The aftermath

Call me prophetic. Earlier today, I had this to say about poor Aaron Rodgers being able to withstand the pressure of a ferocious Vikings d-line and Packers' atrocious front five:

"Lost in the magnitude of what is the most obvious storyline any professional game has ever had in decades, is that Rodgers might not make it out of the first half in one piece. He's already been sacked a league-high 12 times in three games, and the Pack o-line is in shambles with already having to change three positions since opening week."

True that. Rodgers got sacked 8 times and left tackle Daryn Colledge, a replacement for the injured Chad Clifton, was hopeless until he got hurt. To add insult to injury rookie T.J. Lang saw his first significant playing time filling in for Colledge and was hopelessly out of his depth.

"Add that in to the fact the Vikes' d-line has the Williams wall and the man of 1000 dead animal hats, as well as just a general freak of nature, Jared Allen, Rodgers is the man I fear will be tasting turf more often than Favre."

Allen had 4.5 of those. Dude's a freak. Like Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers, "I think he's on steroids. It's like trying to cover a f---ing race horse."

Next?

"And what does Favre have to do? The claim he isn't out for revenge is preposterous. There was always going to be some small element of it. So my thinking is, although he made the game-winning throw last week versus San Fran (and Greg Lewis, by the way, MADE that play, otherwise we're talking about a 3-0 '9ers team and the Vikes losing their home opener), he is just going to go off tonight."

Well Favre only went 24-31 for 271 yards, 3 touchdowns and no picks. And he hit up both guys on my fantasy team (sadly Berrian was on my bench and that was the difference between winning and losing, I digress) for TD's.

This while having enough time in the pocket to write a novel about how many times he vacillated between retiring or not retiring. Adrian Peterson, rather shockingly, got shut down to only 55 yards and a touchdown.

And finally...

"My final prediction: Vikes 27, Pack 23. I hope I'm wrong."

It was aided by two late scores by the Packers and Rodgers' desire to keep fighting, but the 30-23 final wasn't as close as the 7-point differential would indicate. Still, I was close!

The Packers got manhandled, and thoroughly outplayed by what was a substantially better team tonight.

The offensive line is a train wreck, and that's putting it kindly - Rodgers is averaging getting sacked 5 times a game through 4 games and at that rate, there is no way he will stay healthy the entire season.

The secondary couldn't do much to cover the open receivers, and the Vikes converted on third downs 8 of 14 times. When they didn't, there were three times the Vikes special teams downed the Packers inside the five.

Finally, that Favre feller. He stepped up when it counted and delivered an artistic performance reminiscent of the good 'ol days when he was rocking the green and gold. He's now beaten all 32 teams in the league, the first player to do so.

At the end of the day the story will be about Favre, as could be expected, but from a Packers perspective it's the future that's being compromised while the foundation around him is very much out of sync. It's still better to lose to Favre in Minnesota than in Lambeau.

Out for now and onto the rest of the week. That includes another Tribune article, first Journal column, take-home exam, Theology exam, homework for this class and two investigative projects for that class. Good times. I hope to maintain my sanity.