles' bye week. Maybe he can find a cure for his bad first halves.

4. Denver (4-1). We are all seeking wisdom, Mike Shanahan. Please explain getting blown out at Miami a month ago.

5. New England (3-2). Is Adam Vinatieri of this world?

6. Tampa Bay (4-1). Don't take it too hard, Grude-dog. But I would be worried about your quarterback's inability to make plays.

7. Cincinnati (4-1). I resist the temptation to say, "Same old Bengals," because I don't think they are.

8. Dallas (3-2). The Cowboys fired a warning shot across the bow of the NFC East Sunday. That's one heck of a win.

9. Atlanta (3-2). Am I the only one wondering if the money Rich McKay spent on Mike Vick is going to come back to haunt the Falcons? I wonder if he'll be healthy enough to earn it.

10. Pittsburgh (2-1). I know Jerome Bettis and Duce Staley are ready to roll. I also know I would still give the majority of the carries to Fast Willie Parker on the old sod of San Diego tonight.

11. (tie)Washington (3-1). It doesn't get any easier, men of Gibbs. You're at the airplane hangar known as Arrowhead Sunday as your Magical Mystery Tour of the AFC West continues.

11. (tie) New York Giants (3-1). You pick which one's better. I can't.

13. Carolina (3-2). Wins are wins. But the Panthers had to hang on to beat the Pack at home and to earn a victory at Arizona. That might concern me if I had Super Bowl aspirations.

14. Jacksonville (3-2). Nice win. Very nice. Still don't know what to make of this team, except that it will hit you very ******* defense.

15. Seattle (3-2). The Seahawks won one of those last-team-with-the-ball-wins games. Pretty significant that it came against the Rams, who've tormented the Seahawks recently.

THE AWARD SECTION

Offensive Player of the Week

Tennessee RB Jarrett Payton, who scored the family's first NFL touchdown since 1987 in the Titans rout of the Texans. A free agent from the University of Miami who excelled in NFL Europe last spring, Payton's five-yard scamper up the middle broke open a 10-9 game. For the day, the relief pitcher for Travis Henry (Payton was activated when Henry received a four-game substance abuse suspension) had eight carries for 11 yards. He'll have to do better to have a future in this league, but how great is it that he scored in the clutch with a game on the line?

Defensive Player of the Week

Green Bay CB Al Harris, whose two first-half interceptions -- one returned for a touchdown -- propelled the Packers to a 35-3 lead and a rout of the Saints. A potential third pick floated right through his hands and off his right knee in the fourth quarter.

Special Teams Player of the Week

Atlanta K Michael Koenen. OK, I admit it. Never heard of him. Had no idea he existed before he kicked a 58-yarder. He's from Western Washington, where, apparently, he learned how to kick a football pretty far. With one second left before halftime of the Patriots' 31-28 win over the Falcons, he nailed the longest field goal of the season, about three feet inside the right upright.

Coach of the Week

Green Bay offensive line coach Larry Beightol. I believe "embattled" is his new first name. But one of the best position coaches in the NFL had a heck of a week. He had to continue the force-feeding of two new starting guards and a new center (due to free-agency and injury), plan a move of career right tackle Mark Tauscher to left tackle because of an injury to Chad Clifton, cancel the plan when Clifton showed up ready to play Sunday, and do it all while preparing on a short week. Green Bay's game plan was quite simple because of the new parts, and Beightol made sure Brett Favre was well-protected. Favre didn't get sacked all day in the Pack's 52-3 win.

Goat of the Week

New Orleans QB Aaron Brooks. How much longer do the Saints give this human turnover the reins? I know he throws for 3,500 yards every year, and I know he seduces fans with his arm and legs, but he just makes too many dumb plays to be a winning quarterback in this league. Throwing two first-half picks, both to Harris, doomed his team's chances on Sunday at Lambeau. It wasn't just that he threw the picks. It was how Brooks threw them, especially the first one: staring down his receiver -- in this case, Donte' Stallworth -- and enabling Harris to recover, step in front of Stallworth and run it back 22 yards for a touchdown.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"It sent chills through me. I wish I could express to them how much it meant to me, but all I could do was stick my hand in the air. I had goosebumps all over me. It couldn't have gone down any better than this."

-- Vinny Testaverde, the 41-year-old Jets quarterback, on the ovation he got from fans at the Meadowlands after they rallied to beat Tampa Bay 14-12. He came out of retirement to give the moribund Jets a chance, which they now have.

FACTOID THAT MAY INTEREST ONLY ME
(and us, Pete, ol boy - IPBprez)

This is the kind of place Green Bay is:

When Deanna Favre began campaigning against breast cancer, the Packers started selling pink hats with the Packers logo, with $5 from every sale going to breast cancer research. As of last weekend, 145,000 of the hats had been sold; and a club official told me he thought 200,000 would be sold by year's end through the Packer Pro Shop. If that happens, the campaign will have raised $1 million for cancer research.

And when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, locals began collecting supplies to send southward. To date, 70 semis have been filled with stuff from the community. "Incredible,'' Favre told me. "Everything's been contributed, even $15,000 generators that can light up two houses.'' Some $600,000 has been contributed to the Brett Favre Fourward Foundation at the Nicolet National Bank in Green Bay, and the Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour, told Favre a couple of weeks ago he may be able to get matching funds of as much as nine times the amount raised by the foundation, the majority of which is expected to be used to help families with no flood insurance in Mississippi.

AGGRAVATING/ENJOYABLE TRAVEL NOTE OF THE WEEK

There is nothing enjoyable about traveling by air these days. Nothing. Maybe I'm just on a bad streak. But it is patently absurd that a little rain makes the Eastern Seaboard go belly-up and closes runways and makes airports around the country cancel flights in the New York area. I don't even know who to rip here. I simply give a naïve but plaintive cry: Fix the system of traveling when weather isn't perfect, please.

STAT OF THE WEEK

The first Green Bay rushing touchdown in 2005 came on Sunday, in Week 5, 252 minutes into the Packers season.

The first Green Bay rushing touchdown in 2004 came in Week 1, 27 minutes into the season.

===========================

Gotcha covered, Net!

 

[HatestheEagles084]

Packers 12-4 superbowl!

Defense will be strong rest of the way... Offense is Beginning to jell even without Walker, Green, and the Oliners

not so fast my friend, there are a lot of good teams on our schedule, a lot of tough road trips. this isn't going to be like coming back from 1-4 last year, HOWEVER, this division sucks. We could just as easily run the table in our last five division games and pull a 9-7 and host at lambeau round one.

I'm confident that our defense will hold tough. Everything came together last Sunday, TURNOVERS!!! but how many injuries is too many for the offense--we look a lot like carolina did toward the end of last year...its gonna take a lot of heart and also effort from our bench/practice squad to pull this out.