Sunday, November 18, 2007

Game Recap! Carolina Panthers (4-5) at Green Bay Packers (8-1)

Dick Stockton and Brian Baldinger will be announcing today's game. Steve Smith and Nick Collins are out with injuries. I've been drinking port wine, eating chex mix and making outlandish statements to my dog all weekend. He's refuted none of them. He's also decidedly unimpressed at my threat to weaponize all kittens with small rocket launchers if he continues to bark at the doorbell ringing on Domino's commercials. In case you're wondering, yes, there is a direct correlation between port wine consumption and number of conversations with the pup.

When the opponent has the ball, the comments are in italics.

1st Quarter

13:33 - I don't really dislike the way Dick and Baldy call a game but they are lazy. All the focus is on this being the Old Bowl thanks to Vinny Testaverde (44) and Brett Favre (38) being the oldest matchup of QB's ever. Well yeah, maybe this has something to do with the fact that up until the 80s/90s these guys didn't even know what to eat, much less what protein shake would be best for their system. If they can perform they can keep on playing, that's easier now than it was 15 years ago. By the way, Aaron Rouse just picked off Vinny on 3rd and 2 at the Carolina 38.

12:33 - The offense can't do anything despite two completions. Crosby lines up from 49 yards. Julius Peppers blocks the kick. I wonder if he runs around yelling "block that kick! block that kick!" and all his teammates just feel awkward because they're picturing the guy from the Bar Joke that "blocked" his buddy's "Fart field goal" with his, um, ahem... So yeah, I wonder if that happens?

8:16 - The Panthers pick up 15-20 yards but can't move it much. Kasay on to kick. And he did! But not in the conventional style you may be accustomed to. Instead of a field goal he went with a pooch punt. Tramon Williams scooped it up at the 6 and with the aid of two great blocks by Johnny Jolly and Atari Bigby he returns it 94 yards for the touchdown! The only bad part of that play was the cameraman. What the hell was he filming?

GREEN BAY 7 - CAROLINA 0

7:00 - Atari Bigby gets beat by Drew (who?) Carter for 44 yards over the middle. 1st down on our 15. Baldy points out that "Atari" means "attack" in Japanese. The translation for "attack so well your opponent quits is ironically* called "xbox."

5:20 - AJ Hawk breaks up the pass in the end zone to force a field goal. Kasay from 26.

GREEN BAY 7 - CAROLINA 3

1:40 - Ok. So Stockton and Baldy just decided that the Packers aren't taking this game seriously because of their upcoming matchups with the Lions and Cowboys. Based on what? The defense playing great? Special teams coming up big? Oh, so if the offense has two, count 'em two, poor series then the team isn't focused?

2nd Quarter

14:40 - On second down from the GB 30 Favre hits Donald Driver for 50 over the middle. Either the playaction was brilliant or it's Intern Day for Fox cameramen. If you ever wanted to know what Ryan Grant looks like 10 yards AFTER acquiring a fake handoff, Jonny Wilson the intern has a great demo reel to show you.

11:13 - Greg Jennings gets open in the back of the end zone on something of a slant for the Touchdown. From the 5. Man, Jennings seems to get open down by the end zone. Surprisingly, the talk about this being a "trap" game has died down.

GREEN BAY 14 - CAROLINA 3

8:53 - This whole play was wiped out by a Kampman offsides penalty but still, it was cool, so I'm gonna mention it. Al Harris ran step for step and made a great, stumble/dive two handed pick of Vinny. I've always really liked Al but he's on lockdown mode this year.

7:11 - The Packer drive stalls out at the Carolina 45. Grant got going with a 20 yard run during the series. Frankly I'm a little unsure what's going on at the moment. After the announcers say "Panthers" the wife keeps on saying "Sex panthers! Mrowwr!" So I got that going for me, which is nice. If she had followed that up with "the Packers win 60 percent of the time, all the time" I probably wouldn't have seen the rest of the game.

5:00 - Wow, these guys are bored already. Some bizarre, fucktarded thing about Favre being Noah and loading up his Ark with young players "two by two." Jennings and Jones, Hall and Grant, etc. I think the analogy falls apart a bit when you realize that in this scenario all of the other teams should have been drowned in the flood. I can certainly understand the Bears being considered an abomination before God but, well, wait a minute, why am I talking about this? I've spent more time thinking about this stupid graphic then the Interns did slapping it together.

1:16 - Driver picks up back to back 1st downs. Grant's got 10 carries for 60 yards. And we have another Touchdown. Don Lee over the middle. He caught the ball amidst three defenders, none of which could have made a play on the ball. Great pass.

GREEN BAY 21 - CAROLINA 3

1:10 - Vinny gets stripped by Corey Williams but manages to recover. That could have sealed the deal on this one. We're on the Carolina 20 by the way.

:32 - Nick Barnett tackles Vinny after a little scramble. As he's going out of bounds Nick gives him a little extra (it looked like he was tripping) and gets flagged 15 yards. That didn't look malicious ref.

:16 - Wow. I want you all to remember the name of Gene Sterratore. It's important. Especially if you work at monster.com or a temp agency. He's gonna be looking for work. His crew somehow managed to throw 2 flags when there were no penalties on the play. Sure, they called Jarret Bush for pass interference, but since he didn't do anything I'm not sure why. His head was turned, looking for the ball. Yet somehow this was missed. Panther 1st down on the Packer 5. The refs have given them 40 yards on this "drive" with BS penalties. Let's see what happens. A good team just rolls with that stuff.

:09 - Excuse me, I need to go manhug Corey Williams. I'll be out for a while. Corey heard my call and stripped Vinny for the second time. Kampman recovers.

3rd Quarter

14:47 - KoRo returns the opening kickoff 70 yards. It's easy to see how he went to the Pro Bowl for special teams in 2005. A couple great moves in there to pick up huge yards.

12:47 - A few Grant runs, and another TD pass to Don Lee. This time for 11 yards. The LB's and Safeties for Carolina just can't stick with Lee or our wideouts.

GREEN BAY 28 - CAROLINA 3

12:35 - 1st play from scrimmage for Carolina in the second half. Chuck Woodson picks Vinny off by jumping a crossing route. That ball was underthrown a bit but Chuck made a great play.

11:02 - The announcers continue their lazy trend by going to the blowout standby, trivia questions. Hey, here's a fun one! Who did Favre complete his 1st pass to in the NFL? It's only been asked in every stupid blowout ever involving the Packers. Can you guess? Can you?
Crosby misses wide right from 49.

3:21 - Well that was painful. The (sex)Panthers(mrowr) just ran the ball on 10 of 12 plays. Vinny hit his backup tight end Christian Fauria for the touchdown. I'm not happy with the touchdown, but I am happy that it took 8 minutes to accomplish. I'm also exstatic that Fauria thought an over the top, strutting/thrusting maneuver would be appropriate when his team is down by 18 late in the game. That was awesome. If he wore a sign saying "I'm a giant douche" it wouldn't have been more effective than that dance.

GREEN BAY 28 - CAROLINA 10

4th Quarter

4:22 - To be fair, when there's a blowout on a game recap I can just jump ahead to the points of interest, I don't have to write about it. So there, that's my compliment to the announcers for the day. Drew Carter made a couple big plays for Carolina on the drive and gets the reward in a Touchdown. Jarret Bush was a step behind on the coverage.

GREEN BAY 28 - CAROLINA 17

2:46 - Grant seems to favor his right leg and he's down. That's not cool. I hate injuries late in games like these that are essentially decided. Hopefully he's fine. Crosby hits from 47. The ball looked like it was blocked but somehow got there. A little redemption for the rookie I guess.

GREEN BAY 31 - CAROLINA 17

Cool. All week long I tried to convince myself that this would be a tough game. I couldn't do it. I'm glad. This is the first time since 96-97 that I just felt the game was a win and it wasn't a concern and I was right. I think this team is legit folks. We'll see after these next two Thursday games of course, but I haven't felt this good about this team in a decade. The coach calls good plays, the players are fired up, and there isn't much in our way. It's already been a helluva ride, but these last two games have shown something new. We're not just scraping by against inferior teams. We're beating them. Beating. In every sense of the word. That's the second step (the first being of course, winning).


* I say "ironically" as xbox is not made by a Japanese company.

2 comments:

Butch said...

Very happy with the win. I am seeing this pattern from my non-Packer friends:

Before the game: "(Whoever they just played) suck. The Packers have had such a soft schedule. We'll see how good they are after they play (whoever they play next)"

After the game: "(Whoever they just played) suck. The Packers have had such a soft schedule. We'll see how good they are after they play (whoever they play next)"

Anonymous said...

I think we're going to lose this week. I'm all but convinced of it in fact. I think that we're going to lose and Bret is going to break both of his legs and we're going to end up losing the division and Bret is going to have to show up to all of the Packer old timers games in a wheel chair.

Well, I guess otherwise he can just pop pills and be able to go.