The Packers rolled out the red carpet for Aaron Rodger's in sloppy fashion. So sloppy in fact, that it looked as if the offense was trying to score in the wrong end zone. The first two drives of this game, while racking up plenty of possession time, lost more yards through penalties eventually resulting in a 1-and-33 situation. The next few plays reminded me of the reason we got rid of Mike Sherman; poor play-calling. I can't remember the last time I saw such conservative gameplan. For us Packer fans who have never witnessed a longer offseason it seemed as if were in store for a much longer regular season. Surprise, surprise, that was about to change.

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And even with all that, we STILL won!!!

What was the deal with Mike McCarthy running down the clock 21 seconds on 3rd down to kick a fieldgoal?! Coulda taken another shot at the endzone and still had plenty of time to kick.

Not to mention the fact that the kick was missed :mad:

Here's the deal: If he had called a timeout right away, then ran the third down play, and it ended with a sack or a completion in bounds, there probably would not have been time to get the field goal unit onto the field (a spike is not an option on fourth down, of course).

If he had saved the timeout, they could've gotten the play off with maybe 20 seconds left, but because they were already in field goal range, the only useful play would be an end zone heave, which the Vikings would be expecting. This would have a very low chance of success, and they would have run the risk of an interception, or more likely, a sack or penalty (there had been plenty of those already) which would turn a short field goal into a long one.

So McCarthy went for the "sure" three points to turn it into a two-score game. But then Crosby inexplicably took a divot and missed it. Yes, McCarthy played it conservatively, but it was justified. If they had passed on third down, there would have been a much better chance of a bad outcome than a good one.

Yeah, that was Brandon Jackson failing to get out of bounds. I think there were two plays in a row where he caught short passes and failed to get out of bounds. But the first priority was to get into field goal range. I would've liked to have seen some more throws downfield, but maybe there just wasn't anybody else open.

Bingo!
That whole drive was bad clock management.

Now, I hope some moron doesn't read this as complaining, but rather a learning experience. You learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them. I'd like to see better clock management as the season progresses.