Ah, Jeff Falconio and Greg Matzek, such dedicated sports fans that they've decided to spend 24 hours of their lives letting their eyeballs bounce up and down at the sight of a basketball bouncing on a college campus.

Yes, they're taking off of work and everything else in their lives to eat unhealthy food, drink as many energy-filled liquids as possible and attempt to stay up for the entire 24-hour ESPN college basketball marathon.

(According to ESPN's web site, 620WTMJ has twice as many on-air staffers watching all 24 hours as the four-letter-network is devoting to its own project.  Please inform me, ESPN folks, if I'm wrong.)

They're too busy to even post a blog, so ever the team guy for the cause of the Sports Extravaganza, so I, Jay Sorgi, am doing it for them.

Anyways, if you want to pay attention to Jeff and Greg's efforts, and see if they can actually pull off this miracle, check out Jeff and Greg's individual Twitter accounts.  (Click on each college hoops junkie's link.)

E-mail us, by the way, if you're crazy enough to be doing the same thing.

What a difference a week makes.  Last week the Packers were toothless defensively and a made a rookie quarterback look like a seasoned veteran.  This week the Packers got aggressive and made a red hot Dallas Cowboys look like a one win team.

And through it all everyone kept their jobs.  Well, most everyone.

What a difference it makes when you put pressure on the quarterback.  Sacking Tony Romo five times is nice but there are residual effects when you get to the quarterback.  Romo coughed the ball up twice, one of which was recovered by the Packers that set up the nail-in-the-coffin touchdown.  The crisp Cowboys offense, which averaged 30 points per game during a four game win streak, couldn't get anything going until the final minutes.  Miles Austin was held in check.  Marion Barber never got going.  Felix Jones was a non-factor.  This was the best defensive performance since Week One and it makes me wonder why we haven't seen this since that Sunday night in September.

Dallas is dangerous because they have many weapons that can be used many ways.  For all the talk about Romo's recent streak people may have forgotten that the Cowboys have a three-headed backfield that can grind you down and lull you to sleep.  But you wouldn't have known it on Sunday.  The Cowboys were blessed with good field position in the first quarter but couldn't do anything with it.  It was a strange reversal from last week when it was the Packers who were unable to take advantage of good field position, ultimately opening the door for a shocking final score.

But for as good as the Packers looked defensively there's still a lot of work to do.  Thanks to consecutive losses to the Vikings and Buccaneers the Packers are in a four-way tie at 5-4 with three more teams ready to pounce at 4-5.  One of those 4-5 teams will be in Green Bay on Sunday and they will be well-rested off a Thursday night win.  The Packers will face a tenacious defense at a time when offensively the Packers can't seem to do much right.  For a second straight week Aaron Rodgers looked off his game and the Packers didn't seem willing or able to run the ball effectively.

It's a good win but it's one win.  I said over the weekend the Packers must go at least 2-1 in this three game stretch against Dallas, San Francisco and Detroit to stay in the playoff race.  The 17-7 win is a great way to start and the Packers are back in the conversation.  But that will change if the defense disappears like it did after the Chicago win.  This defense will only take the Packers so far.  The offense needs to find a way to stay in control and those pesky penalties continue to be a problem.  You can get away with that for one week but with five more playoff-worthy teams still to play the Packers need to start playing like a playoff team.  Otherwise the confidence that is back will evaporate as quickly as the Cowboys did on Sunday.

This Tuesday will be Exhibit A to all those who have ever asked the question: "don't you have anything better to do with your time?"  Starting at 11 p.m. on Monday, November 16 (straight up midnight on the East coast of course) ESPN will air 24 straight hours of live college basketball.

That's right, an entire day of college hoops.  Jack Bauer meets John Wooden.  It's a true test of fanhood.  Anyone can watch Gonzaga-Michigan State or Memphis-Kansas in prime time but it takes a special kind of fan to enjoy a Northern Colorado-Hawaii matchup at 3 a.m.  How many people do you know will take in a pre-dawn Monmouth-St. Peter's matchup?  A midday Northeastern-Siena tilt?

Come March, college basketball becomes the ultimate test of stamina and character. Teams often play three times in three days just to earn the right to be in the NCAA Tournament.  Basketball fanatics will take in 12 hours day in and day out during Championship Week and the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament.  But to sit through a full day of November hoops takes a special kind of fan.  It takes more than just stamina, character, concentration and energy drinks.  No, it takes something more.  It takes a little insanity.

And that's exactly why my co-host Greg Matzek and I will be taking part in the first annual 24 Hour Hoops Watching Challenge.  There will be tweets and blog updates throughout the night and day.  Only the true couch potatoes survive.  Oh and by the way to answer the original question, no we have nothing better to do with our time.

It's been more than 48 hours since the Packers embarrassed themselves against the last winless team in the NFL.  Yet, the professional football world keeps spinning.  There were no firings, no shifts of philosophy, no drastic personnel changes.

And there won't be for awhile.

While a swift boot to Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson might make Packers fans feel good it won't change the problems of this team.  In fact, such a move would do more harm than good.  Only the lowliest of NFL franchises (see Cleveland) fire a general manager this early in the season.  Last year San Francisco and Oakland gave the pink slip to their respective coaches during the season.  A year later the 49ers are struggling to stay relevant in the NFC and the Raiders are, well, still the same Raiders. 

If you fire McCarthy now you send the signal that you've given up on the year.  Anytime some calls for the dismissal of a coach or manager I like to ask the question, what's the alternative?  Who will guide the Packers for the rest of the year if McCarthy is fired?  The most likely choice would be Dom Capers and he would carry with him the dreaded "interim" tag.  The rest of the season becomes an audition for Capers rather than a push to make the playoffs.  If you fire Thompson you set yourself up for the ultimate lame duck situation.  A new GM will most assuredly bring in a new coach and everyone will know it.  That's the quickest way to sink morale in the locker room.  Maybe...maybe a change happens if the Packers reel off something like six straight losses, thus guaranteeing another double digit loss season.

Some have suggested ditching the 3-4 scheme.  Players don't seem to like it and it doesn't seem to maximize the strengths of certain players, so make a switch.  The problem is the Packers haven't spent all year preparing for this defense.  The Packers drafted two players specifically for this scheme, made roster cuts based on this scheme, players changed their bodies to fit this scheme.  You can't go back to the 4-3 now. 

The fact is, the 3-4 is here to stay for 2009 and McCarthy and Thompson are likely here to stay as well.  The Packers have poured too much time and effort into this season to start making radical changes.  The results have not been ideal but at 4-4 there's still a glimmer of hope for this team.  Around this time a year ago the Philadelphia Eagles were stuck in the mud.  They lost a Sunday night game to the Giants, suffered an embarrassing tie to the putrid Bengals and got destroyed by the Ravens in three consecutive weeks.  The fans were calling for Donovan McNabb's head.  "Time for a change" said Eagles fans.  Two months later, under McNabb's guidance, they were in the NFC Championship game.  It would take a herculean effort by this team to repeat the Philly feat.  For now we're stuck with what we have until a change comes and that won't happen this season.

The Packers should take note of what the Saints did on Monday night.  Those home divisional games are not to be taken lightly and now New Orleans stands at 7-0 and three games ahead of Atlanta.  Mark your calendars for November 30.  That's when the Saints return to Monday Night Football to take on the high octane Patriots.

Drew Brees notched another 300 yard game and threw for two touchdowns.  Marques Colston caught one of those scoring throws.  While the Packers are taking note of home victories they should also take note of when the 2010 NFL schedule comes out and if they play at noon on the opening weekend, they'd be wise to score first.

Brees 157-230 68.3% completion rate, 2,006 yds, 16 TDs, 6 INTs

Colston 36 recs, 551 yds, 6 TDs

For the Packers, tomorrow's game against Minnesota is a must win and it has nothing to do with Brett Favre.  At 4-2 the Packers stand 1 1/2 games behind the Vikings atop the NFC North.  A loss tomorrow would not only put the Packers 2 1/2 games back at the halfway mark of the season but the Packers would also lose the all-important head-to-head tiebreaker.  So essentially the Packers would be three games back.

More troubling is Minnesota's schedule in the second half of the season.  The Vikings are well known for flopping in the second half but it would take a monumental collapse for the Vikings to lose the NFC North.  After tomorrow the Vikings will play only three teams (Arizona, Cincinnati and New York) with a winning record.  Two of those games are at home while the Arizona game will be in the indoor climate of University of Phoenix Stadium.

The questions about the Packers will also linger should Minnesota win.  It's clear the Packers can beat the worst teams in the NFL.  So you chalk up wins against Tampa Bay and Detroit.  But what about the likes of Cincinnati and Minnesota?  The Packers still have San Francisco, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Arizona.  All could be playoffs teams and if the Packers can't beat any of them that would give Green Bay a minimum of seven losses.  There's virtually no chance an 8-8 team will make the playoffs and 9-7 gets iffy when you start factoring in the tiebreakers.

It's hard to believe that a game this early in the season would be so pivotal.  But with six teams within a game of each other for the two wild card spots and the Packers looking up to the Vikings in the North a win is necessary to keep hopes of a division title alive.

Any doubt that the First To Score Rule doesn't exist was decisively erased in Week 7.  New Orleans was down by 10 heading into the fourth quarter against Miami and outscored the Dolphins 22-0.  Drew Brees appeared to be having an off day in the first half with only 104 yards and two interceptions but rallied to finish with 298 and a touchdown to Marques Colston (5 catches, 72 yards.)

If this keeps up (I know, it never does) the 6-0 Saints will finish with 635 points, which would shatter the record held by the 2007 New England Patriots by 46 points.  In '07 the Patriots had scored 230 points after six weeks and that was before Bill Belichick really started running up the score.  The Saints have scored 238 points so far.  The numbers on Brees and Colston:

Brees 132-197, 67% completion rate, 1698 yards, 14 TDs, 5 INTs

Colston 30 receptions, 466 yards, 5 TDs 

Before we go head first into the first (and hopefully only) Brett Bowl at Lambeau Field let's take a look at this 31-3 win over Cleveland.  The big concerns for the Packers after last week's 26-0 win were pass protecting, running the football and taking advantage of opportunities.

It's one thing to give up five sacks to a team like Minnesota but five sacks to Detroit is unforgivable especially considering the injuries the Lions had to the defensive line.  The Browns got to Ben Roethlisberger three times last week and feature some decent players in the front seven.  But on this day the Packers kept Aaron Rodgers upright and allowed him to throw three scores while getting the fourth quarter off.  That's exactly the kind of performance you need heading into next week's matchup with the rugged Vikings defense.

The Packers opened the game by running the ball ten times in the first 11 plays.  Fans have been calling for more commitment to the ground game and it was clear that early on Mike McCarthy was going to do just that.  But there's a difference between quantity and quality.  Six of those carries were by Ryan Grant but by the end of the half Grant only had 12 carries.  Grant averaged four yards per carry but his longest run was only nine yards.  No explosion against a defense that ranks 31st against the run.  The second half was a different story.  Grant carried the ball 15 times for 100 yards, including a 37 yarder.  Now that's explosion and that's also where Ahman Green will eventually contribute.  Grant is neither a flashy nor a punishing runner but if he can stay fresh in the second half he can do some damage.

Last week the Packers had the ball in Detroit's territory three times in the second quarter.  The Packers came away with nine points.  Couldn't punch it in even once.  Obviously it didn't have an affect on the outcome but good teams exude good habits, including getting it in the end zone when you are given excellent field position.  The only drive that started in Cleveland territory ended with a touchdown but the Packers also had a drive that started at their own 48 off a turnover and stalled at the one yard line of all places.  Two turnovers led to 10 points and against Cleveland's anemic offense that was more than enough.

So how will this translate into success against Minnesota?  Anyone who saw the first matchup knows Minnesota has a fierce pass rush that disrupted Green Bay's offensive flow.  To be sure Minnesota's defense is far better than Cleveland's but coming into the Brett Bowl there won't be any questions about how the Packers looked so bad in protection against a weak team.  Again going back to that earlier matchup, the Packers will need to control the tempo and that will mean the same balanced attack that we saw today.  The best way to keep Adrian Peterson from taking over is to keep him off the field.  I'm not sure how many mistakes Brett Favre will make but both of his fourth quarter turnovers were returned for scores by Pittsburgh today.  The perfect example of a good team taking advantage of opportunities.

I'm not sure that we've seen the best from the Packers yet and I'm not sure if what we've seen over the last two weeks is enough to beat an upper echelon team.  But two wins in a row off a bye is enough to give any team in the NFL a shot of confidence coming into the biggest game of the season to date.

It wasn't all that surprising that the New Orleans Saints beat the New York Giants at home.  What was surprising was the ease at which Drew Brees was able to dissect New York's secondary.  With the Saints 5-0 it appears the first-to-score omen is working its magic again.  Brees completed 23 of 30 passes for 369 yards and four touchdowns.  Marques Colston put up huge numbers with eight catches for 166 yards and a score.  The Saints travel to Miami next before a big showdown looms against Atlanta.  The numbers for Brees and Colston after six weeks:

Brees 110-159, 69.2% completion, 13 TDs, 2 INTs

Colston 25 receptions, 394 yards, 4 TDs

Marshawn Lynch Lynch returns from a three game suspension and he will put up numbers but not this week.  The Bills face a pretty decent run defense in Miami and there might be a bit of rust to shake off on Lynch's part.  There's also the Fred Jackson effect as Jackson impressed in his time filling in for Lynch.

Denver Defense A complete reversal from last week when I loved Denver's defense.  Don't be fooled by the numbers Denver has put up, the Broncos have faced three weak teams so far.  Dallas provides the first big test for Denver's defense and I won't be convinced until the Broncos can prove they can slow down a good offense.