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This never seems to work. Going back to 96 when the Broncos had the best record in football and got bounced in the first round at home, didnt do it the next year and won. The Colts have had the best record in the AFC numerous times, rested their players and lost. The one time they won it they didnt have the luxury of that option. I remember in 07 when all I heard was the Giants should rest their players against the the Pats the last week of the year since their seeding was set, they didn't and they won it all. The Packers last year played all the way through (I realize they had to) and won the SB.

They just didnt look sharp. Right from the first drive when Rodgers throws that pass to Jennings outside when he turned inside. Jennings also dropped that TD. Some game action with #12 the last week couldn't have hurt him.

fumbles, drive killing and would be TD drops, and the D breakdown at the end of the half killed them


Feel free to tell when resting players players worked and why Im an idiot. I just always hate it and needed to vent. How many days until the draft?

I agree. I was of the mindset that we should have rested our players because of injury but there's no doubt in my mind that Rodgers wasn't as sharp yesterday because of the long layoff.

If we're in that position again, I hope we take the opposite approach that we did this year.

I think resting Rodgers the final week hurt. It is hard to not get game action in three weeks and be 100% sharp.

That said, going back to the main thread, the bigger problem again was defense. If I read McGinn right, we had the 32nd ranked defense and statistically the worst passing defense in the NFL history based on yards allowed. We were the 2003-2009 Phoenix Suns. All offense and no defense. Resting or not resting may not have made a difference.

Reactionary stuff. Maybe it was the reason, but I doubt it. People are going to be a Monday morning QB about it for sure, though.

at the time I was in favor of Rodgers playing 1st qtr. Maybe it makes no dif but a complete game seemed much.

GrendonJennings wrote:Reactionary stuff. Maybe it was the reason, but I doubt it. People are going to be a Monday morning QB about it for sure, though.

In my defense, I have never thought this was a good idea and didnt at the time this year. Maybe it had nothing to do with yesterday, but Im always against it.

The only guy that benifited from week 17 was Flynn

Maybe, but I'm not sure it is worth the additional risk of injury. In a contact sport, something random can occur on any play. A one percent risk of an injury to Rodgers or another critical player outweighs any marginal benefit of playing in a meaningless game.

I think multiple things can be pointed to while looking for reasons why we lost the game, Resting could be one of them but it pales in comparison to how poorly our defense played in the game as well as the rest of the season.

Reasons for the loss in no particular order.

Turnovers
Defense
Drops

Most of us knew the defense wasn't going to stop anybody in the playoffs.

We didn't expect the turnovers since the team commited like 10 or something all year on offense. I don't think the fumbles were caused by the layoff. Rodgers' INT was at the end of the game down 17 so it didn't really matter.

This receiver core has been dropping passes for years. It's not because of the layoff and certainly not something we haven't seen before. It just so happened to be the game where they dropped the most balls in the season in the game they could least afford to.

Rodgers was slightly off but I give the Giants defense credit for that. How many times did Rodgers have to scramble because of pressure either because the blitz got there or there were no receivers open? He missed a wide open Jennings and Finley on two huge plays but other than that I thought Rodgers played well. Even when Rodgers had time to throw, it's not like he was consistently throwing to receivers who were wide open.

I'm still pro-resting (unless we were going for 16-0). No reason to put our players in harms way especially against the Lions. No reason to think the fumbles/poor play had anything to do with rest.

The Saints played all the way through and played essentially the same, poor game. People are going to look for an excuse for the fumbles but it was probably the Giants playing good defense and being opportunistic and the Packers not bringing it.

Yea, the Saints lost in a lot of the same way the Packers lost, via turnovers. They lost multiple killer fumbles as did the Packers.

The three fumbles we lost i think were mainly just fluke, not from a layoff. Kuhn never fumbles, but ran into Bulaga and coughed it up. Grant had the ball stripped on a good tackle where a hand punched out the ball. On the Rodgers fumble, he was winding up to throw to a wide open Jennings in the end zone, but Osi got his hand in there at the last second.

Mix in that trainwreck sequence before halftime where Bradshaw somehow got out of bounds before the hail mary and two third down drops that killed drives, that's why we lost.

Correlation does not equal causation. Grant played in that game, so did Finley, Nelson, Jones, Driver, Kuhn, and pretty much everyone on defense except Clay and Woodson. That didn't change their performances on Sunday.

This is some hindsight stuff. If ARod, Matthews, etc. were playing and got hurt you'd be calling for MM's head.

The pass rush was non existent and needs to be fixed and it would help to have a better running game but at the end of the day the team choked yesterday.

When you go 15-1 because of a great offense and because you don't turn the ball over and then lose the way the Packers did yesterday you choked.

paulpressey25 wrote: We were the 2003-2009 Phoenix Suns.

Yesterday we were the 2003-2009 Suns if the 2003-2009 Suns choked and scored 63 points in a game 7.

Amazing how the Packers didn't play a game from last years Super Bowl until this season's opener and still managed to come out on fire against the Saints. Must have been a fluke.

All of this is after the fact. If they won, we'd say that they were well rested. Since they lost we say that they were rusty.

Enrique wrote:Amazing how the Packers didn't play a game from last years Super Bowl until this season's opener and still managed to come out on fire against the Saints. Must have been a fluke.

I don't think the defensive problems were a fluke and the drops have been a problem this year, not just yesterday. What i think was the by far the biggest fluke was all the fumbles.