No Time For Whining About Officiating

Not too long ago, I used to mock the Vikings and Viking fans who would wail and gnash their teeth over some call that was made during their game against the Packers that "caused them to lose". Oh, certainly, there always seemed to be some questionable calls in some of those games, both ways, but listening to those cries from across the river always bugged me. It didn't come down to one call or one play...you had an entire game to assert yourself and make the big plays that would assure a win, and you didn't. Quit acting like you needed one call from the officials in order to win.

After yesterday's game, I am irritated that there are many media types and fans (and possibly some Packers) pointing a finger at the phantom holding penalty called on Tony Moll late in the game that, in their minds, put us in a position to lose the game.

News flash: the Packers are the defending division champs, and just a play away from the Super Bowl last season. The Houston Texans are, well, the Houston Texans. Eternal expansion ne'er-do-wells who can just never seem to get out of the bottom half of their own division. They came to our own field with a 5-7 record and a quarterback who was on a month's hiatus.

The Packers lost that game. I'm glad to see that most of the coaches and players are seeing it as such, and not getting worked up about one call, no matter how critical it was at the time. Both coach Mike McCarthy and OL coach James Campen have come out and stated it was a bad call, though.

“He did exactly what he was taught to do,” McCarthy said.

Added Campen: “I think he blocked it well, yes.”

But, that call didn't lose the game for the Packers. We needed to do better than one-out-of-ten in third down conversions. We needed to not allow Steve Slaton 160 all-purpose yards. We need to make a fourth quarter stop.

If you watched that game closely, the refs were making some pretty ticky tack calls all game, with commentator Steve Tasker insisting they will "call that every time". Truth is, another set of refs may not have called that hold on Moll or the other calls, both ways. However, they were pretty consistent the entire game.

At home, in the cold, in front of a very supportive crowd, and against a team that by every measure the Green Bay Packers should consider a team they should beat, they played well enough to simply not win.

It was far deeper than one holding call, no matter the timing or the situation. This team has relied on big plays all season to pull them out of holes. You can't keep waiting until the fourth quarter for a big play to put the other team away, especially when your defense appears willing to allow them the big play first.

Vandermause: Still Playing The Sherman Card

Don't you hate it when you choose to unabashedly and publicly support someone, then find yourself having to make excuses for them when they don't come out as glowing as you made them out to be?

Yeah, I've been there, too.

But Mike Vandermause of the Green Bay Press-Gazette has consistently taken such a pro-Ted Thompson stance in his writing over the past year or so that you've started to wonder if the sports editor is gunning for a ghost writer book deal from the GM.

Going back over his articles, everything has been glowingly Thompson, fawning over Aaron Rodgers, and damning of anything to do with Brett Favre. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I've been critical of any member of the media who takes such a blatant bias, from Chris Havel's worship of Brett Favre to Vandermause's torch-bearing for Thompson. It's the media's job to report the news, not shape it for us.

Today, to be expected, Vandermause tried to spin the release of punter Derrick Frost to present Ted in the best light possible, perhaps as just a victim of circumstance, a warrior trying valiently to figure out the rubiks cube that is the punting position in the NFL.

Of course, doing what Thompson Supporters have been doing ever since he came on the scene: comparing anything he does to Mike Sherman.

What is it about Green Bay Packers general managers and their boneheaded decisions regarding punters?

Mike Sherman wasted third- and fifth-round draft choices on B.J. Sander in 2004.

It’s bad enough Sherman squandered a third-round draft choice to select Sander, who wasn’t rated nearly that high. But Sherman inexplicably traded up to get him, meaning he flushed a fifth-round draft choice down the drain in the process.

Sander was a bust, spending one season languishing on the inactive list before suffering through a forgettable 14-game career (39.2 gross average, 33.9 net) in 2005.

Thompson’s attempt to improve his team blew up in his face. If it’s any consolation, he’s not the only Packers general manager to screw up on a punter.

The Sherman card has been played and played so often the past several years. No matter how questionable a draft Thompson has, it's always been better than Sherman's. If Thompson goes an offseason without a significant free agent signing, people bring up names like Joe Johnson to show how bad free agents can be. Justin Harrell?? I give you Jamal Reynolds. Ha.

However, over 80% of Sherman's Packers have been "upgraded" since Thompson took over. Ted is in his fourth year as general manager and the "Wait and See" period is officially over. After a 13-3 record last year and the purge of quarterback Brett Favre this offseason, this team is inexorably Ted Thompson's, and Ted Thompson's alone.

The decision to take a known and valuable quantity like Jon Ryan and cut him in the final cutdown for a player you've never actually seen in your own practice field was a highly questionable call when it was made, and went downhill from there fast.

Ted Thompson and the coaches should take accountability for this move, and in a sense, they have by (finally) cutting Frost as the season appears to be in dire straits. Or, they may be starting to make some desperate moves as criticism starts piling up.

Mind you, I have never...ever...booed at a Packer game, but I was astounded at the volume of the round of boos Frost received after his first punt against the Panthers.

I liked Jon Ryan. Yes, he shanked or line-drived one punt a game, but he could always be counted on to boom one or two of those 50+ yarders, too. Some say that Ryan's poor showing in cold weather games and inability to directional punt was the reason for his ouster. No way...if you're going to judge Ryan harshly in his games against the Bears and Giants last year, you can put him on a pretty long list of players who came in unprepared.

Yes, Ryan did fade the last three games the Packers played in 2007, but certainly had given little reason to doubt this preseason, when he had kicked for a 48 yard average with seven inside the 20 out of 23 attempts. No, he wasn't the next Ray Guy, but he hadn't punted so poorly that you should have been willing to ship him out for a commodity untested in Green and Gold.

You pick up final cutdown waiver wire scrubs for your third running back, or your fifth linebacker...not your punter, who you depend on for field position.

Thompson took a risk, and the Packers have paid for it.

And, Vandermause offers us this picture and caption in today's article: B.J. Sander wasn't the answer to the Packers' punting woes, even though they used a third-round draft pick to get him.

Why?!

Is the fact that Mike Sherman made a bad decision in the draft four years ago supposed to be some sort of excuse for Thompson, a reminder that perhaps the Ryan/Frost deal was bad, but not as bad as what Mike Sherman did!

Vandermause has certainly painted himself in a corner with his effusive praise for all things Thompson. This article goes a long way in painting Mike Vandermause as little more than a Thompson Apologist.

In Thompson's defense, I have always been amazed that out of a world population of over 7 billion people, the NFL can never find 32 people to do what appears to be a simple job of catching a football and kicking it 50 yards away, taking up five seconds or more in the process.

But, let's call a spade a spade. Thompson made a questionable decision in letting go a punter that had been pretty spot on for two years, and paid for it in picking up a castoff that he hoped might be better. It ended up being the wrong decision, one that has cost the Packers precious field position in many close losses.

The time for playing the Sherman card is long gone. Vandermause should know better than to think that Sherman can continue to be some sort of measuring stick for last year's GM of the Year.

TundraFutureVision: Woodson Starts at Safety

Well, it seems not so long ago that I made the call for Al Harris to be moved back to safety. I didn't have a lot of faith in our stable of strong-safety-types we had back there, and thought that Harris was losing a step at cornerback. Long before Plaxico Burress was shooting himself in the leg, he sent the message that Harris might be slowing down.

Having a savvy, free-safety type in our backfield was a plus, I thought, and Harris might be just the guy to do it.

Harris isn’t blessed with blazing speed, but has always compensated with smarts and effort. But every player hits that fateful season when they lose a step, and in Freeman’s case, that step was simply too much for him to make up with effort. Freeman’s career in Green Bay ended with a whimper because he simply couldn’t get from point A to point B fast enough to use his smarts and skills.

Harris has compensated for his lack of speed by excelling at bump coverage, but an athletic receiver like Burress showed us a glimpse of what is possibly the near future, and when a cornerback can’t keep up with a receiver, his career is effectively over.

This is nothing against Nick Collins, who has struggled to replicate his rookie season success, or Atari Bigby, who generated excitement with his big hits and excellent playoff game against Seattle. But, the point still stands that both players struggle both in coverage and haven’t been able to run the defense like a quarterback.

But, you ask, it was Woodson who started at safety last week, not Harris. I further commented after the same article:

Actually, my preference would be to move Woodson to safety, but I think that Harris is going to be the bigger liability sooner as he is older. Who knows.

Once again, though, we would still need a solid corner in replacement for either.

Now, taking all that in, as I sat in the stands on Sunday, I was standing with my jaw hanging down to my Packer belt buckle when I saw Woodson making that start at safety. I didn't expect it, and I must admit I've been lapsing in keeping up on the latest news.

Woodson did a nice job that day...despite Jake Delhomme's huge pass plays to Steve Smith. We should expect that Woodson would have some growing pains at a position that he hasn't been working at since the offseason, and in retrospect, its almost too bad that he didn't.

Woodson admirably took blame for that late long pass to Steve Smith that sealed the game up for the Panthers, a play in which a late bump by Smith upset Woodson's ability to play the ball. But, as I said, you have to expect when you make such a mid-season move, there's bound to be mistakes as Woodson learns his new role.

The solid corner question, however, seems to have been answered in Tramon Williams, who still makes errors, but is a young guy that seems like an up-and-comer. Just last week, I commented that there were those who felt he was worthy of a starting job now. I didn't think he'd actually get it, but there are factors that helped make that happen other than his fine play filling in for Al Harris.

The subpar play of the tandem of Rouse, Bigby, and Peprah have to be considered the weak point of a pass defense that has been awfully good this season. But, Drew Brees attacked that safety spot in the big win over the Packers two Monday nights ago, exposing a position beset by average players playing hurt.

The sudden move of Woodson was sudden, surprising, and indicative of the old McCarthyism we remember from his first year: willing to move players and schemes around to compensate for weaknesses.

Is that what it was: a carefully measured and calculated strategy to compensate for an ongoing weakness? Or, was it a move made by a coach and defensive coordinator coming under heavy pressure to fix a defense that has been, at best, inconsistent?

Nearing the end of the Favre debacle this summer, McCarthy made a very interesting statement when asked if he was worried about a decline in the play at the quarterback position. He said that this team was built for and predicated on the defense. In retrospect, that paraphrased quote seems rather ironic, since the quarterback play has been a model of efficiency and the defense has been bordering on abysmal this year.

If that's the case, and we are starting to move around our cornerstones of this defense to compensate for glaring weaknesses, its a poor reflection on the faith that was placed on it and defensive coordinator Bob Sanders.

I'm happy to see that we have a solid player in the free safety spot, and that we have a reserve corner capable of playing a solid job in his stead.

Even though Bigby, Rouse, and Peprah have all been tagged with the injury bug this year, I don't know if any of them can compliment Nick Collins as well as a well-prepared Charles Woodson can. That's the good news.

And the bad news.