Packer Fan Gameday Diary: Week 2

Eh, that wasn't too bad last week, so this blog's going to give it a shot again.

11:55 - Just woke up from a nap, this blog decided extra sleep was more "worth it" than either pre-game.

11:59 - The pre-game montage for Packers-Saints is basically a collection of Reggie Bush and Brett Favre shots over REM's "We are all made of stars." This blog did find it hilarious that they were showing Favre for the "People they fall apart..." lyric.

12:03 - The other game on the early slate is Texans-Colts. So it's Dog City, USA no matter which channel.

12:04 - This blog had temporarily forgotten that this is the first Montage-fest that it will witness. Reggie Bush gets the ball on an end around on the first play of the game. This will open all of the montages.

12:05 - Holy crap! The Packers' Greg Kampman just forced a fumble and recovered it, so the offense really only needs to go 30 yards. Well, Field Goal's not so bad.

12:06 - Colts already scored after having recovered a Texans fumble and throwing to Brandon Stokley. Colts 7-0. Packers-Saints tied at zero with Green Bay threatening.

12:09 - Greg Jennings TD! Go Pack Go! Packers 7-0.

12:10 - This blog should have laid this out earlier, but, along with 2 co-workers in the pre-season, it picked that the Packers would win this game. Then again, this blog and its co-workers all picked them for 6-10. After week 1's embarrassing loss to the Bears, we all wanted to recalibrate our bets and pick more losses.

12:11 - Just saw the Southwest Airlines commercial where the grocery cashier gets annihilated by the pineapple. This blog is sorry, but that one never gets old.

12:12 - Today's Packer game announcers are Ron Pitts and Terry Donahue. After getting blown out with turd announcers Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan last week, Fox somehow decided to slightly improve our announcers. This blog isn't complaining. The cool thing about Pitts doing a Packer game is that he used to play in Green Bay. This is already evident, as he said that Packer kicker Dave Raymer "almost put the kickoff in the Fox River." A nice touch, bringing up the local geography.

12:16 - Unreal. There's 9:36 left in the first quarter, and the Packers just forced and recovered their second fumble. Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila forced it, and Cullen Jenkins recovered. The offense only needs to go about 20 yards, and based on the last possession, this seems manageable. Then again, 2 TDs from an offense that couldn't even get in position for better than a 53-yard FG last week seems unlikely. Pun City projects Field Goal.

12:18 - Dave Raymer lines up for a 24-yarder. Packers up 10-0 and looking somehow dominant (despite inability to punch it in from 20 yards out).

12:20 - This blog's Fantasy League team of choice, the Louisiana Kournikovas, somehow doesn't have any of its 8 players in the lineup for the early games except Chad Johnson. Kournikova Reserve Joseph Addai just scored for the Colts to put them up 14-0.

12:26 - Another note on Fantasy Leagues. This blog decided that any time its players were going up against the Packers, that would be an automatic start. If Eric Parker were going against the Pack, and it meant Chad Johnson would sit, this blog would do it in an instant.

12:27 - Crap. Bush just made a decent catch and ran it about 15 yards. Definite montage fodder. Although, with the recent intensification of his improper collegiate benefits, this blog wonders if the Reggie Bush lovefest is over. Hopefully, at least the montage-fest is.

12:28 - My Lundy, Lundy Bridge, wanna go down. Wali Lundy, showing his equivalency to Plaxico Burress (Um, not really. Check last week's post for more info on that), just fumbled it over to the Colts. Texans have had 3 turnovers on 3 possessions.

12:30 - Spectacular interception by Al Harris and the Packers have the ball back. This blog is definitely feeling like it's in Bizarro NFL world. This blog just checked with the NFL Network to see if they were playing a prank on everyone or something......

12:32 - Instead, it found that they're showing "Red Zone," where they cycle between stats at every game that's going on. Whoa!! That is awesome. May need to watch that instead of a late game. This blog now knows what it was like when Joey and Chandler discovered the free porn network.

12:35 - Strange Packer play. Noticing a neutral zone infraction when Favre was in the shotgun, Scott Wells snapped it when Favre wasn't looking. Luckily Favre tracked it down and was able to throw it away instead of the safety that probably should have happened. Also, the penalty was called.

12:37 - As Favre is being sacked, Ron Pitts is saying "plenty of time for Favre." Well, maybe this crew isn't so great. Still beats Rosen though. Rosen's so bad, this blog doesn't even have any trademark to imitate from him. This site supposes it would have been dead silence followed by, "And a loss of 8 on the play."

12:39 - Packers now up 13-o on another Dave Raymer field goal. 50 seconds left in the first quarter. After last week, 13 points on the season would have seemed a stretch, so this blog is lovin' it like McDonald's, a proud Gameday sponsor of the Pack!

12:48 - Apparently not all games get the cool new telestrator graphics. Terry Donahue just broke out the old grade school "stay between the lines"-style drawing. Maybe he asked to keep the old style. "I'm not going with all that fancy, easy-to-watch mumbo jumbo. You give me the crappy stuff so it looks like my kid was playing Etch-A-Sketch on national TV."

12:53 - CBS shows that Chad Johnson scored a touchdown and did the Chicken Dance. This is probably in homage to his role as Grand Marshal of some Cincinnati Festival where he is going to lead the assembled patrons in the Chicken Dance. In other brash Kournikova receiver news, Roy Williams' prediction of Lion victory over the Bears is looking unlikely since they're down 17-0. Williams does have 3 catches for 33 yards, which was about his full-game total last week.

12:57 - Quick check in on "Red Zone." Man is that awesome. If this blog had to pick one channel for the whole day, that would be it. Luckily, it doesn't have to choose less than 3, so as it is there will be only intermittent checks. Per Red Zone, Reggie Bush only has 20 all-purpose yards on 4 touches, which should probably limit his montage factor.

1:02 - Packers coach Mike McCarthy looking significantly more competent this game, choosing to rant into his headset instead of pulling an Art Shell and staring blankly into space. Colts now up 17-0. Fox hilariously chose to show a graphic of Reggie Bush's plays at each position. Plays at WR: 6. Plays at RB: 9. 6 and 9! This blog is guessing some production assistant waited until that exact moment so he could sneak that in. Nice work, dude.

1:08 - First Koren Robinson sighting. He's on the sidelines. This blog is mildly surprised he hasn't played yet, but this blog supposes that the Saints haven't kicked off yet, and kick returns may be the only chance he sees the field for this first game (of his). This blog is looking forward to it. Million dollar talent, 10-cent head as they say.

1:12 - Deuce McAllister scores and cuts it to 13-7 . Packers may yet find a way to lose this. After all, their offense hasn't gone more than 30 yards on a possession yet. Kournikovas are only down 28.4-10.5 right now, despite going 1 on 5. This bodes extremely well for their chances. A quick check on the free league this blog is in reveals that it's a total points league that doesn't separate between weeks. This means this blog's Kournikovas II are most likely going to be in last place for the entire season. Speaking of which, Texans now within 17-3.

1:22 - Colts up 20-3 at the half. Reggie Bush stuffed for a loss. This after a Walter Stanley-esque punt return where he went backwards 10 yards to end up gaining 5 on the return. Unfortunate, because if he paid for retreating, it wouldn't make any highlight reels. Now it's montage-bound for sure, although those montages are going to be pretty lame this week since he's only got 33 total yards.

1:27 - On the muted TV, (Colts-Texans halftime), they just showed Daunte Culpepper's patented "throw the ball away but still make it catchable" play. The problem is that he always makes it catchable for the defender, so the Bills DB just stretched out to make the pick. He repeatedly does this, it's like he doesn't perceive the boundaries. Instead of putting it in the 4th row, he figures that if the ball has a trajectory that would put it out of bounds before it lands, that's sufficient. This leads to a number of needless interceptions, which is a big part of why he imploded last year.....

1:31 - Speaking of which, Packers are now down 14-13, and not really showing any signs of life as far as being able to stop anyone anymore. Ahmad Carroll got scorched, which is his calling card despite having a 4.22 40 time. This blog is thinking the opening Packer flurry was a mirage and they'll lose this thing 35-13. They had this blog hoping for a minute there.

1:51 - Hey, first Reggie Bush montage, and it's about how he's struggling! That's very cool. Hopefully Pacman Jones was right when he said "He's just fast, as long as you keep him inside, he won't hurt you." Second half kickoff reveals that the Packers' 2 deep men on Kick Returns (Koren Robinson and Vernand Morency) have a combined 2 weeks of experience with the team. That's in total days, not games. Packers now known as the Ellis Island of the NFL. Though with Robinson, it might be more like Rikers Island.

1:59 - After the Colts went up 27-3 on Houston, CBS gave up on that game. Now at the Bills-Dolphins game, so this blog might get to see some more of Daunte Culpepper's wacky "throwaway" antics.

2:08 - Instead, it turns out to be Brett Favre's "throwaway" antics, which, combined with the Saints getting a hand on the throw, created an interception in the end zone. Extraordinarily frustrating, especially when Joe Horn goes 50 yards to set up a Saints Field Goal (17-13 Saints). On a positive note, the good Kournikovas are only down 41.4-13.6, while still going 1-on-5.

2:23 - Another team in this blog's fantasy league, the Walter Sobchaks (named after the Big Lebowski character), have an amazing 111 points already. Granted, they've got 7 of 8 players in the early games, and the defensive points could decrease somewhat, but that's still almost definitely going to win the week. Saints go up 20-13. Packers somehow still within 7 despite having shown very little sign of life on offense since the first quarter. Don't tell this blog "Well, with Favre, you're in every game," because that's 1997 Favre, not this version with this "supporting" cast.

2:36 - Robert "Turd" Ferguson scores and the Packers tie it at 20, so this is cool. This blog is flashing back to 1989 when it was Don Majkowski leading a similarly talentless team in a series of amazing comebacks. Granted, this is Brett Favre, and one-half of a comeback does not constitute an entire series, but still fun to watch.

2:40 - Terry Donahue, in describing 2 pass routes, uses the phrase "Like 2 cars passing in the night..." Apparently the guy writes romance novels when he's not taking up booth space. Then again, maybe while he is in the booth as well.

2:46 - Ron Pitts describes a Vikings fake Field Goal attempt as "a little trickeration." Who is doing this game? Danielle Steel and Rob Schneider?

2:54 - Pass Interference, Ahmad Carroll. There used to be a Phillies player whose nickname was "Losing Pitcher" (Hugh Mulcahy), because of the number of times that newspapers would show that line. This blog is hereby nominating the nickname of "Pass Interference" Ahmad Carroll.

2:57 - Nick Collins burned for a Marcus Colston touchdown, Saints up 27-20. On the ensuing kickoff, Koren Robinson gets into his second scuffle of the day. Very possible his string of drunk driving offenses is a sore subject among other players.

2:59 - Ahman Green fumbles. Deuce McAllister scores. Even though there's 7:54 left, that's the ballgame. It was nice while it lasted. Saints up 34-20.

3:14 - Packers score on a Noah Herron touchdown catch. This is basically just taunting the poor Packer fans, but there is 4:18 left. Packers trail 34-27. The late games have begun and the Kournikovas are now within 58.84-26.66. It'd be nice to get the lead relatively quickly here so that the night games don't matter.

3:24 - On 4th and 10, Favre misses everyone by 10 yards. Ugh. While this blog appreciates that the Packers were "in" this game until 1:57 left, it's not cool when there were so many blown opportunities and they only lose by 7. The Pack definitely isn't going to be winning for a while, given the quality of their upcoming opponents (Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Miami). On the bright side, McCarthy looks genuinely pissed, so perhaps there's some hope for these bums. Kournikovas trail 61.14-28.82, so that's gotta get better. Lot of games left though, and now 7-on-3.

3:33 - Always unwatchable local postgame show "Fox 6 Blitz" comes on, somehow made even less watchable with the loss. Switching over to "NFL Scoreboard" on the NFL Network, with postgame recaps and press conferences. CBS has Broncos-Chiefs, scoreless through most of a quarter.

4:21 - Broncos-Chiefs still a 0-0 dud, Bulger hit Holt for a Kournikova double touchdown, and Kournikovas II is even out of the cellar, remarkably in 10th place! This blog is heading to dinner!