Anyone that knows me or is familiar with my blog knows that I love my sport and I am particularly passionate about the teams that I support. Week on week the performance and results of these teams tend to dictate my daily mood. I have had the idea of documenting the trials and tribulations of following my sporting teams, to share the stress and see whether it can give me a little therapy and, in turn, give you guys maybe a few laughs and an insight into my temporary insanity.

This week of sporting stress started on Thursday night with the Packers v The Chiefs in the final preseason exhibition game. This forth game is where the bottom of the roster fight it out for the remaining few positions in the squad. The Pack even had 22 starting players that didn’t even fly to Kansas let alone not suit up. Again, in Bucharest, the game was in the middle of the night so I wasn’t planning on staying up.

Show Me The Money

In the meantime, Aaron Rodgers had sorted out his new contract that makes him the highest paid player in NFL history. It is a four year extension to his existing two years and will guarantee that he is a Cheesehead for the rest of his career. He is scheduled to make 80 million dollars by St Patrick's day in 2019 just for starters. It’s a $134 million dollar extension with $103 million in guaranteed money.

The GOAT

Is he worth it? Well in my honest opinion he is the best player in the NFL right now and you could argue about him being the best QB ever! Yes! I think he’s worth it. I would like to think that the finances are not hit that hard that we cannot add talent to the team in the next few years. If the salary cap numbers are that huge then I don’t understand why team and player would do it. To me it would just mean hurting A-Rods chances of making it back to the big game and at this stage of his career; he’s 35 soon and pretty rich, that’s got to be his priority.

Trade Alert

In other news, the Packers have traded Brett Hundley to the Seattle Seahawks for a 6th round pick. I was a little surprised that they were able to trade him but it does make sense of all the priority snaps he’s been getting in the preseason. They were clearly putting him in the shop window for other teams to observe. He has made improvement in his game; with a little more pocket poise and slightly better accuracy, but not enough to justify selecting him in the 53 man roster. It’s now down to Kizer and Boyle to show what they can do against The Chiefs.

A Work in Progress

In the opening moments of the game it was clear that the pass protection was an improvement on the previous debacle against the Raiders. Jason Spriggs the primary backup at Left Tackle was doing a fine job but the whole line were stepping up. Which makes DeShone Kizer’s gross overthrow to Lance Kendricks over the middle so much worse to comprehend. When you see the replay it looks as if DeShone is aiming for the safety who is 10-15 yards deeper. Sure enough, with a little athleticism, the safety picked him off! A Poor start from Kizer. The second series was much better with a blend of run and pass, good pocket awareness and finishing with a beautiful arc to Geronimo Allison for the TD.

From Starter to Practice Squad in 15 Minutes (not really)

Tim Boyle took over and his first two series were outstanding. He looked like a guy fighting for the backup spot, showing accuracy, arm strength, poise and confidence. Both of his first two drives culminating in TD’s, one for Tonyan, the TE hoping for a roster spot and the other from Aaron Jones, who will be suspended for the first two games. After that it went a little awry! Interceptions and eratic throws blighting his great start to the night. There is clearly some talent there though and he has at least a shot at making the team.

The Packers failed to score a single point in the second half which isn’t great but at least they were winning at half time when the guys with a realistic shot at the 53 were playing. As for the defence, they looked fairly passive and vanilla all evening and I’m not sure anybody stood out or we could glean anything from it.

Final score 33 - 21 the the Chiefs

September 1st 2018 - Cut down day

I previously had a guess at the initial 53 roster for cut down down so let's see how I did.
47 out of 53 correct. Aaron Jones is suspended for two games and isn’t required to be on the initial 53 which I didn’t know about. Of the players I missed 3 were on my practice squad, Tim Boyle, Robert Tonyan and Raven Greene. The three that I completely missed were Alex Light OL, James Crawford LB and Herb Waters CB.

The practice squad predictions were very hit and miss. 4 correct and another 3 actually made the 53. I missed on 3 players.

Even now, the squad is changing and evolving. They have placed Jake Kumerow on IR and released Herb Waters. They have brought in LB Korey Toomer and RB Darius Jackson. It will probably continue to change as we head into the opening game of the regular season.

This is the Packers centenary year and they are opening at home against their old rival Chicago Bears. This is the oldest rivalry in the league and is also a rivalry in our household as my wife has been a Bears fan since the mid eighties. It should be a fun build up and aftermath! All good (as long as we win!)

The game kicks off at 7:20 CDT on Sunday which will be 3:20am for us in Bucharest. Go Pack Go!

Bristol Rovers

Bristol Rovers were playing Shrewsbury Town at the New Meadow on Saturday 1st. This was a big game for both teams because their start has been less than impressive. As usual I was watching on iFollow and streaming the game from 3pm GMT +3

Rovers had made a couple of moves in the loan market before it closed on the Friday. They brought in goalkeeper Jack Bonham from Brentford and a left back Joe Martin from Stevenage.

Prediction League

The results from QPR

Parky, Chaney and Hols 7 players correct
Joe, Mark and Gaz 8 players correct (1pt each)

Table

Gaz 10 pts
Hols 5
Mark 3
Parky 2
Shaun 2
Joe 2
Laura 1
Geoff 1
Chaney 1

My Prediction for the Shrewsbury Game: Smith, J Clarke, Lockyer, Craig, Martin, Matthews, O Clarke, Upson, Rodman, Nichols, Payne.

Dirty Sheets

So Rovers started with the two new guys in the starting line up in Bonham in goal and Martin at left back. Could this help to shore up a very porous defence that just cannot keep a clean sheet for love nor money. Initially Rovers were the better team although it was clear that both teams were low on confidence. As has been the case for The Gas so far they were stroking the ball around nicely but without any real cutting edge. It seems to me that there are a few players that are under performing, low on confidence and are hiding.

Nice one Ollie

The breakthrough came from a great turn in the box from Ollie Clarke and the defender grabbed out and held him up. It was a really soft penalty but at the moment we will take every crumb of luck that comes our way. The penalty taker was going to be Stefan Payne who we recently signed from Shrewsbury so this was a pressure moment for him, the traveling Gasheads and my heart rate.

Sloooooooooow Mooootiooooooon

As is typical of these sorts of situations in football, they always seem to happen in slow motion. I’m really nervous for the guy as he steps up to take the penalty. He placed the ball and a Shrewsbury player was talking to him trying to put him off along with their fans behind the goal. He started his run up and the anxiety level was peaking. He made a reasonable contact with the ball and places it to the left side. My first instinct was ‘oh no’ the keeper has guessed the right way and was diving fully stretched out. He was going to get a hand on the ball. Fortunately there was enough pace on the shot that when the keeper made contact the power took it into the net. Goooooooooaaaaaaaaaaal! 0-1 Rovers

Seeing Red Again

The 600+ fans were ecstatic and making a great noise as they always do. Could this piece of fortune kick start our season, finally! Wishful thinking on my part. This team is just not getting the job done at the moment and we are frail when defending and it showed again. Shrewsbury had no choice but to come forward and put more pressure on our defence. The new goalie was playing well and, up until this point, so was Martin but in the space of a few minutes he had received two yellow cards and was sent off. The extra pressure from the Shrews was making the difference.

Do Shrews Have Tails?

We adjusted our formation to counteract having one less player on the field but you felt an inevitability about the equaliser and it wasn’t long in coming. In a move that saw our defenders pulled into all sorts of weird positions on the pitch we conceded. A cross came in hard and low and our late arriving defender smashed it into his own net. Awful defending all round. We still had 17 minutes to survive and the signs didn’t look good. The Shrews had their tails up and a team that looked to be struggling earlier in the game were now gaining confidence with every pass. To be fair to the rovers players they dug in and defended resolutely and held on for a previous point away from home.

Final Score: Shrewsbury 1 Bristol Rovers 1

The overall performance is so worrying that it’s hard to put your finger on exactly where to start. The manager Darrell Clarke is under pressure to get this season started otherwise not only will challenging for the playoffs be out of the question, but a relegation battle may ensue. Next up is a home tie versus Plymouth Argyle who are currently bottom of the table.

Dinamo Bucharest

Saturday evening saw a televised away fixture for Dinamo Bucharest versus Craiova. This stadium is the best facility in the league and as you will see in the clip, very impressive. Certainly compared to Stefan Cel Mare, anyway! Another tough away fixture for the team and after just edging past Hermannstadt in the last game would they have the belief to travel to Craiova and get a result.? It started well and the team looked to be on top early. Popa hit the post with a great effort and they were creating chances. Then against the run of play and seconds before half time, Craiova score a goal from a corner. An absolute bullet of a header and take a one nil lead into half time.

That knocked the stuffing out of the Dinamo boys and they struggled to regain that composure and passing freedom that they had in the first half. After an attack that broke down, Craiova countered quickly and caught Dinamo out to make it 2-0. Craiova were starting to dominate and after a spell of pressure added a third and effectively ended the contest.

It was a shame for the team because they started well only to fade at the end. Hopefully better days are to come.

Final Score: 3-0 Craiova

Next week is international week, so no Dinamo as Romania are playing on Saturday and Tuesday

More Romanian Football Madness

In this edition of Romanian football madness during a Europa league tie a Steaua player intercepts a tactics note on the field and snatches it off a Rapid Vienna player before he can return it.

Crazy Days!

Previous Issues:

Issue 1
Issue 2

That’s all for now. See you again next week.

Thanks for reading.

Gaz