There are few things better than a convincing victory over the Minnesota Vikings.

The Packers’ offense absolutely shredded the Vikings’ defense. Their constantly shifting offensive line held up just fine to the Vikings’ neutered pass rush, and Aaron Rodgers mercilessly tortured the young Vikings cornerbacks all day long. It was a vintage performance from Rodgers in a new-look offense in which all pieces involved seem to appear much more comfortable in year two.

To start today’s column, I gotta give some praise to Matt LaFleur.

The Packers only punted once on the day, right near the beginning of the second half. For the entire rest of the day, the offense moved the ball up and down the field at will. It took a bit to iron out the kinks with regard to actually finishing off drives with touchdowns, but soon enough the Packers couldn’t be kept out of the endzone. 

A big part of this success, beyond just excellent execution from the players, was Matt LaFleur’s game plan and playcalling. There were a few things I absolutely loved: the playcalling rhythm and tempo, the aggressiveness LaFleur kept all game long, and the wide variety of formations and personnel packages. On the first drive alone, the Packers seemed to get practically the entire depth chart involved.

LaFleur has already shown himself to be an excellent leader capable of pushing exactly the right buttons with his players. Now it appears as though he’s also growing more comfortable as a playcaller and gameday coach.

A long way to go this season, but LaFleur’s offense passed its first test with flying colors.

Forget grape crush; gimme that Jolly Good

The Packers easily dispatched the Vikings, just as I predicted they would in last week’s column. Fittingly, Aaron Rodgers was spotted drinking a purple beverage on the sidelines, a callback to his postgame “grape crush” trolling of the Vikings several years back:

Aaron Rodgers trolling the Vikings with a purple drink again pic.twitter.com/aoGl2XEvlP

— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) September 13, 2020

Deguara looked eager to get in there and make contact, and looks to be a highly versatile piece for this offense to play with. He perfectly fits what LaFleur wants to do with this team. Can’t wait to see how he continues to develop, and the creative ways in which LaFleur will get him involved with the offense each week.

Wisconsin Beer of the Week

Milwaukee’s craft beer scene has really exploded over the last five or six years, and one of the many new faces on the scene in that time is Third Space Brewing Company. The brewery quickly integrated itself into the local culture, getting its beers into Miller Park and the Bradley Center/Fiserv Forum, and it’s spread its distribution all over southeast Wisconsin and beyond.

While it’s mostly known for its flagships like Happy Place, Unite the Clans and Acres Edge, it’s also been putting out a variety of special releases that have been quite good.

This one is Fjord Explorer, a Kveik IPA (the word Kveik means “yeast” in Norwegian, and the beer uses the Kveik strain of yeast). It comes in at a fairly potent 8.3 ABV, but keeps a relatively low IBU for a higher-alcohol IPA at just 30 IBU. This makes it a really crisp, refreshing IPA that has a pleasantly hoppy taste without too much bitterness. There are definitely some hints of citrus-like flavors that made it a perfect late-summer release. 

If you’re ever in the Milwaukee area, the Third Space brewery and taphouse is worth a visit. It’s down in the Menomonee Valley in an old converted warehouse. All of their brewing equipment is exposed out in the open, and they’ve got plenty of tap selections and games on hand. There are also usually food trucks in the parking lot area. Worth a look!

Uh… defense?

One of my season-long predictions for this season was that I expected the Packers to improve both their offensive and defensive rankings for the season.

Offense is off to a great start. Defense… yeesh, not so much.

Now, a lot of the yards the Packers allowed came after the Packers’ offense had the game well in hand, but that’s beside the point. The Packers’ defense really let the Vikings hang around, and while they never got to within a score after halftime, it was still a bit concerning seeing how quickly and easily the Vikings were able to put together scoring drives in what wasn’t quite yet “garbage time.”

The biggest area of concern continues to be the Packers’ run defense, and if Kenny Clark has to miss any extended amount of time the Packers are utterly screwed in that area. Still, even with Clark, the Packers are playing nearly the exact same personnel they played when they got repeatedly gashed by the run in 2019. 

My guess is the Packers bring up dline assistance from the practice squad sooner than later as a way of shoring up that run defense a bit, but really they needed to take more concrete action in the offseason to address that area of their defense, because I’m not certain there’s enough they can do schematically to resolve this obvious weakness. 

If it were me sitting in the GM’s chair, I’d be placing a (second?) call to Snacks Harrison as soon as possible.

Around the NFC North

As always, it’s time to take a brief look at what the rest of the NFC North accomplished (or failed to accomplish) over the weekend’s action.

The Chicago Bears narrowly avoided an embarrassing week one loss to Detroit, managing to overcome a 23-6 fourth quarter deficit thanks to some late game heroics by… Mitch Trubisky? The Lions seem to be the one team against whom Trubisky plays like an actual NFL quarterback, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, but it was still quite a feat to mount such a comeback. The Bears take on the Giants at home in week two, and I honestly have no idea what to expect out of that one.

The Detroit Lions have become absolute masters at fourth-quarter collapses, and the art of failure in general. In 33 games with Matt Patricia as head coach, the Lions now have given up a whopping 11(!) fourth quarter leads. That means the Lions blow a fourth quarter lead in one out of every three games with Patricia at head coach. That is impressively awful. I’m not sure what it will take for the Lions to finally separate themselves from this sloppy, ultra-lite version of an ultra-lite Bill Belichick, but the Lions are going absolutely nowhere as long as Patricia is around. 

The Minnesota Vikings have some soul-searching to do. They’re awful at the cornerback position, and weren’t able to get anything going in the pass rush without Danielle Hunter, even against a makeshift and battered Packers offensive line. On offense, the passing game was mostly ineffective without departed Stefon Diggs until the Packers’ defense essentially stopped caring and started playing soft prevent ball (albeit far too soon in the second half), and they still have a subpar offensive line to worry about. They resembled nothing of the tough, gritty team that they’re purported to be under Mike Zimmer, who’s in his seventh year now with the franchise. If this team fails to get back to the postseason in 2020, it may be time to go in a different direction.

Packer football is back, but the arts in Wisconsin have a ways to go

It was such a great feeling this last week finally getting some NFL football again for the first time in what feels like years. The pre-COVID times are almost another lifetime at this point. For at least a little bit, there was some semblance of normalcy.

But one of my other greatest passions, theater and the performing arts, is still on hold, and it’s going to be a while before things to back to “normal,” if they ever do.

One of the many hats I wear in my life is that of performing arts professional. I’ve been a musician nearly my entire life, and have spent a lot of time around the stage as an actor and director around Milwaukee, and I cannot emphasize enough how strange and devastating it is to see all these theaters still closed. Many of my friends who work in the performing arts as their primary source of income are still in limbo with their careers, and have had difficult times finding sustainable work of any sort during the unemployment crisis brought on by the pandemic.

It heartened me to see that Milwaukee’s wonderful Skylight Music Theater is preparing to open back up (with restrictions) for an abbreviated and adjusted 2020-2021 season. But there are so many institutions that have had to remain closed entirely, or are attempting to navigate a virtual performance space that is nowhere near as satisfying. The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the nationally renowned American Players Theater in Spring Green… not to mention all the small regional and community theaters and high school/youth performing groups.

The holiday season is not too far off, so if you miss spending an evening out taking in a live performance and you’re in a giving spirit this year, I’d encourage finding a way to support these artistic institutions so they are capable of making a comeback when it is safe to do so. They are so sorely missed.

Week two quick forecast

Look, normally I’d say the Lions are going to play the Packers close and make it a tough, frustrating game. That’s been their M.O. for the last several years, and it was kind of what I expected about this team going into this year.

But the Lions are already massively shorthanded in the secondary due to injuries, and don’t have nearly the same level of talent at the linebacker position that the Vikings do. We all saw what happened when Aaron Rodgers got to play against an inexperienced secondary in Minnesota. Now he gets to do the same against an injury-depleted Lions unit.

Matt Stafford will make some plays, and Kenny Golladay has had success against this defense, but ultimately with the Packers’ offense looking like a juggernaut after week one and having the significant matchup advantage in week two, it’s hard for me to pick anything other than another easy breezy Packer W.

Packers 34, Lions 20