Week 17 of the NFL season looked more like week 4 of the pre-season, as half the teams were benching their starters and the other half were mailing it in. In fact, now that I got my 4,098,211th column start today, I'm gonna hand over the remaining paragraphs to my kitty-cat while I relax in my rocking chair trying to avoid spraining my space-bar thumb.Meow, dear readers. Me favorite Packer meow Jermichael Finley. Jermeowchael meow matchup problems meow a tiger meowgainst a mouse.
Okay, enough of that non-sense, but you see my point. My kitty-cat might know that Jermichael is going to be impossible to stop for years to come, but listening to him try and punch the keys on my type-writer is like watching Matt Leinart trying to complete a pass to some-one on his own team. It's a pain-ful thing to watch, folks.
So the big debate is whether or not it helps to rest your top players prior to the playoffs if the game "means nothing." I don't get paid to make those decisions, but it sure was fun to see the Pack obliterate the Cardinals on Sunday. Even though they benched quite a few starters, the Cardinals still managed to lose two of their best players to injury, while the Packers seem to have lucked out on another aggravation to Charles Woodsen's shoulder.
The Desert Dwellers may say they weren't trying, but while Old Man Warner was resting, key players like Larry Fitzgerald weren't, and they basically got their cacti kicked around the rink for 60 minutes from the top of the roster to the bottom. So I guess I liked Big Mac's strategy to keep his foot on the gas pedal. Aside from that miracle in Pittsburgh, the team has been on a roll lately and I am a big believer in the sub-conscious properties of momentum, in addition to the known physics. Put another way, if I was Larry Fitz or an average Cardinal fan, I wouldn't be feeling so rosy this morning. It's not like we showed them our actual hand, either. They got burned like a sleeping lizard on a hot rock facing our watered-down play-books.
In the end, week 17 won't matter for much, much like paragraph two of this column. We've got another weekend in the desert, playing a team with a worse record that some-how got home field advantage any-ways for winning the dumpster fire that is the NFC west (maybe this would be one way to encourage less slacking in the future?). And I think we'll win convincingly in week 18. The team looks balanced. They look mean. They look hungry. Hope-fully that all adds up to the first playoff victory in the Rodgers era.
Check back on the site often this week as I post additional thoughts and ideas leading up to the wild-card game and the rest of the second season.
Until next time, folks, Welcome Back to the Playoffs, and Go Pack Go!
-FG
