Packer Problems

It may have been ugly, but the Packers managed to remain on top of the NFC North yesterday with a win over the Redskins.

As ugly as the game was, I’m going to contend that 2 or 3 really poor calls made a major difference in the game and made it a squeaker when it should have been closer to a blowout.

There is literally no one that could argue that the no-call on the Bubba Franks touchdown was the right call. He was pushed and he still got one foot down. The announcers spent the few minutes right after the call talking about pass interference, but I don’t think that was the point. We went to commercial and came back and then they started talking about a push out and I couldn't believe it took them that long to talk about the obviously missed call.

There’s no question that if Franks isn’t touched that he comes down in the endzone with that ball. Period. The argument that it’s a ref’s judgment call just irks me. You can review the spot of the ball, which often times is the ref’s judgment call, but you can’t review a scoring play? I find this logic faulty. You can review a whole host of things in football, so I contend that any play involving possible points should be reviewable. You simply cannot allow human error to decide the outcome of a game. Everything I’ve heard uses the term judgment call, but isn’t the whole game a judgment call for the refs? Aren’t they deciding if something is a foul or not based on what they see? That’s a catchy phrase that tries to let the refs off the hook.

The other two questionable calls can certainly be argued for or against. The hold that called the touchdown back bothers me on the basis that if we’re going to call that, a flag should thrown on just about every play of the game.

While there were certainly times that the flag was justified, I wondered at some of the illegal contact flags that were thrown on Charles Woodson. There were times I felt like I was watching a basketball game where the whistle is blown every time two players touch each other. It’s impossible that two guys who aren’t looking at each other or at where they’re going aren’t going to touch each other.

That being said, Charles Woodson needs to learn to adjust and stop getting so many of those damn flags. Whether or not you agree with it, the fouls were getting called. You have to adjust your game in order to stop hurting your team.

There was a portion of the game where it felt like if we weren’t giving up a penalty for illegal contact then the receiver was all by his lonesome. Are these really the only two options the Packers secondary can handle? Either we leave a guy all alone or we maul him?

It’s hard to believe that we won this game without Favre throwing a TD pass. Our ground game sucks. I am just amazed that we scored on defense.

I guess we just take the win and be happy with it, but yesterday just seemed to put a spotlight on the things any team we play exploit.