Few routes to the NFL playoffs run straight and clear, but the 2015 Packers’ path has been especially twisty. They started 6-0 despite the pre-season loss of star receiver Jordy Nelson, then went into a three-loss skid. They regained control with a strong win at Minnesota, then veered into a flop at home against Chicago. Major disaster was avoided in Detroit only by Aaron Rodgers’ miracle throw, then two more wins assured a playoff spot. But a debacle at Arizona and Sunday night’s home loss to the Vikings raise new fears that the Packers will quickly hit a dead end.
With the division title gone, the post-season itinerary took a detour away from Lambeau Field. The Packers must win this weekend at Washington, then probably at two more locations among Carolina, Arizona and Minnesota to claim the NFC championship. Five years ago another bunch of 10-6 Packers were the ultimate road warriors en route to winning the Super Bowl, but can this team match the feat? The Fairly Detached Observers discuss...
Frank: How do you feel about the first round at Washington?
Artie: Not too dang good. The team whose nickname shall not be named has been the reverse of the Pack—really bad early but now on a roll.
F: Washington has indeed won four straight games and five of its last six. It helps that the NFC East was crummy, but getting hot in December can lead to really big things.
A: Kirk Cousins has certainly been playing some great quarterback.
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F: Still, Washington is just middling in the league on offense and near the bottom on defense, in terms of yardage gained and allowed. But can the Packers’ inconsistent offense take advantage?
A: Not the way it played against the Vikes—or over the last few games, really.
F: The offensive line was a patchwork again Sunday night because of injuries. They held up well for a while but got worn down in the second half. And when the line did give Rodgers some time, often he had to hold the ball or scramble to find a receiver who could get open.
A: It’s just uncomfortable to watch.
F: And Rodgers needs to raise his own game. He’s seemed out of sorts for much of the season, missing on throws we’ve come to assume he’ll nail.
A: We’re spoiled by his excellence, which these days usually isn’t there.
F: It was striking that they had first-and-goal for a TD to tie Minnesota but ended that series with an end-zone interception.
A: At 6-0 it seemed they’d overcome Nelson’s absence, but since then everyone talks about how “the receivers can’t get open.” Did they suddenly change the playbook?
F: Well, let’s say the Packers win at Washington. Then they’d head to Carolina or Arizona.
A: Not much reason for optimism there. They’ve already lost in both places.
F: But they can look to a precedent from five years ago. Their Super Bowl team, after winning the first round at Philly, faced a top-seeded Atlanta team that beat them in the regular season.
A: And what happened? A blowout by Rodgers and Co.
F: And the next year they were 15-1 but came out flat after a first-round bye and fell to the Giants.
A: Thanks for the reminder.
F: The only way the Packers can get a home game is by winning twice and having the Seahawks beat Minnesota and Carolina.
A: It’d be a chance for sweet redemption after last year’s choke-job in Seattle.
F: But the Seahawks are another team that seems to be peaking at the perfect time. I think they’ll stomp the Vikings.
A: Anything’s possible in the post-season. But I sure ain’t confident.
Flexing Our Annoyance
F: I have some comments about the policy of “flexing” game times to produce what NBC thinks will get the best Sunday-night ratings.
A: The policy that made anyone with Packers-Vikings tickets show up 7 1/2 hours later than they had planned. Pure idiocy!
F: We say this not just because it kept us up way past our geezer bedtimes. Or because it forced me to DVR the return of “Downton Abbey.”
A: You mean “Downton Gabby.” All those English snobs do is talk. Add some car chases and then they’d have a show!
F: I guess getting “flexed” showed the Packers have national appeal. But what about the folks who showed up in person.
A: And paid big dough to do it. And had no hope of a rain check, or snow check, or freeze-your-butt check.
F: The weather turned out to be not-horrible, but who knew that when the decision was made a week earlier? And the wind chill was still about 15 degrees.
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A: The way NFL games drag along, that meant a lot of shivering through those endless commercial breaks.
F: And not getting out of the stadium until after 10:30, with school and work coming up Monday.
A: Getting out is one thing, but when did folks actually get home? People come from all over the state for these games.
F: NBC had a reasonable alternative: Seattle at Arizona. Entering the day the Cardinals had a shot at a No. 1 seeding and the Seahawks’ wild-card seeding wasn’t set.
A: And that stadium has a roof, ain’a? So nighttime weather is of no concern.
F: My point is simply that the last people the networks care about are the ones who actually are at the games.
A: And if TV doesn’t care, the NFL doesn’t care.
F: On to another sport.
Our Choices for Cooperstown
F: It’s always fun to go over the yearly ballot for baseball’s Hall of Fame, but I fear this is the last time I’ll be doing it with an actual vote.
A: You’re being disenfranchised? Part of some plot by the Republicans?
F: The Baseball Writers’ Association of America has changed the system a bit. Each voter must have been an active baseball writer for a recognized publication within the previous 10 years. The last season I covered the Brewers for the Journal Sentinel was 2006, so it looks like I’ll fall outside the guideline next year.
A: No offense to all the baseball blathering we’ve done for the Shepherd these last seven-plus years, of course.
F: I’m sure the BBWAA means no disrespect. Anyway, as you see I have a genuine ballot for 2016. The results are being announced on Jan. 6, so when our readers see this they’ll be able to judge how brilliant we are, or were.
A: I see 32 names on this ballot. How many first-timers?
F: Fifteen, and as usual most of them won’t get the minimum 5% vote to stay eligible. The biggest names in this bunch of newcomers are Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Edmonds, Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner.
A: And the others?
F: Garret Anderson, Brad Ausmus, Luis Castillo, David Eckstein, Troy Glaus, Mark Grudzielanek, Mike Hampton, Jason Kendall...
A: Jason “Double Play” Kendall, as Brewers fans remember him.
F: And also Mike Lowell, Mike Sweeney and Randy Winn.
A: Some fine ballplayers there, but not Hall of Famers.
F: But Griffey sure is. He’ll definitely get the required 75% vote, and probably 90%-plus. Everyone will enjoy voting for a guy with great numbers—630 home runs, 1,836 RBIs—and spectacular defensive skills, but without the faintest whiff of suspicion involving steroids.
A: But with that ever-present “Junior” joy, especially in those early years with Seattle. So what if his Cincinnati time was mostly spent hurt and not especially productive?
F: Speaking of defense, Edmonds’ many highlight-reel catches will give him a boost. And some of his numbers are comparable to Griffey’s: an identical .284 batting average; a .376 on-base percentage to Griffey’s .370; a .903 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) to Griffey’s .907.
A: But Edmonds was also hurt a lot, and it kept him from even reaching 2,000 hits. He trails Griffey by more than 800 in that category, and by more than 600 RBIs.
F: Edmonds also pales beside one of the holdovers on the ballot, Larry Walker, who had only a few more at-bats but more than 200 more hits (2,160), more RBIs (1,311), a .400 OBP, a .965 OPS and a .313 career BA. So Edmonds falls into the Don Mattingly category—a terrific career cut too short by injuries.
A: Definitely on the “very, very good” list, but, hey, there has to be a higher bar for the Hall.
F: Now for those two closers. Hoffman has tons of saves— 601 of ’em, second all-time—even though he staggered to the finish with the Brewers in 2010. And Wagner is no slouch, fifth all-time with 422 saves.
A: But now all the closers who’ll be coming onto the ballot are almost exclusively one-inning guys.
F: As opposed to, say, Goose Gossage, many of whose 310 saves were multi-inning. He wasn’t shy about pointing that out to voters, and it got him into the Hall in 2008.
A: Or take Lee Smith, who wasn’t exclusively a one-inning guy for at least part of his career and piled up 478 saves, third on the all-time list.
F: Smith pitched more than 200 innings more than Hoffman, which indicates that there must have been some multi-inning saves there. But Smith pulled only 30.2% of the vote last year, and this is his next-to-last year on the ballot.
A: Hoffman might not get the 75% right away, but he’d get my vote. Those 601 saves are hard to ignore, and the fact that most of ’em were single innings doesn’t mean they were easy. And Hoffman’s lifetime WHIP—walks and hits per inning—was a terrific 1.058.
F: And Wagner’s was 0.998. But he and Hoffman both suffer in comparison to Mariano Rivera, the all-time leader with 652 saves and fantastic post-season numbers. He’ll be on the ballot three years from now.
A: Hoffman should be in the Hall by then.
F: Now for the rest of the 2016 ballot. But first, let’s remind folks how we voted last year, both naming the maximum of 10 candidates.
A: I can use some reminding too.
F: We showed our brilliance and insight by backing the four guys who were elected, namely Craig Biggio, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz. We also agreed on Lee Smith, Alan Trammell and Larry Walker.
A: So on three spots where we differed, ain’a?
F: I continued to vote for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, and also had Mike Piazza. You went for Fred McGriff, Mike Mussina and Tim Raines.
A: And who’s knocking on the Hall door, so to speak?
F: Piazza had 69.9% of the vote, a gain of almost eight percentage points from the 2014 ballot, so it’s pretty likely he’ll get to 75% this time. Jeff Bagwell had 55.7%, Tim Raines 55.0%, Curt Schilling 39.2% and Smith 30.2%. Oh yeah, and the tainted duo of Clemens and Bonds got 37.5% and 36.8%, respectively. No one else topped 30%.
A: Speaking of tainted, I can’t bring myself to vote for Piazza because I know there are suspicions that he did steroids. Same for Bagwell, but the doubts are not as strong.
F: Suspicion isn’t proof, but it certainly seems like it’ll keep Bonds and Clemens out of the Hall—not to mention Mark McGwire, who has admitted steroid use and drew only 10% last year. Or Sammy Sosa, who barely stayed eligible with 6.6%.
A: So the guys who “saved baseball” with the homer heroics of ’98 are likely to disappear from the ballot in January. A tandem act to the last.
F: Actually, you might say McGwire is already gone, because this is his 10th year of eligibility. The Hall’s board of directors has reduced the maximum years from 15 to 10. Smith and Alan Trammell were given exemptions, but Smith is on his 14th ballot and Trammell, who got 25.1% last year, is on his 15th.
A: We’ve both consistently backed Trammell.
F: I’ve always thought he was quite comparable to Barry Larkin, a shortstop who got in easily in 2012, his third year on the ballot.
A: This new time limit also means that Raines, who’s on his ninth ballot, has only one more after this. He’s gotta make a big charge!
F: Twenty percentage points in two votes, but it’s not impossible. Raines gained almost nine points last year, and often when guys get into their final chances they get repeated “bumps.”
A: Like my man Bert Blyleven, got there on his 14th ballot in ’11.
F: You persuaded me, over time, to back Blyleven...
A: My finest hour!
F: And now I’ll say you’ve finally persuaded me on Raines.
A: Last year there was a lot written about how Raines looked real good in all these trendy “sabermetric” categories like Wins Above Replacement. But just look at his old-fashioned numbers: a .294 batting average, .385 OBP, more than 2,600 hits, almost 1,600 runs and 808 stolen bases, fifth-highest in history!
F: His playoff numbers weren’t special, but it’s not his fault that he played in only eight post-season series, mostly with the Yankees near the end of his career.
A: As for that mysterious WAR stat, I’ve heard that for position players a career number over 60 is good. Raines is a career 69.1. And Piazza is only 59.4.
F: Let’s see... Griffey’s career WAR is 83.6, Walker’s 72.6, Fred McGriff’s 52.4, Trammell’s 70.4, McGwire’s 62.0, Bagwell’s 79.6. And Bonds’ is a whopping 162.4.
A: But how much of Barry’s number is pumped up, so to speak, by steroids?
F: Which leads me to mount my usual soapbox to take the bold and principled—sort of principled—stance of voting for Bonds and Clemens. I think they were Hall of Famers before they presumably dived into the steroid vat. And I would love to see how everybody involved—those two guys, Major league Baseball, the players’ union, the media, fans—would handle the event of their induction.
A: It’d be quite a show, no doubt.
F: I want MLB to be forced to confront the fact that while these guys were using whatever they were using, at whatever stage of their careers, the industry was perfectly happy to make mountains of money off their accomplishments.
A: Some of that dough was mine. I’m still waiting for my “tainted product” rebate.
F: And I may just go one last time with McGwire, whom I voted for several times when he first came on the ballot. Not just because he hit 583 homers but because I think he was a good guy.
A: That sure doesn’t apply to Bonds or Clemens.
F: Besides, I think we have a very good example right here in Milwaukee of people’s real attitude toward performance-enhancing drugs. When McGwire finally admitted he’d used steroids, his highly ridiculed explanation was that it was only to combat the effects of injuries.
A: And people rightly said, “Cheating is cheating.”
F: Ryan Braun has never fully explained how his steroid use in 2011—which he lied about for more than a year—came about. But in one of his apology statements he indicated it was because he had a nagging injury in ’11.
A: McGwire-esque, to be sure.
F: And how have Brewers fans treated Braun since they learned he was a cheater, and also a liar? A standing ovation when he came back from his MLB suspension, consistent cheers since then.
A: While fans everywhere else boo him.
F: I think fans routinely say they despise drug users, but what their actions show is that they despise only those who wear opponents’ uniforms.
A: I don’t think McGwire’s numbers hold up, regardless of anything else.
F: Low batting average for sure (.265), but 583 homers is a lot even by steroid standards, and there’s a .394 OBP and .982 OPS there.
A: Well, how about Gary Sheffield? Look at those numbers: .393 on-base, almost 2,600 hits, 509 homers...
F: No, sir! For one thing, you want to talk about suspicion? Sheffield trained with Bonds, and later testified that he just took what Barry told him to take.
A: And Bonds, of course, said he only took what his trainer told him to take.
F: But aside from the drug angle, I think Sheffield is a good example of how 500 homers ain’t what they used to be.
A: And he was a jerk.
F: I don’t truly dislike him. I covered the Brewers during the three-plus years he was here, and really, he was just a kid from Florida who didn’t want to be cold, didn’t want to be in dumpy old County Stadium, and he let his unhappiness show in quite unpleasant ways.
A: He wore out his welcome with other teams too.
F: But it’s not a question of personality. I know he was one of the most feared hitters in the game, but I don’t think he ever really carried a team the way, for instance, another grumpy guy named Jim Rice carried the Red Sox. Even the one year Sheffield did get a World Series ring, in 1997 with Florida, he had ordinary numbers—.250 with 21 homers and 71 RBIs in 135 games.
A: Plenty of voters must agree with you. Sheffield only drew 11.7% of the vote when he joined the ballot last year.
F: So let’s make our marks. My probably-last ballot will have X’s next to the names of Griffey, Hoffman, Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Piazza, Raines, Smith, Trammell and Walker.
A: And my unofficial votes go to Griffey, Hoffman, Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, McGriff, Mussina, Raines, Smith, Trammell and Walker.
F: And the holdovers on the ballot who don’t get either of our votes are Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Kent, Curt Schilling, Sheffield and Sosa.
A: I could go for Schilling, but not just yet.
F: No Schilling or Mussina for me, though of course they’re in the “very, very good” tier.
A: With Piazza it’s still “guilty until proven innocent” for me. But with Bagwell the taint is very slight, and the guy had a .408 OBP to go with 449 homers and 1,529 RBIs.
F: Martinez brings up the issue of designated hitters. I haven’t felt compelled to vote for a player who was “one way” for almost all of his career. Others apparently agree; Martinez got only 27.1% last year. I know Frank Thomas and Paul Molitor are in the Hall, but they both had far more “two-way” service than Martinez.
A: But DHs, like one-inning pitchers, are such a big part of the modern game that they can’t be ignored. And look at Martinez’s numbers: .312 BA, .418 OBP, .933 OPS and two batting titles.
F: So the ballots are marked. Now for next year: The top names who’ll become eligible are Ivan Rodriguez...
A: That’s gonna be tough because he’s got the taint.
F: Vladimir Guerrero...
A: Obvious to me. A first-ballot winner for sure.
F: Manny Ramirez...
A: As much as I enjoyed watching him, he’s got more than a taint. He’s got a couple of failed tests, ain’a?
F: And Jorge Posada.
A: I’ll have to wait on that.
F: Me too. He’s ingrained in my mind because of his Yankee-ness, but after all, I never voted for Mattingly.
A: We’ll talk it all over next December.
F: When both of us will be saying, “If I had a vote...”
Frank Clines covered sports for The Milwaukee Journal and the Journal Sentinel. Art Kumbalek hasn’t flexed for years.
