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Brett Favre. | Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Favre Beats Packers, 30-23By Jay SorgiNext game: Sunday, October 18th vs. Detroit 4th Quarter 10:50 p.m. Vikings' 5th Drive :55 10:41 p.m. Packers 4th Drive 3:10
Rodgers finds Driver for a first down. He finds JONES open on a heck of a slant pattenr - wide open...34 yards to the two-minute warning. Ryan Grant to the 17. Hope against hope here? Yes, when he's sacked eight times. Outside the 20. On 4th down, they bring out the field goal team. 10:37 p.m. VIkings' 4th Drive 3:39 Larry McCarren: "with no pressure on Brett Favre, he played very, very comfortably tonight." 3rd-10, GB 45...going deep and had Berrian's feet been in bounds, it's curtains. Still is, but it would have been a vengeful stake in the heart. NO! Nelson muffs a punt at the 18...pileup...typically, eyes are gouged out, bodies punched, kicked, etc....Packers get the ball back. 10:29 p.m. Packers' 3rd Drive 4:59 Finley breaks loose again to the Minnesota 43 yard line. He and Rodgers (save a fumble) are the only bright lights. Gets to Nelson - HECK of an individual effort to the end zone. Now, MUST go for two and get it. Rodgers shovels incomplete on the 2-pt play. 10:26 p.m. Vikings' 3rd Drive 7:13 10:16 p.m. Packers' 2nd Drive 8:49 I hate to say this, and I'm not going to mention his name because he doesn't deserve the attention, but some guy just tweeted that he hopes Favre's wife has a recurrence of breast cancer. I don't like what Favre's done recently, but that is sick. Hit, sack, fumble, Minnesota football one yard from ending Green Bay's life tonight. Wait...replay...Rodgers had ball over goal line, knee was down. Nope...it's a safety. Was down in the end zone. However, I actually think it was better, because it's better to give up two points, make the Vikings go 70 yards or so, and keep it a two-score game. 10:09 p.m. Vikings' 2nd Drive 11:03 Peterson going to the Green Bay 41 on a short pass from Favre. It's fourth down and inches. Punt. 10:03 p.m. Packers' 1st Drive 12:53 "Hit and sacked. Fifth time tonight." Again, the O-line cannot protect, and Daryn Colledge is down. Holding is right knee. Wanna try out for O-line? Direct snap to Wynn on 3rd down? What in the world are you thinking?????????? That was a mistake. 9:56 p.m. Vikings' 1st Drive (continued from third quarter) I feel like crying uncle right now. Rice attempting a flea-flicker....uh, you let the dude in purple wearing number four throw it. Not you. Cullen Jenkins going under his own power. 3rd and 10. Wayne: "dare I say they've got to get this team off the field now." Taylor makes a catch, and does NOT get the first down. At last. A chance? 3rd Quarter 9:51 p.m. Vikings' 2nd Drive 2:06 But two Vikings plays gain two yards. The defense MUST hold Favre and Co. now. Do they? "Got his man, first down. Just let him out of the cage." This is getting old, folks. 9:33 p.m. Packers' 1st Drive 10:32 Yeesh. Favre: 18-21, 226 yards, 3 TD's. Ugh. Busted play. Sack. Jared Allen. This team does not deserve to win this game. That simple. Aaron Rodgers' arm is the only thing keeping Green Bay alive right now. Three-and-out and it's curtains. Thank goodness for the first down by Nelson. At last! Driver makes a play. Getting to the 37 yard line. He's been nearly silent until now. He does it again for a 15-yard gain to the 21. Where has he been all night? Thank you, Double-D! Rodgers on the next play had ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD but never had a receiver open that he saw - though Finley might have been open. Thank goodness for great screen passes to the 5. NO!!!! Fumble??? Williams gets the ball on the fumble for Minnesota, as Grant gets to the one yard line...wait. Knee down. Thank goodness. McCarthy must challenge, and does....well, he doesn't need to. The referee makes the change. 2nd and 1...Kuhn just misses. 3rd and 1....what is this? Super Bowl XVI and the Bengals getting stood up for a goal line stand? 4th and 1....go for it! Go for it!!!!! This may be the game, but you need it more than ever. DONALD LEE DROPPED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugh. 9:23 p.m. Vikings' 1st Drive 15:00 A good friend uttered on Facebook the statement that, based on the six Vikings penalties compared to zero Packers penalties, he'll watch a less fixed sport like pro wrestling. Whoa! A penalty on Minnesota. Come on back to football. They actually call Viking penalties. Peterson breaking through lines for first down.....this is gonna get real old, real quick, people. B.J. Raji is getting an education tonight from Steve Hutchison. Whoa...are you $***ing me? They're naming this place Mall of America Field in the future? That's making this game even more depressing. Naming the worst stadium in the NFL after a shopping mall. No pass rush on the throw to Jeff Dugan. I read War and Peace and my entire cadre of college history textbooks while Favre was back there. Over the shoulder catch by Berrian on a quick count. 2nd Quarter 9:03 p.m. Packers' 3rd Drive :25 3rd and six, GB 27, :15 left....gets the first down into Hail Mary territory. Nope...they go slant pattern instead of outside to stop the clock. Oops....wait. Did they stop the clock? They got it to the Minnesota 48, with a time out called before the zero's? How does a 65 yard field goal sound? Naw, they're gonna run the bommeroosti, as Bum Phillips would say. Nope. Incomplete. 8:53 p.m. Vikings' 3rd Drive All the momentum the Packers just produced off the return just went from Korey Hall through the kick returner's body. Favre rainbows....Berrian was way off...though he was open. There's very little pressure on Favre. Blackmon: knee injury, doubtful. Giordano: ankle injury, probable. Uh oh. Favre beats the blitz. 16 yard gain to Rice. That's why there's no pass rush. They don't want to risk this happening all the time. Screen pass to Taylor and it's in Green Bay territory. Uh, you can't give up 17 1/2 yards per play like the last two have been. Uh, they just did worse on the pass to Harvin to the Minnesota 3. Talk about momentum swing. This ain't good at all. Favre to...INTERCEPTION!!!! What? Incomplete? Woodson with the "pick?" but it's a penalty. More stupid yellow flags. Two fouls on the defense - offsides and pass interference. To the one yard line. GUYS??????????? Peterson up the gut. 8:48 p.m. Vikings' 2nd Drive Will Blackmon is being carted off to the trainer's room to see what his injury is after that kickoff return. Peterson fumble! Clay Matthews for a TD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8:42 p.m. Packers' 2nd Drive 4:54 Oh, is this a big drive, with the Vikings getting the ball back to start the second half. DeShawn Wynn has the second drop of the night on 1st down. He keeps screwing up like this and he'll get no playing time whatsoever. 3rd and five and sack number three of the 1st half. Jared Allen owning Colledge at the end, but Rodgers may not have confidence in Wynn after the drop. The punt return gives Minnesota GREAT field position at the 44. Ugh. 8:41 p.m. 8:29 p.m. Vikings' 1st Drive 11:42 Wayne suspect he has cramps. Peterson running outside, Kampman gets held, no call, and it's a seven-yard gain. Are the Vikings super-dirty on the line or is this just how the NFL is these days? Favre looks at Rice the whole time, yet still completes a 24-yard pass....because Rice burned Tramon WIlliams. That's stealing, DB's. You can't allow that. Uh oh. Peterson with a hole, to the GB 32. If you read "Peterson with a hole" too often, that's a HUGE problem. Jenkins back in, by the way. What's the penalty on the rocket throw incompletion? Holding on Woodson. Yeeeeeeesh. More yellow hankies. Peterson: 11 carries, 45 yards. Make that 12 carries, 46 yards after a Harris tackle. That helps. "Berrian popped wide open behind the coverage of Al Harris...." and hearing that from Wayne just makes me sick. Where the heck is this secondary's brain tonight? 3rd down at the 14...stop them here with a field goal and you win. Uh, you just lost. 14 yard score. 8;22 p.m. Packers' 1st Drive (continuing from 1st quarter) He will be sacked tonight. He should accept it. Just make the most of it. 3rd and 11: not where they want to be. Driver makes a catch NEAR the sticks......but not there. Near the 35. Go for it? They are. 4th and 3....broken up and...CAUGHT! Jennings is Johnny on the spot. Producer Bryan Ramsey nearly has a fit watching it! What is with the deep pitchout play where Ryan Grant or some other running back gets the ball standing in the backfield? He has no momentum. Don't understand it. Pick. Winfield. Rodgers threw it right to him. Just a plain bad throw and bad decision to go to him. Actually, might have been tipped. 1st Quarter 8:18 p.m. Packers' 3rd Drive :57 Jermichael Finley is EATING safeties alive so far. Nice nine-yard gain. THERE'S the run they need....seven-yard gain by Grant BLASTING through, as Wayne puts it. They need this all night long. 8:13 p.m. Vikings' 2nd Drive 2:06 One thing I saw on Favre's incompletion to Berrian on first down: he is fantastic, still, at switching off receivers and quickly making a read, and making a good decision to only throw a ball to where a receiver can catch it. Percy Harvin...thank goodness someone greased his shoes with butter. A defensive lineman actually tackled him. RARE! AAAAGH! Favre just missed an open Al Harris...well, it was kind of thrown toward the ground. It would never have reached him. 8:12 p.m. 8:06 p.m. Packers' 2nd Drive 3:15 John Kuhn? Five yards. Nice. Packers trying to use lots of change of paces in MANY ways to fool the Vikings. Still, it's 3rd-five. YES!!!!!!!!!! Rodgers to Finley and he broke about three tackles to the end zone!!!!!!!!!! 8:05 p.m. 7:52 p.m. Vikings' 1st Drive 9:22 3rd and 5 millimeters: with Raji in the lineup and Harris out, Peterson gets the first down after about eight Packers gang up on him and try to drive him into the turf. Oh, that blasted Vikings horn! Woodson blitzes and Favre hits Berrian on the slant. Ah, that's exactly how he did it in Green Bay. Good protection and scheming against the corner blitz. Oh no...late flag after a two-yard gain by Peterson (which I like, if that's the average.) CHILLAR! A taunting penalty! What in the world? You just put them in the red zone. If they just get a field goal, they'll get a "draw" on this drive - which they had no business even allowing points on. 3rd and 3 1/2 or so...Berrian drives for the first down and Kampman may have stopped him...INCHES short. Do they go for it? Yep. OK, just saw McCarthy's coach's cap. Green doesn't work with magenta. Neither does a Peterson run for a first down on 4th and inches. Goal to go: Favre to Shiancoe, with Barnett missing his coverage. Yeeeeeesh. Another thing the Packers couldn't do right. 7:40 p.m. Packers' 1st Drive 15:00 Smart play call to run the football with Grant, something they'll need to do successfully all day, on the first play. Not a good result, though. No gain. But it's OK when you get a screen pass for 13 yards on 2nd down. NO! John Kuhn holding? This is what has killed this team all preseason long. Thank Donald Lee for putting the Packers in a 3rd and short. Smart job of playcalling with screens, draws and stuff that will hopefully, over the game, halt the pass rush. Uh, forget what I said about 3rd and short. Allen Barbre with a motion penalty. Phew....Aaron Rodgers to Jennings for a 14-yard gain. The collective sigh of relief among Packers fans here in Wisconsin is causing a huge gust of wind outside the Metrodome. DRIVER! Dropssies? Four in the first four weeks, according to Wayne Larrivee on 620WTMJ. 3rd and 7? FINLEY! I think the Packers are taking the lead of Badgers quarterback Scott Tolzien and owning third down, at least so far tonight. Uh oh. Sack. Fumble. Jared Allen recovers. Nightmare on the Mississippi. McCarthy challenges while we're at the break. He needs to wait until the commercial break ends for us listeners, folks! The question, was the left knee of Rodgers down? 7:36 p.m. 7:34 p.m. Pregame 7:32 p.m. 7:31 p.m. 7:23 p.m. "Clifton was listed as questionable on Saturday's injury report, but he missed his second straight game. That again put Darryn Colledge at left tackle, Jason Spitz at left guard and Scott Wells at center for the Packers. "For the Vikings, punt returner Darius Reynaud was inactive with a strained left hamstring. Percy Harvin, Jaymar Johnson and Bernard Berrian were all candidates to replace him in that role." 7:15 p.m. 6:53 p.m. 6:50 p.m. Pregame Story GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- It's supposed to be Brett Favre versus the Green Bay Packers, an intense one-game referendum on whether Favre's former team made the right choice when it sent the three-time MVP packing last season. And if Aaron Rodgers steals the show with a big performance against the Minnesota Vikings at the Metrodome on Monday night, he could take a huge step toward proving the Packers right. If Rodgers feels any extra incentive this week, he's not letting on. The second-year starter insisted it's just another game between the bitter NFC North rivals. He didn't even have an opinion to share on Favre's last-minute, 32-yard zinger to beat San Francisco last Sunday. "I didn't watch the film of him," Rodgers said. "I just watched the Vikings' defense." But one of Rodgers' best friends in football, former Packers receiver Ruvell Martin, knows Rodgers can handle the pressure. "I'm sure he's going to be fine," said Martin, who signed with St. Louis when the Packers cut him before the season. "I guess the bad thing is, it's not just going to be, 'Oh, hey, Aaron, you had a good game.' It's going to be, what did he do compared to Brett Favre?" Favre and Rodgers weren't particularly close during their time together in Green Bay. When asked this week if he had talked to Rodgers recently, Favre said, "For what?". Rodgers said any communication -- or lack of same -- between he and Favre was a private matter. After the Packers took Rodgers in the 2005 draft, Favre made it clear that he wasn't interested in mentoring a young quarterback. And when Favre went public with his last-minute desire to unretire last summer and the Packers decided not to take him back, Rogers was left to absorb most of the fan backlash. He even was booed during a scrimmage at Lambeau Field. It would have been hard to follow Favre in Green Bay under any circumstances, but did Favre's unretirement make it even tougher on Rodgers? "I don't know that answer for sure," Favre said. "But I think he's done a very good job, and I'm not surprised by it at all." Rodgers had won over most of the fans by the end of the year, playing through a painful shoulder injury to start all 16 games, throwing for 4,038 yards with 28 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. "(I) learned a lot on the fly, started to figure things out a little bit," Rodgers said. "But I'm just continually trying to be critical of myself every time I watch film, and continue to improve." Vikings coach Brad Childress expects his defense to be challenged by Rodgers' strong arm and underrated mobility. Rodgers rushed eight times for 38 yards in Sunday's win at St. Louis. "Those are demoralizing things for a defense that's got everybody covered," Childress said. "But (he has) very good athleticism, and I just see him continue to grow in that system. There's not any indecisiveness that I'm able to tell." Still, Favre will be the main attraction. Will his emotions get the best of him? Everybody remembers Favre's four-touchdown performance in Oakland after his father died in 2003. But when matched up against a Seattle team led by ex-Packers coach and Favre mentor Mike Holmgren in 1999, Favre threw four interceptions in a 27-7 loss. Current Packers coach Mike McCarthy was Favre's position coach at the time, and said he didn't do a very good job calming down Favre that day. "I could remember the first interception like it was yesterday because he tried to throw it through three people to the post down in the red zone," McCarthy said. "He was gunned up for that game. But frankly, he was in some tough spots in that game, too. I'm not just crying because I was his position coach and it didn't go very well. But that was a rough night." Childress has talked to Favre about controlling his emotions this week, just as he would with any player facing his former team. For the Vikings to go far this year, Favre will have to stick to the system. "You do yourself the best service staying within the system," Childress said. "That's what it's there for. You're going to get called on to make those off-schedule plays from time to time, but there's a reason that system's there." Favre isn't worried about controlling his emotions or staying within the system, given the talent he has around him. "I think what helps here, obviously, is more than anything, is having a running game with Adrian Peterson," Favre said. "That's not to say he won't be stopped. I thought San Francisco did a heck of a job. But you feel like that's always kind of a crutch for you to fall back on. A pretty good one, too." For all the Favre hype, this game could come down to each team's apparent weaknesses. Neither has done a particularly good job protecting its quarterback, although the Packers could get a boost if veteran left tackle Chad Clifton returns from a right ankle injury. Beyond that, the Packers' new 3-4 defense needs to stop Peterson, and the Vikings' improved pass defense needs to prevent Rodgers from getting the ball downfield to a talented group of receivers. But Vikings kicker Ryan Longwell, who also played in Green Bay, knows people will be tuning in for No. 4. "I told my kids that 'High School Musical' is the highest-rated cable show ever," Longwell said. "This will probably beat it out." ------ AP Sports Writers R.B. Fallstrom in St. Louis and Dave Campbell and Jon Krawczynski in Minneapolis contributed to this report. (Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) |
      
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