Tag: Green Bay Packers (Page 41 of 57)

Cutler owes Bear fans more than what he showed against Packers

“We’ve got to go back and look at it. I think we’re still going to be a good football team, there’s no need to panic.” – Bears QB Jay Cutler following Chicago’s 21-15 loss to the Packers on Sunday night.

Cutler’s right – there is no need to panic. For all we know, Chicago will run the table to finish 15-1 and win the Super Bowl this season.

But even still, Cutler needed to show more than he did on Sunday night in Green Bay. Bad games are going to happen, but his four-interception night was trumped by only his poor attitude during and after the game. His receivers and his pass protection certainly didn’t provide him any help (a fact I’m sure isn’t lost on Cutler, who doesn’t mind dishing out blame), but Chicago’s defense gift-wrapped a win for this team and he did everything in his power to ensure that Green Bay would walk away with a victory.

Cutler played like a rookie tonight. On multiple occasions, he threw against his body and into coverage. He had a screen pass intercepted by Johnny Jolly because he didn’t show enough awareness to see that the 325-pound defensive tackle had stayed home on the play. On Tramon Williams’ 62-yard interception, Cutler flat out threw the ball in the direction of a receiver, but clearly had no idea where the pass was going.

If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that Cutler had money on Green Bay tonight. And yet after the game what does he say?

“There’s no need to panic.”

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Vick to Packers? Yeah, not so much.

Not that it stood much of a chance of happening in the first place, but the Michael Vick-to-the-Packers rumors seem to have been officially squashed.

Per Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com:

Nevertheless, Thompson did that Tuesday during a mini-news conference when he seemingly left the door open for Michael Vick to join the Packers by saying he would “not rule anything out.”

Well, rule it out. As several team officials later clarified, Thompson was merely staying consistent with his own personal policy — never show your hand on personnel moves. To absolutely rule out Vick publicly would be setting a precedent for the “reclusive” general manager.

As I wrote yesterday when this rumor first hit the net, Vick winding up in Green Bay made little sense. They already have Aaron Rodgers at quarterback and youngsters Brian Brohm and Matt Flynn to back him up.

Where would Vick fit in? Running back?

Anyone who ever thought Vick was a running back was dreaming. First of all, he’s not that big and while he has (or used to have; who knows what prison life did to him) immense athletic ability, can you actually envision Vick running up the middle and taking on 250-pound linebackers? He would get crushed and if he didn’t get crushed, he would certainly fumble.

The only role the Packers (or any other team not looking for a QB) could have used Vick for is their version of the “Wild Cat” formation. But to my knowledge, Green Bay didn’t hop on that craze last year, so it’s not like they’re desperately looking for a player to help fill that role in their offense.

I maintain that Vick will wind up in Oakland, Seattle or San Francisco. Those are the three teams that I’ve said all along, so I’m sticking to them, although rumor had it that Jacksonville was a reasonable landing spot for him too.

Packers not ruling out Vick?

FOX Sports.com is reporting that Ted Thompson isn’t ruling out potential interest in free agent quarterback Michael Vick, although the Packers’ GM isn’t saying that his team is interested in Vick either.

“We look at everything,” Thompson said.

Vick has been conditionally reinstated in the NFL after completing a 23-month federal sentence for running a dogfighting ring. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has said Vick can sign with a team and begin playing by week six of the NFL season.

While I wouldn’t put it pass Thompson to do something unpredictable (Justin Harrell at No. 16 in 2007, Ted? For realsies?), I don’t think he would sign Vick. Not only does Vick have character issues, he doesn’t really seem like a great addition to a team that already has Aaron Rodgers at quarterback and Ryan Grant at running back. Unless the Packers want Vick to serve as a backup for Rodgers (and why would they with Brian Brohm and Matt Flynn on the roster?), why take on his baggage just to try and see if he could play a position outside of quarterback?

Thompson is smarter than this and besides, he has always tried to take on players with high character issues, so it would reason that he would stay away from Vick.

2009 fantasy football is coming aoon—a look back at 2008 defenses

Last month we started looking at last season’s statistics for position players in fantasy football land, and today we’ll look at a position many often overlook. That’s fantasy defenses, which can sometimes put up just enough points to earn your team a victory once in a while. It’s always smart to try and grab one of the top units, although as we’ve seen before, things change, sometimes drastically, from year to year with fantasy D’s. Me? I like to grab my defense before my kicker. This list is based on point totals from one of my leagues, so keep in mind that stats vary from year to year.

1. Baltimore Ravens—The Ravens’ defense is perennially awesome, and we’ll find out for sure how much of that was due to former coordinator Rex Ryan, who is now the head honcho for the Jets. Ryan took plenty of players with him too, like LB Bart Scott and S Jim Leonhard, but the Ravens still have Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Terrell Suggs. Reed just keeps getting better every year, and his sick nose for the ball is one reason the Ravens had a league high 26 picks. They will keep scoring low as always, but their 34 sacks last season isn’t much to get excited about. Bottom line: The Ravens won’t be a number one this year, but are still top 10.

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Driver rips Bears’ receivers…I guess.

Several media outlets including SI.com and ESPN.com have reported that Packers’ receiver Donald Driver “ripped” or “trashed” the Bears’ receiving corps on a recent radio interview. But further examination of his comments might suggest otherwise.

This is what Driver said in the national radio interview last week on Sirius NFL Radio:

“I think Chicago did a great job, and Lovie Smith went out there and got Jay Cutler to lead this team, but one thing they don’t have is they don’t have the receiver group,” Driver said. “They have the running back, they have the offensive line and they have a great defense. But you’re going to have to need receivers to make plays down the field, and they don’t have that right now. So I can see on our end we have all of that on our offense. And then you go back to look at Minnesota. Minnesota has a great running game, but they just don’t have the top-of-the-line quarterback that they need. So I’m hoping my guy doesn’t go over there, but if he does then I wish the best for him.”

Does that sound like Driver was trashing the Bears receivers to anyone? He’s essentially saying what everyone already knows – the Bears don’t have the best set of receivers. In fact, one would even dare to say it’s a weakness for them.

When I first read that Driver “ripped the Bears receiving corps” on SI.com, I saw the quote and said “meh,” and moved on. But then I was recently in my car and a couple of Chicago radio hosts were talking about the topic and one of them (you’ll have to excuse me for not catching which jockey it was on which station but I was merely skimming through the AM dial looking for a ballgame) suggested that Driver shouldn’t provide the Bears with any bulletin board material and essentially should keep quiet. Then I read a similar headline to this story in ESPN’s “rumors” section as I did on SI: “Driver trashes Bears receivers.”

Seriously? Driver’s comments were the skim milk variety of trashing an opponent. Again, he’s not stating anything that we (including probably the Bears) don’t already know and I hardly deem what he said as “bulletin board material.” I’m shocked that this has caught fire as much as it has.

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