The hype train for Green Bay Packers at New England Patriots is chugging along at full speed. Hell, it may even have gone off the tracks. We’re talking about a regular season game here, people. A regular season game. That is not lost on Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
Brady put the brakes on the hype train a bit on Thursday night.
“I’m excited for the game,” Brady told Jim Gray. “There’s high stakes for both teams. I don’t want to make it anything more than it is. This isn’t the Super Bowl. This isn’t a playoff game. If you lose, the season isn’t over, but all these games are important. We’re going against a team that [has] very little margin of error, against a quarterback who can come back and score points in seconds, so I’m excited to try to play our best against a great team.”
Sure, I get why everyone is so excited. It’s Tom Brady vs. Aaron Rodgers. The last time they met was 2014. You don’t get to see the two best quarterbacks in the game square off very often.
Got all that.
It’s still the middle of the season, though. There’s still plenty of football to play. A lot can happen.
The Packers probably need a win more than the Patriots this week. The Patriots are 6-2, two games up on the Dolphins in the AFC East. They’re going to run away with that division just like they always do. The Packers are 3-3-1. They’re a game behind the Bears and Vikings in the win column in the NFC North.
The Packers are also 0-3 on the road. They’ve got Seattle and Minnesota on the road coming up in the next three weeks.
Things could get ugly for the Packers. They could get ugly quickly.
A win against the Patriots on the road would put the Packers back on the upswing. A loss and it might be the beginning of the end. And I can tell you this. The Packers won’t have the home field advantage in Foxboro like they did in Los Angeles last week.
This will be the biggest road test of the season.
4 Comments
Joseph makes some good points, there won’t be 40,000 Packer fans at this one. And there is a big difference between 6-2 and whatever the Packers are. I’d say the pressure is on the Packers.
The other thing is the Packers had 2 weeks to rest and prepare for the Rams, that’s a serious luxury in this league. This is a tough game but you never know, Rodgers and any given Sunday. Rodgers vs Brady doesn’t happen often enough (though it should have happened more, amirite Mike?).
Can’t wait.
I can predict, based on road games to date, that if we lose this one we’ll also lose to the seabirds and queens. Season over. You can beg to differ, but true I feel. Anyone?
If we win, we will help the AFC by making more difficult that the Patriots get the number one seed… again. They have the tie breaker against KC, so if KC slips once and they end up with equal record, the AFC title would go through Foxborough. Could be nice to see other teams represent the AFC once in a while. The NFC has rotated its champions a bit more: SF, SEA, SEA, CAR, ATL, PHI. And the second “SEA” should have been GB.
A win against the Patriots would help McCarthy’s cause by the end of the season, though. And I just don’t know what to think anymore. We gave the Rams a good match, but then we barely beat the 49ers at home and sans Garoppolo. There’s the saying that once you get in the playoffs anything can happen, but lately we were shown not to belong to that status (sound eliminations). And making the playoffs would mean more of the “highly successful McCarthy”. Maybe tanking is the best alternative, sinking this season in hopes to make it in 2019 and/or 2020 while Rodgers is still the player ee know.
It’s hard to tank if you have a healthy Rodger’s. Then if he gets hurt, McGravy gets a pass because it’s Alex Van Pelts fault. I wish we could have tanked years ago when real changes were needed. But sometimes change comes at a snails pace and years too late (See Ted).
I don’t know if just making the playoffs is going to cut it anymore, if the Packers get in and lose, i think the shit hits the fan because Packer Nation has seen that movie too may times. Murphy took it upon himself to puff out his chest and declare himself large and in charge so it’s on him also.
My worry is….what nobody brings up. Who is to say that Murphy doesn’t (quietly) slip McNugget a 3 year extension during this season. The snake did it before, he could do it again. For a publicly owned team, and to keep it a secret i thought was pure bullshit. I don’t know what type of Legacy Murphy is trying to make for himself, but a sledding hill, some condo’s and a pretzel stand doesn’t impress me, nor has he.