Next Week: Whiners Week (MM Speaks)

Never like this in NoCal:

@jasonjwilde: Per @weatherchannel, forecast for Sunday in @CityofGreenBay: High of 4, low of -15. Monday, a high of -9. A HIGH OF MINUS NINE!

Jolly was also impressive against the run in that game. He faded in the 4th quarter (as one would expect after not playing for so long), but he played a big role in keeping the number down. If the Packers would have had Burnett and Hayward in that game, they would have won. Now that they're missing Matthews and Jolly and Raji is now basically a blocking sled on greased wheels, they're going to need a perfect game by the offense and/or the 49ers offense to have a sub-par performance to win.

Highlights from Mike McCarthy's press conference Wednesday afternoon:

 

*Aaron Rodgers and Randall Cobb look great.

 

*49ers' videotape is excellent. They have way they try to play the game. It will be an excellent matchup.

 

*I'm not concerned about lack of sellout. Fully expect to have great environment. These are games our fans live for. Whatever needs to be done will be done.

 

*Aaron Rodgers is clearly our best player. He's a franchise quarterback, runs our offense at high level. When he's on field we're different. Having him back Sunday you could clearly see the impact.

 

*Why no regular practice today? Monday was important day for planning. We're further ahead than we would be on normal Wednesday. Blessed with our facilities and teaching environment.

 

*We'll practice outside Thursday and Friday. Full practice in pads tomorrow. Do what we can outside based on our setup.

 

*Bakhtiari was able to play four preseason games at left tackle and get ready for season as rookie, playing alongside Sitton helped. Bakhtiari has done good job in regular season.

 

*We're preparing for read option. It was factor in outcome of last year's game.

 

*Mulumba played very well, game ball performance on defense vs. Bears.

 

*We're focused on what we've been doing last 4 weeks. Different season for us. In tune with how we can improve as we enter second season. We have good plan, we've played these guys in past, you have common tape, schemes change, where you lean, you have to be little more creative.

 

*Turnover ratio is huge, we've played uphill in that area all season. That will be one of primary factors in outcome of this game.

 

*Jordy Nelson is very important part of offense. consider him all pro player.

 

*Expect Lacy to practice tomorrow.

 

*Cornerbacks taking ball away down stretch. We've improved there.

 

*Dom Capers is a competitor. This is very important game to all of us. We're a football team. Defense needs to play its best game of year. Offense can be better too. Also special teams. Our production needs to jump up.

When the 49ers beat the Packers in the playoffs last year, it was in the comfortable confines of the Bay Area. If the 49ers are going to beat the Packers again this year, they’ll have to brave bitter cold.

 

The Weather Channel’s forecast for Sunday in Green Bay calls for a high of 4 degrees and a low of 15 below.

 

Of the two quarterbacks in Sunday’s game, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers sounded a little more comfortable with the forecast than San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick. Rodgers said his method of getting ready for the game is, “Eat a lot of chicken noodle soup.” Kaepernick admitted that, “I don’t think my dream was to play in freezing weather.”

 

But that’s what Kaepernick will be playing in on Sunday. That may provide a home-field advantage for the Packers, even if Green Bay fan’s haven’t been particularly eager to buy tickets for the privilege of spending a few hours in the bitter cold on Sunday.

 

 

 

Won't be surprised if sf travels tomorrow or Friday to practice in the elements for a day or two. 

They will be here on Friday. But not to practice:

Green Bay - During the Mike Holmgren era, the Packers almost never practiced outside in the cold because he thought it was more important for the players to be focused completely on their preparation and not on how much they wished they were inside.

 

Some thought that Holmgren's real reason for staying inside was that he was from California.

 

After staying inside in 2007 and then taking a beating from the New York Giants in frigid temperatures at Lambeau Field in the NFC Championship game, coach Mike McCarthy has changed his tune and started practicing outdoors with a cold game approaching.

 

Right now, the Weather Channel is predicting a high of 4 degrees during the day and a low of minus-15 at night, so it's safe to say the wild-card game between the Packers and 49ers Sunday at Lambeau Field will be a cold-weather game.

 

On Wednesday McCarthy held only a walk-through in the team's new indoor training center, which was built on the east side of the stadium and features an artificial turf field. Players can walk out the doors of the locker room to the facility for walk-throughs they once conducted in their gymnasium

.

On Thursday, the first full practice of the week will take place and McCarthy said it would be conducted in full pads. The early portion, when most of the individual drills and pre-practice walk-through is conducted, will take place in the Don Hutson Center.

 

Then the team will move outside to Ray Nitschke Field and perform their more extensive team work. The field has the same underground heating system that Lambeau Field does, so footing isn't a a huge problem.

 

Most of the players aren't thrilled about practicing outdoors and don't go out dressed in sleeves and shorts to help prepare them for Sunday. They dress warm and practice the way they normally would. The advantage is that they know how the ball will feel in their hands and travel through the air. They get a sense for how the footing will be.

 

"You just have to dress warm," quarterback Aaron Rodgers said. "The cold is a part of winter in Green Bay. You get kind of used to it. You deal with it. You learn how to throw the ball effectively and you figure out what are the most important things to keep warm, and that’s your head and your hands. As long as you have a good hand warmer and some sort of heat around your head, you should be OK.

 

"It definitely does change the texture of the football, so you have to factor that in when you’re tossing the ball to a back or when you’re throwing it. You have to make some small adjustments."

 

Though they don't like it, they do recognize there's a purpose in practicing outside and they admit that after awhile their bodies get used to it. For skill players, the most important thing is getting a feel for how the ball is going to come out of Rodgers' hands and travel when it's in the air.

 

He said he thought there was something to Holmgren's idea that when practice execution is at a high level, game execution is likely to be the same.

 

"You still have to be productive in practice," WR Jordy Nelson said. "You have to also be productive in the elements. I think we do a good job of doing some stuff inside so we can get a lot of repetition in, get warmed up, get the fundamentals down and then go outside and do our team stuff and handle the ball in the weather because that is what we play in.

 

"I think it's changed here, too because we have the field now, it's heated. It's like Lambeau. We still have good footing."

 

The 49ers practiced today on their outdoor fields in temperatures in the upper 60s in Santa Clara, Calif. They don't have the option of bringing in a refrigeration system that will bring the temperatures down into the zeroes. They plan to fly to Wisconsin on Friday, so they will have a day and a half to get their bodies accustomed to the cold.

 

When asked for a second time this week whether there was a way to prepare for the cold, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh answered with a symbolic shoulder shrug.

 

“This was asked ... I got a chuckle out of it the other day," Harbaught told reporters in Santa Clara. "We’re going to practice today. Today’s going to be, we’ll attempt to make that our best practice of the year. And, the meetings that we have, make those the best meetings we’ve had the entire season.”

 

In other words, nothing. Or not anything he's going to make public.

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LOL, certainly not in the Bay area, but we do have the high Sierras .

@PGPackersNews

RT @footballzebras: Referee for #49ers at #Packers NFC Wild Card: Ed Hochuli. pic.twitter.com/zcOxS2PhWL

@SeifertESPN

“This was asked ... I got a chuckle out of it the other day," Harbaught told reporters in Santa Clara. "We’re going to practice today. Today’s going to be, we’ll attempt to make that our best practice of the year. And, the meetings that we have, make those the best meetings we’ve had the entire season.”

In other words, nothing. Or not anything he's going to make public.

Really, what's he supposed to do... put mandate that the players put ice cubes in their jocks during practice?  

While not a HUGE advantage, I do think GB can use it as a mental lift... but the reality is nobody likes to play in it.  

High of 0 will likely occur before KO... with the winter / early sunset and the 3:30 start it will get cold fast.

Don't miss that weather one bit, but if I still lived in WIS I'd be at the game Sunday.

Paul Imig, 5 questions w/AR - talks about the cold

One advantage to this cold forecast: doubt many Niner fans will be making the trip.

@PGPackersNews

MM (via packerboi):

*We're preparing for read option. It was factor in outcome of last year's game.

As one who does not examine a lot of the x's and o's, I am really grateful for this incredible insight.

Living here in South Dakota, we get some cold.  I think it was -16 this morning.  I have a dog I take for frequent runs.

A recent day it was +10 with ~20mph wind.  Another day it was -10 with essentially no wind.

No comparison.  The +10 was brutal.   Facing the wind with any exposed skin was painful.

Point being feeling like -19 with an actual temp of -18 is a blessing.  Tack on 20-30 mph winds to -19 air temp?

May God help any player in those conditions.

I think it's worse for the fans than it is for the players.   The players are running around getting their blood circulating.  They have heaters, heated benches, etc on the sidelines.  The fans have to stand there in one spot for the entire game.  The best trick I learned through all the years of cold weather games is to put something on the concrete under your boots.  It's amazing how even a piece of cardboard insulating the ground will keep your feet warm.  

Hey. You just need something to hold your beer with:

I'd have a whole damn box for everyone that went with me.

blue construction styrofoam - a piece just big enough to get both cheeks on (if there's any sitting which there usually isn't at a cold playoff game) and/or for standing on and you'd think you're on heated metal/concrete.

Jump around, stay warm, GO PACK GO!!

We should all be having chicken noodle soup on game day, because thats how AR12 deals with the cold. At least thats what he told the SF media the other day. Yep, chicken noodle soup, thats the ticket.

AR12 deals with the cold via chicken noodle soup

here's my story:

I was there for the Ice Bowl II  (Carolina NFCC game in January 1997)....it was brutal...the wind was bad...but it was an 11:30 am  LFT start.  Being acclimated to  SoCal weather already, I did come prepared.

My wife had bought "electric" socks a year before (D-cell battery).   I wore them and hey do work great!  My mistake was wearing a pair of thin socks under them.  Once in my boot, I couldn't get any circulation in my feet and my feet actually hurt...so, I had gone to the bathroom right before the start of the game and took off the undersock and had no problems the entire game....dressed in layers and enjoyed the game.  Sure it was cold...but with 68,000 fans in a bowl it didn't seem so bad.

The only problem paying $$$ for a prepared tailgate party and both the screwdrivers and bloody Mary's were frozen slushies....food was good...I'm sure most people outside of Wisconsin think tailgating before a game like this (and like this Sunday is going to be) is ridiculous...but...it's the way to "get into" the game.

Remember, the Whiners will be bused up from Appleton...upon entering Lambeau, they will be seeing all of these Wisconsin people having fun at tailgating and thinking we are crazy.  I do believe this will have an effect on them....besides the cold.

Go Pack!  As I stated in another thread...I do believe the Whiners will have better overall talent in the trenches and on Defense.....but, a bitter cold home game at Lambeau....Anything is possible!

I'm not sure what that is...but at the Ice Bowl II, I did see many of those "hunter" masks?  (not sure if that is the term).  But it's made out of the same stuff as surfer's suits and it goes down over the cheeks and nose bridge...they seemed comfortable at that game.

any stryofoam but the blue stuff holds together well in small chunks.

basement insulation usually...

We don't need no stinkin styrofoam

with or without, ROCK IT!

I like sports trivia and with that in mind, I remember watching some NFL show on the 1962 NFL championship as well as its player comments that included some players saying the 1962 game was more brutal than the 1967 Ice Bowl.

I just did a quick google.  Check out the winds!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1...FL_Championship_Game

1962 NFL Championship Game

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The game was played on December 30, 1962 at Yankee Stadium in New York City between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers. The attendance for the game was 64,892. The Packers were coached by Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi, and the Giants by Allie Sherman. The weather during the game was so cold that television crews used bonfires to thaw out their cameras, and one cameraman suffered frostbite. The conditions also made throwing the ball difficult. Green Bay won 16–7 behind the performances of game Most Valuable Player linebacker Ray Nitschke, and fullback Jim Taylor. Green Bay right guard Jerry Kramer kicked three field goals. The Giants fumbled twice, losing each, while the Packers recovered all five of their fumbles.

Background

The 1962 game was a rematch of the 1961 championship game, won by Green Bay 37–0.^[1] The Eastern Conference champions New York Giants (12–2) faced the Western Conference titlist Green Bay Packers (13–1). Green Bay began the season 10–0 including a 49–0 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, where they gained 628 yards to Philadelphia's 54.^[2] Before the game, 10,000 fans at a New York Knicks game spontaneously began chanting "Beat Green Bay! Beat Green Bay!", and when the 18,000 tickets available to non season ticket holders went on sale for the game, they sold within three hours.^[3] Due to the NFL's blackout policy which aimed to protect gate receipts, until 1973, fans in a team's home market could not watch their team's regular season and playoff games on television, even if they were title games.^[4] New York fans made reservations for motels in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut so they could watch the game out of the 75 mile blackout zone, and even though the game was played in single digit weather with 35–40 mph winds, only 299 of the 65,000+ Giant fans who bought tickets to the sold out game stayed home.^[5] Although the weather was temperate the previous day,^[4] during the contest it became so cold that a cameraman filming the game suffered frostbite, and television crews used dugout bonfires to thaw out their cameras.^[6] Broadcaster Art Rust, Jr. later described the weather as "barbaric".^[7] The cold conditions favored the Packers who used a run-oriented offense led by Taylor, while the Giants featured a more pass heavy offense led by quarterback YA Tittle who, coming into the game, had passed for 3,224 yards and 33 touchdowns on the season.^[4][8]

Will they let you bring in a piece of styrofoam with the new security measures in place?  

They let 'em bring those stupid cheesehead hats, they can sit on that.

As long as the styrofoam isn't in the shape of a gun or knife, you are probably ok.

The new AccuWeather projected high for Sunday in Green Bay : -5.

@PGPackersNews

We're missing Matthews & Finley & Jolly

I wish the Niners were missing Justin Smith, Aldon Smith & Vernon Davis to make it fair.

I guess the win will be that much sweeter

We are missing DuJuan Harris as well, so they should sit Frank Gore too.

Good question

Just to be safe.... maybe stick it up yer ass on the way in;

They (probably) won't look there 

GB likely going to be missing two of those three come next season.  Will be nice to get some young guys post-season experience. 

Yes.  I scanned tickets a few weeks ago for a volunteer group and a lot of people were bringing them in.

Following are the highlights from coach Mike McCarthy’s post-practice press conference today:

 

(how lacy look?) eddie looked good. Limited practice. Good day’s work.

 

(How important to have him running on a thursday?) very important.

 

(practice outside?) went outside for limited part.

 

(what do get ready for cold with ball security?) handle the football. We did drills inside and outside today.

 

(weather a factor in play calling?) absolutely.

 

(is losing Matthews comparable to losing Rodgers?) clay Matthews is our best player on defense. But that’s part of the game. Been playing without him a couple weeks now.

 

(how cobb look?) looks good. Any time player comes back from significant injury, as Randall did last week, he’s obviously playing with a level of confidence.

 

(kapernick throwing in opener) we knew he could throw it. Yards after catch and big plays were a factor in that game.

 

(growth of defense) we’re in playoffs. Distinct challenge in front of us on defense.

 

(how avoid falling behind early as have recently?) try to start fast. Fact we came from behind shows character of the team. Every game is different, every game a challenge.

 

(closing games better, how get there?) not giving an explanation there. Job coaching is to teach and makes sure players have answers, being proactive.

(cobb not playing advantage that SF hasn’t seen much film of him?) they’ve got video on us, last year. the access to video is extraordinary. You don’t surprise people too much.

 

They need to wear their full body cheese suits.  Instead of green man you'd have cheese man.  toasty warm.

Distinct challenge in front of us on defense.

No effin' **** Mike. Just try & keep it under 400 yards so our offense has somewhat of a chance ok?

Whew!! For a second there I thought I'd have to shove it up my ass.  

Just once Dom.