Author Archives: Andy Tisdel | About Andy Tisdel: I'm an irreverent 20-year-old college student originally from Shorewood, WI and going to school in Wooster, OH. I am what is usually described as a "rabid" Packer fan, and I try to follow as closely as I can what's happening around the rest of the NFL (especially during the offseason! Gah!). Occasionally I'll package what I think of the NFL's off-season machinations into a semi-coherent blog post, and that's what I eventually send your way. Hope it's enjoyed!

9

October

DeadSpin, Brett Favre and Jenn Sterger: Is Real Journalism Dead?

It’s hard to know where to begin to criticize deadspin.com’s slanted, gossipy, uncorroborated reporting of Brett Favre’s alleged messages to Jenn Sterger. Let’s just get this out of the way right now: However distasteful it may be to see one of the most well-known athletes in all of sports at the center of a sex scandal, there are plenty of indications that that’s the case. But the story hardly ends there. Deadspin asks the reader at the start of its first post to “please suspend your disbelief for a moment”**, and apparently you’re never supposed to take it back.

If you, the reader, take two things away from this note, I would like them to be the following:

1) The knowledge that nothing has been proven against Favre to this point, that there is no conclusive evidence that Favre was the man in the voicemails, and none of the parties involved–Favre, Sterger, the Jets, the Vikings, anyone–have provided any supporting evidence for this conjecture, or even acknowledged it.

2) Full and complete understanding that whatever Deadspin’s pretensions in their various posts, they are nothing more than a sketchy, low-end, openly biased media outlet who broke a story and are now trying to milk it for everything they possibly can.

11

September

Tisdel’s Tirades: Predictions for the 2010 Green Bay Packers

Tisdel’s Tirades: My Predictions for the 2010 Green Bay Packers (Which Will, Along With A Dollar, Buy You Some Chex Mix At The Vending Machine)

“Look, everyone! It’s pretty and doesn’t suck!”

So: This offense is perhaps the best offense I have seen in GB. From the starters all the way through the backups, there are no positions where the Packers are weak. We have great starters at QB, TE and WR, good starters on the line and at RB and FB, and quality backups at EVERY position. This is pretty much my dream: if one of the stars goes down, we won’t be able to replace their production but we will damn sure be able to plug the next, capable and experienced, player into the system and move right along. Perhaps best of all, the Packers are solid on the offensive line. The tackles are the best we have, the interior linemen are very solid, and in case of injury we know what’s going to happen. Bulaga can fill in in the event of an injury to Clifton, which will happen. Lang backs up at RT and LG, and Spitz can play any of the interior positions. For at least the first injury, the Packers know what they’ll do if a starter goes down, which is worth a lot of money in protecting Aaron Rodgers.

6

July

Green Bay Packers Mike McCarthy: Time to Beat the Good Teams…

I’ve had this nagging feeling for years now that the Green Bay Packers of Mike McCarthy’s tenure do very well against weak opponents, but tend to fold when it comes to stronger opponents, or at least not do nearly as well. So I went back and looked at every game, regular and post-season, that the Packers have played since their 2006 season opener against the Bears, Mike McCarthy’s first game.

My Theory: that McCarthy’s Packers have serious trouble beating teams 10-6 and above.

My categories went like this:

Category 1: Teams that went 0-16 to 6-10
Category 2: Teams that went 7-9 to 9-7
Category 3: Teams that went 10-6 and above.

(My reasoning here is that there doesn’t tend to be huge differences between 8-8, 9-7, 7-9 teams. Also, I wanted to measure how the Packers did against the best teams in the league, which I defined as teams with a 10-6 record or better.)

Year-by-year:

2009 Cat 1: 5-1, Beat St.Louis, Detroit, Detroit, Cleveland and Seattle. Lost to Tampa Bay.

2009 Cat 2: 3-1, Beat Chicago, Chicago and San Francisco. Lost to the Steelers.