Welcome Back, Pack

Pro Football Prospectus predicts that the Packers will win the NFC North this year. Frankly, that's crap. It won't happen. But the Packers really do look like they've decided to discontinue their two-year experiment with awfulness.

I'd read in various places, PFP included, about how the Packers defense had become one of the league's better defenses, but I really didn't watch much Pack football last year and I didn't really believe it. After watching the first half of the Pack/Jags game, I'm convinced. Green Bay's defense is pretty scary. They look like they want to be the best defense in the league. They won't be even be the best defense in their division, thanks to Chicago, but they definitely want it. Hawk and Barnett both look like they're ready to beat up on some people, and Green Bay's defensive line also looks really tough. They don't really have too much to brag about on secondary, though, so if teams can take advantage of that with some deeper throws early on, to make the LBs drop back into coverage (where they might be good, I don't know, Jacksonville is only good at running the ball).

On the other side of the ball. Favre doesn't look like he's close to needing to retire, but he spent most of the first half obviously pissed off at his receivers, so who knows if he'll stick around after taking all the passing records this year. Behind him, though, Aaron Rogers looks really good. Plus, he's now sporting an uber-macho handlebar mustache. He looks like he just arrived at the game from pounding some poor nerd in a biker bar--either that or he just stepped off a float at the Green Bay gay pride parade. What? They don't have those in Green Bay?

The Bears appear to have some legitimate competition for first place in the North. The Bears will still take it, but they might have to actually work for it this year.

Incidentally, FOX is advertising thusly, "The greatest NFL season anyone has ever broadcast is about to begin on FOX!" Is that supposed to be some kind of joke? Or is it some weird attempt to get people who don't really watch football to watch FOX this year or something? No one who cares about football really lets the station determine which games they watch; it's the teams. No one who doesn't care about football is going to watch, so why bother? All it does is annoy people like me. Knock it off, FOX.