[ Blue Man Sings The Whites ]

Week 3, then, and an immediate opportunity to make amends to the Arizona faithful for our narrow loss to the Seahawks as the Packers forsake the chilly climes of Wisconsin for the scorching heat of Sun Devil Stadium.

Toasted Cheeseheads, if you like.

“Good job running Seattle so close last week.”

Cheers, Mystery Bloke.

“Green Bay are going to hump you, though.”

Cheers, Mystery Bloke.

“As ever, they’ll be led by Brett Favre. Don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but he’s a teensy bit useful. His main target is Donald Driver, who’s got everything you need to be a number 1 receiver in the NFL other than, possibly, ideal size. Robert Ferguson and Javon Walker are the split end and slot receiver respectively, neither have great hands but both have superb speed. You know. Just like your secondary haven’t.”

Cheers, Mystery Bloke.

“Bubba Franks, Wesley Walls and the full-back William Henderson are all capable of making plays in the passing-game. But key on the receivers, and Ahman Green will burn you. The offensive line are uniformly excellent, albeit a little slow of foot. A speed-rusher might well be able to get some joy here. Pity you haven’t got one, in many ways.”

Cheers, Mystery Bloke.

“Good front seven, the big threat being KGB coming off the right end. Don’t ask me to spell the full name. My advice is to run away from him – LOLB Hannibal Navies is primarily a coverage guy, and probably doesn’t have the strength to consistently bring down Marcel Shipp. Mike McKenzie and Al Harris match up well against your wideouts, but you may get joy with Bryan Gilmore against Michael Westbrook, who probably doesn’t have the legs to stay with him. Watch out for Darren Sharper, though, he’s still one of the best safeties in the league. Best team you’ve played so far on both sides of the ball, no question. Let’s hope you haven’t used a season’s supply of luck up in that Detroit game.”

Cheers, Mystery Bloke.

======

Out we come into the blazing sun – and is it my imagination, or are there more folks out here braving the Arizona heat than there were a week ago?

It’s my imagination. Clearly.

For the second week running, I forget that we’re playing in a stadium that’s ninety degrees in the shade, and send my boys out in their dark uniforms, putting the nagging worry in my mind that we might get heat-exhausted and fade a bit in the last quarter or so. Of course, for that to be a concern, we’ll have to be within striking distance of Green Bay with fifteen minutes to play, which doesn’t seem all that likely on the face of it.

Gordon Bennett. This wasn’t ever a problem when I was at Cincinnati.

We win our first coin-toss of the season – yay! – and elect to receive, not wanting to be playing catch-up from the very start. Being aggressive right from the off, we come out in a three-wide set, and immediately see the Packers trying to cover speedster Bryan Gilmore with a linebacker. That’ll never work, surely? No, it won’t. Fifteen yards on the in, and we’re on our way. Superb pass-blocking gives Johnno the chance to work his way right across the field from left to right and find a seam in the zone, getting up over strong safety Marques Anderson for 20 and another first-down.

Just to make sure that Green Bay realise we’ve three proper weapons at receiver, Anquan Boldin makes a 9-yard grab on a sort’ve slanty, draggy-type pattern, but Blake is sacked on 2nd down and Freddie Jones puts the ball down on 3rd, forcing us to send Bill Gramatica out for a long FG attempt, which he muffs. Not to worry, though, we’ve looked fluent and dangerous, and I’m sure we’ll be back down this end of the field sooner rather than later.

We quickly get Green Bay to a 3rd and 5 and have Favre hopping about in the pocket like a kangaroo on a hot plate (never tried it? You should. Hours of fun for the whole family), but all the good work goes to waste as he finds his tight end for 21 yards and just like that they’re in field-goal range. Two Green runs give them first and goal, then Favre finds backup halfback Najeh Davenport on a flare-pattern and sees him run right over no-mark David Barrett for the game’s opening score. GB 7-0 ARI

Alright - a setback, but not a disaster. Straight back to the aggressive game-plan – three wide, and with time Blake sees Boldin steal half a step on a crossing route... then inexplicably launches the ball a clear four feet over the wideout’s head, just enough air on the pass to allow Al Harris to make an impressive stooping interception down by his shoelaces. Nice work, blockhead. The Pack set up at our 34, and this time it only takes one play, Ahman Green bludgeoning rookie right end Calvin Pace out of his way then streaking away to the endzone. 5 minutes or so left in the first – GB 14-0 ARI

Alright – another setback, but I’m not pushing the panic-button yet. Aggressive, aggressive, aggressive. Grrr. They come with the blitz, Johnno punishes them on the slant, 18 yards. Yeeees! That’s got them nice and on the back foot, NOW we hurt them with the run! Three runs, in fact! For five yards! They’re worried, I can see it in their beady little eyes.

The punt goes for a touchback, and out comes Brett Favre And His Cavalcade Of Whimsy. Suddenly we can’t get so much as a scrap of pressure, and so our young (and for “young”, read “useless”) secondary is getting picked apart. Finally, a break – Ahman Green comes bursting though the line on a 3rd-and-5, but Ronald McKinnon gets a hand in and strips the ball away. It bounces free, rolls... and is fallen on by tight end Bubba Franks, 8 yards downfield from the line of scrimmage for a 1st and goal. Grrr. Next play, swing pass to Green, six more points. This is just beginning to get a teensy bit worrying. GB 21-0 ARI

Alright - another setback... where’s the panic button? No, no reason, just wondering. First and ten, and we’re not going to pass just because that’s been working and rushing hasn’t... no, that’s exactly what they expect we’ll do. Ha... Marcel Shipp takes the handoff going right, sees heavy traffic, cuts back to the left, just cornerback Al Harris between him and a big gain... Fumble. Obviously. Recovered by the Packers. Obviously. I’ll just keep the panic button here, next to me, shall I? Just so we know where it is, that’s all. Good gravy, though, if we don’t get a stop, Tay Cody unlucky not to pick the ball off as Favre tries to force something to Donald Driver that’s just not there on 3rd-and-a-fair-bit. Longwell slots the 41-yard figgie though, the swine, and with six minutes long, painful minutes left in the first half it’s GB 24-0 ARI

Let’s put the run on the back-burner for a while then, shall we? Terry Fair gives us good field-position to start the drive, returning the kickoff all the way back to our 41. Boldin, Smith, Jones and as if by magic we look threatening. It’s the Official Down And Distance Of The Arizona Cardinals on the Green Bay 28, and we run a play-action that the Packers shouldn’t even be considering biting on... but they do. Jeff Blake rolls out and finds Bryan Gilmore on the crossing-route, 21 yards, first and goal. Lovely blocking at the point of attack, and Marcel Shipp goes in for his second touchdown of the season to cut the deficit to GB 24-7 ARI

Twice we get Favre into a 3rd-and-a-bunch situation on the following drive, twice he gets a whole passel o’yards to some fat schlub and gets his team out of it. The second one was particularly infuriating, fullback William Henderson coming out of the backfield, and spinning past not one but two tacklers on his way to the first down. It’s actually a bit of a blessed relief when he hits Donald Driver from 20 yards and ends the endless drip-drip-drip water torture. Thank God there’s only two minutes left in this half. GB 31-7 ARI

Clicka clicka clicka goes the panic-button. Then clickaclickaclickaclickaclickaclicka three plays later as Jeff Blake’s sacked twice on consecutive snaps and we end up punting from our own endzone. Packers at their 48, then, 1:01 to go.

1 play. Favre to Walker. BOTH bloody safeties miss their tackles on the way to the endzone. 52 yards. Half time, GB 38-7 ARI

CLICKACLICKACLICKACLICKACLICKACLICKACLICKACLICKA

Why isn’t this damned thing WORKING?

Well, I suppose it’s working in a way. I am panicking.

AND the Pack get the ball to start the second half. Yet again, we get them to a 3rd-and-masses situation, yet again Favre hits one of his running backs - Ahman Green this time -who gets just enough to convert. We finally stop them on a second 3rd-and-miles when Adrian Wilson bats the ball from the hands of Antonio Freeman, and Green Bay are punting for the first time since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Up goes the kick toward Terry Fair, in come the Green Bay defenders, Fair calls for the fair catch too late and with terrible, gruesome predictability he's hit, he spills the ball, the Packers recover and take it all the way home. GB 45-7 ARI

About two quarters too late, our offence wakes up and gets its freak on. Or something. We go 74 yards in 11 plays, Jeff Blake hooking up with Anquan Boldin three times along the way, including a nicely-executed 7-yard hook for the TD, and at least it doesn’t look like an England second-innings test score any more. GB 45-14 ARI

Our defence is absolutely knackered, though. Green Bay put together a 77-yard drive, Ahman Green getting 57 of them as we completely and utterly forget how to tackle. It's Green, of course, who gets into the endzone for his third score of the day. The panic has now given way to a kind of weary acceptance of inevitable crushing defeat. Thank Christ we’re only fifteen minutes from the end. GB 52-14 ARI

I send in Josh McCown at quarterback, in a subtle signal to the Packers that we've given up on the game and so could they kindly call the dogs off now, please? He starts pretty well, with good completions to Johnno and Emmitt Smith, but under pressure his accuracy goes to pieces and the drive falls apart at the halfway line.

Green Bay plainly can’t take a sodding hint, because Favre's still in. Grrr. And so's Green, worse luck. And so's our defence, even worse luck. 34-yard touchdown run, GB 59-14 ARI

Bloody hell, that means we have to have another go, doesn't it? McCown looks for Boldin on a post-corner pattern but underthrows his man and gives Mike McKenzie the opportunity to nip in front for the interception.

Which he accepts graciously, returning the ball back inside our 10. We couldn't stop Ahman Green from thirty yards out, so we certainly can't stop him from 5. I'm now just amusing myself by slowly drawing my fingers across my throat every time Dave McGinnis looks nervously up toward the owner's box. GB 66-14 ARI

We go three and out and have to punt away. Six minutes left in the game and Favre is still sodding well in there running up his stats and running up the scoreboard. To hell with this – any pretence of defending is abandoned as my entire team focuses on trying to get at Number 4.

I realise that it looks to the untrained eye like we abandoned any pretence of defending around about the middle of the first quarter.

Blimey O’Reilly if it doesn’t seem to do the job, though. Three downs, three big-blitzes, two incompletions and one Ahman Green run where he takes the hand-off and immediately sees a wall of red and white descending upon him with murder in its collective eyes. Infuriatingly, though, we still can’t near enough to Favre to have a go at breaking the tosser in half, and that’s pretty much the only point at this stage. He’s safe for another down or so as Green Bay punt, and we get the ball back at our 30.

McCown misses twice, then finds Anquan Boldin on a post-in for 17 yards on 3rd and 10. He makes up for it on the next play, though – hit as he throws, the officials calling it a fumble despite the fact that Brett Favre did precisely the same thing in the first half and the play was blown dead, Kabeer-Bjamilla or whatever his name is, I really am beyond caring, scoops the ball up and takes it, yep, all the way back to the endzone. We just can’t stop coming up with new ways to let the opposition score! For those of you who’ve lost count, which probably means everyone without a degree in Applied Calculus, that takes us to GB 73-14 ARI

There’s still time for one last hurrah, though, and with three minutes to play we drive deep into Green Bay territory before coughing the ball up going for it on 4th-and-a-bit. Favre, who has played every sodding snap of this debacle, hands off to Ahman Green as the Packers look for the one first down that’ll allow them to run the clock off.

You know. One first down, or a 76-yard run to give Green his sixth score of the day and a new NFL rushing record. Either will do. The crowd are eerily silent, probably because they all buggered off home about two quarters ago. “It sure doesn’t look like they’re going to come back in this one…” opines Johnny Madden. Really, John? With us sixty-four points down and thirty-five seconds left to play? I suppose after so many years in the game, you just get these hunches from time to time, eh? Now I understand why you’re getting paid the big bucks – thank you for blessing us with the gift of your devestating insight. You fat prat. Final score – GB 80-14 ARI

Horrible. Just horrible. The most ludicrous debacle I’ve ever been involved in - and I spent two seasons coaching the Cincinnati Bengals. This isn’t a time for reasoned contemplation of our shortcomings, oh no – this is a time for knee-jerk reactions and vicious retribution.

Stay tuned.

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(c) daniel roe 2004