Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Aaron Rodgers "Wild Ride" and the Crashing Halt | Ticket King Green Bay



Usually this is the time when we have T.J. Bryce do a “Stock Market Report," essentially a refreshing way to review a football game. However, for the NFC championship game Sunday afternoon in Atlanta, there's really no point. There's nothing to review. That game went how he predicted that it would it would go, down to the minute by minute details. He predicted that “Packers would come out flat on offense, the Falcons would jump up big early, and the Packers would score late to save face.” So after the mourning period had passed, we thought we would post his last Packers post of the season.  

“I'm not mad. I'm not angry. I'm not upset. I'm not even sad. The Packers did not choke, they did not blow it, they did not screw up, nor did they fold under pressure. Don't blame the controversial non-safety in the second quarter. It was the correct call. Don't blame the Mason Crosby missed field goal. That had very little effect on the outcome of the game. There's nobody to blame here. Literally. There is nobody, anywhere, they can blame for this loss.

You want to know what you blame? They ran out of players, and that's where you lay the blame. This goes way beyond the typical “oh they have suffered a lot of injuries.” I've been sitting here the last few weeks laughing at the Packers injury updates. That's all you can do. Their choices at cornerback today were a badly wounded Damarious Randall, who had no business playing in this game, or these playoffs for that matter. Randall has been playing with a pulled groin for a few weeks now. Have you ever tried to move with a pulled groin? Yeah, it hurts, BAD. But he had had to play, because they had nobody else. Their next choice was the also badly wounded Quinten Rollins, who just cleared concussion protocol late this week, has dealt with injuries all season, and the only reason he was active for this game was because it was the NFC championship game. If it were week number three in September, neither Randall nor Rollins would have been anywhere near the field today. The rest of their choices were LaDarius Gunter, whom the original plan was for him to be the fifth cornerback this season, and the 13th and 14th or whatever they're on cornerbacks they have played this season. So yeah, let's recap. Their number 2 and 3 corners, both badly wounded, 5, 13, and 14. Just think about that for a while. To make a long story short, they finally ran out of street free agents to run out there on defense and their offense got so banged up they couldn't carry them anymore.

I knew this was coming though at some point, I knew all week it was going to happen, and I knew it was going to go down in this manner. Joyrides, no matter how much fun they are, always end in a crash.  Packers fans got in Aaron’s car back in early November, went for a joyride with him, and finally crashed, Sunday afternoon, in the Georgia Dome.  He was behind the wheel, and what a crazy, ridiculous, wild, insane, fun ride he took us all on. Forget about the NFC championship game. For two months, Aaron Rodgers played the quarterback position better than it has ever been played. You need eyes, not stats, to realize this. I could go on and on about that right now, but that is what I've spent the last two months doing. Instead, I will say this. Right now I feel like I'm in a group of people that just crashed a car via a joyride, we are all sitting on the ground, smiling, saying to ourselves, “that was fun.”

So, hats off to you Aaron Rodgers, and thank you for taking us on this wild ride. I wouldn't trade the last two months for anything. Even though it did not result in a Super Bowl win, that doesn't matter. The last two months shall be forever remembered as “Mr. Rodgers’ Wild Ride.”