Optimism or ...

Green Bay Packer fans seem to be equally divided about their team’s prospects for the upcoming season, with the optimists and pessimists equally passionate about their point of view. The carryover of enthusiasm from the great finish to the 2006 season is tempered by the reality of the quiet offseason the team had in terms of signing free agents to fill some of the holes in the roster. With these conflicting factors in mind, it’s pretty easy to make a strong case for the Packers returning to the playoffs this season. And an equally solid case for not returning as well.

Some Good Reasons Why the Packers Will Make the Playoffs in 2007

An Electric Atmosphere. Sometime early in the season, probably around game 4 or 5, Brett Favre will break Dan Marino’s record for career touchdown passes. The anticipation leading up to this monumental achievement will be tremendous. It could certainly give an extra jolt of energy to the team, an additional competitive edge. And with the parity in the NFL, any edge helps.

Fresh Legs. Ahman Green was obviously a tremendous performer for the Packers. But age and injuries do take their toll, and he seemed to lose that amazing knack he once had of picking up the tough 1, 2 or 3 yards to make a first down. Maybe the new guys with fresh legs will have that knack, too.

Coaching Continuity. Last year, the Packers had to work a number of first year players into the lineup, were coming off a disastrous 2005 season and had an untested Head Coach. Given all that, an 8-8 finish was certainly satisfactory. All coaches face a learning curve, and Mike McCarthy’s performance in his second year will be better than in his first.

A Defense on the Rise. For the first time in a number of years, the Packers look to have a defense that can shut down opponents and allow Brett and the offense to get back on the field. A tough defense is just what the team needs to re-establish home field advantage.

Tough Opponents Adjusting to New Coaches. Dallas and San Diego have good teams and both of those games will be difficult for the Packers to win. But, they have new Head Coaches. Who knows whether changing coaches will help or hinder those teams?

More to the Difficult Schedule Than Meets the Eye. A football season has many ups and downs, and most teams have to deal with injuries to key players sometime over the course of the season. You don’t know in August whether the team you will be facing in October will be at full strength. Or whether that team might have a letdown after a hard-fought victory the previous week. Or which teams in December will already be looking ahead to next year.

We’re Overdue for a Fast Start. How many years in a row have the Packers started the season 1-4? It seems like forever. One constant in the NFL is that nothing remains constant. Perhaps 2007 is the year the Packers reverse this negative trend of stumbling out of the gate—and losing games at home.

Not Much to Fear in the NFC North. One of the brightest spots last season was the team winning 5 of 6 games in the division. And arguably the brightest spot was hammering the Bears at their home field the last game of the season.

The Grass is Greener Effect. Free agency usually looks better when observed from a distance. When another team signs a marquee name, we all say, “We shoulda signed that guy!!!” But, we tend not to notice a year or two down the line when that signing turned out to be a bust and a serious waste of money. The teams that actively shuttle free agents in and out do not necessarily improve themselves over the course of time.

Time for a Little Trust in Ted. During a game in 2005 in which the Packers were beaten badly, John Madden’s comment about their talent level was: the cupboard is bare. That was accurate. The Packers’ talent pool had been slowly drying up, probably since the 2002 season. We can’t say for sure, but it certainly appears that Ted Thompson has revitalized the Packers with a number of bright young stars. Just to be clear, I’m not advocating that we schedule a “Ted Thompson Appreciation Day” at the stadium just yet.

....Pessimism

But Then Again, Maybe the Playoffs Are Wishful Thinking

Unproven running backs + young offensive line = mediocre running game (at best). If this equation turns out to be the case, then Brett is in for a long season of flinging the ball downfield and hoping someone (in our uniform) runs under it.

The Finish to 2006 Was A Mirage. The only truly impressive performance in the four wins was the last one, versus the Bears. The others were against lackluster opponents to say the least.

Whatever Became of the Tight End Position? When the Packers had their great run in the mid-1990’s the tight end position was a critical part of the offense. Lately, it’s been difficult to tell there actually is a tight end on the field. Oh, wait, he’s the guy who just dropped the pass.

Defense…What’s That? Before we get too excited about the defense, we might recall New England scoring 35 points against us and the Jets putting up 38—both games at Lambeau Field. And if you don’t recall, it’s because you got mad and turned both of those games off before halftime.

No More Lemons Out of Detroit. Similar to the notion that even the visually challenged arboreal rodent occasionally locates nutty nourishment, many experts are predicting that the Detroit Lions are due for a breakout season. Since the Bears are likely to be playoff bound again, there is at most only one other playoff spot open for another NFC North team. The Lions? What a strange world in which we live.

Buried Before the First Autumn Chill. Even the most optimistic Green Bay fans, myself included in that group, have to look at the first five games on the schedule with a certain amount of trepidation. And unfortunately, 1-4 has a familiar ring to it.

Hmmm…10 reasons why the Pack will make the playoffs, and 6 reasons they won’t. The crystal ball appears to be predicting a 10-6 season in 2007.

Sounds good to me.

A Stripped Down Blog

I saw this item posted July 8 on on cnnsi.com’s “Truth & Rumors” page. It was culled from an article by Mark J. Konkol of the Chicago Sun-Times:

Tyna Robertson claims Brian Urlacher, the father of her 2-year-old son, has sent her more than 30 nasty text messages since January. In those messages, he allegedly called her a "hooker" and "jealous b----," among other things, and once made this suggestion: "make one of your pimps drive you around," according to court papers filed Friday in their child custody case. Robertson, a former exotic dancer who has been accused of shaking down men for money, has had court trouble with another famous man she once dated -- "Lord of the Dance" star Michael Flatley.
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So, aspiring writers in Packer Nation, sometimes no embellishment is required of us. In this case, the news story itself provides all the comedy we need to nourish the spirit and bring a smile to the faces or our readers. Packers Literary Corner can take this beautiful summer morning off and head for the golf course.

Y’all enjoy your day. See you at the 19th hole.

…

…

I just can’t do it.

I can’t leave without at least a few comments, or my hands will shake uncontrollably while I’m lining up three-foot putts.

Here’s a text message the Bears celebrated linebacker is alleged to have sent to his ex-stripper ex-sweetie on February 24 at 2:40 PM:

“Beat it no more of my time will be wasted on your skanky ass”

He seems to have reached a state of at least partial enlightenment precisely at 2:40 PM that brisk winter afternoon, though as someone who pens romantic screenplays, I hate to see unpleasantness break out so soon after Valentine’s Day.

Perhaps he just needs some advice on the subtleties of romance. I might suggest Mr. Urlacher read my novel Over Time. In that thrilling tale, the football star falls in love with a very lovely, very sexy—though excessively talkative—cheerleader. This is, as you of course know, the natural order of things in football. And in Over Time, the outcome of the affair is much more felicitous.

Or perhaps it’s just fortunate my novel’s characters from the Green Bay Packers Glory Years of the 1960’s did not have text messaging capability.

Can you imagine the text messages Lombardi would have sent to players who were fumble-prone or missed their blocking assignments?

Say No to Thugs! (a three-part blog series)

“What the heck is going on out there???” the Great Man would say if he were here today commenting on the numerous incidents of National Football League players getting arrested—for all sort of crimes, from DUI, to physical violence to weapons charges. It’s really depressing when you look at the NFL headlines on Web sites like ESPN.com and most of what you find involves reports of players getting in trouble with the law. Sports are supposed to be a pleasant diversion from the ugliness we see in the international news headlines, or the forecasts for the real estate market.

The bright new NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, obviously wants to solve this problem, and he seems to be trying to get the message across that thug-like behavior won’t be tolerated. But the question is, are the players listening? Clearly, he has a tough task ahead.

Several sportswriters have observed that in reality, all that matters in professional sports is winning, and if you are a talented enough player to help your team win, it doesn’t matter what kind of citizen you are. The teams are willing to give the players any number of second, third or fourth chances, much more than an employee of a company in the “real world” would be allowed. Many corporations, in fact, don’t allow second chances whatsoever.

Packers Literary Corner wants to lend a hand toward making sure the NFL doesn’t end up being the Naughty Felons League. Maybe Mr. Goodell needs a catchy slogan that could be run in advertisements, to remind the owners and coaches (and fans) that integrity in professional sports should be as important as winning. How about:

SAY NO TO THUGS!

One big city newspaper took a look at the incidence of NFL players being arrested and compared it to that of the general population—and found the numbers very similar, almost as though the problem has been blown out of proportion. This is fuzzy logic at best, because NFL players are not part of the “general population.” The correct peer group to compare them to would be:

--Pampered millionaire celebrities who only have to work a few months per year.

And among this group, football players have had a higher incidence of running afoul of the law in the last several years, even if we count every single encounter Paris Hilton has had with the police, and give Mel Gibson double penalty points because of the foul-mouthed things he said to the police officer who arrested him in Malibu.

It’s time the fans let the league know that they want them to get rid of the players who can’t behave like decent citizens.

SAY NO TO THUGS!

Say No to Thugs! Part II: Some solutions for the NFL Players

When a mom and dad notice their kids are turning into porky little chowbuckets, they often try to substitute healthier foods for all the Twinkies, cookies and potato chips the kids are tossing down their throats. Similarly, let’s see where football players get in trouble and recommend alternative, wholesome activities and entertainment for them.

1) Strip clubs. Athletes seem inexorably drawn to these establishments. The attraction is, of course, the varied and exotic creatures you see on display there. And in some strip clubs, they let you observe these creatures up close and personal. In others, you are asked to keep your distance, for safety reasons—yours and hers.

Substitute activity: visiting your local Zoo. Same attraction, actually: interesting animals, exotic habitat. But infinitely more educational, and the municipal Zoo has a much higher class of clientele for you to socialize with. I can’t recall a single incident of a celebrity athlete being arrested at the Zoo. Once or twice, a Zoo visitor might get bitten, but that can obviously happen at strip clubs, too.

Substitute activity 2: take up ballroom dancing. Why just watch others dance around the stage, or the pole, when you can sashay across the floor yourself? And an NFL player’s athletic ability gives him a leg up, so to speak, on the other people taking dancing lessons with him. Just look at how proficient Emmitt Smith became on Dancing with the Stars. Though he’s still no John O’Hurley.

2) Fights and other altercations in bars. Recently, even a Green Bay Packer, if you can believe it, got into trouble for allegedly pushing or shoving a female late one night in a drinking establishment. The alleged shover was starting linebacker Nick Barnett. (To be honest, I was not aware that shoving was considered a crime, especially after the times I have ridden the subway in New York.)

An unfortunate offshoot of this incident is now Packer fans have to listen to the taunts of the Viking fans: “Dude, that was the best tackle Barnett made all year!”

The reason so many athletes have unpleasant experiences in bars is simple: excessive alcohol consumption reduces normally intelligent individuals to a level of thinking just below moronic, and aggressive tendencies that would normally be repressed, from fans and players alike, suddenly emerge. Small-minded people who are envious of the money and fame that accrues to pro athletes sometimes deliberately try to provoke the athlete into an argument. Provoking a football player, who is paid to be aggressive, is never a wise choice. But as with NFL games when the Ref only notices the second person who threw the punch, the athlete often pays the price for a drunken fan’s outburst.

Substitute activity: Learn how to cook. Becoming a skilled chef is a lot of fun, and allows you to entertain your friends at your home, and avoid the bar scene and its associated unpleasant situations altogether. You will have to go out to shop for groceries, but fans you may encounter are unlikely to become belligerent in the produce aisle. For the football player who is single, the grocery store can be an excellent venue to meet eligible females, who will be impressed that you know how to use ingredients like radicchio and broccoli rabe.

Substitute activity 2: watch Political Debates. Take out these aggressive tendencies by yelling at the TV when a politician says something particularly idiotic. Since both major political parties are chock full of nuts these days, the opportunity to vent your frustrations is nearly limitless. You may never feel the need to visit a drinking establishment again.

Or, if you listen to enough political drivel, maybe you will.

Say No to Thugs! Part III: More solutions

In the last part of our series on how NFL players can avoid getting into trouble with various law enforcement agencies, we take a look at causes and solutions for:

3) Weapons violations. Athletes seem to frequently have guns in their vehicles, sometimes several guns, when they are stopped by police. Some even have a cache of unusual and potentially illegal weapons in their home. Is there some reason NFL players feel less safe than the rest of us? I don’t own a gun, for example, and I sleep soundly at night. I have all the home security I need, courtesy of my trusty dogs.

By the way, my dogs love watching NFL football on TV; they run around merrily barking every time Brett Favre throws a touchdown. Oddly, though, when they see a game with Michael Vick playing, they growl at the screen.

Substitute activity: Collecting football memorabilia. If you think about it, hoarding guns may stem simply from an urge to collect interesting things. Nothing sinister at all about that. Ever see anyone get busted by the Feds at an Antiques Roadshow? So, how about filling your house with reminders of the thrilling football days of yore…when they played for the glory of the game, not just for money, and the nosy news media wasn’t watching NFL players’ every move, 12 months a year, hoping to spot them doing something wrong.

4) DUI. A crime that shouldn’t happen, because there’s this useful thing called A Car Service. When you’re out partying, you simply page your car service when you are ready to leave, and they send over a nice sleek Lincoln sedan to take you home, the driver wearing a neatly pressed black suit. It makes no sense that anyone with money, celebrity or not, would be so stupid as to drink and drive. You don’t have to be the brightest cop on the force to be able to spot someone weaving along the empty freeway at 3 AM in a $100,000 sports car.

One theory about why celebrities have such a high incidence of DUI is that they desperately want to be seen driving their $100,000 sports car, so they don’t want anything to do with taking a generic looking limo or hiring a car service. The fact that celebrities crave the fawning attention from their “fans” may be why they spend so much time on the town socializing in the first place. With football players, perhaps they get lonely in the offseason, when they aren’t hearing the thundering cheers from the stadium crowd, or have reporters hanging on their every word in the locker room.

Substitute activity: Grow up.

Midseason Form-Unfortunately

When I started writing The Packers Literary Corner a year ago, one of my questions was, is there really enough absurd, even idiotic media coverage about the Packers in the offseason for me to do a weekly blog poking fun at it?

Silly me.

In the last few days I could have done an hourly blog, what with all the rich comedic material provided by the NFL scribblers and TV chatterers, on the subject of Brett Favre’s comments about the Packers not trading for Randy Moss. Offseason? What offseason? Some of these media numbskulls are in midseason form and it’s only May.

We don’t need a show titled CSI-Lambeau to get the facts of this simple case:

--Brett thought having another talented veteran receiver on board would make the offense run more efficiently. 99% of Packer fans agree with this.

--Brett has a burning desire to win here and now in 2007, not in some distant time and galaxy far, far away. 99% of Packer fans agree with this.

--Brett gets so frustrated with not winning that he can hardly contain himself and at times he might not choose his words as carefully as he should. 99% percent of Packer fans share that frustration, and express themselves far more colorfully than Brett did. At my house, we have had to replace a considerable amount of glassware.

If you’re a division manager of a large company, and you are given a sales target to hit, and then your boss refuses to give you the resources you absolutely need to hit that target, year after year—and you’re the one who takes the blame—then you’d be just as angry as Brett apparently got. You might even say, to hell with this job; I’ll go work somewhere else, where top management isn’t so tight with a buck.

So what’s the problem? With some of these sports “journalists” the problem seems to be, their boss gave them a word quota for that day, and they have absolutely nothing to say, so they end up producing excreta like the following, from the word processor of Adam Schein of Fox Sports.com. It can be smelled in its entirety at: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6810106

He starts off with the headline: “Packers Better Off Without Favre”

What’s wrong with that headline? Everything but the spelling. This is, flat out, one of the stupidest things I have ever read about the Packers.

First of all, how can an organization be better off without the most effective leader it has ever had, a leader who clearly still performs at a high level? It boggles the mind that anyone could say that. But making sense is not a prerequisite for employment in the major media.

But this little fellow is just getting started. He goes on: “Favre continuously popping off on management about not surrounding him with adequate talent, indirectly ripping his teammates, is a distraction and a detriment. So are the constant questions about his retirement.”

Bad writing here, folks. First of all, popping off means: “to speak in a burst of vehement anger.” That doesn’t sound like the way our soft spoken Southern quarterback sounds. It sounds more like, well, the way Adam Schein makes his living, which is why I wouldn’t waste much time listening to him on TV or radio.

How about the “indirectly ripping his teammates” part? That’s simply wrong. Brett has had to demonstrate tremendous self-control throughout his career, when baited by reporters to comment on the poor play of his teammates. Other star NFL players have not been so gracious.
Their initials might be: T.O.

Schein continues: “…is a distraction and a detriment. So are the constant questions about his retirement.”
This is funny. The same media that constantly pesters Brett with questions about his retirement from the moment he arrives at training camp in July, now says that by patiently standing there and answering their bonehead questions, he is causing a distraction and a detriment. Strange logic.

Before we assign a letter grade to this article, let’s show one more example of why it seems odd they make you take a test in order to operate a motor vehicle, but they turn virtually anyone loose on the airwaves:

Schein says, “Let Favre go play for the Dolphins or Jaguars.”

Here, he demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about the Green Bay Packers. The team is owned by over 100,000 loyal fans across the country, and we don’t want Brett playing anywhere but for us. Ever.

And Brett doesn’t want to play anywhere else, either. There was never any doubt.
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Today’s Packers Literary Corner Grade for Adam Schein’s work
posted on FoxSports.com May 14:

Fluidity of Prose: D
Knowledge of Subject Matter: C-
Logic: F
Usefulness to Packer Fans: F-
Overall Grade: D-

Mystery Solved

In the old days, writers, particularly those who wrote freelance articles for magazines, were paid by the word. Let’s say you wrote a 2,000 word article and the publication had a rate of 10 cents per word. You would earn $200 for an article. Let’s say your goal was to earn $20,000 per year from writing. That would mean you would have to write 200,000 words per year. A typical novel is about 100,000 words in length. So, the busy free-lancer of the past had to write the equivalent of two complete novels each year. This explains why not that many people made a living as freelance writers.

When you look at columns and articles at many sports-related Web sites, you have to conclude that the old days of pay-per-word must be coming back, because many of these pieces are chock full of breezy, chatty opinions, and tired repetition from other articles, but are low on facts, insights or original content. We’ve commented before at Packers Literary Corner about Sports Illustrated’s Peter King and his “Monday Morning Quarterback” series, which is thoroughly padded each week with tedious stuff such as his political views, notes on trival things his family is doing, or little hassles he encounters in traveling. But Mr. King is by no means alone in his low content- to- word-count ratio.

In the 2007 NFL “offseason”, if there is such a thing anymore, I’ll wager I have read or heard the following statement at least, oh, 15,000 times (I might be guilty of underestimation here):

THE PACKERS NEED TO SURROUND BRETT FAVRE WITH MORE WEAPONS ON OFFENSE

And when the Packers do things like pass on making offers to marquee free agent receivers or running backs, bizarre conspiracy theories emerge like:

Ted Thompson is sabotaging Brett because he’s jealous of Brett’s popularity.
Ted is trying to force Brett to retire.
Ted Thompson actually works for the Bears.

In fact, the Packers whole offseason personnel strategy has become something of a mystery to the fans. Many question whether there is, in fact, any strategy at all.

But then out of the gloom comes a succinct, fresh and stimulating viewpoint like the one penned by Tom Oates of the Wisconsin State Journal (http://www.madison.com/) in a column dated May 3. After I finished reading Mr. Oates’ article, the offseason mystery was solved and all became clear. He said:

“Indeed it has become increasingly apparent that Thompson is reading out of a 10-year-old playbook, one written by his mentor, former general manager Ron Wolf.

During the Packers’ Super Bowl years, Wolf spent his money elsewhere and handed Favre mid-round picks at the skill positions.”

He cites Packer stalwarts such Edgar Bennett, Dorsey Levens, Robert Brooks and Antonio Freeman as examples of how this method worked so well. All of these players had such successful careers with Green Bay, we forget they were not first or second rounders in the draft. Why did this strategy work so well? Oates says:

“All of those players were good, but none was truly special. The Packers got away with it because Favre was such a dominant player.”

Ted Thompson’s rigid adherence to this strategy is suspect, it would seem, because now Brett is 37 and cannot take over the game by himself anymore. As Oates says:

“He (Thompson) doesn’t seem to understand that Favre needs more help than he once did.”

This is a great, great, column. It clears up a huge mystery for Packer fans. Ted Thompson isn’t incompetent, as so many have argued in the heated debates that take place on message boards and in chat rooms; he’s simply following a very successful business model that his mentor implemented in the mid-1990’s.

It’s obvious to Packers Literary Corner that Ted is trying to build a kick-ass defense in the Ravens/Steelers/Bears model, and he’s hoping that Brett Favre can still make the so-so players on offense look better than they are, because of Brett’s skill, leadership ability and sheer will to win. I would also add, Brett's willingness to spread the ball around and locate whatever receiver is the least bit open. Will this plan work in 2007?

Maybe. If the new kick-ass defense can generate enough turnovers and get the ball back for Brett.

But in any case we can relax and enjoy the rest of springtime and summer. The Packers have a strategy, after all.

Thanks to Tom Oates for explaining this so clearly—and he didn’t require that many words to do it.

Amazing Psychic Powers!

Now that we’ve all made it through another exciting, exhausting experience of watching the NFL Draft on TV, it’s good to step back, take a deep breath and analyze what we’ve learned.

The first comment Packers Literary Corner would like to make is respectfully submitted to fans who went to the Lambeau Field Atrium to watch the festivities: Perhaps next year they could refrain from booing our General Manager, Ted Thompson. There are several reasons we’d advise this, first being health concerns. Don’t wear yourself out booing the people who are on our side. Conserve your energy for when you will need to boo the loudest: when teams such as the Eagles, Bears and Vikings visit Lambeau Field this fall. Suppose your tickets are behind the opposing team’s bench. You’d hate to not have the strength to tell Rex Grossman what you thought of his performance in the Super Bowl, because you wore yourself out on Draft Day.

Pace yourselves, Packer People. It’s a long season.

Another reason is simple politeness. Most people around the NFL think Ted Thompson is an excellent judge of talent. Lambeau Field is Ted Thompson’s office. Suppose you walked into work and got booed each day. It might cause you to begin sending your resume to other potential employers. The most vocal of the Ted Thompson haters in the chat rooms and message boards might consider the possibility that if he leaves, his replacement could be much worse. The General Manager can only find the players, remember. He can’t teach them to come together and play as a team. Or to hold onto the football. Or to not throw interceptions. Or to not appear like confused roosters when attempting to play pass defense.

Now on to the thing that really amazes me about the NFL Draft, how the television networks, including ESPN and the NFL Network, manage to hire commentators and analysts all of whom have psychic powers. Where do they find such gifted people? I mean, no more than ten seconds after a player is picked, these TV Sports Psychics know whether that player’s career in the NFL will be a success. They can see five, ten years into the future! Not only that, prior to the pick being made, they know who should be picked. And after the pick is made, they know who should have been picked instead of the pick the team made. They know who will be the best players in next year’s Draft before this year’s draft is even concluded. It’s astonishing!

I used to think it was just a Mel Kiper Phenomenon, that his enormous dome of hair was some sort of clever concealment for an enlarged cranium, guarding a brain of truly amazing proportions. No, even the boys slowly going bald, like Chris Berman and Rich Eisen, have these psychic powers as well, as do the women covering the Draft like Suzy Kolber, whose hair styles change more often than the Dolphins switch quarterbacks. It’s not the hair at all. These are just superior beings.

Frankly, these people’s talents are being wasted on something as mundane as the NFL Draft. Mega-brains like these need to be applied to more challenging scientific issues like developing alternative energy sources and combating global warming.

And it ruins things for the fans, when it turns out it really doesn’t matter what we think might happen in the Draft. The TV Sports Psychics have computed all the answers before our primitive, feeble little fan brains can even crank into gear. I guess there is no need to subscribe to all those publications with Pre-Draft information and attempt to make our own predictions of whom the Packers might draft. The TV Sports Psychics know who Ted Thompson will select prior to Ted even knowing himself. And if Ted doesn’t pick who they think he should have picked, he has only himself to blame.

Amazing stuff!

Movie Review: The Godfather of Green Bay

I have a difficult time choosing movies to rent at my local Blockbuster store. These days, Hollywood seems to be making more and more horror films, and not very imaginative ones at that. I don’t like slasher movies, horror flicks or other films that feature excessive blood, violence and gore. Why bother to pay money for such fare, I’ve decided, when if I’m in the mood for something frightening and gory, I can just pop a tape of last year’s Patriots/Packers game into the VCR, or for that matter the 0-26 debacle versus the Bears at home last season. (Just in case you don’t recall, the Packers proudly achieved the “0” that day).

At my house, we turn the lights down low, bring out the popcorn and sit fearfully by the flickering firelight—sometimes having to hide under our official NFL logo Packer fleece blankets, when we can’t stand to watch chilling scenes from:

The Game When the Defense Never Showed Up (a Bob Sanders production)

The Offense that Couldn’t Score... (a McCarthy/Favre co-production, with casting by Ted Thompson)

Given a choice, though, I much prefer to delve into my Video collection and pull out an action-packed movie set in a steamy, tropical locale:

Miami, Nice!

I also enjoy holiday films the whole family can enjoy, such as that recent New Year’s Eve classic:

A Dog Named Rex (nothing in this one to gross you out, man!).

Today’s Movie Review:

Given this shortage of interesting films at the video store, imagine my delight when I happened upon a DVD titled: The Godfather of Green Bay. And on the cover it showed a rugged Wisconsin-type guy in a gold shirt, and the title was printed in green (sort of a pukey green rather than the beautiful hunter green, but still intriguing).

I’ll skip the usual banalities movie reviewers employ, such as a dull recital of the plot, or weird comparisons to other films (it’s Spiderman meets the Exorcist on Titanic!), and skip right to the highlights:

Numerous scenes at a Packer Bar, with authentic Packer fans drinking real alcohol.

Many stirring renditions of the song, THE BEARS SUCK!

Realistic portrayal of the fashion hazards of deer hunting, such as how ridiculous grown men look in orange jackets.

Lovely Lauren Holly’s portrayal of the tall, THIN blonde we always wished we had known in high school in the Midwest.

The glorious scenery of Northeastern Wisconsin in the fall. The cinematographer involved in this somewhat low-budget movie did a great job filming the outdoor scenes.

A heartwarming ending in which the protagonist, an aspiring stand-up comic, gives up the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles to return to Packerland (and mainly to the lovely tall THIN blonde mentioned earlier).

As they say, Behold the Power of Cheese.

The Packers Literary Corner says, The Godfather of Green Bay is a Must See.


Over Time the Novel

Roadmap to The Playoffs 2007

With the release of the NFL schedule for 2007, a lot of people have taken a crack at predicting how may games the Packers will win this year. My questions is, how can we get to 10 wins? That number is important because a 10-6 record almost always gets you in the playoffs. Last year, because of the relative weakness of the NFC vs. AFC, a nine win season was enough to secure a playoff berth, and the Packers almost made it with their strong finish and 8-8 record. When I first saw the 2007 schedule, I thought getting to 10 wins looked like quite a daunting task.

To me, getting to 10 wins absolutely requires two things:

--Re-establish a formidable home field advantage, which has actually been shaky ever since the Atlanta Falcons came in and beat us at home in the playoff game in the 2002 season, and the problem has snowballed the last three seasons. When the schedule maker gives you four home games out of the first six, you should start at least 4-2, not 2-4.

--No more stumbling through the first five games of the season, as the team has done in 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Looking at the individual games, I’ve circled four on the calendar that I think will tell the tale for 2007, and with the goal of reaching ten wins, the Packers need to:

1) Beat Philadelphia at home in Week 1. If we’re going to re-establish a home field advantage, we might as well get started right away.
2) Beat the Bears at home in Week 5. Here again, the Packers have had some embarrassing performances in recent years in nationally televised night games. What better time to reverse that trend?
3) Win either the game at Denver or the game in Kansas City in weeks 7-8, avoiding a 2-game losing streak.
4) Win at Dallas, traditionally a difficult venue for us.

The other wins in my 10 win scenario are, at home vs. San Diego (could be a very tough game), at home vs. Washington, Minnesota and Oakland, at St. Louis, and the final home game vs. Detroit.

In this scenario, I am allowing for a home loss vs. Carolina, which always plays the Packers tough, and, oddly perhaps, the Thanksgiving game vs. Detroit. The Lions almost always rise up and play a good game that day, and the Packers will have only a four day break between the Carolina game and the one in Detroit.

The other losses would come at NY Giants in Week 2, at Minnesota in Week 4, and at Chicago in Week 15. I’ve heard many people say the Bears will have clinched the division by then and will be “relaxing” before the playoffs begin, but teams only relax the last game of the season after clinching, not the 2nd last game. And the bitter taste of the whupping the Pack game them at home in week 16 last year—and the subsequent whupping that Rex Grossman got in the Chicago media—should be enough motivation for them to bring their “A” game.

To summarize, my scenario is to go 7-1 at home and 3-5 on the road. The games I have down at wins that I’m least confident about are the San Diego game at home, and the game at Dallas, but in each case we will be playing teams with new coaches. And having a new coaching staff always involves some uncertainty when those transitions occur.

Projected losses that could easily turn out to be wins would be the game at New York and the Thanksgiving game at Detroit, and the Carolina game at home.

So there we have it. A 10-6 season is clearly possible. But that’s easy for me to say. The only challenge I face during the games is making sure I don’t leave the brats on the grill too long.

The Nasty Airwaves (The Meaner the Ranting, the Higher the Ratings)

The furor over radio shock jock Don Imus’ nasty remarks about the Rutgers Women’s basketball team reminds us of the larger issue of how rude much of broadcasting has become, particularly political talk and call-in shows of course, but sports are by no means exempt from this pestilence. And it even seeps into sports fan message boards and chat rooms, where the “discussion” often descends into name calling and other unpleasantness, instead of engendering a feeling of camaraderie among the participants or excitement about a given team.

Part of this money driven. Media companies notice the high ratings that sometimes arise from rantings like Imus’ and his ilk, so they seek out other thick-skinned broadcasters to dish out this pollution to listeners, or in some cases they coach the talk show hosts to inject more controversy into the programs.

In my view, life is too short and precious to waste time listening to or watching programs obviously designed to make you angry. Those of us seeking news and information from broadcast channels too often are subjected to opinions or advocacy instead.

There’s even a new kind of journalist, the “media critic,” employed to give his or her opinion on all the other opinion-givers out there in broadcast land. These individuals tend to be cheerleaders for the controversial broadcasters, endorsing personalities that are abrasive or “edgy” and labeling the nice people involved in broadcasting as “boring.”

I like boring sports broadcasters. I like broadcasters who blend into the background and let the game be the story, or are economical with their use of words. I prefer individuals who behave like gentlemen or ladies on the airwaves, broadcasters who have respect for the sensibilities of their audience. I just want to know the score of the game, who won and who lost.

I don’t need windy pontification about the grand social significance of this or that athlete, or this or that sports event. Because there is no grand social significance. It’s just a pastime (which the dictionary defines as: an activity that occupies one’s spare time pleasantly).

Wouldn’t be great if sports—and the people who talk and write about sports--could be fun again?

Or put another way, if it were up to me, there wouldn’t be any Don Imus controversy, because Don Imus wouldn’t have ever been on the air in the first place.

Positive or Negative: It’s Our Choice

These days, staying positive is more of a challenge than ever. When we go out into the world each day, we are presented with a number of distinct choices:

Smile at people we meet, or frown
Criticize others at work or praise them
Laugh at the vagaries of life, or become angry and bitter from them
Demonstrate patience and grace, or rudeness and selfishness

The choice is ours.
The same is true of the media. They bombard us with negative messages from the time we awaken to the time we fall asleep at night (or try to fall asleep, because we are most likely fretting from all the dreadful things we’ve heard or read about that day). Just look at any of the news Internet sites, cnn.com, msnbc.com, etc. What do you see? In sum total, you find the inescapable conclusion of: We Are Doomed.

Of course, we aren’t doomed. But it takes a lot of mental energy to tune out all the negative things we encounter. It’s never as simple as the old song from the ‘40’s, “Ac-centutate the Positive, E-Liminate the Negative.” We 2007 Americans have to settle for more modest expectations: “Discount the really terrible, tone down the merely horrible.”

So, why is it so hard for writers and broadcasters to say something nice, something hopeful, something positive? They have a choice, don’t they…

On a small scale, I’ve had some experiences with the media that left me with difficult choices to make. When I was out publicizing my book, THE MAKING OF A BESTSELLER, which is about the road writers take to become bestselling authors, I was a guest on many radio programs across the US. One morning I found myself on a station in Minnesota, in the heart of Vikings country. And the host of the program was a HUGE Vikings fan.

This happened to be in the Spring of 2005, right after the Packers had lost two stalwarts on their offensive line to free agency. Things were looking a bit bleak in Packerland.

The portion of the show devoted to my book went along smoothly, then the host noticed in my bio I had written a novel about the Packers, OVER TIME. He immediately pounced:

Bob the Host: “So, Brian, the Pack’s having a rough offseason, eh.”

Brian: “I suppose, but it’s still early in free agency, Bob.”

Bob the Host: “Yah, but we’re signing star players, and you’re losing ‘em right and left. Any chance you’ll switch over and root for the Vikings?”

There, on live radio, I was presented with clear and dangerous choice: say something positive, or something negative. Just think of all the alternatives I had. I could have answered:

“Sure, Bob. The same chance the Vikings will need to build a bigger cabinet to hold all of their Vince Lombardi Trophies.”

“Sure, Bob. The same chance you cheapskates will build a real stadium instead of playing in the Humpty-Dumpty Dome.”

“I don’t know, Bob. I prefer watching NFL-style football.”

“Sure, Bob. The same chance I’ll give up bratwurst for lutefisk.”

But then, I would be just as bad as all the media personalities I’ve been complaining about, wouldn’t I?

So, I took the high road:

Brian: “Well, Bob, I suppose in this crazy world, anything’s possible.”

I was relieved to find out later that Packer fans in the listening audience clearly understood the coded message: NO LIVING WAY, NOT IN THIS GALAXY OR ANTOHER ONE, NOT IN THIS WORLD OR THE NEXT.

Which NFL teams are the most “Literary”?

From time to time during the broadcast of an NFL game you will hear the announcer describe one of the teams as a “storied franchise.” The dictionary tells us the word “storied” means “celebrated or famous in history or story.” In the case of a football team, how would we measure this? Which franchises are the truly “storied” ones?

One reflection of a team having attained “storied” status might be the number of books published on the subject of that team. To get some answers, I visited Amazon.com and did a simple search of their online bookstore, typing in the name of (each NFL team) + football. Using this method, the top-ten most written about, the most “storied,” the most literary NFL teams (out of a total of 32 teams in the league) turn out to be:

1. Dallas Cowboys
2. New York Giants
3. Green Bay Packers
4. Chicago Bears
5. Washington Redskins
6. Cleveland Browns
7. Miami Dolphins
8. New York Jets
9. New England Patriots
10. Detroit Lions

There was a wide disparity between the top of the ranking and the bottom. The top four teams were each cited more than 400 times in the Amazon.com search, the lowest ranking team, only 45 times. The average for all the teams was 185.

Why are some teams written about so much more than others?

Experience Counts
The Giants, Packers, Bears, Redskins and Browns are all teams that began in the early days of the National Football League. They have the most accumulated history, so it makes sense there would be more good material for writers to draw from. Younger teams, sometimes referred to as “expansion” teams, were far down the rankings. The Carolina Panthers were #28, the Jacksonville Jaguars were in position #30, the Houston Texans #32.

Winning is Everything
The teams that have won the most NFL Championships are the Green Bay Packers (12-time champions), Chicago Bears (9 times) and the New York Giants (6 times). These three teams are all in the top four. The top team in our ranking, Dallas, has won the league championship 5 times. Americans are fascinated by success, and love to read stories about winners, champions, heroes—whether to vicariously participate in that success or re-live a well-remembered championship game where their team came out on top. The Steelers and 49ers, two other teams with a rich tradition of winning championships, also finished high in my Amazon.com literature search rankings, 11^th and 13^th respectively.

‘Cuz The Publishing Industry is Centered in New York City
The two teams near the New York metro area, the Giants and the Jets, both made the top ten. This is partially due to the fact that both these franchises have enormous fan bases in this hugely populated area, and therefore there is a large market for reading material about the teams. But we should also take into account that the editors of the New York based publishing houses would obviously be familiar with the Giants and the Jets, perhaps even be fans of these teams themselves. Aspiring authors are often advised to “write about what you know,” but more seasoned writers know that it also helps to “write about something your editor understands.”

The Most Well-Read Football Fans Are Located In…
The National Football League is divided into two conferences, National (NFC) and American (AFC). About 60% of the books cited were about NFC teams. Each conference has four divisions of four teams each, designated East, North, South and West, roughly based on geographic location of the teams. The NFC East division, the NFC North and the AFC East each had three of their four teams in the top 10 of the rankings. The fourth ranked division in terms of numbers of books was the AFC North. Interestingly, two-thirds of the books were about teams in the East or North divisions in each conference. This doesn’t necessarily mean that football fans in colder climates read more than those in warmer climes. Remember, the Miami Dolphins are in the AFC East division and the Dallas Cowboys are in the NFC East.

The Power of Numbers
Each year the Harris polling organization does an online survey, released in late September, asking people to name their two favorite pro football teams. In 2005, the results were as follows:

Green Bay Packers 16%
Dallas Cowboys 14%
New England Patriots 13%
Pittsburgh Steelers 13%
Philadelphia Eagles 10%
San Francisco 49ers 10%

The Cowboys, Packers and Patriots, who finished 1-2-3 in the Harris poll, all finished in the top ten of our literature search on Amazon.com. To a significant degree, large fan bases translate into strong demand for books about that team. The “most popular team” designation fluctuates from year to year, though. A team that was successful the previous season will attract some “bandwagon effect” fans and their popularity will rise, while a poor year on the field means that a certain number of fans will hop off the bandwagon. These days, with so much parity of talent in the NFL, teams’ fortunes can rise and fall quickly.

Given the long lead times in book publishing, a writer could plan a book about a team that appears near the top of the Harris poll one year, only to find that by the time the book comes out, the popularity of that team has significantly ebbed.

Some teams do retain a large “core” fan base no matter how well they do on the field. It is a good bet that a well-written book with a fresh perspective on one of these teams would find a ready audience.

One thing is certain: Fans of each and every NFL team are eager consumers of literature about their heroes. Hopefully, my research may help break down some of the unfortunate tribal stereotypes that arise between bitter rivals in the NFL. For instance, Giants fans have always assumed that Cowboys fans get most of their information from video games and daytime TV. Not so. Cowboys fans are the most well-read of all. And it may come as a shock to Chicago Bears fans that Green Bay Packers fans actually know how to read, when in fact the cheese wedges they wear on their heads were actually designed to be a handy way to store and carry books.

Millions of NFL football fans around the globe have found that reading about their favorite team’s history, lore and accomplishments is a great way to spend a crisp autumn afternoon. This is particularly true during times when the current edition of their beloved team is having a losing season. Books help keep the memories of past championship glory alive forever.

Are you ready for some READING?

Meeting Mr. Nitschke

In the 1990’s I used to watch Green Bay Packer games at a great sports bar in Phoenix, Arizona, The Red Onion Lounge. The bar was owned by a family from Wisconsin, and it became one of the most popular gathering spots for Packer fans in Phoenix. To say this bar had “regulars” was a major understatement. The same people were at the bar each Sunday, year after year. In fact, you could reserve your favorite table, and you would see the same faces at the adjacent tables—season after season. Many friendships were formed in the bar; even a romance or two blossomed.

A game I will never forget happened on September 17, 1995, not because of the action on the field, but what occurred in the sports bar. This was a brutally hot summer day, the temperature well over 100 degrees. The bar was packed. It was stuffy and hot in the low-ceilinged room as we waited for the Packers to take the field against the New York Giants. Only the ice cold pitchers of beer kept us alive.

Then, the door to the bar opened and bright sunshine streamed in, the kind that hurts your eyes. We saw a familiar—and formidable--figure in the doorway. It turned out the owners of the bar had invited a special guest to join us.

Ray Nitschke.

What happened next was remarkable enough that I included a fictionalized account of it in my novel OVER TIME. The theme of the novel is that for Packer fans, the Glory Years will never end, and the memories of our favorite games, and favorite players, remain powerful forces in our lives--always. We can draw upon this inspiration whenever we need it, like an everlasting bank account.

A character in my novel, an attorney named Mike Thornton, really needed inspiration that day. He believes he has seriously screwed up at work and is in imminent danger of being fired. He's worried, dejected, and almost ready to give up. So, we’ll pick up the story with Mr. Nitschke appearing in the doorway…
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An Excerpt from the novel, OVER TIME © 2005

He was a man who earned his place in the sun by playing football with an intensity and authority that could be perceived by the fans in the highest rows of the stadium. He came to symbolize the toughness required to be a Green Bay Packer on Vince Lombardi's teams of the 1960's, and remained one of the most beloved of all the players who wore the green and gold, many years after his retirement, and he stayed close to the team through great years, good years, bad years, and awful years. He even kept his name in the local telephone directory so the fans could reach him, should they need him.

In Scottsdale for a celebrity golf tournament, Ray Nitschke had been invited to visit the Central Division Bar & Grill by the owners, two brothers who grew up in Green Bay. The Green Bay Packers were playing their first exhibition game of the season, a night game that was carried on the satellite, which meant that the bar was filled with Packer fans who survived the long spring and summer without football, and the kickoff that evening was welcomed like the first beer on a Friday night after a long week at a dead-end job.

When Ray walked into the bar, there were no introductions required. First there was a ghostly quiet. Then the fans stood and applauded. Perhaps it was his unlikely and memorable appearance: a serious, professorial face on a massive body, or simply the power of enduring excellence, but the bar rocked with cheers, a salute not just to him individually, but to a dynasty of long ago, by eternally thankful fans for whom the football seasons of the 1960’s remained much more alive than a memory.

Even Ray was somewhat taken aback by the instant adulation in the Central Division Bar, though he had felt it many times before.

As Mike reflected on his imminent doom, Ray Nitschke took a seat a table near the front of the room and obliged the fans who wanted his autograph. People went out to their cars and brought back all sorts of strange things for him to sign--game programs, footballs, even winter jackets with the team's logo on it. It was a hot night in August in the desert Southwest, and no one in the bar knew that Ray was coming except the owners. The true sports fan is prepared for all the wonderful possibilities of life.

The game was about to start, and the bar owner asked over the loud speaker to give Ray a round of applause for being gracious enough to give them the autographs and visiting the humble pub to watch the game. This round was louder than the first one, punctuated by a chant of, "Ray, Ray, Ray," which used to occur on crisp autumn Sunday afternoons after he caused a running back to eat the turf, especially one who had briefly entertained the unrealistic intention of scoring on the Green Bay Packers.
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As the scene continues, Mike Thornton waits his turn in line and gets Ray’s autograph—even gets to talk to him. After he meets this hero from his youth, he realizes the game of life may not be over after all…and leaves the sports bar with his will to win restored.