Friday, November 23, 2007

These are the plays of our lives

Recap! Green Bay Packers (9-1) at Detroit Lions (6-4)

Thanksgiving Day

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in the booth. Scott Green reffing. Injuries - Nick Collins, Bubba Franks out. Every RT employed by the Lions out (or should be).

I'll be straying away from the typical game recap this week for a few reasons. One, it's Thanksgiving and I've got food to eat, wine to drink and people to chat with.

First, a few thoughts on the history of the Thanksgiving Day game. It sucks. I hate it. If not for being labeled a "tradition" I doubt very much it would still be around today. Let me list my gripes for you and please, let me know if I'm wrong*.

  • The game is on when many people are actually sitting down to eat.
  • For people interested in the games it's no fun watching them with people that do not care, like another team, or have children who scream a lot as they ram a toy car into your ankle repeatedly.
  • Scheduling the meal around the game only makes sense if everyone is a fan of the same team.
  • Scheduling anything when many, many people are at your home (or you at theirs) is akin to herding cats.
  • If I ask others (non-Packer fans) to push the dinner back a few hours I'm a jerk on several levels. Consider - I'm asking someone to change the time of a meal. I'm asking them to do this so I can watch people I will never meet play a game. I'm asking them to do this even though I have Tivo and can watch the game at any time. Clearly I'm being a jerk if I do this, and the only recourse is to go eat a delicious meal made for me by loving family members who like it when I swing by ONCE A YEAR. The only negative is that every time someone tries to speak to me/call me/text me is my first comment to them is "don't tell me about the game." Which stalls the conversation awkwardly.

So yeah, thanks a lot for the stupid tradition NFL. I especially enjoy going to play at Detroit. They've been awful for 50 years! This is their Super Bowl! The franchise is 33-33-2 (.500) on Thanksgiving. They're 60 games below .500 for their other 1000 games. This is their one shot at glory.

Fortunately the Packers are better at passing the ball, running the ball and stopping both of those activities on Defense. The boys come through with a 37-26 win that sounds closer than it was. Other than a stumble (literally) on the first drive they were unstoppable.

Favre sets a team and personal record with 20 straight completions. He sets an NFL record with yet another 3 TD passing day (breaking Marino's record of 62). He throws 41 times and completes 31, I'm not mathematician but that seems to be awfully good.

Ryan Grant somehow picked up 101 yards. He only had 15 carries but two of them went for 25+ and that always helps the totals. So, the run game continues to improve, even when we barely even acknowledge that running the ball is an option.

I've got a sweet headache so I'm gonna end this now. Enjoy the win. Now we get to find out just how serious this team is. This week we essentially wrapped up the division. A win next week and we'll be on the verge of homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. That sounds like fun.


* I'm not wrong.

No comments: