FanHouse Brad Childress

Editor's Note: Bruce Ciskie, a lifelong Packers fan, opines about the state of his beloved team.

High expectations greeted the Green Bay Packers in August, as the team arrived at training camp. Practices -- held across the street from Lambeau Field -- were very physical, as the Packers tried to show they wouldn't be bullied around like they were far too often in 2008.

That 6-10 season, we all were told, was a memory. It was a fluke. It wasn't how things would be conducted in Green Bay. Bad tackling, soft defense, poor special teams play, and stupid penalties were going to be a thing of the past.

Or not.

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Shame on them for booing him, mocking him, staging funerals for him, wearing flip-flops and eating waffle fries to ridicule him. The hostility toward Brett Favre was an embarrassment to a community that never looked smaller, an affront to the idea that the publicly owned Packers and their fans form a unique family bond amid the greed and sleaze of 21st-century sports. If the Cheeseheads truly had perspective, they would have stood and applauded the man whose swaggering presence defined a franchise and state for 16 years, and then they'd have rooted like hell for their boys to beat the old dude and the despised Minnesota Vikings.

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Outside of Sunday being a day many Packer fans have dreaded for months, it's just another football Sunday in Green Bay.

The hype surrounding this regular-season battle of NFC North rivals surpasses anything most fans will see in their lifetimes. The reality is that football fans in Wisconsin are stuck in the middle of the tension that developed between Brett Favre and the Packers. It was this way in August of 2008, when the whole thing blew up, and it isn't going to change for some time.

For some reason, head coach Brad Childress thought letting Brett Favre and his 40-year-old arm sling the ball all over the yard gave the Vikings the best chance to win against the Steelers Sunday. He was so sure of this, in fact, that the Ole Gunslinger ended up doing it 51 times.

On two occasions in the fourth quarter that decision led directly to Steelers points. Defensive end Brett Keisel stripped Favre as he dropped back and linebacker LaMarr Woodley took the fumble to the house. And with just over a minute to play and Minnesota trailing by three, a Favre screen pass skipped off the hands of Chester Taylor, into the lap of linebacker Keyaron Fox, and 82 yards later, ball game.

Here's a question: why not give the ball to Adrian Peterson more than 18 times? Since, you know, he came into the game leading the league in rushing, and fresh off hanging 143 rushing yards on the Ravens. Didn't happen, and instead of seeing Purple Jesus tread defenders all afternoon, we only got to see it once.

Video hit-and-run after the jump.

NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament. Because we have nothing better to do than predict what might happen if head coaches started punching each other in the face.

As Round 1 of our single-elimination fight tournament involving NFL coaches nears its end, let us recap the action we've seen so far. To view the entire bracket or learn what we're talking about, kindly click on the links below.

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NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament. Because we have nothing better to do than predict what might happen if head coaches started punching each other in the face.

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Things seemed pretty elementary for the Minnesota Vikings through much of their game Sunday afternoon. They held a 14-0 lead over the Baltimore Ravens after a quarter, a 14-3 halftime lead, and then a 27-10 margin early in the fourth quarter -- margins that likely inspired tons of confidence for the Vikes. Who would have thought they would need to be bailed out by a missed field goal as time expired in order to escape with a victory?

Yet that's exactly what happened, because the Ravens, behind explosive plays from Joe Flacco, Ray Rice, Derrick Mason and Mark Clayton, used just 11 offensive plays in 6:24 to score three touchdowns and take a 31-30 fourth-quarter lead. The Vikings did drive down and kick a field goal with 2:00 left in the game, which made the score -- the eventual final -- 33-31.

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NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament. Because we have nothing better to do than predict what might happen if head coaches started punching each other in the face.

Consider this hypothetical: what if two coaches met in a dark alley and threw down in a no-holds-barred brawl? Who would emerge victorious?

First, some background: back when I was in high school, when my friends and I were pretty creative in finding ways to avoid actually paying attention in class, we'd create brackets (think NCAA Tournament) where we'd pit our teachers against each other**. Whoever we thought would win in a fight advanced to the next round. It always ended with our offensive line coach against our wrestling coach in the finals and a huge argument as to who would come out on top.

Anyway, last week, the Back Porch staff somehow ended up discussing whether Rex Ryan or Tom Cable would win in a old school playground scrap. I passed along the above information, and shortly after that, an idea was born -- NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament.

The final tally on Brett Favre's one year with the New York Jets now reads nine wins, 22 interceptions, one broken playoff dream and $12,100,000. A $100K add-on came Wednesday when the NFL fined the Jets and general manager Mike Tannenbaum for not listing the aging Wrangler model on their injury report after Favre tore his bicep last season.

For anyone who missed this episode of As The Favre Moans, here's a recap: The quarterback claimed last week that he told the Jets to bench him because of his injury, triggering a NFL investigation because his name wasn't on injury reports for a bunch of games he ended up playing in anyway.

Last week, Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Bobby Wade took a pay cut. It seemed to be rather curious timing, perhaps suggesting that Wade accepted the reduction in salary (to $1.5 million) in order to avoid being cut.

Wade denied it, and the reduction in salary also gave Wade the right to become a free agent after the 2009 season. Apparently, the Vikings decided that the end of the season was too long for Wade to wait. Instead, they decided to make him a free agent now.