budlitebrad Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 (edited) Packers gotta have confidence after such a big win, but Arizona kept it pretty close to the chest and pulled Warner early. GB looked great after their preseason game in Arizona, too... Could end up as a shootout. Green Bay's nickle and dime backs looked a lot better this week and they'll have to step it up against Warner/Fitz/Boldin/Breaston. If Warner gets the time, he could do plenty of damage. Matthews didn't have a lot of trouble against their line today, which is a great sign. On the flip side, the line needs to hold off guys like Dockett, who looks unblockable at times. Should be a good game. Looking forward to seeing Rodgers' inaugural playoff appearance. Edited January 4, 2010 by budlitebrad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
budlitebrad Posted January 4, 2010 Author Share Posted January 4, 2010 Opening line: ARZ -2.5 Vegas giving the benefit of the doubt to the team with the playoff experience. Gotta figure a lot of money will come in on GB after yesterday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpwallace49 Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Packers are peaking at the right time, and would have gone 8-0 in the second half of the season with the Pitt last second miracle the lone exception . . . . Add in they lost Cromartie (anyone know the status?) and Boldin turned an ankle . . . . I like the Pack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isleseeya Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 just like Dallas - Philly , i think we saw a whole different game this week Cards can only go up packers can only go down based on yesterday performance ... and .do not underestimate home field for playoff game I think Cards surprise ( surprise in that they looked so bad yesterday ) and win this week . Should be a close game however Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexgaddis Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 (edited) Get your popcorn ready... Edited January 4, 2010 by alexgaddis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Interesting article about Packers playing basketball. Finley could become a major stud. Jolly has good hands for a big man too. Home » Sports » Packers Packers Full of basketball cases Hoops help players ready for season By Lori Nickel of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Jan. 2, 2010 Green Bay — Golf just doesn't cut it for some guys: Too slow, too maddening. Video games are great for dead legs that need couch time during the season. Playing cards leaves too much to chance or luck. No, some guys have to return to their first true love, the sport so many of them gave up for their pursuit of the NFL. If you want to hear some serious trash talking in the Green Bay Packers locker room, don't ask about the Arizona Cardinals or the Pro Bowl or the playoffs. Ask Johnny Jolly and Jermichael Finley who throws down the best dunk. "He might get me in a dunk contest. In a game? I'll be better," insists Jolly. Or James Jones and Finley who's best at hanging the net. "Jermichael can play, but he can't shoot with me," said Jones. "We played horse, and my jumper is on fire." "My finger was messed up," mumbled Finley. Or who is the best basketball player of them all. "Jolly's a good player for his size," said Tramon Williams. "But if you see me on the basketball court, you will see the real athleticism." That's right. The Packers are really just a bunch of NBA wannabes. In the off-season, when they're all in Green Bay for voluntary workouts and grinding away in the same weight room week after week, numerous Packers break away and play basketball to get their competitive fix. And all of them believe that running up and down the hardwood unquestionably also helps their football game. "It's a different workout," said Williams. "There's football shape. Then there's basketball shape. You can be in the best football shape and then you go on the basketball court and be dead tired." Jolly, Finley, Jones and Williams join Greg Jennings, Desmond Bishop, Donald Driver, Mike Montgomery and Nick Collins - just to name a few - as Packers who regularly play off-season basketball in one of two ways. The Packers have an organized basketball team, "The Titans of the Tundra" that plays charity games several times a year. Last year Ruvell Martin organized it; otherwise Rob Davis runs it. They'll play the Green Bay Police Department or the Racine Sheriffs Department. They play corporate staffs, teachers or firefighters. They've boarded buses for as far away as the Wisconsin-Minnesota border. "We travel," marveled Williams. "But it's fun." They've played against players from the Wisconsin and UW-Green Bay basketball teams, at UWGB's Resch Center or high school gyms throughout the state. And they draw huge crowds. "Fans really love to see the guys in that competitive setting, closer up," said Davis. Aside from that, many guys also just head to open gyms like you and me, walking into YMCAs and fitness clubs with old dudes sporting the Kurt Rambis goggles and young punks who foul too much. They love it. "Not a whole lot of competition around here, though," said Jones. Jones grabs a few friends in California, his shoes and that's it and finds a court, ready to play at the drop of a tipoff. But playing once or twice a week all off-season, the Packers do worry about turning an ankle, or worse. So they avoid the blacktops right before training camp. And then they're just careful. "You definitely wear ankle braces and you don't play stupid," said Jones. "You see somebody going to the basket out of control, you're not going to jump in. If I see a guy out there and trying to swat at everything, I'm not going to go in there. I'll just shoot jump shots. " For football, Driver will sacrifice his body. For basketball? No way. He played off-season basketball for seven years, and now just on occasion, but he was always mindful of avoiding injury. "I have gotten in to a game where people have wanted to play hard," said Driver. "I went up for a dunk and someone tried to undercut me. That's when I sat down and said, 'OK, no more of this.' Then you have to tell them, look this is not that serious. It's for charity." If any of them had been inches taller, you wouldn't be seeing their tackles, receptions and interceptions. Williams turned down a few college scholarship offers to play basketball, including the University of New Orleans. Jones turned away basketball scholarships from the Washington, Loyola-Marymount and San Diego State. San Jose State offered him both basketball and football scholarships, so he went there. Montgomery played football and basketball his first year at Navarro (Tex.) Junior College. Finley was set to go play basketball for Arizona but he would have been a tweener in hoops. At 6-5 he had the power post game of big man but not the height for it. "I was committed to Arizona, and then at the last minute, like day before the national signing day, I de-committed," said Finley. "Because Texas came and offered me. And you can't turn down a Texas football scholarship." They all believe their basketball skills and workouts transfer over to the football field to their advantage. Montgomery is 6-5, a giant on the gridiron, but regularly playing defense in basketball means he has to bend those knees and get his center of gravity down. It's the same on the defensive line, he said. Finley thinks basketball gives him quick hands and feet and reflexes that stay sharp. But his basketball skills are also obvious when he uses that 39 inch vertical leap to out jump a pack of defenders. There are other benefits. "Basketball helps on explosion, a quick change of direction," said Jones, a receiver. "When you're guarding somebody, it helps with your footwork. In college, all our receivers used to go to a park in the off-season three days a week and play basketball because it is good for your hips, playing defense for a long time, it helps a lot with your explosion, you're jumping." It must help Jolly. How else do you explain his burst and menacing wingspan as he darts in between cruise liners? The defensive end has worked hard at his run tackling and he is often double teamed, he said, which prohibits him from sacking the quarterback as much as he'd like. So he falls back to one last resort, a fight for defense at the line of scrimmage. In basketball, it's the blocked shot. In football, it's a deflection. Jolly has 11, a Packers record for a defensive linemen. Of all the Packers, Jolly is the most obsessed with basketball. He played it in high school and he swears that his mom has clips of his back-to-back games of 42 points one night and 35 the next. But at 325 pounds, he's got to be some bruising and bumbling mass of a center or power forward, right? Oh no. He swears he can play positions one through five. Bring the ball up the court like shifty point guard. Shoot the 3. "Oh yeah, can do all that. Please," said Jolly. "I mean, I could make a clinic tape for you just on my crossover." His teammates actually howl in laughter at Jolly's bravado but they admit that yeah, the big guy's got game. "I know basketball helps my reaction time and keeps my feet quick," said Jolly. "I could take anyone in the NBA right now. If 'Big Baby' (Glen Davis) and them all wanna play me, tell them in the off-season they can come and see me." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NAUgrad Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 We get it. They like basketball. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratesownninjas Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Green Bay@Dallas to decide who will represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Opening line: ARZ -2.5 Vegas giving the benefit of the doubt to the team with the playoff experience. Gotta figure a lot of money will come in on GB after yesterday. If you said "the QB with playoff experience" I might buy it. But team? Meh. There are about 6 starters and one key backup who weren't on the roster for the NFC Championship game in '07. Hardly a team that has never been in the playoffs before. As far as what THIS week meant to last week, most analysts said that GB ran their typical game but didn't exactly show anything that wasn't already on film either. They just out-executed and out-hit the Cardinals; and I don't know about you, but I'd rather be the fist end of a punch in the face than the mouth. Now Green Bay has to come out and do it again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuke'em ttg Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 cards aren't the cards with beerbong in there...i might as well be brack there.....this should be a great rematch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
budlitebrad Posted January 10, 2010 Author Share Posted January 10, 2010 Opening line: ARZ -2.5 Line now at GB -2 with all the money coming in on the Packers. I guess it's a good sign that the first two rematches were won by the same teams as last week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 Line now at GB -2 with all the money coming in on the Packers. I guess it's a good sign that the first two rematches were won by the same teams as last week. If that's a trend, I'll gladly take it but I really don't think that has anything to do with anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
budlitebrad Posted January 10, 2010 Author Share Posted January 10, 2010 If that's a trend, I'll gladly take it but I really don't think that has anything to do with anything. Ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuke'em ttg Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 :sendinHookersandtaintedpizzataBigJohnsroom: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big John Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 :sendinHookersandtaintedpizzataBigJohnsroom: :didnotreceive: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 (edited) :didnotreceive: As long as it's only the pizza and not the hookers that are tainted. Edited January 10, 2010 by Chavez Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatman Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 GO PACK GO! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 Boldin is officially inactive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ts Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 Boldin is officially inactive. Trade his lame butt or give him a pay cut! Oh, wait... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffraff Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 Well, if the rest of the wildcard weekend is an indicator - the team that only scores 14 will lose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuke'em ttg Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 Good-Luck Big John let's keep it clean chavez Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 : let's keep it clean chavez http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2406/179486...8021c35.jpg?v=0 Every game, coach! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonedaddies Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 Good Luck Packer fans! Go Cards!! Early Doucet = MVP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chavez Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 That is NOT what you'd call a "good start." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuke'em ttg Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2406/179486...8021c35.jpg?v=0 Every game, coach! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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