As I was sitting in the stands with a bunch green and yellow jerseys, hoodies, hats, cheese capes, cheese hats, a random Colts fan all in blue and white, and still more than half red, black and white, you can’t help but feel bad for the Cardinals fans who missed this. In Week 2, the Seahawks lost to the Packers 27-17 on the road.
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Stafford leads Lions to fourth win in six games
This was something of a chippy game; the Lions were flagged 10 times for 92 yards; New Orleans got hit six times for 28 yards. Only, the Lions had already used all three of their timeouts. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t match them step for step”.
The Packers scored a 30-13 win in Minnesota in Week 11. The Packers trailed 24-0 to a team with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations.
Simpson promises Leicester will bounce back against Man City
Manchester City quickly recovered from losing at Arsenal on Monday to thump struggling Sunderland 4-1 and stay in third place. Following the match against Manuel Pellegrini’s side, Leicester have a home game against AFC Bournemouth on January 2.
If the Packers win, they’ll be the three-seed in the NFC playoffs and play either Seattle or Minnesota in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
Afghan forces hold out against sustained Taliban onslaught on Sangin
The return of British troops is poignant, as they suffered more than 100 fatalities in Sangin during their 13-year combat mission. Britain has sent a small contingent of soldiers to Helmand as advisers under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mandate.
Houston (8-7), which wraps up the regular season by hosting Jacksonville, couldn’t clinch outright when Indianapolis beat Miami 18-12.
The memes makers were rough on the Green Bay Packers and especially Aaron Rodgers, although nothing was rougher than how the Arizona Cardinals simply ran all over them.
“We’re looking forward to it”. The Cardinals were outscored 21-0 in the fourth and struggled offensively with third-stringer Ryan Lindley playing quarterback due to injuries. The news that Jordy Nelson tore his ACL on August 23 was certainly a blow to those chances, but Rodgers still posted a passer rating of 115.9 over his first six games, all wins by the Packers. So many that it’s a wonder there weren’t quarterbacks being carried off the field, too. It is unclear at the moment if either starting tackle (Bakhtiari and Bulaga) will be play against the Vikings- both have ankle injuries. Green Bay again looked discombobulated, like a team headed for a first-round exit. Minnesota is also just 1-8-1 over their last 10 games at Lambeau.
Turnover ratio: T-8 (plus-5).
The Packers are now tied with the Minnesota Vikings for the NFC North lead. The Packers top CB, Sam Shields, was out against Arizona with a concussion, and it remains to be seen whether he’ll play against the Vikings.
In his postgame remarks in Arizona, McCarthy said: “We have to quit worrying about plays and worry about execution”.
The Packers keep trying to correct those things, but they never seem to get it done. A group of receivers that has been maligned all season – James Jones, Davante Adams, Randall Cobb – did little to quell ongoing frustrations against aggressive coverage, and they combined for less than 150 yards.
The key phrase there was “when he throws the ball”. Brandon Fusco and TJ Clemmings were weak spots generally, but the offensive line also had plenty of trouble protecting against the blitz as well.
In all, Packers quarterbacks were sacked nine times in their most one-sided loss of the season. Rodgers was dropped eight times. Two third-quarter fumbles were returned for touchdowns by the Cardinals. One of the few times Rodgers gambled on a covered receivers, he was picked in the end zone, killing a red-zone scoring opportunity. Green Bay has limited weapons and an offensive line that looks like swiss cheese half the time. Defensively, the Packers aren’t bad. However, they rank 15th in adjusted sack rate (6.7 percent), which gives sacks (plus intentional grounding penalties) per pass attempt adjusted for down, distance, and opponent.
“We’re blessed to play this game”, Cardinals inside linebacker Deone Bucannon said. Against Arizona, that didn’t work.
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QB Carson Palmer: The 2002 Heisman Trophy victor at USC under Pete Carroll, Palmer is having maybe his best National Football League season at age 35. Arizona made it 17-0 at halftime, then went on a second-half sackfest that thankfully didn’t result in an injury to Rodgers.
