The Green Bay Packers: Living Up to a Monkey’s Expectations

While it seemed many sports pundits and fans alike had high hopes for the 2008 Green Bay Packers and fully expected them to continue their winning ways with first-time starting QB Aaron Rodgers at the helm, the Monkey and I were among the few voices out there who not only sided against the Packers organization re: the handling of the “Brett Favre Saga,” but also predicted that the team without their legendary QB in the huddle would struggle mightily in 2008 to recapture their success from 2007.

In fact, we predicted exactly what would happen in 2008, that the team would go 6-10.

Full disclosure here, though: we also predicted that the Jets and Brett Favre would go 11-5, but we’ll talk more about the reasons behind that team’s collapse later.

What we didn’t predict, however, was the fact that much of the unravelling of the Pack in 2008 would have less to do with their young quarterback and more to do with the inability of their defense to put teams away, despite their proclivity for creating turnovers and scoring on the defensive side of the ball.

Packers fans should not be disheartened by the play of Aaron Rodgers, however. Not only did the young man show tremendous poise throughout the offseason drama, when the season kicked off, he also demonstrated strong physical and atheletic ability, as well as demonstrated leadership throughout the course of what must have been a very frustrating season for fans and the Packers organization alike.

In my August post predicting the Packers’ losing season and other posts I wrote during that time period, I spoke frequently about the Football Gods smiting the Packers with a season of futility as payback for their hubris and handling of their former star quarterback. While I still believe the Packers made a mistake by discarding Favre, if one defines success as the Packers putting together a winning season (as opposed to writing the season off as a developmental year), I now realize that the Football Gods weren’t necessarily going to reward the New York Jets either, just because they signed the aging legend…

Jet or Decrepit?

The New York Jets: “Decrepit” Favre

After watching many of the 2008 Jet games, it seems this organization too bore the brunt of the payback from the Football Gods in return for their casting away of former Jet QB Chad Pennington, who like the Prodigal Son, came back home to New York (Jersey) to put the nail in the coffin of train-wreck of a season for the Big Apple’s JV Football Club. It’s rather odd to think that by dropping Pennington from the Jet roster, Head Coach Eric Mangini became the cause of his own unravelling and eventual firing in New York, as the man he hired to replace Chad, Favre, perhaps bears the most responsibility for literally throwing the final game away in the form of three disgusting, ugly, and horrifying interceptions.

And while the Jets were already eliminated from playoff contention at kickoff with a Patriots win earlier in the day, their final game against Miami and Pennington might possibly serve as a microcosm of their season: flashes of brilliance intermixed with displays of ineptitude yielding overwhelming mediocrity.

The Next Elway?

The Denver Broncos: What Goes Around Comes Around

Just a few days before their final game of the season, in which the Broncos were utterly annihilated and humiliated by the San Diego Chargers on national television, the Monkey and I were ruminating on the fact that if it weren’t for Mike Shanahan, Jake “the Snake” Plummer might still be employed today as a NFL quarterback. Granted, his play was at times erratic, but he still brought his team to the AFC Championship the year before he got the hook and led the team to a 7-4 record the next season before he was benched in favor of then-rooke Jay Cutler. From that point on, while it seems like every sports pundit in the world has hailed Jay Cutler as one of the elite QB’s in the NFL, he’s done nothing to elevate this storied franchise beyond three straight seasons of a hair worse than mediocre (7-9 thrice).

While the Monkey and I have no beef with Cutler himself, we believe that Shanahan’s benching of Plummer was pure hubris, that the coach had to prove himself the wise offensive sage, “The Mastermind,” by giving his young draft pick the reins of the organization perhaps prematurely, at the expense of a guy, who love him or hate him, got it done for the Broncos in a more significant way than any other QB since Mr. Bronco himself, John Elway. It took a little time for the Football Gods to exert their payback, but finally two years after effectively ending Plummer’s career did Mike Shanahan find himself out of a job in Denver. Kind of puts a crimp in his plans to build a 35,000 square foot mega-house in the Denver area, doesn’t it?

The Most Talented Team in NFL?

The Dallas Cowboys: Leadership Vacuum

Prior to kickoff at the Dallas-Philly season finale, Fox Sideline Reporter Pam Oliver contrasted the mood and outlook of each team’s leaders. Referring to Eagles Safety Brian Dawkins (otherwise known as Weapon X), she discussed his outlook for the game, which embodied pure excitement and motivation to defeat the “hated” Cowboys on the field. On the other hand, when she talked to Dallas QB Tony Romo, she reported that his desire was to relax out there and play the game “with a smile on his face.” Nothing better defines the contrast between the scrappy Philly club who clawed their way to a NFC playoff spot, along the way destroying the Dallas Cowboys 44-6 in a such a resounding and utterly humiliating fashion, and the Dallas Cowboys, the league posterboys for posturing, melo-drama, and late season collapses. I commented earlier in the season that Dallas suffers from a severe absence in the leadership department and this final game of the 2008 encapsulates that predicament in a stunning way.

From their lackadasical, playoff-allergic QB, to their “me-first” corps of wide receivers, to their meddling ego-maniacal owner, to their anemic Head Coach, the Dallas Cowboys are in disarray like few other teams in the league. Their 9-7 season, while perhaps an attractive record to struggling clubs in the AFC West, is a debacle given the apparently misguided reputation of their roster’s talent level. It’s weird to think that the mediocre Washington Redskins have posted more playoff wins than the Dallas Cowboys since the ‘Boys last Superbowl victory over 12 years ago.

Is the Cowboy’s current futility the Football Gods’ payback of Owner/GM Jerry Jones’ unceremonious dismissal of Cowboys legend Tom Landry? If so, then their payback took several years to exact, after Jones and the ‘Boys won three Superbowls under two headstrong Head Coaches, Jimmy Jones and Barry Switzer. Perhaps the Gods allowed the Cowboys to enjoy early success so as to make their revenge even more palpable now. Since taking the reins as GM in 1993, there is no one to blame for the misfortunes of the Cowboys other than Jerry Jones.

While a brilliant marketer, Jones has made regrettable hiring decisions in the Head Coaching department (perhaps outside of Bill Parcells, but perhaps including the Tuna as well). The Gods favor humility (Dungy), discipline (Coughlin), grit (Cowher), and relentlessness (Belichick, pre-Spygate), and will continue to smite the Cowboys until they change their culture of flash but no bang.

A New Era in Hot-lanta

The Atlanta Falcons: Phoenix From the Ashes

It is apt that a team named after a much celebrated bird of prey model their return to a prominence after a mythological bird. Just over a year ago, I wrote a post which was basically an open letter to Falcons’ Owner Arthur Blank, with suggestions on how to move forward on the heels of the Mike Vick sentencing and Bobby Petrino jumping ship from the team after posting a 0.23 winning percentage with three games remaining in the season.

While Mr. Blank didn’t follow my suggestions to the letter, he did orchestrate one of the most stunning single-season turnarounds in NFL history. The Atlanta Falcons replaced a magically gifted QB in the form of Vick (on the field only, of course), in a racially divided city with a young white draft pick from Boston College with enormous shoes to fill both in terms of his future play on the field and his impact in the community, which had elevated Vick to god-like status prior to his fall from grace.

Instead of forcing Ryan to play in a system created to highlight the talents of Vick, new Head Coach Mike Smith recreated the offensive game entirely to suit Ryan’s skills, preventing the young QB from attempting to do the impossible: mimic Mike Vick’s signature style. This fact alone is pretty remarkable, considering his defensive background prior to being named to his first head coaching post. With Vick running the show, the Falcons had been a dominant force in the rushing department for the past several seasons and wisely, Coach Smith harnessed the team’s inherent ability to create rushing lanes but complemented that running attack with a more traditional pocket passer that Mike Vick never was.

Besides the abundant talent in their new franchise QB, complemented by the power rushing game led by Michael Turner, it’s hard to put a finger on exactly how the Falcons were able to succeed so quickly. Perhaps some of their success can be attributed to the “easy” schedule on the heels of a 3-13 campaign. I don’t necessarily buy the easy schedule argument because only two games on any NFL’s team’s schedule are a reflection of their finish in the previous year (the Falcons finished fourth in their Division, so they got to face the other fourth-place finishers in the NFC: the Eagles, a 2008 playoff team, and the Rams). I think much of their success comes from their willingness to put the past behind them. They took a chance on a head coach with no head coaching experience. They took a chance on a rookie QB who’s experience was with a team playing in a weak NCAA Conference. And they took a chance on a mostly unproven running back.

The Football Gods wanted the Falcons to shine in the wake of the Michael Vick/Bobby Petrino disaster, much like they smiled upon the New Orleans Saints in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And oh, by the way, former Falcon Coach Bobby Petrino finished up at 5-7 for Arkansas this year. The Football Gods had a hand in that, too.
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