Super Bowl Situational: The Steeler Penalty Hits

This week, I'm going to write each day about some situational adversity the Packers may be facing next Sunday in the Super Bowl. In my first piece, I am going to address the possibility of the Steelers propensity for hard, illegal hits and the effect it may have on the Packers' offense.

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The name of James Harrison may no longer associated as much with being a Pro Bowl linebacker as he has become the poster child for harsh hits in the NFL this year, as well as being the perceived target of Roger Goodell's mission to make an example out of illegal shots.

Indeed, not only does Harrison seem to relish the role of playing the hitman, he's insisted that it unified the in such a way that it may have save their season.

"We didn't worry about the calls," Harrison said following a six-personal foul day against the Raiders in November. "When you're getting a lot of penalties against you, it brings you together."

Not only have the Harrison and the Steelers not held back from the imperative sent down for the league office, they've vowed to hit harder and keep paying fines if they must, as such aggressive play is the identity of the defense.  Unfortunately, if they have held back until the Super Bowl, they have little to stop them from loading for bear against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.

It's one thing to be scrapping your way through the AFC playoffs, know each game is a critical step towards the Big Game.  The last thing you want to do in the playoffs is make the dumb play that may not only cost you the game, but even if you win, could involve a suspension for the next game.  Not even Harrison is dumb enough to take a shot at Tom Brady's head or dive at mark Sanchez's knees after all of the fines he's taken this year with such a national audience and every NFL bigwig watching.

He's not going to risk his status to play in the Super Bowl.

But now that the Super Bowl is here, there's little to discourage a defense that may keep a Ken Stills-esque hit list on their terrible towels.  The chances that a referee is going to eject a player from the game is pretty slim, even in the face of a clearly illegal and vicious hit.  That is something often decided by the league afterwards, when fines and other punishments are assessed.

And what do the Steelers have to lose?  Having to sit the first game of 2011, assuming we even have a season next year?  Who cares if you have to sit out the first game of the season, especially if the rewards contributes to a Super Bowl win?  What would any NFL player be willing to do to hold the Lombardi Trophy high above their head:  sit out one game next year?  Two?

Therefore, the Steelers will be locked and loaded, and the bad part of it is that the Packers are vulnerable to such an attack.  First and foremost, the health of quarterback Aaron Rodgers has to be not only a concern for Packer fans, but a target for Steeler defenders who don't seem to mind whether or not their hits have an impact on the victim's health.

Rodgers has been vigilant in saying he didn't suffer a concussion against the Bears, but the naked eye still holds some doubts as to why Rodgers doth protest too much.  A third concussion in a season would have spelled a potential start by Matt Flynn in the Super Bowl, and I wouldn't want to admit to being a bit woozy either.  While such a concussion may not have been an automatic benching for the Super Bowl, it sure would have made for a lot of scrutiny of Rodgers in this already overhyped week.

You can bet, whether it is right or not, or whether they admit it or not, the Steelers would love to make Aaron Rodgers see stars, and I'm not talking about Fergie and Christina Aguillera.  Having Rodgers miss significant time in the Super Bowl would force the Packers to change their entire gameplan, as they did against the Patriots in the regular season.  And, while Matt Flynn put up a good fight, it wasn't enough in the end.

Worst Case Scenario:  The Steelers come aggressively off the edges, picking particularly on rookie tackle Bryan Bulaga playing on the biggest stage of his young career.  The Steelers are a high-risk, high-reward blitzing team, and the more the Packers become one-dimensional, the more aggressive the Steelers will be.

And by one-dimensional, I mean that James Starks and the running game will run into the brick wall that is the Pittsburgh run defense.  Starks' high running style will find it tough to make significant yardage against the D that held the Jets to 70 yards on 22 carries, and McCarthy will default to centering the offense almost completely around Aaron Rodgers in the backfield.

Yes, Rodgers lit up the Steelers defense in 2009, but that was just a regular season game and did not feature Troy Polamalu.  There's nothing to be left on the field and Rodgers will be under fire on every snap.  When Rodgers gets rattled, there's a chance he will resort to his old habits:  scrambling and holding on to the ball too long.  Both habits invite big hits.

It only takes one hit for Rodgers's status to be affected for the rest of the game.  With the largest television audience of the year having all-eyes on a groggy-looking Rodgers, the Packers' coaching staff will be under the microscope to take every precaution.

Best Case Scenario:  There's a lot of Packer fans who still remember safety Chuck Cecil fondly, but me?  Not so much.  Oh sure, we all remember the bone-jarring hits and the blood dripping from the nose, but not as many people remember poor Jerry Holmes, the cornerback who often became the whipping boy for giving up big pass plays.  What was often missed in the translation was as Cecil was taking his running starts for his big hits, he gave up his coverage and left Holmes (who was expecting over-the-top help) on an island.

The Packers will establish a run game....no, not the shotgun with Brandon Jackson trying to run away from people, but the inverted bone formation with Quinn Johnson, Tom Crabtree, and John Kuhn laying wood on the Steelers front seven.  The Packers don't have to gain a ton of yards, and even consistently gaining three yards a play is sufficient if it keeps the linebackers honest.

From that point, you let Rodgers work his magic, utilizing that play-action he's become so good at (and so effective with a potent run threat) and do the quick hitters and screen plays, getting the ball out of his hands as quickly as possible. 

The Steelers are a smash-mouth team on both sides of the ball, and such teams live to change not only the gameplay of the other team, but to make the play scared.  The Packers need to deliver some smash-mouth football back at them, then use that dome turf to set Jennings, Driver, and Jones loose in the second level.

James Harrison, like Chuck Cecil, can't deliver a punishing hit if he can't get a running start.  Keeping his head (as well as all the heads of the defense) on a swivel trying to follow the play will negate the threat of the Packers getting beat up on the way to getting beat.

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Tomorrow:  The O.T.

The NFL Has Outgrown the Pro Bowl

T'is the season for a plethora of blog posts explaining how they should fix the NFL Pro Bowl.  Let's make a couple more adjustments to the rules, and somehow, it will all be fine and worth watching more than the commericials.

I'm here to tell you my solution:  it's time to give up on the Pro Bowl.

But the reason for my rather ultimate Solomon-esque decision isn't just based on how bored I was catching snippets of the game.  It's because of the nature of the game itself.  The NFL has simply evolved too much, and the Pro Bowl is like the prehensile tail that simply needs to fall off.

There are two major draws for any All-Star game in any sport.  The first, obvious one is to see the biggest stars of the sport all on one stage.  But having the stars there is useless if you aren't seeing the players able to go against each other, mano-y-mano, as a spectacle just ranking under the championship game itself.  So, we're dragging out the biggest names in the game to go onto a field and do little more than disappoint us, because they can't give us the game that we need to appreciate their talents.

Other sports can do this, because the basis of competition is still based in the rudimentary basics of the game.  Baseball is perhaps the best example we can use for a successful All-Star game, because the mechanics of each position is nearly independent of each other.  A batter doesn't depend on other players to swing the bat for him, and while some communication may be needed in the field, turning a double play is still based on basic individual execution of the fundamentals.

You can take a pitcher mid-season and throw him on a different team, and for the most part, he functions the same as he did on the other team.  Same can be said for position players.  A first baseman on the Blue Jays is going to still follow the same fundamentals as a first baseman on the Padres.

It's a little different in basketball, as you would figure most offenses (and defenses, for that matter) are highly dependent on knowing the scheme.  As a coach of both boys and girls basketball over the years, I've implanted some offenses that are pretty specific, if not complicated, for kids to understand.  And college coaches often take this to dizzying heights, as we can see from watching Memphis run the dribble-drive offense, or Dick Bennett run his swarming defense.

But basketball can always be turned back down to its "least common denominator", and become an individual game with basic fundamentals:  the pick-and-roll, the give-and-go, and the backdoor cut.  And at the level of talent the NBA has (with the streetball mentality it has taken on over the last twenty years or so), players can put on quite a show using just those fundamental skills, as well as individual matchups (just like baseball).

But the NFL has evolved so far, the fundamentals simply aren't enough anymore.  Oh, sure, forty years ago, football was still three yards and a cloud of dust, with defenders lining up one-on-one against their opponents and trying to win those individual matchups.   Whoever smashed more mouths and got more leverage would win.

Not anymore.  The NFL has become advanced tactical and situational gameplanning.  The game has evolved because of the constant chessmatches offenses and defenses play against each other.  When the offenses of the 70's and 80's became vertical passing games, defenses went with big front four formations with power blitzes.  This, of course, led to innovations like the West Coast Offense and zone blocking schemes to counter it.  Since then we've seen zone blitzes, the return of the 3-4, and playbooks so thick that you need a Wonderlic above 30 to understand it completely.

Misdirection, disguising coverages and blitzes, chop blocks and pick plays...everything has simply become more and more like surgical warfare than the simple game it once was.  It is the reason that the NFL has become what it has today: it is no longer simply a violent game of smashmouth football, but a one that appeals to the intellectual fans as well.   There are fans that are content to dissect a Dom Capers defensive formation and marvel at how effective it is in its complexity.

Taking players from each of their teams, throwing them together in a lump, and asking them to just play a simplified game is like taking one or two of the best dancers and actors from every Broadway musical, throwing them on a stage and asking them to perform brilliantly with only a few days of rehearsal.  In a way, that is what the NFL has become...highly specialized players who need months of OTA's, minicamps, and a full preseason to even begin processing the dependence on both the scheme and the players around them to be successful.

In other words, you cannot get NFL-caliber performances anymore out of players in such an exhibition.  You heavily dilute the quality of what the players can do, and not only is it not good enough for us, it's not good enough for them.

What would I want to see, because sure, I'd like to see Aaron Rodgers rubbing shoulders with Payton Manning and Tom Brady, is simply exhibitions of talent.  I know they do it already with long-ball throwing contests and obstacle courses.  Why not have the AFC take on the NFC in some position-specific "Battle of the Conference Stars"?

Sound ridiculous?  Not as ridiculous as the game we just watched, with professional millionaire heroes to fans everywhere walking through blocks and throwing interceptions left and right.  It's time to end the Pro Bowl, not because it is stupid or boring, but because the NFL has outgrown it

Cutler Reaps What He's Sown

There's a lot of folks out there in the media and press conferences rising to the defense of Jay Cutler...and rightfully so.  Cutler was branded a faker and a quitter long before the game was even over, long before he was even aware people were criticizing him.  Bear players and assorted media types spat over Cutler's injuries, more the ones to his pride and ego than the ones to his knee.

"Wait and see before you pass judgement," they cried.  And they were totally right.

The news is out.  Cutler has a Grade II MCL tear-slash-sprain.  According to some experts hearing the diagnosis, they concur with the decision for Cutler to have sat out the game.

So, there you go.  We now know the whole story.  And now, I'm going to pass judgement. 

Jay Cutler is still a douche waffle.  He's a whiner, a crier, and a pretender.

You see, I thought of this yesterday, after all of the criticism came flying in.  What if the medical tests were to have come back negative?  What if he was fine, or the injury was just the kind he could have gotten treatment on and gone back in the game?  What if, after having Urlacher defending his honor to the death, and Cutler upset that his toughness was in question (while breaking down in tears), there really had been nothing medically wrong with him, at least seriously?

I'll tell you what.  If I were that team doctor, with the organization looking over my shoulder, I would give a pretty vague diagnosis that did not throw the organization's star under the bus.  Lie?  No.  Exaggerate, absolutely.

But, come on, you say.  This is America!  There's no way a licensed medical official would ever misdiagnose a patient in order to fulfill their requests, right?  And, of course,  no one in America is addicted to painkillers, either.

Look, I'm not saying that the medical staff is lying.  But, as a sports physician mentions, such a tear has the capability of being in a wide range of severity.

Dr. David Thorson, who works with the U.S. Ski team, added that trying to continue to play would have increased the chances of Cutler tearing his ACL, a knee ligament that requires upwards of six months of rehabilitation.

With the Grade II MCL tear, the usual healing time, which doesn’t require surgery, is three to six weeks. Thorson added that Grade II MCL tears are the trickiest to diagnose. A Grade III is a complete tear, and a Grade I, he said, is just stretching, with a couple of fibers potentially tearing.

Grade II MCL tears are somewhere in the middle.

“The reality is, it’s not black and white,” he said. “How do you know if Grade I doesn’t have a few fibers torn? You can’t tell it, until you do an imaging study.

So, this injury could be pretty close to a complete tear.  It could also be pretty close to a stretch and several fibers tearing.  Who knows?  

The point isn't whether or not this is being exaggerated, however.  I'm not a doctor and have no idea myself.  

The point is that Cutler has brought criticism on himself, in every way possible.  He's asked for it, and when confronted with the fruits of his discontent, he again throws himself into the victim's role.  But you can't simply erase the temper tantrum he threw to get himself out of Denver, once he heard a rumor that he might be in a trade proposal.  He did his best impersonation of Mike McKenzie and got himself out of there.

Since joining the Bears, he's been a bull in a china shop, too.  Friction with coaches, friction with teammates, and prickly exchanges with the media have put him under the microscope.  But he has consistently dismissed the criticism with a wave of his hand and a "I don't worry about it.  I don't care what my public image is."

His body language and constant sulking is obvious to even a football neophyte, such as my wife, who yesterday came to me during the game after watching Cutler for the first time in her life and asked who the big crybaby was for the Bears.  Yet, he has been unrepentant and, in fact, seemingly proud of the way he acts, letting teammates and coaches do the defending for him.

So, when you're on the second-biggest stage the NFL has to offer and you don't come through, it's hard not to expect the criticism.  Suddenly, Cutler is aware of his public image, and isn't all the happy with it.  Funny how that works.

You only need to take a look at the guy on the other sideline for a lesson in how you conduct yourself and how it pays off in the end.  Aaron Rodgers has been acutely aware of his perception in the public eye since the day he was drafted.  Yes, he has every reason to have a chip on his shoulder after falling in the draft, after spending three years behind Brett Favre, and after being painted as Thompson's best boy in the Favreageddon Fallout. 

And he has handled himself with aplomb, even in the face of unwarranted criticism, as we saw last week with Mike Florio.  He's been gracious and a professional, and when things go south for Aaron, people treat him the same way back.

Yes, Rodgers has had an up-and-down season, moments where the offense has sputtered under his control and left it to the defense to save the day.  Conversely, he's had moments of complete mastery of his craft, showing he can dominate a game.

In five of his last seven games, Jay Cutler had a passer rating above 100.  Aaron Rodgers had the same ratio in his last seven.  And neither quarterback had a day to remember on Sunday.

Cutler finished the day 6-14, for 80 yards and an interception.  A miserable day, and his body language showed his frustration.

Yet, if you look closely at Rodgers' day, he was close to being a goat, too.  Sure, he started out like gangbusters, looking like the same guy who carved up Atlanta.  But after he was hit on a rush by Julius Peppers, you saw something come off his accuracy...leading to the poor throw to Donald Driver that bounced off his foot and was intercepted.

When he was picked off by Brian Urlacher in the red zone, Rodgers' stats took a nosedive.  He went 5-9 for only 34 yards since that interception, leading to five punts in five possessions, possessing the ball for only 10:30 the rest of the remaining 23:50 left in the game.

In the end, the ball kept get turned back to the Bears, who gained more and more confidence against an increasingly exhausted Packer defense.  

You see my point?  Rodgers could have been the heel in the situation, especially had the Packers lost.  But seriously, do you think he would have taken any of the derision Cutler did, even if we would have found out he had his bell rung by Peppers back in the first quarter (which I'm not convinced he didn't)?  

No way.  Heck, Rodgers can fumble away the game in the shadow of his own goal posts, and Packer fans still rise to champion him.  But Rodgers has demonstrated so many times before he makes a mistake or has a bad stretch that he's the consummate team guy and willing to be his own worst critic that we know he's going to bounce back and still be that guy we will root for.

But what has Cutler put in that "respect bank"?  Nothing.  He does what he wants, acts how he wants, says what he wants, and doesn't apologize for anything.

If Rodgers would have left in the third quarter because he had a slight concussion, no one would have questioned his motives.  We know he will play every second he can, and doesn't quit unless he must.  Cutler might be in the same boat, but because of his antics, people don't believe it.  It colors people's entire impression of him.

In the end, Jay Cutler had a bad game and will be crucified for it.  Aaron Rodgers had a bad game and was the first player being celebrated in the locker room...and the first thing he did was give credit to the defense that rose up when he had a bad day.

If you don't constantly act like a whiny little prima donna, people won't treat you like a whiny little prima donna.  Get it?

Aaron Rodgers does.  Jay Cutler doesn't.