The End Of Green Bay's Season and The Weekend Graphs

Well Green Bay's season came to an insanely stupid end last night at the hands of the 49er's. What I worried most about happening...happened. The Niners quarterback was given free passage to the Packer's secondary and a couple times the endzone...all. friggin. night. It was the most embarrassing defense performance I have ever witnessed in the playoffs. And for all the defensive guruness that Dom Capers possesses, there were virtually no adjustments at half-time to solve the problem. The offense didn't do their selves any favors either. On both sides of the ball it looked like no game plan at all was put together and they just went out and "school-yarded" it.  In all, today I am depressed that MY season is over.

However, let us not lament for long...the weekend graphs can cheer up any sad soul. To that end I give you this weeks entertainment...


Enjoy!


Now I know why my eyes are so dry!




Not sure what kind of mind this came from but it was cool




My wife ALWAYS sees these before I do...and punches my arm!




Kill Bill Vols I and II drained the blood bank



Bagginses has the precious...

Today's Apocalypse Sign: In Which I Am An Owner

I always wanted to redact something!!!

Today I received a great Christmas present...my Green Bay Packers stock certificate! I am now an owner of an NFL franchise. This is amazingly cool. Included with the certificate was a small booklet with all sorts of "what it means to be involved with the Green Bay Packers" stuff in it. There was also a letter from the CEO and President of the Packers, Mark Murphy, that ended with the invitation to attend the shareholders dinner next July at Lambeau. I may sleep with ALL this stuff tonight.

And two days ago my wife gave me a commemorative Super Bowl ring from XLV...inscribed with my initials and everything! Best reason not to grow old is to have fun kid-like moments like these. I can't wait for the game Christmas night at Lambeau. If only I could be there...let's not ask for too much.

Oh and the best part (at least since I live in Dallas) last night on the news it was announced that the Packers had supplanted the Dallas Cowboys as America's team...how great is that.

AND to top it all off Aaron Rodgers was named the AP male athlete of the year.

Wow! I'm tired now so I need to go eat...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all who dwell here from time to time.

GO PACK GO  !!!

Today's Apocalypse Sign: Four Times In 100 Years

Disclaimer: To my UK readers, you will not give a rats ass about this post. But hey, what better time to educate yourself about American football! Right?

For only the fourth time in their existence (92 years) the NFC and Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers are Selling Team Stock. At 8 AM CST on Tuesday 12/6/11, 250,000 shares of Packer stock go on sale. The last stock sale was in 1997-98...and that was the first time since 1950 there had been a sale. So this is only the second time in my life this event has happened...and I didn't even know about the one in '97! Not big on the internet back then. I do not intend to miss this one!

You can buy up to 200 shares at $250 a share. You will be able to say you own a part of a pro football team, be linked to a storied franchise and winner of a league-leading 13 championships in their history, AND get a Shareholder Super Bowl Ring when Green bay repeats as SB champs this year!

Even if you are not a Packer's fan, if you are a pro football fan, you gotta love this opportunity. I plan to buy ONE share and frame it. Period. No other pro team will ever be represented like this. The Packers are the ONLY publicly owned team and that allows for a chance like this. So if you love the game here is your opportunity to get  one-of-a-kind piece of memorabilia.

And if you are not a Lions, Bears, or Vikings fan maybe you can join me in rooting on the Pack for another Super Bowl victory season.

Go Pack Go!

Today's Apocalypse Sign: My Own Personal Snow Maze...

Today has seen another blast of arctic irony bitch-slap the central US. I am including my normally mild winter Dallas home in that area. Wind chills today in OKC were 15 to 20-degrees BELOW zero. Here in Dallas the bone chilling wind had us at zero for most of the day. And tomorrow will be the same way! By Saturday the forecast is sunny and high 60's. Today I am wearing half my closet (and that's to stay warm IN the house), Saturday will be shorts and a tee-shirt. WTF kind of Armageddon are we headed for??

Anyways...now that I am over my brief Jack-Nicholson-in-The-Shining moment:




The Packers have won the Super Bowl and life is right again in the universe. To say I am a fan just does not do my fanaticism justice. I do not have the shrine to Green Bay in my house but I coach the team from afar. I will be laying out my ideas to the coaching staff as soon as the labor agreement is settled. Some how I hope the fact that this year's Super Bowl was THE highest rated television show of all-time (at least 162 million homes were tuned to some portion of the game and 110 million watched the entire game) is not lost on the negotiators on both sides of the collective bargaining agreement talks. Football is on a high right now (as I am about my Packers) and what could be worse than dousing that fire in March when the current CBA expires and threatens to disrupt play this coming season. Both sides need to get their collective heads out of their asses and get this done pronto Tonto! You feel me, dawgs? 
That being said, not enough people know how much the Packers had to overcome to get to the big game AND win it. It wasn't enough that they lost 15 players to injury during the season including their starting running back the first game of the year, but those players missed a astounding 91 combined games. Then to heap more challenge on this team of destiny, they lose their two biggest veteran locker room leaders (one on offense and one on defense) before the half of the Super Bowl! Despite all the adversity, the TEAM stepped up and showed True Grit while winning the biggest game of their lives. It was a Hollywood movie script come to life.

Speaking of True Grit...the wife and I went and saw it yesterday afternoon. I am biased in the regard that I LOVE all Coen brothers movies. This movie was fantastic. I know it has been reviewed on many sites and I am behind the curve in seeing it, but I wanted to see it again as soon as it was over. Bridges deserves the Best Actor just cuz, Hailee Steinfeld stole the show and should win for Best Supporting Actress, even Matt Damon should win something...and the horse (Little Blackie) should win the Best Equestrian Actor...his heroics brought tears to eyes. I Loved this movie!

Going to see Sanctum in 3-D next week.

I missed celebrating my one-year blog anniversary (Jan 16th), I have been stuck on 50 followers for a while (not rabid but they are there, stalking and lurking and waiting for the right time to strike, OR they stopped reading months ago) , I am 10 posts from 200, my post title makes no sense (unless you count the snow maze in the Shining as a tie-in) and I have had waaaaay too much coffee today!

I must rectify the anniversary thing this week...

Today's Apocalypse Sign: Ding Dong The King Is Dead!

The 14-2 New England Patriots are gone. No one saw this coming. Many people had them penciled in as Super Bowl champs already. NOT!

The stage is now set for both conference championship games.

The Bears took out the Seahawks setting up the rubber match with the Packers in Chicago next week. We lost there in week 3 of the season and beat them at Lambeau in the final game of the regular season. The title game will be in Chicago. Outside in the cold and possible snow. The Pack has been playing so well on the road and this being so close to Green Bay (so there will be plenty of Packers fans) it will be as close to a home game as it gets. If they play like they did last night we'll be headed to the Big Show in Dallas two weeks later.

My pick: Packers 28    Bears 24

The shocker of this weekend was the Jets taking out the Pats. I am sure that cost the bookies a ton. The Jets winning by 7 (and it really wasn't that close) is a huge upset. This sets up a showdown in Pittsburgh next week against the Steelers. As long as the Packers win I am not really particular who wins this game but I believe the Jets would be the easier team to beat in the Super Bowl.

My pick: Steelers 21    Jets 17

That's the shorty sports update for the weekend. I am pretty stoked that the Packers are still playing!

Today's Apocalypse Sign: The Packings

This really should have been my first post since I have been deeply disturbed by this since last summer. However the Haiti thing was so current I had to comment on it first.

Okay, to set the stage, I have been a Green Bay Packers fan for as long as I have been alive. I saw everything they did in the 60's as a kid and still remember to this day watching the Ice Bowl against the Cowboys.

Brett Favre has been an amazing football player and remains one to this day. Green Bay was lucky to have him for 16 years at the helm because in today's free agent market that is a rarity. I knew every game they played they had a chance to win (and sometimes lose) because Brett was under center. No lead was too safe for the other team. No lead was ever safe enough for the Packers. With other personnel changing it always felt comfortable knowing Brett was always there to start. He made players around him better and he enjoyed the game win or lose. I believe that he is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game for many reasons.

When he retired the first time I was devastated. It was the aftershock of the stunning loss to the Giants in the NFC Championship game that year. I thought after that game, surely he would be back for one more year with that great team so close...then BAM a retirement speech!

After I got over the initial disappointment (I take my Packers football very seriously) I actually felt good about Aaron Rodgers being the next Packers QB. He had understudied with Brett for 3 years and had played pretty good in the Cowboys game that year when Brett got hurt in the first quarter. You saw glimpses then of what he has now become as a starter the last two years.

Yeah, Yeah, I AM getting to my point just shut up.

Then Brett unretired and ended up with the Jets. That ended up a flop, cost the Jets coach his job, and Brett retired again. I thought, Okay, he is done now and life will go on. Nooooooo!

Rumblings started in the spring about will he or won't he sign with another team. Then I hear whispers from my friends about talks with the Vikings. I paled when I heard those rumors. Anyone with half a football brain knows the Vikings and Bears are the two hated rivals of the Packers and have been as long as I've known what a football was. And here was my favorite Packer player joining one of them...the enemy! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

I was in DEEP denial over the possibility of Brett going to the Vikings. For chrissakes they already had Darren Sharper play for them and Ryan Longwell IS playing for them! This can't be happening, I kept saying. It won't happen. I was going to will it NOT to happen. Alright calm the hell down...breathe...better, okay.

Well of course I affected nothing and Brett joined the Vikings at the last possible moment to learn any plays at all before the season started. For all I know they changed the play book to the last plays Brett remembered from Green Bay. I was stunned and confused...and pissed off! I know it's a business and only fans talk loyalty, but shit Brett, the Vikings???

To make matters worse, the first game of the season? You guessed it...Vikings at Lambeau. Fuck me! This really can't be happening, oh yeah...it was on national TV at night! I love the Packers...I love Brett and seeing him run out of the visitors tunnel in a Purple Vikings jersey at Lambeau field??? Tell me if that is not a sign of the Apocalypse, football fans, I dare you. I was very disturbed the whole game.

Of course the Pack loses. The Vikings looked very strong. Of course they go on to start the season undefeated for several weeks (while beating the Packers a second time in their Dome). The Packers stumble to 4-4 while the Vikes go 8-0. There are no words to describe this nightmare. I had been all revved up for what I thought would be a good season (I figured 10-6 would be a fair turn around from the prior year) and here we were .500 half way through. WTF plus one!

Well to the Pack's credit they finished the season strong at 7-1, pummelled the Cowboys (loved that game, should have recorded it), and finished one game behind the Vikes at 11-5. They were the hottest NFC team coming down the stretch. A split with the Vikes and a win in Pittsburgh (that should have been) and they win the NFC North!

Now to the playoffs.

Stunned again as the Packers routed the Cardinals mightily in the final game of the season... and then play a Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde game the next week against the Cards in the Wildcard game that featured invisible defensive players on both sides, to lose 51-45 in OT and Rodgers missing a wide open man after winning the coin toss that would have ended the game.

Vikings drilled the Cowboys like new meat in a prison shower and are off to the NFC Championship against a good Saints team.

Now at long last the purpose of this post...I am rooting for the Packings to beat the Saints this weekend. Brett will always be a Packer in my heart no matter what and I want him to set records that will never be broken in two lifetimes. For the next two games I am a rabid Brett Favre fan in spite of the uniform he wears. I want to see him crush the Saints in their own Dome and destroy whoever the AFC might send against him in the Big game.

So go Brett! Go Packings! (It's the best I can do.)

-)Chuck