NFL 2011 Season Week 15 Picks

I'm certainly not catching Sarah this week. We have all the same picks except for the 49ers steelers game. Boo.

And it should be noted, while I have a higher lifetime winning percentage than any of the Senior NutCanners, I am picking higher this season than my lifetime average. It should put into context the outstanding season Sarah is having that she is even higher than that. She is besting the best .

Does this loss hurt? Nah. It's not the playoffs.

Interesting stat: Matt's only picked the Packers 6 other times. He's 4 and 2.

It hurts in the sense that we can never seem to win in Kansas City and we broke a huge winning streak. (would've been nice to beat the Patriot's streak) I feel better getting a loss now, fixing things in the last 2 games, and heading into the playoffs strong.

I'm taking credit for the Chiefs win this week.

I'm certainly not catching Sarah this week. We have all the same picks except for the 49ers steelers game. Boo.

And it should be noted, while I have a higher lifetime winning percentage than any of the Senior NutCanners, I am picking higher this season than my lifetime average. It should put into context the outstanding season Sarah is having that she is even higher than that. She is besting the best .

You jinxed me. Totally blew it this week.

Prediction: 63-2 Packers. And the 2 points comes when Aaron Rodgers falls asleep in the endzone in the third qtr out of boredom.

It hurts in the sense that we can never seem to win in Kansas City and we broke a huge winning streak. (would've been nice to beat the Patriot's streak) I feel better getting a loss now, fixing things in the last 2 games, and heading into the playoffs strong.

I disagree. Their weaknesses were exposed and they have to correct for that. Of course if it means they just need some key plAyers back, then we might be in trouble. I'd also change the ratio to 80/20.

You mean the weaknesses that everyone knew about since about week 3? And if by exposed you mean somehow the chiefs caused the Packers to drop about 12 passes and the chiefs knew that whacking the Packers right tackles would be a good game plant, then exposed they were. If it weren't for all the dropped passes, the game turns out differently. I don't think this is anytime to panic, but I've learned over the course of this that for some reason panic is something Packer fans excel at.

Of course, injuries to their Oline certainly don't help.

Interesting, they must have visited the future. #mostlikelyexplanation

I'm certainly not catching Sarah this week. We have all the same picks except for the 49ers steelers game. Boo.

And it should be noted, while I have a higher lifetime winning percentage than any of the Senior NutCanners, I am picking higher this season than my lifetime average. It should put into context the outstanding season Sarah is having that she is even higher than that. She is besting the best .

...But, they also were playing from behind the whole game, so running the ball in the second half was less likely to continue. Had they been ahead, perhaps they would have continued to pound it on the ground. But they were playing catch up, and the Packers best game plan for scoring points has all season been through the air....

I can't find a website for it, but the Sporting News predicted in their 2011 NFL preview issue that the Packers would go 15-1 and that the one loss would be to the Chiefs. Weird.

Playing from behind? They were trailing from early on, but was the deficit ever even equal to a touchdown except for the very end? Abandoning the run when you're down 6 doesn't seem like a valid explanation to me. Granted, I've actually told people seriously (ok maybe 80-20 serious/joking) that the Packers should never run the ball. And for most of the season, it seemed like that made sense. But if running is clearly working better, it seems like maybe they should consider it. But honestly, I watched the Packers between plays of the Vikings game, so I can't really comment on specifics.

Is she?

While you are probably right that being down by 2-6 points probably doesn't warrant abandoning something that was working, I would hardly call "returning to the gameplan that has won us 19 games in a row" abandoning anything. Running the ball looked effective, but passing the ball is what got them where they are. Go home with the girl you brought to the dance, right?

I wasn't implying anything of the sort.

Although, to be fair about the whole run-the-ball-more-or-pass-the-ball-more, the Packers were down to about 6 olinemen total and they only had 1 tackle left active after bulaga and sherrod went down. They may not have had much success running the ball after that anyway.

And I didn't say you only dance with the girl you brought. But you'd be a jerk to take a different girl home just because she was a little banged up. Sleezeball of the year would go to that person.

edit: Basically it comes down to this. The Chiefs had a very good gameplan in place, and it required a lot of things to go right (they only won by 5 points). It took near perfect execution on their part. And, the big thing was because the offensive line got so banged up during the game, the Chiefs game plan worked even better. They almost never blitzed duringi the game, bringing only 3 or 4 rushers on 80% of plays. They were essentially banking on letting Rodgers have time but covering the receivers like blankets. Well, with losing 40% of your O-Line during the game, suddenly the thing the Chiefs were sort of "sacrificing" became a huge strength. So now they are getting tremendous pressure as well as blanket coverage. To me it was sort of a perfect storm for the Chiefs, who played (according to them) the best game of their season (some said it was the best game they've ever been a part of), and still only won by 5.