by Wally
The pursuit of pro football’s holy grail will end tonight around 9pm (for those of us lucky enough to be in the Central time zone). At this point, it’s simply time for predictions from our esteemed panel of “experts” here on the Pine. Tell us who will win, what the score will be, and a little bit about why it will turn out that way.
I’ll go first. The key question in this game from my POV, is whether or not the Packers will be able to contain Pittsburgh’s power running game. Can they hold the Steelers to less than 4 yards per carry? Less than 120 yards for the game? I think the answer is “yes”. That’s premise number one and it only gets me to the Packers winning a real close one. The other key question is this: Can the Steelers effectively put enough pressure on Aaron Rodgers to either sack him or force him into a handful of really bad throws and maybe two INTs? I think that answer is “no” … Rodgers will have a pretty good game and expose the Steelers secondary with some big pass plays. It all leads to a Packer’s victory … Green Bay wins by six, 27-21.
Please let us know what you think!
Enjoy the game 🙂
I think the game comes down to 2 things:
1. Can the Packers run the ball at all tonight.
2. Can the Packers contain Big Ben and not let him improvise – where he is at his best?
If the Packers can do one of those well tonight, I think they win.
Packers win 21-20.
Since I didn’t come on here yesterday, I’ll analyze how our two “experts” fared with their picks:
Obviously, they were both correct in picking Green Bay to win. Wally’s a little closer on the score, and right on with the margin of victory. Let’s take an even closer look at their “keys to the game.”
Wally:
“Whether or not the Packers will be able to contain Pittsburgh’s power running game. Can they hold the Steelers to less than 4 yards per carry? Less than 120 yards for the game? I think the answer is ‘yes’.”
Steelers ran for 126 yards on 5.5 per carry. Sorry, Wally…wrong on this one.
“Can the Steelers effectively put enough pressure on Aaron Rodgers to either sack him or force him into a handful of really bad throws and maybe two INTs? I think that answer is ‘no’.”
Rodgers was sacked three times, and a stat I saw during the game about how many times he got hit indicated they were successful at putting a lot of pressure on him. But, was it enough to force him into a handful of really bad throws and/or INTs? No, and considering this exact scenario happened to his counterpart, I’d say this turned out to be one of, if not, THE key to the game. Nice job with this one, Wally.
Smitty:
“Can the Packers run the ball at all tonight?”
The Packers gained 50 yards on 13 carries, for a 3.8 avg. per. It seemed the running game was effective at times, but they didn’t really emphasize it. It seemed to me that the Packers’ offense was more effective on the drives where they had a couple good running plays, so I’m going to give Smitty a neutral grade on this one. He was right in a way, but the Packers won despite a not entirely effective running game.
“Can the Packers contain Big Ben and not let him improvise – where he is at his best?”
Big Ben had a couple of pretty good improvisational moment, but overall, I’d say they contained him…or at least they did enough to win.
You guys both get passing grades, but neither of you hit the nail on the head…in my humble opinion.
Hard to hit the nail on the head for these games, Chas, but I did say GB would win by 6 which of course was the case. Steelers running stats are deceiving because 1) they include Big Ben scrambling for something like 30 yards (that’s not part of the “Steeler’s power running game” and 2) Pittsburgh falling behind early by multiple scores necessitated more passing than they are comfortable with.
Two main things won it for GB … obviously Aaron Rodgers proved he is the best QB in the NFL these days and not throwing any INTs while having 3 TDs is fantastic, plus he woulda had more if his WRs didn’t drop a few right in the bread basket. To win that game without Donald Driver for much of it says a lot. Secondly, GB’s defense, esp in the secondary also proved to be quite an important key, but overall as you pointed out, the entire defense put big pressure on Ben and he made some key mistakes.
Clearly, the better team won. Can’t say enough about how the Packer organization from top to bottom adjusted to all the injuries, kept fighting, and battled all the way to the chan’ship. Unfortunately for the rest of the NFC and particularly the north division, Aaron Rodgers in GB’s line-up will have them contending for mutiple titles over the next several years. (That’s a Bears fan saying “Dang it … again THEY have THE quarterback and we’re forced to go with this guy.”) 🙁