Somebody check Mr. Jagodzinski’s noggin! This whirly-gig-ity coach has blown a serious gasket. Or maybe it was Mr. McCarthy. Whoever was running the show on offense last night deserves a solid kick in the hinder, in this humble columnist’s opinion. Both of these woo-hoos were chasing a phan-tasm in the snow, it seems.
Our beloved Packers should have won the game out in Seattle, but all was lost in the paltry rushing attack.
Lemmee explain.
Take a moment and re-wind to the second quarter, folks. This is right around the time when Mr. Hasselbeck and the Sea-Hawks were basically giving us a gift-tally in the win column. It was at this moment that we needed to add points to our first-quarter touchdown. And it was at this point that we blew our chance at victory.
Go back and look at the tape, if you are so lucky as to possess a Video Cassette Recording Machine.
It was at this time that whoever was calling the plays got the genius idea to run the ball off the left side - COUNT ‘EM - four times in succession. Talk about clever. Clever like a three-legged centipede. Each of these four runs led to a .4-yard gain, on average, and also, to a pair of punts deep in our own end.
And speaking of punts, you’d think a SnowCat from the Canadian League would be able to handle a bit of winter. Turns out, he can’t. Mr. Ryan averaged just over 30 yards per kick, which is just straight up rottissimo. Especially for a Canuck.
Anyways, back to the non-existant run game.
Sure, there’s some merit to “sticking to your guns,” but there is also a point where you have to acknowledge that you’re playing a flush of rookies on the line against a hyper-fast defense, and that running at the left side roughly 1.5 dozen times for nearly zero yards in the course of a game isn’t in your best interest. I’d really like to know what in the Snapping Turtles Mr. Jagodzinski thought he saw on that left side. From my cousin Walter’s rocking chair, it looked like he was chasing a phantasm in the snow, like some moon-bat-insane Pine-Marten with a bad case of the crazy eyes.
Anyhoo, the pattern extended far beyond the second quarter, but in that ridiculous sequence, I saw our coaches insult the ol’ gift horse in the mouth repeatedly:
“Oh, you want to give us a victory, Mr. Hasselbeck? No thanks, we’ll just run the same worthless play a few thousand times. Actually, here’s a list of the plays we’re going to run tonight. See, almost half of them are runs to the left. Yeah, it does sound insane, but you know, we wouldn’t want to actually try to move the ball.”
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh.
As you can probably tell, I’m a bit hot about the head and so forth at this moment.
On the flip side, our defense played slightly better ... well, at least until the snow let up. Talk about an omen. Jeepers Creepers. To be fair, they did face about 85 plays in total, which would tire out even the finest athletic. And let’s give a hand to the refs while we’re at it. Apparently they can pick up their “paychecks” at Quest Field this week.
Oh well ... there’s not much good in working the crying towel at this point, but it sure makes a fellow feel a bit better. Maybe I should just take another nap.
Anyhaaay, it won’t get any easier next Sunday with the New Jersey Jets coming to town. Still, they ain’t no Holmgren-class team, God bless his Wal-russy Soul.
We should be able to save a bit of the ol’ face and work on our dismal home-field record, so long as we use more than three plays. Jets - 14, Packers - 24.Until next week, then.
F.G., circa 1929
