Pack Not Ready To Be Buried

It was one year ago that we were thinking the Packers were the odds on favorites to win the Super Bowl and had a legitimate shot to go undefeated.  Neither of those events occurred, but did we really need to make it seem like they had fallen as much as it was reported?  Talk this week was that the Packers were a desperate team.  They were said to have no defense and that, with the Bears newly acquired pieces, they could not stop them.  The media and fans harped on the fact that in 2011 they were technically ranked last in defense.  Then talks about how their offense wasn't phenomenal in week 1.  They weren't the team we all thought they were. 

Overreaction is a part of sports.  So is making statistics look in the favor of your argument.  Yes, the Packers were last in yards allowed, but they were only 19th in points allowed.  Isn't the point of a defense to keep the other team off the board?  That is why last night's game against the Bears wasn't as surprising as you may have thought.  The world fell off their rocker when Green Bay lost to possibly the best team in football in the 49ers.  We need to sit back and see that this team isn't bad in the slightest bit.  Clay Mathews, AJ Hawk, BJ Raji and Charles Wilson are only a few names on a big play making defense.  They heard everybody say how bad they were, they did their best to shut every one of them up. 

The biggest reason why our overreaction was not warranted was one man, Aaron Rodgers.  Arguably the best player at the most important position, Rodgers is a good enough quarterback to carry a bad team to the playoffs.  The Packers are not a bad team and they showed that last night.  Put those together and the Packers are still one of the top contenders in the NFL.  Teams lose all the time in the NFL.  There was one season in the Super Bowl era that the best team didn't lose, the 1972 Dolphins.  Teams are going to lose, don't overreact until your playoff hopes are on the line.  Rodgers will once again put up stupid good numbers and possibly win another MVP. 

The Packers made Jay Cutler provide his best Brandon Weeden impression by tossing four bad picks and getting sacked seven times.  They took it to the Chicago quarterback in a performance he will remember until next time Green Bay comes to Soldier Field.  They were flying all over the place and hitting as hard as ever.  Was Cutler bad or were the Packers just that good?  It looked like a little bit of both, but the performance wouldn't have been as bad against an average defense.

The Packers brought back most of their team that went 15-1 last year.  The only real losses were at running back where they replaced Ryan Grant with Cedric Benson (arguably an upgrade), they have Mike McCarthy who showed he has some tricks up his sleeve with the fake field goal, and one of the best group of wideouts in the game in Jordy Nelson, Donald Driver, Greg Jennings and Jermichael Finley.  The Pack is stacked and there is no getting to the Super Bowl without going through them first.

Moral of the story, whether you're a Packers fan, Giants fan, Saints fan, insert 0-1 team here fan, there is no reason to cry the blues.  That is unless you're a current Dolphins fan, things are looking very bleak for you.  It is week one.  There are fifteen more games in which you can turn it around.  Don't lose hope.  Don't give up on a first round pick off of one game.  Don't call a signing bad until he has time to gel.  Just wait until mid-season to have any reaction unless it is a happy one just to have football back.