Sunday afternoon and a Packer game on. This is more like it—though rather stressful at the same time. It’s easier to watch a game and not having a rooting interest until night time (or at all for the week!). Of course if it’s at night, then EVERYONE gets to watch and if your team “epic fails,” well, that sucks. So here are the thoughts:
1) Nothing says fun like starting with a bootleg! Good throw, incomplete—dropped. Two plays later Cincy helps things out with a pass interence call and we learned today’s ref is the ref you never want to mess with, Milwaukee’s own attorney—Ed Hochuli!
2) Two drops in the opening drive. Not good. Offensive line looks a bit better—and man Rodgers move around if he needs to!
3) Remember when Cedric Benson was a star at Texas? And he went 4th overall in 2005? It looks like that version has finally decided to come play in the NFL. THREE 12 yard carries in one drive. Touchdown Bengals as Charles Woodson is terribly beaten by Laveranues Coles; Al Harris is called for illegal hands to the face—surprise, surprise, Al Harris with a penalty.
4) The Green Bay from last week shows up; good running game, great throws by Rodgers and Charles Woodson with a pick—suddenly GB is up 14-7.Oh great, it’s back to piss poor special teams play. A 60-yard punt return. Can you say “easy TD” for the ensuing drive? I knew that you could!
5)Aaron Rodgers has a “Brett Favre moment,” being nailed on a blindside sack and loses the ball. GB recovers but—eh—fail drive. At least Quan Cosby only gets 6 yards on the next return.
6) But it’s all okay as Charles Woodson returns a pick for a TD after a huge sack by Cullen Jenkins! Charles Woodson does indeed=Pick 6!
7) Cincy starts to shoot itself in the foot. First a stupid penalty on a big carry by Benson, then a sack allowed, then a five yard delay of game. Sets up 3rd and 34 deep in their own territory. Now, following the 2003 season in the playoffs, Green Bay had the Philadelphia Eagles set up in a 4th and 26. Philly had to go for it since they were trailing by a field goal. I don’t know what happened or why Darren Sharper was playing way, way back—but Freddie Mitchell makes a catch, Philly gets their FG, winds up winning the game. But this is 3rd and 34. Carson Palmer finds an open Daniel Coats and he rumbles—wide open field!—for huge yardage. CULLEN JENKINS WITH A FUMBLE CAUSED! NOOOOO!!! It’s recovered by Coles—13 further yards downfield! FIRST DOWN CINCY!!???
8 ) …..
9) …..
10) 3rd and 34 and that’s what happens.
11) …..
12) Defense softens up and Palmer has a heyday finding open receivers. Al Harris continues to make himself a favorite of mine with a roughing the passer penalty—never mind the fact Cincy is called for it’s second holding penalty of the drive on the next play. Chris Henry wide open in the back of the endzone, touchdown. Thanks. 21-21 at the half.
13) Blocking is starting to suck but Rodgers is going all over the place to avoid sacks. There’s no run defense at all—and it’s not missed tackles, it’s just great blocking. At least Charles Woodson came to play.
14) Decent start to the 2nd half before Ryan Grant takes a shot and fumbles.
15) Cedric Benson runs for a 2 yard LOSS! LAWLZ, ZOMG!!1!
16) Cincy decides to commit yet another penalty. Hey guys, seriously? Can we please stop committing fouls? I mean, I like the free yardage and all, but I kinda like watching the game being played too.
17) “False start, the entire offensive line, 5 yard penalty…” Quote of the whole day—thank you Ed Hochuli! Legit Lawlz!
18) It was a simple 3rd and 34 from the Cincy 7 and they..erg. …….
19) Touchdown Chad Ochocinco! Will he leap? He sees a flag, it’s on GB. He searches and searches—then finds some welcoming Bengals fans and a handful of Packer fans willing to take him in. Up he goes! Dude in the crowd flips off the camera in the process. Awesome? You be the judge.
20) Okay, this is getting disgusting. Antwan Odom is having a field day. “He’s going to be in Hawaii if he keeps this up” says Rich Gannon. He picks up his 4th sack of the day. Of the day. Well done. Runner up for quote of the day, courtesy of Ian Eagle, “Rodgers gets ANNIHILATED!!” Indeed, he was. Once again, a sack kills a drive. The dude can only scramble so much, line.
21) Incomplete pass with Al Harris on the coveage. No penalty on Mr. Harris? Well, dang… Two plays later, the epitome of the run defense came to life. Cullen Jenkins and Brady Poppinga both dive at Cedric’s legs just behind the line of scrimmage. Both whiff. AJ Hawk tries for the same strategy—whiff. Charles Woodson, same strategy—whiff. Fourteen yards later it’s a Bengals first down. Luckily Benson stinks the next two times he gets the ball.
22) It was 34 yards away. That’s pretty easy to stop even with a fumble forward? …..
23) Good heavens. Okay, this is getting disgusting yet at the same time hilarious. Antwan Odom now has 5 sacks today. Rodgers steps up to avoid a blitzing corner, and gets mauled. “He’s going to be in Hawaii if he keeps this up!” Yes, Rich, we know. You just said that.
24) This is the 3rd time Darryn Colledge has been beaten today by Odom. Yes, Colledge is hurt and yes, he’s playing left tackle because Chad Clifton was hurt earlier, but holy heaven.
25) We’re deep, deep into the 4th quarter—Benson fumbles! But the Bengals recover. Nothing happens except Shayne Graham’s first FG attempt of the season. It’s good. Cincy 31, GB 21. I think we’re done here.
26) Huh, Roy Williams (the safety) is with the Bengals. I forgot about that. He’s still delivering big hits, if you Cowboy fans care.
27) GB makes progress and we’re at about a minute left. First down at the the Cincy 24. Out comes the field goal unit. You need a field goal and a TD—but I’d give personally give priority to the TD. FG is good so I guess it doesn’t matter.
28) Onside kick takes a beautiful bounce between Cincinnati players, no Bengal around the ball and Tramon Williams picks it up. We have hope!
29)Two badly thrown deep balls—keep in mind GB is out of timeouts. Finley finally catches one and goes out of bounds at the 32. “The last thing you want is a ball over the middle” says the ex-QB Gannon.
30) Ball over the middle (terrific!), caught by the star receiver of the day, Donald Driver and he gets to the 10. MOVE YOUR BUTTS! 5…4…3…2…1…ball snapped, BUT. Oh noez, not enough players on the line of scrimmage because of the deep pass and having to hurry upfield. “Ten second runoff” rule and we’re done here. *Sad Panda* Final score—Cincinnati 31, Green Bay 24
It seems Cincinnati enjoys committing penalties, but Green Bay didn’t do much better. Rushing sided with Cincy, passing with Green Bay.
Goods: Rodgers again didn’t do so bad. Not as bad as it may have seemed. Yes, there were a few miscommunications with route running but most passes were on target.
–Charles Woodson played well. Aaron Kampman showed he can kind of play pass coverage.
–No BJ Raji, still out with the injured ankle. I don’t blame them for holding him out since he’s the first round pick and they don’t want to make the injury worse, but that’s not why this is “good” for me. Rather, his being held out meant I didn’t have to watch him play. The less that happens, the better.
Bads: Run defense sucked. No one could beat a blocker. It wasn’t ALL missed tackles though they played a big part.
–3rd and 34.
–Pass rush was almost non-existent. This goes towards Cincinnati’s offensive line—they were awesome all afternoon.
–Offensive line sucked. Rodgers, again, did well for what he could; but when you’re getting sacked six times and being hurried another 10 there really isn’t much to do.
–Mike McCarthy turned into himself from the NFC Championship game against the Giants following the 2007 season. He turned off the run in the second half. Between Rodgers and Grant, there were a combined six (6!!) runs. Grant was handed off to just three times, Rodgers HAD to run 3 times on his own to avoid sacks seven, eight and nine.
–Receivers: Too many drops. Two on the first possession alone and at the very least four all day. Reminiscent to last year’s preseason where Rodgers was making throws and everyone dropped everything. Oh yeah, if you had Greg Jennings in your fantasy football league, I’m sure you enjoyed the 0 catches.
I have a Pick’Em league going with a few other writers on this site. I was one of two in the thing to pick Cincy (remember, I said in the preview GB would probably goof up against Cincy), so +10 pick points. And with all this, it was time to go get a root canal. Seriously. At least now I can legitimately use the phrase “(fill in the blank) is as bad as getting a root canal.” For the record, it didn’t hurt and even when the novocaine wore off I still didn’t feel any true pain, just an annoying soreness.
