Green Bay almost beat the Pats on the road with their back-up QB. That's not impressive? Did you watch that game?

i'm a packer "fan" without television.
i watched two and half football games this year.
the superbowl. packers vs bears playoff game. vikings vs bears outdoor at gopher stadium.

my conclusion is that the black eyed peas are really terrible.

I'm generally a fan of Polamalu as a player but he looked terrible yesterday. He makes great plays but his "you call it instinct, i call it lack of discipline" style of play makes it easy for him to be made to look foolish. Which he was. High five.

the way i look at it, my team won 11 games one year with a qb who hadn't started a game since high school, so i don't put a lot of stock in any 'our qb was hurt and we almost won.' it's the nfl, teams are playing without some of their playmakers every week including the patriots when they played the packers. the packers played the pats and the pats won.

the packers did give the pats a good game, but again because of the way the league is these days, so what? the browns kicked the patriots' asses up and down the field. that doesn't mean i am impressed with the browns. the pats defense this year while better than their numbers, generated absolutely no pressure on qbs and plenty of offenses had no problem moving the ball on them. i am really hoping they draft or trade for somebody that can come off the edge and disrupt something for the first time since they gave vrabel to kc for no good reason.

i am not saying the packers didn't deserve to win. they were the hottest team over the last few weeks and that is what it comes down to now. and i was happy with the result because i find the steelers unlikable. but i wouldn't rank them too high is i was making a list of the most impressive superbowl champions. i mean, do you really feel like the road to next year's nfc championship runs through green bay? i don't. not unless they learn to run the ball. i would rather see a game at gb than one at atlanta on the pats schedule next year.

yeah i am with you on that. i am surprised that they are big enough to get that gig. they seemed to agree with me because they kept bringing dudes out to save their asses. too bad it didn't work.

If football worked the way it was supposed to the Tom Brady would have the same number of super bowls, but in totally different years than he got them.

That's what it always come down to: The best team at the end of the season wins. I mean, for fuck's sake thrillhouse, did you get hit on the head last night or are you just in deep denial?

best and hottest are not the same. also i am really not talking about the packers specifically, but the state of the nfl. i saw the arizona cardinals play in a superbowl a couple years ago damn it.

so if the hottest team in the playoffs wins a championship, how do we actually determine who is the best?

This is a cop out and not nearly exemplary of the way he actually plays. He is used in feints and stunts and has little "freedom" to call his own plays. Like PMannning, dude watches a Ton of film, and most of what people call "instinct" is actually superior preparationn.

he was superiorly prepared to be about 10 yards away from jennings in the end zone

we are getting away from the point that the nfl has produced mediocre teams across the board so that they can try to get a championship to every city so they can sell more shit. that is the issue that i am raising. i am including my own 14-2 team in that assessment.

So what should the NFL do? Get rid of salary cap? Allow team with best record in each conference to go to super bowl? Soccer style and best record wins?

That's why there's a saying..."any given Sunday...". The best team doesn't always win in sports, if they did sports in general would be kinda boring. Everyone loves an upset story, or an underdog. Records don't mean anything. There is so much that goes into games week in and week out. I'd argue that's why the NFL is superior to most sports...that all teams can have the ability to win any week. I mean, the Bills were horrid but they took some teams to the wire (Ravens included). What's wrong with that? Why is it wrong that Arizona went to the SB? They nearly won.

Not sure what yr saying. That the overall product is worse than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago?

The only disapointment of the super bowl for me was Charles Woodson's injury. Polamalu could have learned how to play his role correctly.

That Arizona team was stacked FWIW and had a Hall of Fame QB leading his third team to the Super Bowl.

Alas, I am a little foggy on what exactly you are complaining about and also exactly what time in history you are pining for.

Not using this to further or detract from the argument, just an interesting anecdote: Everyone would agree that baseball is generally an easier sport to predict the eventual outcome of (or at the very least the playoff teams), right? In 2010 we end up with a Giants-Rangers WS with the Giants winning. Who predicted that? In the NFL we end up with a Packers-Steelers SB with the Packers winning an outcome predicted in the preseason by no less than the most mainstreamiest of mainstream NFL writers, Peter King.

If that's the case then maybe he should watch a little more film or allow himself to be coached a bit more because the Packers knew what he was going to bite on, when he would be blitzing and where he would be in the zone, 9/10 in that game.

And don't get it twisted, I know what TP does out there (he's easy to follow so it's easy to watch) and have been damn near blown away...my chick and I play a little game called "watch how fast Palamalu comes into the frame" for when he literally comes out of nowhere in a replay and effects a play. The problem is that players who play just a little bit out of step like that, eventually get figured out (see: Mike Vick in Atlanta) because no amount of athleticism can overcome the STATE OF THE ART COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.

At least you get what actually happened Bloor - The Pack had a game plan for TP. They probably had a team of 2 coaches and 6 assistants who worked on a plan to neutralize him for the 2 weeks, and I wouldn't be surprised if you heard stories of them talking to Ravens, Jets, etc assistants and getting a best practices report. That's what it takes these days. Most of the other comments in this thread are simple even by Ob standards.

a game plan to neutralize a safety? that makes no sense.

as for the parity issue that i can't get much agreement on... as i have said, having the any given sunday philosophy for the league makes for an exciting playoff tournament, but i just find that when it gets to the big game, the teams that play in it are weaker in terms of football execution than they once were. the revenue sharing and salary cap (both of which should be revised, not eliminated) are great for giving every team a chance, but there is something appealing to me about having a team like the 85 bears in the superbowl. and as you know, that 85 bears team didn't do my beloved pats any favors.

i mean, no team made it to 4-0 this year. it's not as fun when the 'team to beat' changes every week. i am surprised more of you don't agree. the nfl had no great teams this year.

and look at the box score of the superbowl. gb was +3 in turnovers and won by a touchdown. i'm sorry, but a proper championship team takes 3 turnovers and turns that game into a video game style blowout. i treated myself to the 1984 49ers v dolphins sb box score. turnovers... even. final score 38-16. a 15-1 team over a 13-3 team. that's a superbowl. these new ones where 2 mediocre teams try to give the game away to each other suck by comparison.

I understand what he's trying to say but it's the same thing he was in here chirping after the Steelers/Cards Super Bowl. The argument didn't make sense then and even less now.

I may not make sense to you, thrillhouse, but that's what happened, and it worked....TP had no impact on the game, and it was because of what the Packers did offensively.

that's an awesome game plan. don't throw the ball to tp and block him. genius.

yes, that was an awesome team. a hof qb leading matt leinart's team to the big game. he also led them to a 47-7 defeat in foxboro in december. championship caliber.

how did the stacked 9-7 cardinals not win that game i wonder? and how could i call a team that gave up 426 points mediocre? they did manage to score one more than they gave up. good for them.

my 11-5 team that scored 100 more than they gave up didn't qualify for the playoffs that year. but the superbowl was a showcase of the best teams in the league i am sure.