There were two posts yesterday, one by mkcubs21 another by Mitchell, announcing the happy news that Derrick Frost is an ex-Packer. We don't see the practices, but apparently Frost did have a bit of performance anxiety according to special teams coach Mike Stock:

"Is it disappointing for you...
It's disappointing for me because I'm responsible for coaching the kid, obviously. He kicked really well Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, just have to carry it over to Sunday too. That's the problem."

While I appreciate that he's been having some unexplained troubles, I will be glad that he will kick his way out of them, and turn his NFL career around, on some other team.

I'm still not mad they let P Jon Ryan go. He has a big leg, but it's inconsistent. Plus he's the master of the touchback. The Packers can do better than either Ryan or Frost.

It is weird that they didn't even bother to sign someone first. Apparently it's better to go with anyone instead of Frost.

But how bad was Frost? How does he measure up to some of the worst punters and kickers to ever play for the Packers? If you think I'm neglecting a truly awful punter or kicker, please let me know in the comments. But two bad ones came to mind:

• P B.J. Sander. Mitchell already brought his name up. Probably the single move that led to Mike Sherman losing his GM job. Drafted in the 3rd round, I think Sherman even traded up to get him, he only lasted two seasons in Green Bay. He was so awful in his first season, Sherman signed P Bryan Barker to actually do the punting. He kept Sander inactive the entire season, apparently he was trying avoid the embarrassment of releasing a player he just traded up for. GM Ted Thompson kept Sander on for the 2005 season, maybe just he was just trying to stick it to Sherman, and it was an awful experience.
• K Brett Conway. Boy did GM Ron Wolf miss on him. Drafted 90th overall in 1997, Conway was brought into replace Mike Holmgren's least favorite player, K Chris Jacke. Instead Conway was injured during the preseason and never played in a regular season game for the Packers. I do remember him missing some field goals badly during a preseason game. The good thing that came from this was that they signed undrafted free agent K Ryan Longwell to replace him.

Well not really.

But the Packers finally put LB Nick Barnett on I.R., along with DE Kenny Pettway. Barnett was injured weeks ago at Minnesota, but there was no rush to use his roster spot. The knee injury to Pettway happened on a kickoff on Sunday vs. Carolina.

Two players were added to the roster from the practice squad.

• CB Joe Porter played a bit this preseason and wasn't very good. But with all the injuries at safety (Rouse, Collins, Bigby, and Peprah all have various injuries), another body was needed in the secondary.  
• DT Alfred Malone is your typical big body in the middle. But after watching all the defensive tackles do hardly anything at all against Carolina, I hope Malone gets some playing time. Might as well see what he can do. He can't do much worse.

Hey, it's been a rough season but we can do our part to make sure a bunch of Packers can go to Hawaii in February.

CB Jarrett Bush is asking for your support:

Hey guy I'm in the top 5 people for special teams for the pro bowl, i need more votes to get there. Help me out please thanks yard!

I'm glad to help out. You can vote here.

As Jim Mora would say.

Despite what Mitchell said, it's still possible.

Minnesota's the favorite at 7-5. They should win at Detroit next week to go to 8-5. Then they play three playoff teams. At Arizona, then at home against Atlanta and the NY Giants. Arizona is still playing for playoff position, they could be the number 2 seed behind the Giants. Atlanta is still battling for a wild card spot. Unfortunately the Giants might be resting all their starters in week 17. Still, Minnesota isn't known for finishing strong under Brad Childress.

Chicago's loss to Minnesota puts them at 6-6. They have almost the same remaining schedule as the Packers. At home against Jacksonville, New Orleans and the Packers, and week 17 at Houston. The Packers can knock Chicago out of the playoff picture by winning their final four games.

Could Minnesota go 2-2 in their last four games? Can the Packers win their last four games? If they both finish 9-7, then the Packers hold the tiebreaker with only one loss in the NFC North. Those last four games are good matchups for the Packers. I expect they will win them all. The question is whether Minnesota will cooperate and cough up two losses?

There are a lot of things I could talk about in this game. How do you let LB Brandon Chillar go in deep coverage against WR Steve Smith? How could C Scott Wells be playing with a concussion when he sent a shotgun snap flying over QB Aaron Rodgers' head? What was Rodgers thinking with under 2 minutes to go when he launched an INT into triple coverage? Could they replace P Derrick Frost, please? But I want to focus on two failures.

1. Kick coverage. Carolina's longest drive of the game was 55 yards. The Packers never made them work the length of the field. One drive happened after the bad shotgun snap fumble, but the rest was lousy kick coverage. It wasn't that WR Mark Jones is an awesome return man. He made one cut and ran straight down the field in the wide open running lane. One long return happened when DE Kenny Pettway injured his leg, fell down, and left a wide open running lane. But the rest was just lousy kick coverage. And lousy punts by Frost.

2. Run defense. I read Mike McCarthy's post-game press conference and they didn't ask him one fracking question about it. "Coach, how do you expect to win when your defense allows five fracking one yard TD runs in a single game! Did you practice a goal line stance this week?" It really burns that they get stuffed on two running plays on the 1 yard line by Carolina, and settle for a field goal with under two minutes to go. Then the defense gives up a big play and collapses when they have to stop Carolina on the goal line. They were so out of position on it that DE Aaron Kampman was tripled team at the point of attack. Carolina's tight ends had no one else to block except Kampman.

So many players played well in this game.

• RB Brandon Jackson. After they decided to sit RB Ryan Grant in the 2nd half because he has a thumb injury, Jackson stepped in and averaged almost 8 yards per carry. It boosted his yards/carry average up to 5.5 for the season, while . He's been one of the best players on the team this season, but he hasn't had too many chances to show it.
• C Jason Spitz. He slides in after Wells injury and plays well. It sure helped him that Carolina's defensive tackles are nothing special.
• O-line, backs, and tight ends in pass protection. DE Julius Peppers had two sacks when he beat LT Chad Clifton, but Carolina couldn't get anyone else near Rodgers. There were several blitzes, but they held their blocks and gave him time or room to scramble.
  
• QB Aaron Rodgers. He had a bad pick near the end of the game. Otherwise he threw for almost 300 yards and 3 TDs against one of the best pass defenses in the NFL.
• It's really sad because they outplayed Carolina in so many ways.

My thanks to everyone who took part in the open thread.

Carolina Panthers at Green Bay Packers
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
Noon CST, FOX
This is an open thread for the game.

Inactives from NFL.com:

S Aaron Rouse practiced all week, but the bad ankle he suffered at the end of the New Orleans game isn't healed yet. S Charlie Peprah might see some action in the dime package in place of Rouse. Lee and Wynn are hurt too, but they are usually inactive anyway.

With Stewart active for Carolina, they've got no notable injuries.

After a run of good health after the bye week, the Packers place almost half the team on the injury report this week. The loss at New Orleans was a disaster in many ways. Meanwhile Carolina has two guys listed on their injury report with only one guy out.

The good news is that this is just a laundry list. Most everyone should play and almost everyone practiced on Friday. Everyone knew LB Nick Barnett is done for the season. Now it looks like reserve CB Pat Lee has a knee problem, I hope it's not too serious, but his absence doesn't make much difference. 3rd string RB DeShawn Wynn won't play either, but he's been inactive most games this season anyway. Maybe DE Michael Montgomery can't play, which won't help the poor run defense, but it looks like DE Jeremy Thompson is ready to return.

The only two major players who might miss the game are RT Mark Tauscher and S Aaron Rouse. Tauscher expects to play on Sunday. If not, then reserve RT Tony Moll will play and he was fine against New Orleans. I don't know about Rouse, but he did practice all week. There shouldn't be too many bodies missing by game time.

After an awful loss last week to New Orleans, the last place team in the NFC South, it's hard to stay optimistic about a game against the 1st place team, Carolina. Especially when I was soooooo wrong last week when I previewed the New Orleans game:

"The Saints match up very poorly against the Packers if they have to throw the ball a lot. They've probably had to throw a lot more in some games because they're defense has put them in a hole and they have to try and comeback. But a lot of pass attempts is just more opportunities for an interception by the outstanding Packer secondary."

The only problem QB Drew Brees had last week against the Packers' secondary was trying to figure out which open receiver to throw to. But it was only one loss, not a true indication of a secondary that had been awesome prior to this game. Let's move on.

Rankings of both teams by category from Football Outsiders and NFL.com:

Football Outsiders thinks these are two similar teams. They both have above average offenses, great pass defenses, and lousy run defenses. The NFL rankings vary, but those are dependent on yards and the number of rushing and passing attempts. Carolina actually has more rushing attempts then passing, so the NFL ranks their run offense a little higher and their pass offense a little lower.

The biggest difference between the two teams has been strength of schedule. Carolina has played the AFC West this season. They've gone 3-0 against San Diego, Kansas City, and Oakland. Not a tough feet against three losing teams. The Packers have played the AFC South and lost at Tennessee and beat Indianapolis. Pull the AFC games off the schedule and Carolina has only one more win than the Packers. That seems about right; Carolina is just a little better than the Packers.

Hopefully playing at home takes away that advantage. The Packers are 3-2 on the season at Lambeau. They've blown out their last two opponents at home (Indianapolis and Chicago). Unfortunately Jaxon says Carolina is going to run the ball a lot:

"If that is your weakness. Williams is the starter and will get 2/3 the carries. He’s a quicker with his moves and cuts better than Stewart. Stewart runs with more power but has speed too, but tends to try and run over people more than Williams.

The Panther run defense was awesome the firth 5 games, holding an impressive list of RB’s to less than 100 yards. They’ve slipped some since allowing both Warrick Dunn and Kevin smith to gain over 100 yards. We will be looking for a return to the tough run defense from the beginning of the season."

At least we can expect a big game for RB Ryan Grant.

The Packers need to get an early lead and make Carolina throw the ball. They also need to keep running the ball, so they can't get too far behind and expect to throw it against a great Panther secondary. It looks like it will be cold and wet on Sunday which I would expect to help the home team. I don't know what to expect, but I just want to see them play hard and bounce back from a lousy loss.

As the title at Pro Football Talk says, "Al Harris Thinks He's Done in Green Bay."

“I think that’s going to happen. And not from my performance or anything, but we’re going young,” Harris said. “I haven’t talked to Ted about it. I’ve just got a gut feeling that that’s the direction our team is headed. That’s what happens in the league. I just have to make sure that I’m on top of my game. Every game I play is an audition. I have to make sure that I put good stuff on tape.”

Umm...Huh? The secondary has been playing great this season (New Orleans game excepted). Harris has missed a bunch of games with a torn spleen, but he's come back great. I had been wondering if he's been losing some playing time to CB Tramon Williams since his return, but I can't see all the personnel packages by watching the game on TV. Maybe he's upset about playing time as they might be bringing him back slowly from his injury.

According to the PackerChatters salary cap page, Harris is signed through 2011. The only notable free agent after this season is RT Mark Tauscher. They won't need to slash payroll to fit him under the salary cap. Harris is absolutely saying he expects to be released after this season, but I could see it as a possibility after 2009. There are a number of big names who will be free agents after 2009. LT Chad Clifton, DE Aaron Kampman, S Nick Collins, and WR Greg Jennings are the biggest names. But a number of other good players are potential free agents too like DT Johnny Jolly and KR Will Blackmon, OL Jason Spitz, and LB Brandon Chillar. But, as I said above, that's not what Harris is talking about. He's talking about his gut feeling. And I think he's wrong.