Packers Pre-season Game Preview

I just realized that the game we have coming up with the Packers is tomorrow.

Like I've mentioned, the pre-season is a painful time in all our lives, but it brings the promise of football season being close at hand. And that, my friends, makes it all worth it.

One of the big reasons I'm even posting something is in the hopes that me posting this will make my buddy Joel's response to the Barry Bonds post come up. If not, I'm driving to Mountain View, CA and cock-punching both Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

(I find it ironic that, since I couldn't remember who founded Google... I had to Google it.)

If it doesn't come up, it's somehow available here.

At any rate, I am actually looking forward to this game. Partly because I missed the first one and I feel as though it's my duty as a Steeler fan to watch every game, no matter how insignificant. Partly because, from what I heard of the last game, these aren't your Cowher's pre-season Steelers.

Arians had Ben go deep on his first (and only) series. In the third and fourth quarters, they were still trying to advance the ball and score, as opposed to just sitting on the lead. And, apparently, this Carey Davis kid is the second coming of Jim Brown, so I need to look at him.

We probably will see about half a quarter of the starters, maybe even an entire quarter. I'm interested in seeing what Arians has up his sleeve, since he doesn't seem content to hide his playbook from the rest of the league, exhibition game or not.

The Packers will most likely take Brett Favre out of his wheelchair for a series or two, then let Aaron Rogers experience what it's like to hold a football. I'm interested, too, for fantasy purposes, to see who they roll out as the starting running back. With no Ahman Green or Najeh Davenport (since, ya know, he's now a Steeler and all), I'd like to see how they figure this out.

Things to watch for:

1. Will Fast Willie suit up and how much will he play?
2. If he suits up and plays, what's the over/under on how many screen passes he fields? 3? 5? 10? I guess it depends on how long he's out there. (Side Note: I heard a reputable sports writer from the Tribune-Review say on a radio show that the screen pass run by Carey Davis was the first decent screen pass the Steelers have executed since 2004. This, of course, is wrong. We executed three or four in the 2005 regular season game against the Bears alone. There was the perfectly executed and perfectly timed screen pass against the Bengals in the 2005 playoff game. And Fast Willie and Najeh Davenport both scored on long screen passes last year. I think Fast Willie had more than two such touchdowns. As a matter of fact, anytime he scored last season, he scored on a screen pass. So, he scored on three well executed screen passes last season.)
3. Two tight ends or i-formation? Whisenhunt seemed to come to his senses towards the end of last season and left Dan Krieder in there, but Arians and Tomlin both seem to love using two tight ends. Probably why they drafted one way too early in the 3rd round.
4. The Supulverizer will be back in action. How many times will we see him?
5. Even though Brett Favre is 600 years old, he's still pretty good. And so is the Packers' offense. It'll be interesting to see how well our first team holds up against their second team. If they fail to suck serious balls, I will have hope for the coming season.
6. If they suck serious balls, I have a bad feeling we're looking at a lot of 31-28 games this year, regardless of who wins.

Most importantly, I will be watching this game at a bar. That way, I'll have lots of access to hard liquor if someone gets seriously injured.