Happy Football Day, America.
While the moral quandary of whether football is too brutal to be a moral form of entertainment has diminished by enjoyment of the NFL these last few years, I'm still hooked (and hoping that technology and rules changes can boost safety). Our beloved Packers start the season in Seattle tonight, and it's my pleasure to walk you through my predictions for this season!
Week 1
Thursday, September 4 @Seattle.
Prediction: Seahawks 31, Packers 17
Send your hate mail straight to Matt because I don't want to see it. To be honest, I could see the Packers pulling this one out. The NFL is once again tightening its enforcement of defensive penalties. An air-tight secondary was Seattle's meal ticket last season, and the impact will be hardest in Seattle.
That said, these season openers featuring the Super Bowl Champion haven't gone well for the visiting team. The home squad is 9-1. Seattle's stadium was engineered to increase crowd noise. And the squad is strong. Russell Wilson is still ascending. Percy Harvin is back. The defense and run game are solid. There just aren't weaknesses on this team. The Packers are already missing their starting center and BJ Raji. Those losses can be handled, but I just don't think Green Bay has the firepower to stick with the Seahawks this early in the year.
Week 2
Sunday, September 14 vs. New York Jets
Prediction: Packers 31, Jets 10
Green Bay will have ten days to prepare. While I think the defense will take some lumps in Seattle, Geno Smith is a little less formidable of an opponent. I think we see a boat load of sacks and a couple of interceptions as Green Bay jumps out to an early lead and never looks back.
Week 3
Sunday, September 21 @ Detroit
Prediction: Packers 27, Lions 20
This will be one of those games where we all get excited in the hopes that we can sit down and watch the Pack coast to a blowout victory. Instead, we'll watch the Packers lead throughout the game...but never really pull away. A win is a win, but this won't be among the more satisfying victories this season.
Week 4
Sunday, September 28 @ Chicago
Prediction: Packers 28, Bears 27
Call we all agree that regardless of the outcome here, they can never take this away from us?
Week 5
Thursday, October 2 vs. Vikings
Prediction: Packers 31, Vikings 14
While I generally hate these Thursday night games, there is one upside: my football-filled Sunday isn't tarnished by anxiety about what the Packers did/will do. In any case, I don't think three days is enough preparation for rookie QB Teddy Bridgewater to come into Lambeau and pull off an upset. Anything can happen, but this seems like a likely W.
Week 6
Sunday, October 12 @ Miami
Miami was a dumpster fire last year. The Dolphins should be better this year, and they're playing at home. But at the end of the day, we're talking Aaron Rodgers in a warm environment going against...Ryan Tannehill. 'Nuff said.
Week 7
Sunday, October 19 vs. Panthers
Prediction: Packers 30, Panthers 24
Given that I currently have the Packers at 61 (even after playing the majority of the schedule on the road), it might seem that we're pursuing the time-honored tradition of homers penciling their way to a 14-2 regular season record. But the difficult part of the schedule is yet to come.
Week 8
Sunday, October 26 @ New Orleans
Prediction: Saints 34, Packers 17
Starting here, the Packers run a season-defining gauntlet against playoff contenders and division foes that stretches into early December. New Orleans is fully loaded, and I think the Saints go up two touchdowns early. The Packers might put up some points in garbage time, but this one might be over early. Brees has too quick of a release, and nobody on the Packers matches up with monster tight end Jimmy Graham.
Week 9
Bye
Week 10
Sunday, November 9 vs. Bears
Prediction: Bears 24, Packers 21
I never feel good about facing the Bears. Yes, the Packers are 10-3 against Chicago during the Aaron Rodgers era, but there have been some uncomfortable games dating back to Favre's last stand in Chicago in 2007. The then-undefeated Packers blew a late lead (and had a game-clinching interception called back by a penalty) to lose. In 2010, the Packers committed 20 penalties in dropping a heartbreaker at Lambeau. And we all remember Rodgers breaking his collarbone last year.
All of those games were night games. So too is the week 10 tilt against the Monsters of the Midway. It's hard to not expect some sort of injury/penalty/blown-lead fest against our archrivals.
Week 11
Sunday, November 16 vs. Eagles
Prediction: Packers 31, Eagles 21
Every year you lose some games that look like Ws in August (See Week 10 vs. Bears). This game is the flip side of the equation. Brian Kelly's first year in Philadelphia made him appear to be an offensive genius. Perhaps he is. But by mid-November, the league will have had a year and a half to adjust.
Fans always want to believe their coaches are masterminds because coaching genius points to sustained success. The unspoken belief is that the decided schematic advantage means the players are expendable. Free agency and injuries become irrelevant because the system wins games. If this sounds silly, think back to February of 2011 when Dom Capers' "psycho" defense was going to dominate the league for a decade. SPOILER ALERT: The Packers defense has been terrible ever since. The Packers should take this one at home.
Week 12
Sunday, November 23 @ Minnesota
Prediction: Packers 24, Vikings 13
Remember a few paragraphs back when I said the Packer-Bear games at night made me irrationally anxious? The Vikings in Minnesota gives me an irrational sense of confidence. I always like Rodgers indoors...WAIT, WHAT?! THE VIKINGS ARE PLAYING OUTDOORS THIS YEAR?!
Please allow me a moment to turn that "42" to a "24."
Week 13
Sunday, November 30 vs. Patriots
Prediction: New England 31, Packers 24
I don't like the Packers defense against an experienced quarterback like Tom Brady. These wily veterans are always able to buy time and find the open man. Do you like the idea of AJ Hawk trying to cover Rob Gronkowski? Me neither.
Week 14
Monday, December 8 vs. Falcons
Prediction: Packers 28, Falcons 20
The Falcons were great for awhile. They were terrible last year. I don't know what to expect here. The game is at Lambeau so I think the Pack pulls it out in a competitive game.
Week 15
Sunday, December 14 @ Buffalo
Prediction: Packers 42, Bills 8
Every season needs one of those beat downs where you find yourself having thoughts like, "I know McCarthy doesn't run up the score, but with a couple of turnovers or a special teams breakdown, the Packers could score 60. Wouldn't that be cool?" The Bills are the best candidate for that game on the 2014 schedule.
Week 16
Sunday, December 21 @ Tampa Bay
Prediction: Packers 21, Buccaneers 16
I really hope this is a retro uniform game and we get to see the old school orange uniforms featuring the dude with the knife in his mouth. I'll settle for the Packers clinching a first-round bye.
Week 17
Sunday, December 28 vs. Lions
Prediction: Packers 30, Lions 20
After playoff games, nothing increases my blood pressure like the annual home game against Detroit. That's because the LOLions haven't won in Wisconsin since...1991. That's the first Bush Administration. The Panthers, Jaguars, Ravens and Texans weren't even in the league yet. Tampa Bay still had the sweet knife-in-mouth-guy logo. Robin Yount hadn't yet recorded his 3000th hit.
I will not. I cannot predict the streak ends this year.
Final Record: 12-4, NFC North Division Champions
Showing posts with label Sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sports. Show all posts
Important! Official Beer Mile World Record
A few sh's words there at the excitement at the end.
I think we can all agree this should be an Olympic event. James "The Beast" Nielsen is perhaps the greatest athlete to have ever existed.
HT Uncle Diemish
I think we can all agree this should be an Olympic event. James "The Beast" Nielsen is perhaps the greatest athlete to have ever existed.
HT Uncle Diemish
WIAA to consider "Three-Fifths" rule
 |
| Badgers Bronson Koenig |
Michael Flaherty comments at WPRI.more at La Crosse Tribune
"When the governing body of high school sports meets in Stevens Point on April 16, its members will vote on an odd, special rule to require the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association to treat private school sports teams as though their schools were much larger.
[...]
"Proponents argue that private schools have unique access to athletes through their prestige and tuition assistance. To level the playing field, so to speak, a number of small schools propose requiring private schools to count each student as 1.65 students for the purposes of placing them in competitive divisions."
Photo
Coaches, team officials gather for Mass at NFL combine
continue at The CompassIn his homily, Fr. Baraniak challenges men to embody in their work Lord's kindness, mercy
Tom Coughlin, NY Giants head coach
INDIANAPOLIS — Coaches, scouts and front office personnel from all 32 National Football League teams have gathered in mid-February in Indianapolis for years for several intensive days of analyzing hundreds of top college football players who are eligible for the NFL draft, which starts May 8 this year.
It’s called the NFL Scouting Combine and involves the players participating in a series of drills and interviews. With more members of the media attending the event each year, players and team coaches and officials also participate in several high-profile news conferences.
It’s called the NFL Scouting Combine and involves the players participating in a series of drills and interviews. With more members of the media attending the event each year, players and team coaches and officials also participate in several high-profile news conferences.
But while the hustle and bustle of the Combine continued at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, more than 100 Catholic coaches and other team officials stepped away to spend time in prayer and fellowship.
Minnesota hockey Olympian connects faith and competition
continue at SupCHST. CLOUD, Minn. — In the midst of final preparations for the Olympics, U.S. women’s hockey player Anne Schleper said faith definitely plays a role in her games.
In an interview three weeks before the opening ceremony of the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, Schleper, a Catholic who is a native of St. Cloud, said it would be easy to idolize the evaluation of her coaches or a potential medal around her neck.
But she is humbled to remind herself that she plays to glorify God.
“I wouldn’t be following his will if I wasn’t inviting him to the rink also,” said the 23-year-old, an alumna of Cathedral High School and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School in St. Cloud.
“Life goes too fast to try and please another human or to work tirelessly for an item that will eventually perish,” she told The Visitor, newspaper of the St. Cloud Diocese. “There is freedom in my life and in my play when I fix my eyes on Jesus and not on this world.”
St. Louis Cardinals to tank after All Star break?
continue at BreitbartSt. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak has ordered "Christian symbols" to be removed from the pitcher's mound at Busch Stadium after some fans were offended by the images that members of the stadium grounds crew had been carving into the mound before games.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "in recent weeks, the grounds crew had carved a cross and a No. 6 (in honor of the late Stan Musial) on the back side of the mound."
After Mozeliak heard complaints from some fans who were offended by the cross and what they interpreted to be a Christian fish symbol and saw a report in the Post-Dispatch, he ordered the grounds crew to remove the images last Friday.
“Once we learned of it,” Mozeliak told the Post-Dispatch. “I did contact the grounds crew and just asked that they don’t.
I guess baseball owners aren't as ... superstitious as once believed....
Bonus, did you see the Gomez catch to end the game last night?
"Once discipline is learned, one has freedom."
"Once discipline is learned, one has freedom."
(commentary during the Big Ten Championship game on how the two coaches were not micro-managing their teams)
HT Joy
Photo
Sweet Sconnie!
 |
| MJS |
 |
| MJS |
Some great post game interviews by both coaches.
Don't forget the High School tourney. Sam Dekker is amazing, and a Badger recruit. My cousin sat behind the Sheboygan bench. They are down by two, Dekker's dad is the head coach, and he's calling a two point play going for the tie. Sam Dekker yells, "No, I'm going for the win!" Then this happens(down by two), he scored 40 points, 12 in the last 45 seconds.
And another Badger recruit Zak Showalter makes Madison Memorial looks silly. Germantown went on to win the D1 Championship over previously undefeated Milwuakee King. This is just crazy.
Lombardi on the Rose Bowl
"We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." - Vince Lombardi
A good game and a good season. Needlessly wasting timeouts in the second half ended up costing the game. Glad that Michigan State was able to salvage another otherwise embarrassing bowl season for the Big 10.
more at JSOnline
A good game and a good season. Needlessly wasting timeouts in the second half ended up costing the game. Glad that Michigan State was able to salvage another otherwise embarrassing bowl season for the Big 10.
more at JSOnline
Two-parent upbringing credited for Tim Tebow's success
continue at FoxSportsIf this works, if Tim Tebow keeps winning games, keeps getting better, keeps forcing John Elway and John Fox to consider an alternative quarterback route to the Super Bowl, it won’t be some impossible-to-believe miracle, an act of a higher power.
Tim Tebow is not a religious symbol. He’s a shrine to the power of a strong, committed, passionate two-parent upbringing. Tebow’s birth — a product of his mother’s faith and refusal to listen to doctors advising her to abort — might very well have been a religious miracle. Tebow’s performance on the football field is testament to Bob and Pam Tebow and what they instilled in their youngest child.
At this moment, no one knows whether the Tebow experiment Elway and Fox have been pressured into undertaking will result in anything more sustainable than Tennessee’s Vince Young experience or Atlanta’s Michael Vick roller coaster.
You might also remember the Tebow Super Bowl ad from a few years back.
HT Adam
Origin of the "Hail Mary Pass"
In the Dallas/Minnesota 1975 NFL playoff game, the Cowboys started with the ball on their own 15-yard line, trailing 14-10, with one minute and fifty-one seconds left in the fourth quarter. Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach(a staunch Catholic) managed a nine-play drive to midfield against the Minnesota Vikings defense. From midfield, with 24 seconds now remaining, Staubach lined up in the shotgun formation, took the snap, pump-faked left, then turned to his right and threw a desperation pass to wide receiver Drew Pearson, who was being covered by Minnesota Vikings cornerback Nate Wright. Wright was pushed in the back and fell to the ground and Pearson was barely able to complete the catch by trapping the ball against his right hip at the 5-yard line and backing into the end zone to make the score 16-14 in favor of Dallas, and what would eventually be the winning touchdown. In a later interview with Pearson, he stated that he thought he dropped the ball only to find it against his hip and then just waltzed right into the end zone.You may know Badgers football suffered the losing end of one of these plays on Saturday. I'm told LarryD may have said a Hail Mary. If the two teams match up again in the championship game, I'll be sure to pray that he falls asleep rendering him unable to invoke the Theotokos.
The term "Hail Mary pass" was used by Roger Staubach following the game in a post-game interview. Previous to this play, a last-second desperation pass had been called several names, most notably the "Alley-Oop". Staubach, who had been hit immediately after throwing the ball and didn't see its ending, was asked about the play and he said, "You mean [Pearson] caught the ball and ran in for the touchdown? It was just a Hail Mary pass; a very, very lucky play." Staubach told reporters "I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary". This was among the plays by Roger Staubach that enhanced his fame and legend as noted in NFL.
"Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?"
... if you keep watching you can see the Viking fans hit an official in the head with a whiskey bottle.
It is really cool to see the Vikings playing outdoors though.
Doesn't the broadcaster sound like long time Packers radio sportcaster Jim Irwin?
New poll question: Favorite Wisconsin based sports team
Photo
Go Brewers!
 |
MJS: Celebrating the final out, a group of nuns enjoy the Milwaukee Brewers sweep of the Washington Nationals on May 25. Credit: Tom Lynn |
 |
| Badger Catholic naming his next child T. Plush? |
The Brewers are in first place in the division(tied). The closed out the first half of the season with a dramatic 9th inning come from behind victory against the Cincinnati Reds.
It's hard to explain but I am more of a Brewers fan than a Packers fan. Growing up, baseball was thee sport. Don't get me wrong, I'm not jettisoning my Super Bowl Champs. But baseball is just the better sport. Most people prefer the instant and flashy football to the the patience and pedestrian baseball. Baseball is America's pastime. I one time tried to explain to a friend of mine how baseball is the Catholic sport. It's a sport where you don't have to be the biggest or the strongest to be the best. But I digress...
If you've never seen it, I recommend the DVD Champions of Faith. It's a great telling of the role players Catholic faith plays into their daily lives as baseball players. A couple stories are very powerful.
Back to the Brewers, two players will be starting in this weeks All Star Game - Prince Fielder who won the Home Run Derby in 2009 and Rickie Weeks.
Speaking of baseball
Okay, I mean softball. Probably the worst way to end a season happened to Onalaska Luther a few days ago in the playoffs. Watch to see for yourself.
Also I do have photos and Temple Police updates from vacation but I haven't had time to post. Someone has been ragging on me to post them. Summer time it basically total chaos. I come out the other end looking like I just got mugged and checking to see if someone swiped my wallet.
Also I am officially 1-9(.111) playing softball this summer. Doh!
Also I do have photos and Temple Police updates from vacation but I haven't had time to post. Someone has been ragging on me to post them. Summer time it basically total chaos. I come out the other end looking like I just got mugged and checking to see if someone swiped my wallet.
Also I am officially 1-9(.111) playing softball this summer. Doh!
Sweep!!
Prince Fielder is on fire... so much so I am expecting a tongue of fire to pop out of the top of his head!
It's basketball season in Wisconsin
Congrats to La Crosse Aquinas on winning the division 3 state championship!
Also probably the best game in state history, Madison Memorial pulls out the Division 1 championship. Not sure if anybody else watched but it was amazing(I only saw the overtimes).
In the NCAA world, the Wisconsin Badgers are headed to the Sweet 16.
And after a couple big upsets, the Marquette Sreaming Eagles made the Sweet 16.
 |
| Aquinas' Bronson Koenig(who even though a sophomore is being recruited by schools like North Carolina and Wisconsin). |
 |
| Wis Rapids Trib |
In the NCAA world, the Wisconsin Badgers are headed to the Sweet 16.
Priests, seminarians renew rivalry of 'The Game' on ice
When nearly 200 priests and seminarians get together, an ice rink isn’t the most logical meeting place. But once a year in Winona, that’s exactly what takes place. In what is simply known as “The Game,” seminarians from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona[That is SSPX btw] take on the priests from across the United States and Canada who studied at the very same institution.The rest at Winona Daily News
It all happens at Bud King Ice Arena and is radically different from any high school, college or youth game that usually occupies the ice.
Since 1988, “The Game” has been the biggest rivalry no one really knows about in Minnesota — yes, the State of Hockey.
Let me tell you, it is a hockey game unlike any other. I witnessed “The Game” on Wednesday at Bud King Ice Arena and it left me, well, smiling.
“The game is pretty well known throughout our society of priests,” said Father Arnaud Rostand, who is stationed in Kansas City.
Every February, priests are summoned to Winona for annual meetings.
Back in 1988, Father Charles Ward wanted to add something extra to the meetings and came up with an idea that has turned into a tradition.
Ward decided to start an annual hockey game between the priests and the seminarians.
After arranging it with the District Superior, his dream came to fruition.
“The seminary was originally based in Richfield, Conn., and a lot of the seminarians out there played hockey,” said Ward, who now is stationed in Los Angeles. “When we moved here we found a way to keep playing.”
While some priests — their team is known as the “Flyin’ Fathers” — wear traditional hockey equipment, many are on the ice in their robes. Yes, robes.[Nope not robes, cassocks] Let your mind wander free for a moment and imagine that.
Robes are not likely going to turn into the latest hockey uniform craze, but hey, that’s not what this is all about.
It’s about fun, although both teams play to win.
“We just try to play a noble game with good sportsmanship,” Ward said. “We play because we love the game and for the rivalry.”
Can you imagine a German paper running a SSPX friendly article like this?
On Wisconsin!
For those who don't follow, the Wisconsin Badgers beat the undefeated and #1 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes Saturday in mens hoops. Let's just say it's been a pretty good year for Sconnie sports.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)