This Is Supposed to Be My Off-Season

Writing an NFL blog is a time-consuming task.  Particularly in a year when your team wins the big dance.  Like the Packers themselves, I was spent at the end of this season.  My creative juices were squeezed.  I was ready for a little R&R.  Maybe watch some March Madness.  Get ready for the NFL Draft.

But NOOOOO...  Instead, I have to listen to hours of endless bickering between millionaire players and billionaire owners about financial disclosures, union decertification and collective bargaining agreements.  It's enough to make your head explode.  Last week, the proverbial shit hit the fan as both parties walked away from the negotiating table.



Although I've speculated that a lock-out may, theoretically, help the Packers, I'm already growing impatient for this blood feud to get resolved.  For those of you with the good sense to tune out the madness, here's a recap of where things stand:

• The NFL owners decided they wanted a bigger piece of the $9 BILLION that the NFL makes, so they opted out of the existing "CBA" or collective bargaining agreement.
• Presently, the owners skim $1 billion off the top before the revenue is split with the players.  The NFL owners want to double that to $2 billion under the argument that they are losing their shirts paying for all the expenses of running an NFL franchise, like hot dog vendors and towel boys.
• The NFL Players Association has asked, for two years, for the owners to provide some evidence that their expenses have, in fact, doubled.  But the owners are un-willing to share their financial information.
• At the deadline (which was extended one week) for negotiation, the NFL owners brilliantly forced the NFLPA to decertify their union.  This action enables players to sue, but it also allowed the owners to claim the high ground -- asserting that it was the players who walked away, when, in fact, it was the owners who triggered this whole thing.

Now, we're in what one might describe as a "f*cking mess!"  Words like "sham" and "liar" are being thrown around by parties on both sides.  It's feeling increasingly likely that this will end up in court, which would be like watching a slow-motion car wreck -- too horrifying to watch, but too intriguing to turn away.

Here's my bottom line on the whole thing: you guys are arguing over about 10% of the pie!!!  Just come to a frickin' resolution.  Please, look to Major League Baseball or the NHL, or your own disastrous player strike in 1987, to understand how quickly you can destroy value in your game.  As you bitch about this billion dollars, this 10% of the pie, ask yourselves how quickly you can destroy that much equity in the league.  It's not worth it!

You are pulled up to a ridiculously bountiful trough at a glorious, never-ending buffet and you're whining about who gets to put his napkin in his lap first.  For God's sake, shut up and slurp down on the river of money that we fans, through our tireless devotion, have created for you.  Don't turn the game we all love into... baseball.  You assholes.

Could an NFL Lockout Actually Help the Packers?

The owners and players extended their deadline by 24 hours yesterday, though nobody seems to feel very optimistic a deal will be reached today – except perhaps another extension to get more negotiation time.  It is a pretty depressing scenario all around.  The prospect of a player lockout lasting into the regular season is, obviously, a worst-case scenario.  The very thought of losing part or all of a season in which the Packers hope to repeat as Super Bowl champions and many of our key players are at their prime is horrifying.  Obviously, the ideal scenario is this all gets sorted soon and we get on to the draft, free agency, and all the fun leading up to next season.

But I have found myself lately thinking that a lockout, assuming it is resolved before the start of the regular season, could actually be a good thing for the Packers.  Perverse logic?  Perhaps, but here’s my rationale:

First, most Super Bowl winning teams get their personnel raided faster than Rex Ryan cleans out a refrigerator.  Suddenly, talent and depth are lost as teams swoop in to sign away as many free agents as possible in search of that championship mojo.  However, given the uncertainty around the CBA, the usual free agency shuffle hasn’t happened so far this season.  The Packers top free agents are in limbo, and the longer that lasts the fewer will leave for other teams.

Second, though there’s no free agency, there will still be an NFL draft (though the players drafted won’t actually be able to sign contracts until a new CBA is in place).  A draft-only means of building your team suits Ted Thompson and the Packers perfectly.  They have demonstrated an incredible ability the last few seasons to pluck high-impact players at every round of the draft.  So the Packers seem to be in a good position, particularly compared to teams that rely more on free agency, to augment their roster this off-season.

Third, one of the big potential consequences of a lock-out will be team preparation.  Players will be prohibited from going in to the team facility, working with position coaches, practicing new schemes, etc.  For any team that has even minor rebuilding to do, this lack of preparation time is going to be a big problem.  If your team has a new head coach, new quarterback, or key new players coming into the 2011 season, you may have very little time to get them game-day ready.  The Packers, by contrast, have a great team, personnel, coaches, and overall system in-place already.  They just need to get some of their guys healthy (the one thing they can do in a lockout), and they should be ready come opening day kick-off.

Of course, all this assumes there even is an opening day kick-off.  As stated above, a lockout that runs into August, September or beyond would be almost as big a disaster as Brett Favre's decision to return last season.  But there could be a silver lining to this labor strife, even if today marks the start of a lockout.

The Packers Are Spoiling My Kids

A mere portion of the Packers gear that arrived at our house this week.

With the latest air-drop of Packers Super Bowl merchandise arriving this week, I was forced to contemplate how spoiled my kids have become with regards to sports.  This has been a once-in-a-generation year for the Trigg family.  Obviously, we are die-hard Packers fans, but we’ve also, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit, become pretty big Los Angeles Lakers and San Francisco Giants fans as well – which has resulted in the exceedingly rare championship trifecta: baseball, basketball, and football all in the same year.  This is the sports equivalent of a 10.0 magnitude earthquake, volcanic eruption, and total eclipse of the sun all happening within a 12-month span – yet, my children assume this is just how it is.  The expectation has been set that their favorite team simply wins the championship every year.  Ungrateful shits.

Of course, I was originally a Milwaukee Brewers fan, and, to a lesser degree, a Milwaukee Bucks fan.  But growing up in Wisconsin during the 70s and 80s was pretty rough when it came to sports.  Born in 1969, I was the generation that just missed the Packers’ January 14, 1968 Super Bowl II victory over the Oakland Raiders.  I would be 28 before the Packers would return to and win another Super Bowl in 1997.

In baseball, who (from Wisconsin at least) can forget Harvey's Wallbangers?  I can still name most of that 1982 Brewers’ roster: Robin Yount, Jim Gantner, “Stormin' Gorman” Thomas, Rollie Fingers, Ben Oglivie, Cecil Cooper – loved them all.  But the ’82 series ended in disappointment with a loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, and it’s been some pretty darn dry years since (and before, for that matter).

The Bucks are a largely forgotten NBA franchise.  Apart from their 1971 NBA championship over the Baltimore Bullets (a little early for me I must say) they have done nothing of note.  Like the Toronto Raptors, Charlotte Bobcats, and New Orleans Hornets, the Bucks have wallowed in mediocrity for generations.

It’s no wonder my baseball and basketball loyalties were vulnerable as I’ve lived in Chicago, Washington DC and San Francisco as an adult.  Baseball is really more of a pastime than a sport anyway, and I’ve always been a fan of proximity – the Cubs in Chicago, the Orioles in DC, and now the Giants.  It was great to see the Giants finally deliver the goods for long-suffering Bay Area baseball fans this year.  But for my kids, they'd expect nothing less than a World Series victory parade.

How my children became Lakers fans is harder to explain.  We’ve gone to Golden State Warriors games, but a constantly changing roster coupled with a mostly non-existent post-season has made it hard to board that bandwagon.  Whereas consecutive NBA Championships for the Lakers, coupled with relative geographic proximity, have sparked their loyalty to Kobe and company.  Who, of course, have further solidified their expectation that any team they root for wins championships on a regular basis.

As I watch my boys decked out in their Packers, Lakers and Giants gear, it’s hard for me not to interject with a “when I was a kid, I had to wait 28 years for a championship!!!”  Or a "we would be glad just to make the playoffs in any sport!!!"  Or a “you kids with your hip hop and your gang bangin’ don’t even appreciate what it means for your team to be champions!!!”  But I somehow manage to keep my generational reprimands in check.

In fact, I’ve decided to roll with it.  There’s an indisputable joy to watching sports with kids – especially your own kids.  You let your guard down.  You allow yourself to enjoy the game again.  You watch your heroes with awe.  You revel in the spectacle that is modern sports.  When your team scores, you cheer with the reckless abandon of a child – savoring every moment.  Bounding around the room with a vigor and enthusiasm equaled only by the players themselves.  It’s a shared experience, a shared passion, that brings us together as father and sons.  Each championship we’ve celebrated this year has brought us closer together, and the Packers' 2011 Super Bowl will be a memory we will always cherish.  Even if they are spoiled.

Five Most Impressive Things about Packers Super Bowl Win

In an effort to quell my NFL withdrawal symptoms, I re-watched the entire Super Bowl last night.  I intended to just watch the first quarter, but I couldn’t stop.  What an epic game it was.  As I reflected on the entire journey again this morning, there were several things that are just remarkably impressive about the Packers’ 2010 campaign.

Here are the five things that are most impressive about the Packers ride to Super Bowl glory:

1) Overcoming injuries – It’s hard to start a conversation about the 2010 Packers without talking about the rash of injuries that hit the club.  The injury-plagued season has been talked about a lot, but it really is stunning when you lay it out:

• 6 opening-day starters gone – Nick Barnett, Morgan Burnett, Jermichael Finley, Ryan Grant, Brad Jones and Mark Tauscher.
• Absolute decimation of our linebacking corps – in addition to Barnett and Jones, we lost Brandon Chillar and Brady Poppinga.
• Massive loss of depth on defense – including DEs Justin Harrell and Mike Neal, safeties Anthony Smith and Derrick Martin, and corner Josh Bell (would have lost Woodson to IR as well if the season was still going).

Hard to believe we overcame all that and still had one of the top-ranked defenses.

2) Never trailing by more than 7 points – this is an over-looked yet amazing fact of the Packers 2010 season.  Never, at any point in any game, did the Packers trail by more than 7 points.  That’s an astonishing feat that hasn’t been accomplished since the 1962 Detroit Lions.  Furthermore, none of the Packers’ losses were by more than 4 points.  Arguably, the Packers were 6 plays away from a perfect season:

1. Jones’ fumble against the Bears in week 3
2. Crosby’s missed field goal against the Redskins in week 5
3. Robert Francois’s illegal formation penalty to give the Dolphins a first down in week 6
4. Matt Wilhelm’s facemask penalty on the final kick return against the Falcons in week 12
5. Jennings’ TD drop against the Lions in week 14
6. Matt Flynn getting sacked in the final play against the Patriots in week 15

Although I’ll take all this regular season “bad luck” in exchange for the string of post-season good luck any day.

3) First #6 seed in NFC to win the Super Bowl – the only other team to do it, period, was, coincidentally, the Steelers in the AFC.  But the pure statistical odds of winning 3 road playoff games in a row is very low.  Not only did the Packers do that, but they won two must-win games before hand and sealed the deal with the Super Bowl victory.

4) One of the youngest teams in the NFL – Ted Thompson’s strategy has always been to build through the draft, and he’s done it better than anyone in the business.  Consequently, however, the Packers were the youngest team in the entire NFL the last four consecutive years.  This season, the Packers came in as the 5th youngest team, although as they lost several veteran players through the season and swapped in younger guys (e.g. Tauscher for Bulaga) they got younger.  The math involved in calculating this hurts my head, but I’ve heard some say the Packers finished the season as the second-youngest team.  Whatever it is, it’s impressive.  And what’s particularly impressive is that, with the exception of Woodson and Driver, almost all the key leaders of the team are in their young to mid-twenties.

Schein and Gannon stayed loyal to their Packer Super Bowl prediction all season.

5) So many experts predicted it – As I noted at the start of the season, it was a little scary how many people were predicting the Packers would win the Super Bowl.  Every morning in my car, I would listen to Adam Schein and Rich Gannon on Sirius NFL Radio talk about the Packers as their favorite team.  It all felt like a jinx at times.  And there was certainly a point, standing at 3-3 after a string of injuries, when plenty of pundits jumped off the bandwagon.  But this has to be one of the highest accuracy hit-rates at predicting the Super Bowl champion in NFL history.

The final thought, although “impressive” isn’t the right word for it which is why it didn’t make my top 5 list, is that Aaron Rodgers didn’t even make the Pro Bowl.  “Astonishing” or “bewildering” would be a better word for it.  The slow start to his season, plus the time missed with the concussion, hurt him.  But I doubt, after his Championship run, that Aaron will be left off that list for a long time.

Withdrawal Symptoms Kicking In

The first Sunday after the end of every NFL season is a hard one to handle.  The usual game day rituals of the entire fall and winter are disrupted.  I find myself twitching.  Instinctively reaching for the remote.  Harboring the anticipation of another week of football – only to realize… it’s over.

The withdrawal symptoms are even more severe after this year’s Championship run.  Today is the first time in 26 weeks that there isn’t a Packers game to look forward to, save the bye week and the week before the Super Bowl.  It was an exhibition loss to the Cleveland Browns on Saturday, August 14 that kicked things off for the 2010 NFL season.  At least during the regular season if the Packers weren’t playing on Sunday, I could control my symptoms by watching other NFL games (Lions vs. Bills, anyone!?), and take comfort in the fact that my regular fix of Packer football would soon return.

Now it’s all over.  Like so much confetti on the floor of Cowboys stadium.  The TV is silent this Sunday.  And I’m not sure I know what to do with myself except sit on the couch, fidgeting, and pining away for next season.

Perhaps the worst part about the first free Sunday in a half year is the household chores that I can now no longer avoid.  Here’s a sample of what I’ve got on tap today:

Clean out the garage – like most Americans, my garage is a mess.  Living in California, it’s fortunate that we don’t need to use our garage to actually park a car in.  We also, like most California homes, don’t have a basement or useable attic.  The consequence of all this is that our garage looks like an episode of Hoarders.    I think I’m going to start with a shovel.

Fix the phone – nobody knows how long the phone line at our house has been out of service.  We noticed it several weeks ago.  It could have been down for months, given how infrequently we use it.  And, being primarily users of cell phones, we haven’t bothered to try to fix it since then.  Our land line is really just a conduit for telemarketers.  We realized we didn’t even know who our land line phone provider was.  “Pacific Telesis?” I guessed.  “No, I think it’s SBC,” said my wife.  Finally, we discovered it’s back to AT&T.

The toy mound in our "playhouse" was declared unsafe by OSHA.

Purge the toy mound – we have a pile of toys in the kids’ playhouse – or, as I like to call it, the “toy graveyard” – that are no longer played with and must be taken to Goodwill.  We follow a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with these toys.  If the kids haven’t played with them for over a year, out they go.  If you make the mistake of asking them, “Do you still play with this cymbal-clapping, wind-up monkey clown from the 1950s?” they will grab onto it like an orphaned puppy.  There are toys at the bottom of this heap that are going through a molecular fusion with each other and could emerge as a robot-train-dinosaur hybrid.  Best to just bulldoze it all.

About the only task I’m actually looking forward to this weekend is re-reading my favorite posts from this season’s TriggPack.  With no game to cover, here are my top 10 favorite posts from the glorious season that was:

10) McCarthy’s March through the Playoffs
9) Is James Starks as Good as Ted Thompson Thinks He Is? -- I should caveat that this post wasn't actually a particular favorite of mine, but it was the most popular among TriggPack readers -- setting the single article readership record with 1,689 page views.
8) Latest Packer Controversy: Nut Gate
7) Controversy Erupts Over Green Bay Street Renaming
6) Additional Reports of Anti-Packer Discrimination
5) Why Green Bay is the #1 NFL Market
4) Brat Coma
3) Can’t Trust Minnesotans
2) The Lucrative World of Sports Blogging
1) What’s a Packer?

If you're a regular reader, and your favorite post isn't included here, I invite you to add it in the Comments section.  Can't wait for next season!

One other thing to look forward to today is my 8-year-old son's playoff basketball tournament -- the only team for whom my loyalties run deeper than the Packers!

Why the Packers-Steelers Was the Most Watched Super Bowl Ever

One of my kids watching a Packers game.

A friend and frequent TriggPack reader told me before the Super Bowl that a work colleague of his thought the NFL was disappointed that the Jets and Bears didn’t make the Super Bowl because those were bigger markets.  With the Nielsen results coming out on Monday declaring this game not only the most watched Super Bowl, but the most watched television program ever, period.  I’d say it’s safe to say the NFL isn’t worried about small market teams making it to the big game.

The entire notion that “small market teams” like the Green Bay Packers can’t generate big revenues is antiquated and really a carry-over from the economics that plague the NBA and MLB.  With its record-breaking 162.9 million viewers, the Packers-Steelers Super Bowl was a bonanza for the NFL and for Fox.  There are three main reasons why:

First, the NFL shares television revenue equally among all the teams.  Pioneered by former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle in the sixties, the NFL revenue sharing system allows a small market team like the Packers to extract a portion of revenue equal to a big market team like the New York Giants.  This is why Los Angeles doesn’t have a team – because, apart from the stadium take (which constitutes about 1/3 of an owners’ total revenue) it’s no more lucrative to have a team in L.A. as it is Jacksonville.

Second, the Super Bowl is a single game, as opposed to a best-of-seven series.  Any sports fan can sustain their attention span for one three-hour game.  But tuning in, night after night, for a seven-game series can get tedious – even if you care about the outcome, which most basketball and baseball fans don’t.  And no other event, aside from perhaps presidential elections, captures the attention and imagination of America.  Even if you don't give a crap about the game, you can grab a beer and a bowl of chili and watch the commercials for God's sake.

Third, there are no two franchises, perhaps in all of sports, more compelling than the Packers and Steelers.  They are blue collar teams that exemplify everything that is great about sports.  Both teams have long, proud legacies.  Both are multi-time NFL champions.  And, for the Packers, they have an additional aspect of their team identity that makes them even more likeable.  In the modern sports era of big money, big contracts and big egos, the Green Bay Packers stand in solitary contrast to what most sports fans loath about modern sports.  As the only community-owned franchise in the smallest media market, there is something fundamentally compelling about the Green Bay Packers.  They are the real America’s team – evoking a nostalgia for what is good in sports, for what is good in America, that few other franchises in any sport can conjure up.  Even a "big market" newspaper like the New York Times agrees.

That is why Sunday was the most watched television show in American history.  God bless America, and God bless the Green Bay Packers.

Controversy Erupts Over Green Bay Street Renaming

The intersection of Holmgren Way and Brett Favre Pass in Green Bay.

When Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt announced during the Return to Titletown celebration at Lambeau Field on Tuesday that he intended to name a city street after coach Mike McCarthy, he sparked a controversy over the un-funded program.  The proposal continues a local tradition of naming streets after Packers Super Bowl Champion coaches and players.  But Alderman Chris Wery, who will be running against Schmitt for mayor this April, initially opposed the name change on the basis of cost and characterized the move as a political ploy to win voters.

All that changed yesterday after local law firm Metzler, Timm, Treleven, Pahl, Beck, S.C. generously offered to donate $5,000 to underwrite the costs of new signs and labor to rename the street Mayor Schmitt happens to live on as McCarthy’s Way.  Wery, recognizing he was running against the sentiment of his die-hard Packer fan constituents, quickly announced a street renaming initiative of his own.

“I’m proud to announce that the stretch of Highway 41 between Oneida and Lombardi will now be known as Ted Thompson Turnpike,” announced Wery at a press conference yesterday morning in the parking lot of Copp’s on Lombardi Avenue in -9 degree weather.  “Furthermore, Brookwood Drive will now be known as Rodgers’ Road in honor of the best quarterback ever!”

Mayor Schmitt’s office was quick to respond with a press conference of their own yesterday afternoon announcing an expanded plan to re-name streets after the entire 53-man Packer roster, as well as 15 players on injured reserve.  Mayor Schmitt provided local media with directions to his house, where tomorrow’s unveiling of McCarthy’s Way will be held, using the new street naming scheme.

“Alls you do is take Woodson Way till it turns into Williams Way.  You’ll pass Starks Street and then take a left on Barnett Boulevard.  Take that down past Collins Court and Lee Lane and then merge onto Hawk Highway.  Take the exit for Bulaga Byway and then take your second right on Driver Drive.  Veer left at the split between Peprah Parkway and Pickett Place and you’ll see McCarthy’s Way on the right.  If ya hit Tauscher Terrace, ya gone too far.”

Not to be outdone, Alderman Wery’s office issued a press release this morning announcing his proposal to the Green Bay City Council to paint Lombardi Avenue green and yellow with permanent Green Bay Packer bunting adorning every street lamp.

But Mayor Schmitt seems ready to push the political power struggle even further, with a press conference planned for tomorrow in which he is expected to unveil a series of bronze busts for every current Packer player that will line Lombardi Avenue like a Roman coliseum.  The plan is expected to cost taxpayers $250 million.  “It’s a small price to pay to show we’ve got the best fans in the NFL,” said the mayor.