PACKERwatch

Vikings RB Mewelde Moore for 5th or 6th round draft pick and Deshawn Wynn, Brandon Jackson, or Vernand Morency:  For whatever reason, Vikings head coach Brad Childress just isn’t that big of a fan of Mewelde Moore, and now that the Vikings Adrian Peterson has exploded, Minnesota has little use for Moore.  The Packers, on the other hand, should try anything to get their running game going.  Trading away a late draft pick and then giving the Vikings a decent backup to Peterson would work out well for both sides.

Lions RB Tatum Bell for 2nd day draft pick and backup LT Orrin Thompson:  The Lions running back has been increasingly vocal about his displeasure with his declining role.  Detroit’s pass first offense leaves little room for Bell to play much, especially with Kevin Jones splitting carries with him.  And with a rib injury affecting Lions left tackle Jeff Backus, the Lions could use another backup left tackle (arguably the most important player in pass protection, and thus a key position in the Lions’ offense) in case Backus aggravates his injury further and can’t play.  Tatum Bell is another potential fix to the Packers running game, and the Packers can definitely afford to give up a backup tackle.

Chargers RB Michael Turner for whatever San Diego wants:  The Chargers have repeatedly denied that they will even consider trading away Michael Turner.  However, with Turner an unrestricted free agent next season who will undoubtedly garner big bucks from interested teams, the Chargers will likely refuse to get into a bidding war to keep him because they have the league’s best rusher in Ladainian Tomlinson.  So, if the Chargers change their mind and decide to deal Turner while they can still get some value out of him, which would seem like a smart thing to do, the Packers should give San Diego whatever they want.  Turner has averaged around 6 yards a carry in his young career as a backup, and he has incredible burst and speed.  Turner is the closest thing to a sure-fire back that the Packers could get from a trade.  Michael “The Burner” Turner could save Green Bay’s running game and keep the Pack on course to make a deep playoff run.

 The NFL Trade Deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday, October 16 at 4:00 p.m. ET.

The Packers narrowly escaped with a 17-14 win against the Washington Redskins on Sunday, when their suddenly inefficient offense struggled to put points on the board.  Luckily, in the 3rd quarter, Corey Williams stripped the ball from the hands of Santana Moss and Charles Woodson took the ball and scampered into the endzone for a Green Bay score.  Without that touchdown, it would have been hard for the Packers to win.  Favre struggled all day with horrifically off target passes.  Let’s hope that it was a result of rain and a damp ball rather than a more serious problem (say, a recurrence of a shoulder injury that nagged at Favre during training camp).  Let’s also hope that Mason Crosby’s two missed field goals were due to the wet conditions as well.  In any case, the Packers are an astounding 5-1, and the bye week seems to have arrived at the perfect time.

Keys to Victory:

1.) Keep control of the football. Green Bay’s 5 turnovers killed the Packers chances against the Bears.

2.) Stay aggressive on offense throughout the game.  Conservative playcalling never seems to keep teams ahead, just like the prevent defense never seems to prevent game-winning drives.

3.)  Keep the Washington offense one-dimensional.  If Green Bay can shut down the Redskins running game early, they can focus their attention on keeping Washington’s high-octane passing attack.  This will put increased pressure on the Redskins’ talented but young QB Jason Campbell, and turnovers should follow.

 Advantages

Run Offense:  Clinton Portis is a seasoned veteran, and Ladell Betts is a promising young back.  The Packers meanwhile, are 31st in the league in rushing.  ADVANTAGE REDSKINS.

Pass Offense:  Jason Campbell is a rising star, but he’s just not Brett Favre.  ADVANTAGE PACKERS.

Run Defense:  Both teams have very good run defenses, but the Packers shut down Ladainian Tomlinson.  Who knows if the Redskins could have done that, but they haven’t proven themselves yet.  ADVANTAGE PACKERS.

Pass Defense:  Statistically, the Redskins have quite an advantage over Green Bay here.  The Redskins also had the advantage of playing Miami, which skews the stats a bit.  Green Bay has a beat up and aging secondary, but they still have two of the top corners in the league in Al Harris and Charles Woodson.  ADVANTAGE EVEN.

Special Teams:  The Packers have an explosive returner in Tramon Williams, an excellent coverage team that contained Devin Hester, a punter who can place the ball well, and a rookie kicker who can boot field goals from 50+ yards.  The Redskins don’t.  ADVANTAGE PACKERS.

Key Players–The following players have the greatest opportunity to help their team this week.

Green Bay:  Brett Favre, Donald Driver, James Jones, Al Harris, Charles Woodson

Washington:  Jason Campbell, Antwaan Randle El, Clinton Portis, Chris Cooley, London Fletcher 

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?&brand=null&videoId=3057954&n8pe6c=1 

I posted this for your amusement.  I must admit I agree with some of these kids.  The Patriots should all be “in jail…for 2 weeks.”  Unfortunately, there’s apparently way too many Patriots fans in Wisconsin.  Thanks to Ted for the video.

After taking an early 7-0 lead, stopping the Bears offense, and putting together what looked like another scoring drive, Brett Favre connected with James Jones, who was hit just after gaining control of the football.  The usually sure-handed Jones fumbled, and the Bears recovered.  Still, after the Bears accomplished little on their subsequent drive, the Packers had all the momentum.  The Packers put together another long drive.  But once again, Charles Tillman pounded the football from Jones’ grasp after another completion.  Even with this setback, however, the Packers and their newfound rushing attack (121 yards, 5.5 yards per carry) had surged to a 17-7 lead at half, with the lone Bears touchdown coming off of a decidedly bad illegal procedure call that turned a 4th and 3 into a 1st and 10 (The refs also missed that the Bears had 12 men on the field on a previous play, even AFTER reviewing the play in which there were obviously 12, and arguably even 13 Bears on the field;  John Madden even managed to count 12 players).

In the 2nd half, everything went to hell.  Favre threw a dumb pick, Charles Woodson fumbled, and the Bears roared back to tie the game at 20.  Then, on a critical 3rd and short, the Bears ran Cedric Benson up the middle and were stopped near the first down.  A bad spot, however, gave the Bears a first down.  McCarthy promptly challenged the spot, and succeeded in moving the ball back a yard.  However, after re-measuring from the new spot, the Bears had the first down by less than half an inch.  So  Green Bay won the challenge, technically, but the Bears still had a first down.  Green Bay was charged with a timeout, though, despite the fact that they had actually won the challenge.  This loss of a timeout would be critical later.  On the same drive, the Bears scored a touchdown with just over 2 minutes left.  After the kickoff and the 2-minute warning, the Packers took over near their own 20.  After driving down the field slowly, and with only 1 timeout left, the clock ticked mercilessly fast.  Compounding the problem the passes kept going to the middle of the field rather than the sideline.  Before long, there were 8 seconds left and the Packers were still outside of the redzone.  Favre threw one last desperation pass toward the endzone.  After a jump ball, it looked at first as though Donald Driver had come down with it, but at the bottom of the  pile, it turned out that a Bear had snatched the ball for Favre’s second interception of the game.

While bad calls certainly played a role in this game, the Packers 5 turnovers were the most crucial aspect of this disappointing lost.  Next week, the Packers face a surprisingly good Washington Redskins team (3-1) that is coming off its bye week.  The Packers will need to quickly regroup to be able to take on the high-powered passing attack of Jason Campbell and the Redskins.

There is hardly a soul on earth that would have predicted the Packers would be 4-0 entering their Week 5 matchup against the Bears, but that’s how it has turned out.  By beating 3 playoff teams to open the season (Eagles, Giants, and Chargers) and then defeating divisional opponent Minnesota, the Packers stand alone with some of the NFL’s elite, the Patriots, Colts, and Cowboys, as the sole undefeated teams. 

The 4-0 start has relied completely on the arm of Brett Favre and the swarming Green Bay defense and special teams units.  The running game has done just enough to keep the defense honest, and maybe not even that.  Green Bay is last in the league in rushing offense.  With Vernand Morency back and sharing carries with several rookie halfbacks, the running game has a chance to get back on its feet.  It will need to, because soon enough teams will figure out ways to stop the quick passing attack being utilized by the Packers.

In Green Bay’s Week 4 game against the Vikings, Favre broke the career touchdowns record previously held by Dan Marino.  Favre’s mark now stands at 422, and he will continue adding to that total.  Favre and the Packers have a long season ahead of them still, but they could easily enter the bye week with a record of 6-0.  Optimism is high for Packers fans everywhere, and there is a real sense that this team could make the playoffs and even make a run at the Super Bowl.  Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila’s bold predictions about this being a Super Bowl-caliber team seem less laughable with each progressive week.