I wanted to write a column about the Green Bay Packers, and I thought, hey, why not focus on the team’s catalyst, Aaron Rodgers? My stance concerning Rodgers is straightforward: in my mind, Packers fans couldn’t have asked for a better quarterback to replace Brett Favre. Some would argue that Green Bay never should have dumped Favre, especially as Number Four slices and dices defenses with precision not seen since the mid ‘90s, but one would be hard pressed to find fault with Aaron Rodgers.

There are quarterbacks in the NFL who frustrate fans with errant and downright awful throws (*cough* Cutler *cough*) and others who remind fans on a weekly basis that they shouldn’t be starters (I‘m looking at you, Jake Delhomme). But Rodgers doesn’t fit either mold.

First, he holds the ball instead of trying to force it through defenders. It’s a novel idea, especially for someone who was asked to fill the shoes of Favre, who routinely threw 20 or so interceptions during a season. (Coincidentally, I think Brad Childress may have introduced the “don’t force it” idea to Favre this season, too.) Yes, there are times Rodgers holds the ball too long and takes unnecessary sacks. Those losses are critical; often this season games have been decided by field position. But isn’t it great seeing someone throw over 20 touchdowns and fewer than 10 interceptions? Rodgers has 22 and 5 through 11 games this season. By the end of the year he’ll likely have a stat-line somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-8.

Furthermore, Rodgers is driving the Packers down the field. He can throw the ball deep just as he can hit a receiver on a quick slant. His mobility in and out of the pocket is stellar; he might not be as fast as Vince Young, but he can escape a pass rush or tuck the ball and run as efficiently as anyone in the NFL. He averages 5.5 yards per carry and has scored three rushing touchdowns this season — few quarterbacks can put up numbers like that. Or, more specifically, few can put up those numbers and pass for 290 yards per week.

The one stat against him in his short career is his win-loss record. At 13-14, Rodgers’ winning percentage is mediocre. But even though some fans like to grade quarterbacks by their wins and losses, let‘s talk a little about the defense. Green Bay has scored at least 23 points in 10 games this season. The offense ranks 6th in scoring this season; last season it ranked 5th. The difference accounting for Green Bay’s higher win percentage this season is the defense: it ranks 12th this season, a huge step up from ranking 22nd as it did a year ago.

That said, the defense has lacked consistency. the Packers have only lost games in which their opponents scored at least 30 points. In fact, the average points per game allowed in wins is around 12. In losses it’s about 34.

The point: Rodgers and the offense are scoring enough points this season; they just need to count on the defense to keep opponents’ scores low. That will need to change when the postseason arrives because the Packers will be playing some high-scoring offenses like New Orleans or Minnesota. Both games will (likely) be in domes; Rodgers, per Sports Data Hub, is averaging 27 fantasy points in dome games. He’s passed for around 334 yards and at least two touchdowns in these games. That’s a good omen for Packers fans. The caveat: they’ve only played one “good” team in a dome: Minnesota. They lost.

Speaking of which, Green Bay has only played a handful of potential playoff teams this season: Minnesota (twice), Dallas, and Cincinnati.

The only team they beat on that short list: Dallas, which, incidentally, has only beaten two teams above .500 — Atlanta (6-5) and Philadelphia (7-4).

At the end of the day, the Packers aren’t contenders, at least not in the postseason. The competition they’ll face is on par with the teams they’ve lost to this season. The defense has often struggled against the best teams on Green Bay’s schedule and, when it has, the Packers have unfailingly lost. Green Bay won’t have Aaron Kampman and Al Harris in the postseason; how will they face down Brett Favre and the Vikings or Drew Brees and the Saints? What about Kurt Warner and the Cardinals?

Green Bay is on a three game winning streak, and few quarterbacks look better than Aaron Rodgers. It’s just a shame he and the Packers have lit up shoddy competition while turning in losses against competitive teams. That’s not what January teams do. Not the successful ones.

As I type this article, the league’s MVP, coach of the year, and rookie of the year are tuned in to watch CBS’s presentation of the AFC Championship. Meanwhile, Kurt Warner and Ken Whisenhunt are celebrating an NFC Championhship victory while Joe Flacco fights for his record third postseason win and a Super Bowl berth.

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Under the current NFL tradition, league awards are presented at the end of the regular season. Unfortunately, that leaves the most important part of the season out: the playoffs. I have the utmost respect for Peyton Manning and his turnaround this season, just as I respect Mike Smith’s coaching the Falcons to the postseason and Matt Ryan’s great rookie season in Atlanta. But is it so outrageous to suggest they weren’t the best in the NFL from start to finish this year?

Peyton Manning began the season with a 70-odd quarterback rating through the first seven games of the season. He and the Colts then went on an eight game tear to clinch a playoff seed. His passer rating in eight of his final nine games was above 90 and he threw 17 touchdowns to just 3 interceptions.

Two weeks ago he and the Colts lost in the Wild Card round to San Diego. Manning completed under 60 percent of his passes and made a few bad decisions late in the game, such as taking a sack at his own one yard line.

Today, Kurt Warner won his third playoff game of the season with the Arizona Cardinals. He passed for three first half touchdowns and finished 21-of-28 for 279 yards and 4 touchdowns - he threw 8 altogether this postseason. Counting the regular season, Warner passed for 5,308 yards, 38 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions in the 2008-2009 season.

But he’s not the MVP?

Mike Smith coached the Atlanta Falcons to an 11-5 record and the fifth seed in the NFC, an impressive feat considering the franchise had a 4-12 record a year before his arrival and was in apparent turmoil. A great offseason and solid coaching during the regular season got Atlanta into the playoffs as one of the league’s biggest surprises.

Two week ago his Falcons lost in the playoffs to the Arizona Cardinals, coached by Ken Whisenhunt. Whisenhunt is celebrating his latest victory, today’s win against the Eagles, and will begin preparing for the Super Bowl tomorrow or perhaps as early as tonight. He coached the Arizona Cardinals to a Super Bowl, the first in franchise history. This team hadn’t even been to the playoffs since 1998, nor had it won its division since 1975.

But he’s not coach of the year?

Matt Ryan had a great season as a rookie quarterback in Atlanta. As part of the new and improved Falcons, he passed for 3,440 yards, 16 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions, pretty good numbers for a rookie. More importantly, he led the Falcons to the playoffs in a competitive division.

Wait a minute, though; so did Joe Flacco. Maybe his regular season numbers weren’t up to par with Ryan’s but they weren’t much worse: 2,971 passing yards, 14 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. And if you count his numbers in the postseason prior to tonight’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, which is still in progress, he had an additional 296 passing yards and one more touchdown pass. He also has two more wins in the postseason, a record for rookie quarterbacks.

But he’s not rookie of the year?

League awards shouldn’t be designated for the regular season; it’s deceiving. The players and coach awarded certainly had great years, but they weren’t necessarily the best when you figure in the postseason. The league’s most valuable player shouldn’t just lift his team to the postseason; he should keep it alive when it gets there. The coach of the year shouldn’t just turn a losing franchise around; he should win after it makes the playoffs. And if the rookie of the year is going to be a quarterback, why not wait to see which rookie wins in the playoffs? The other candidates I mentioned were already in the running during the regular season and weren’t far behind the winners in terms of popularity or qualification, so why not wait?

The goal in professional football is to win when it counts. The players and coaches awarded the league’s three most prestigious awards weren’t able to win for one reason or another, so it’s disappointing to see others who were very close to winning during the regular season snubbed, only to find a lot of success when the most important games rolled around. I think it may be time to change the way he award the league’s best; let’s wait until the most important games of the season are finished and then give it to the most qualified candidate.

If there was a team in the NFL no one else wants to play right now, I think you’d have to assume it’s the Baltimore Ravens. If I was a coach I wouldn’t want to put together the game plan that attempts to beat the Ravens stout defense. Minutes removed from defeating the Tennessee Titans on the road and a week after drilling the white hot Miami Dolphins in Florida, no team is gaining momentum quite like the Baltimore Ravens.

Unlike other hot teams in the postseason, the Ravens have a great defense. And beyond that, there’s an offense that doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, led by a rookie quarterback who is playing very un-rookie-like.

Said Joe Flacco after the Ravens victory over Tennessee, “I’ve played 18 games or 19 now … you’re not really a rookie anymore.” He sure doesn’t look like a rookie when he’s on the field. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that his teammates constantly have his back and are there to support him all the time.

“Joe Flacco, yeah, a rookie,” said Ray Lewis in an interview with Warren Sapp. “Rookies only get caught if everything is put on their shoulders. Everything ain’t on his shoulders. It’s just gonna be, ‘Joe, we got you.’ That’s what I tell him all the time.”

But Baltimore doesn’t just avoid turnovers and crucial mistakes; the offense can also put up points. Perhaps it isn’t as electrifying as, say, the New Orleans Saints, but the Ravens offense does quietly average 24 points per game, thanks in no small part to its fourth ranked running game. Though it got off to a slow start and never really attained an outstanding per carry average, the Ravens’ three-headed monster consisting of Willis McGahee, Le’Ron McClain, and Ray Rice rushed for 2,027 yards during the regular season. It helped define the Ravens’ ball-control offense, which ran 1,058 plays (2nd) and controlled possession for 33 minutes per game (1st) during the regular season.

Of course, the real strength of this team is the defense. Allowing opponents just 1.11 points per drive (1st), or 15.2 points per game, during the regular season, the defense has exceeded those numbers in the postseason. The Miami Dolphins scored just nine points in the first round and against the Tennessee Titans, the defense, led by Ray Lewis and Ed Reed, allowed just 10 points. Both opposing offenses averaged at least 21 points per game during the season.

And though home field advantage receives a lot of hype leading up to the postseason, does is bother Ray Lewis his team will be playing on the road in every playoff game? Uh, no.

Because the Ravens defense is offered a lot of free reign to adjust on the field and during the game, communication is a necessity. Most fans understand it’s difficult to communicate on the field when it’s loud in a stadium, so a home crowd will usually scream and cheer at the top of its lungs when an opposing offense is on the field because it’s difficult for the quarterback to audible or for the offense to communicate. Unfortunately, it’s a two-sided coin and there are times when the defense is affected, too.

“A lot of times people don’t realize we play better on the road,” said Lewis in his interview with Sapp, whoechoed the sentiment by commenting, “they say defense travels well.”

The Ravens defense has traveled very well in the postseason, so it should come as no surprise the leader of the team is still Ray Lewis, the vocal linebacker who leads by inspiring his teammates and setting a strong example by giving everything he has on every down to defeat whatever opponent is on the field, any given week.

“Somebody is challenging our manhood. And if they can tell you that and I’m your leader, I’ll show you what I’m willing to do, first, and then see if you can follow me from there.” So far the Ravens have followed him to the AFC Championship game. Now every team fears Lewis’s teammates will follow him two more games to a Super Bowl victory.

Never doubt a team coached by Tony Dungy and led by Peyton Manning. That’s a lesson the rest of the NFL is quickly getting reacquainted to. Just over four weeks ago it would have been easy to discard the Colts in the same vein as San Diego. Stumbling to 3-4, on the heels of two consecutive losses, and in a division in which the leader was 7-0, this was hardly a team worth considering for the postseason. But four weeks and as many wins later, it may be worth jumping back on the Colts bandwagon.

Indianapolis isn’t winning in the fashion of a rout. On the contrary, the Colts are hanging with their opponents - among them, New England, Pittsburgh, Houston, and San Diego - until the very end before pulling ahead with little time on the clock. Against San Diego last weekend the Colts fell behind with 1:35 showing on the clock. Eight plays and ninety seconds later and the Colts regained the lead. Manning drove his offense down the field as he has so often this season to set up Adam Vinatieri for the game-winner.

Looking at the Colts now, with three relatively easy games in succession next on the schedule (Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Detroit), and it’s not hard to imagine ten or more wins. Is that enough to make the postseason in the AFC? It very well could be. The AFC West certainly won’t more than the division winner (Denver currently leads with a 6-5 record), leaving Indianapolis to basically contend with two others: New England and Baltimore, both of which have a more difficult remaining schedule.

Then again, one can’t necessarily rule out Indianapolis winning the AFC South. Understand that it’s a long shot, but Tennessee, which was proved vulnerable this weekend in a blowout defeat at the hands of the New York Jets, could potentially lose its final three games (at Houston, vs. Pittsburgh, and at Indianapolis). If that does happen and the Titans fall to 12-4 and the Colts win out (to improve to 12-4), the Colts hold the tie-breaker. Because Tennessee would slip to 8-4 in conference and the Colts would improve to 10-2, Indianapolis holds the NFL’s fourth tiebreaker: the best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.

Is it likely? No, of course not. Is it possible? Absolutely. The NFL always sees something crazy happen down the stretch. You can count on it happening every season. And what would be crazier than a 10-0 team with a four game division lead dropping four of its last six, including one against the team four games behind, to ultimately lose the division due to the NFL’s fourth tie-breaker?

Of course, it’s far more likely Indianapolis makes it as a Wild Card team. What does that mean? Basically, to make the Super Bowl the Colts would need three road games and a game played on neutral turf. The Colts have actually won more often on the road this season (4-2) than they have at home (3-2). More interesting is Peyton Manning’s progression this season over the course of three months. His passer rating in September was a very un-Manning-ish 73.1. But in October it improved to a more respectable 84.0. And in the month of November he began putting up numbers you’d expect: his rating hit 100.9 and he threw 9 touchdowns and 1 interception in four games.

Obviously the Colts have weaknesses. The running game is laughable, averaging less than 80 yards per game and ranking 32nd in the NFL, whilst the defense continues to struggle stopping the run. Of course, it’s worth pointing out that Indianapolis has allowed only two opposing backs to break 100 yards since its week four bye and only one in the last five weeks. Again, this is a team that has dealt with injuries at key positions this season (Manning in preseason, Joseph Addai and Bob Sanders during the season, to point out the most notable) and still has a pulse. I still believe that Tony Dungy is in the same company as Bill Belichick when it comes to dealing with injuries; both coaches have an uncanny ability to accept what they can’t control, get the team to accept it, and push forward without losing too much footing.

Eight weeks into the season, I wouldn’t have faulted someone for writing off the Colts. Now, just four short weeks later, I can hardly blame that person if he or she is ready to jump back on the bandwagon. Note to the rest of the NFL: heads up; the Indianapolis Colts are not going to walk quietly into the night.

The Green Bay Packers are 5-5, but the record doesn’t do justice to the team’s talent. It’s hardly a stretch to suggest the Packers could quite easily have three more wins when considering three losses were within three points.

Unfortunately, talent can carry a team just so far. It doesn’t matter that Aaron Rodgers is a fantastic quarterback or that Green Bay has one of the league’s most underrated defenses; when it’s all said and done, the record is what counts. Nothing else.

Of course, there is some very good news for cheeseheads reading this. Green Bay might have a 5-5 record, but that’s enough to keep it atop the NFC North. Minnesota and Chicago have the same record, but both teams are shaky at best. It’s heartening to consider that the Packers are 3-1 in division games, the most recent victory being a rout over the Bears. It is also worth noting that Green Bay’s one division loss was a one-point loss at Minnesota, a game that Green Bay would have won if Adrian Peterson wasn’t so darn impressive and Mason Crosby had nailed the game-winning field goal.

Are the Packers good enough to make a run in the postseason, assuming they get that far? Well, it’s a bit complicated.

Green Bay is not without weaknesses, but some have been a bit exaggerated. For example, many pundits are quick to point out that the offense has had trouble running the ball. While this is true to some degree, it’s a flawed argument. Consider Ryan Grant’s last six starts: in each he rushed for at least 75 yards. And in three of Green Bay’s last four games he found his way to the endzone. His yard per carry average this season is also deceptive; he has kept it at a level of 4.3 or higher in his last three starts.

Watching the Packers, I’ve picked up on two more troubling observations. First, Green Bay’s offense moves the ball down the field but sometimes has trouble scoring touchdowns; it seems that Coach Mike McCarthy has no problem settling for field goals. That wouldn’t be a big issue but it has kept the Packers from pulling away and winning several games. The most obvious of these was the loss against Tennessee. Green Bay’s offense had 390 yards but scored just one touchdown. Green Bay was able to move the ball; in fact, all three of the field-goal scoring drives were of at least 51 yards. Not scoring touchdowns allowed Tennessee to hang with Green Bay in a game that could have been won by the Packers.

Second, Green Bay has an outstanding defense. I don’t know anyone who would deny that. But near the end of close games, fans can witness it changing its gameplan to avoid giving up anything too big. This “prevent defense” cost them victories against both Tennessee and Minnesota. In the former, Green Bay couldn’t stop Kerry Collins from driving the Titans straight down the field at the end of the fourth quarter, nor could the Packers stop the run in overtime. Against Minnesota, Adrian Peterson picked the Packers apart in the fourth quarter. Somehow - I’m not certain how this could happen - the Packers appeared to forget Peterson is the Vikings’ best player.

To return to the original question, can the Packers make a run in the postseason? Absolutely, but it will take the right coaching. The defense is loaded with ball hawks in the secondary and has little trouble forcing turnovers. On offense, as pointed out earlier, the Packers running game has been improving in recent weeks, whilst Aaron Rodgers may be considered the best first year starter in the NFL this season in not one of the league’s best starters. Green Bay’s fate this season is heavily dependent on Mike McCarthy. He has been given a great group of athletes - now it is his responsibility to steer them to a championship.

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On a side note that is completely unrelated to this post, I’d like to thank everyone who has read this blog. I looked at my profile today and noticed that my blogs have drawn one million views.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my thoughts on the NFL and fantasy football.

Sincerely,
Tom Van Wyhe