What about option C, none of the above?

What the Packers have to exploit to win this game is the cornerbacks. In a 4 to 5 wr set, spread offense this is a mis-match for the Steelers D. I think you will see Troy floating around in the secondary most of the game instead of the line of scrimmage.

I think it would be dumb for the Packers to try to establish the run. What they have to do is put Rodgers in shotgun and have him throw 40 times. Use the pass to setup the run in the second half with the some delayed running plays out of a 4wr set.

On the Steelers front I don't think you want to get into a shootout with the packers. Steelers love to grind games out and this is where they would have an advantage. They must run the football and control the clock. Big Rape must be able to do his magic when he gets out of the pocket and avoid the high explosive pass rush of the Packers. The running back will be key to picking up the blitz. Big Rape always comes through in the clutch. Always has been money in big games. You might even see a gadget play from the Steelers at around the 40-50 yard line which could turn this game around.

All in all I think it will be an excellent game.

Budweiser will win.

Mark, this may be moot. I heard that the network had run a practice timing for the pre-game shows and all the commercials and determined that there wouldn't be enough time to actually play the game.

Dr. Horse, if despite what I "heard", the game is played, yes, the typical NFL scoring battle, especially in the first half, is decided by pass offense vs pass defense(not "establishing the run"). Both Capers and LeBeau have been instrumental in developing zone blitz tactics and if their 5 man rush(3 linemen plus two LBs or a DB and LB)gets to Rogers or Worthlessburger often enough that's likely to be decisive. The 3 under 3 deep zone that's typically backing up the blitz can hold down the receptions or even result in interceptions. Whichever offensive line picks up the various rush patterns better should go home winners.

How would the 3 deep zone work against those quick slants the Packers love to use or any of that intermediate strategy out of the shotgun that the Patriots like to use out of their spread offense(Welkers drag route)?

As audiopiles, if our goal for loudspeakers is for them to sound like live performances in the most uncoloured and natural way, like in the superbowl half time show we might just all pack in our bags and call its quits.

And the winner is.........................

Da Pack!

Doc, keep in mind that when zone coverage is used backing up the blitz, it isn't the old style of zone where the defenders simply drop to assigned areas. A match-up zone with man coverage on receivers entering the zone and pattern reading can give close coverage on underneath patterns. It may be of interest to read some discussion of the techniques on the Blitzology site . Of course, nothing can work all the time, otherwise NFL games would be a lot lower scoring.

In tonight's game the Steeler blitzing wasn't for the most part effective enough to stop Rogers, which won for the Packers. The Packer offensive line generally picked up very well.

The sound of the half time show sound was incredibly poor, indeed.

There was not much pressure on the QB from either defense tonight. Both offensive lines played admirable IMO. Big Ben had a lot of time to throw in the pocket. Part of the problem on defense was Troy was playing like any other safety tonight dropped back in the secondary all game. Usually they move him all around the secondary and up at the line of scrimmage doing all sorts of things creating havoc. I only seen him blitz once which was picked up by the RB James Starks. The scheme from a defensive standpoint was vanilla but not surprising since the gameplan was to attack Pittsburgh cornerbacks and they needed all the help back there. That was the biggest mismatch of the game were Green Bays receivers. FWIR Rodgers threw 39 passes and ran most of that stuff out of the spread offense. This game was pretty much how I expected it to turn out.

Like you said, the Steelers had no choice but to drop Troy back, otherwise Rogers would have had a field day with the spread offense.

Did the Black Eyed Peas not have enough original material that they had to do cover songs?

I don't think the BEP have any talent on a GOOD day... well, sometimes Fergie can sing quite well. But I fast-forwarded through almost all of their performance.

Man that halftime skit was bad, I mean really bad ... and the blond girl forgetting the words of the national anthem? Damn.

That was Christina Aguilera. She really butchered that anthem.

WARNING WILL ROBINSON. RANT AHEAD!!!!

My musical groups sang the National Anthem for years for the Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Cavaliers, and others. I am absolutely furious with the way our Anthem is being treated today.

Most performers use it as a tool to show off their (alleged) talent. They butcher the melody, the tempo, and now, even the lyrics, all in an attempt to draw attention to themselves. (My sister emailed me last night suggesting that Miss Aguilera be arrested for treason)

"It's not about you, you ninny!!!! It's about the United States of America!!!!! Disconnect your ego (for once) and honor the country by singing the Anthem as it was written. It is not subject to your rearrangement for personal exploitation."

Like the flag, it is a symbol of the country. I wonder what the reaction would be if, on the flag of the United States, I changed the stars to purple, and the stripes to brown and yellow. What the heck, it's still the stars and stripes, isn't it?????

P.S. We also sang the the Canadian National Anthem (we did a lot of Indians/Blue Jays games). Musically, I absolutely love that Anthem. Moving and beautiful. However, there is sure a lot of guarding going on.

Whew! I feel much mo' betta now. Hope I didn't offend anyone. None meant. I just had to get my disgust and frustration off my chest.

She is no Whitney Houston (suberbowl 25) that's for sure.

I agree Jack.

That's the reason I called her 'the blond girl' rather than by her name ... I know who she is. I think an 8 year old girl randomly picked from the audience would have done a better job than this bimbo.

Actually, I can forgive the blown lyrics. Mistakes happen and she "pleaded for forgiveness' and said "I can only hope that everyone could feel my love for this country and that the true spirit of its anthem still came through."

I'll accept that.

What I CANNOT accept is the alteration of the melody to show off her vocal talent. Regrettably, this is a travesty which, today, is the norm rather than the exception. Everybody wants to outdo the last rendition. I repeat...."It isn't about you or your talent, folks." Get over yourself.

Chalk my ire up to the steroids I'm on for a medical condition. It's not my fault.

Jack, I agree 100%.

You never told me you took steroids!

Jack's gonna pump...(clap)...you up!

Christina has a great voice. It's her "style" that's the insurmountable problem. Blame Patti Labelle and Anita Baker (Patti's far worse), for demonstraing how many trills and improv riffs they can squeeze between lyrics. To me, they are the progenitors of that female vocal-chops-show-off crap. It is a misinformed interpretation of Aretha.

(A commonly held theory among many art historians is that all of Modern Art is wrong, because Picasso misinterpreted Cezanne and everyone else just fell in (to the wrong) line.)

And of course, white girls are the big offenders now, ripping off "street" like "we" are so prone to do. I KNEW she was gonna "emote" all over the f'n place before she opened her target.

I can forgive the flubbed lyrics. I cannot forgive the National Anthem when it includes "yeah, yeah, yeah" and "whoa, whoa, whoa," which the egomaniacal little tart actually did!

And the next time one of them hits the note on the word "free" and then jumps up an octave, I'm gonna have to start ordering stalking manuals from Aryan Brotherhood websites.

I agree that the Star Spangled Banner gets shabby treatment in the hands of today's pop stars. So does America the Beautiful. They sing it like it's a funeral dirge.

I am relieved to find I am not alone.

I'm with all of you on the way the national anthem is being handled these days, but I have to say, I don't really get why it's important to show pride in our country at sporting events. Should I be singing it before I play checkers?

Also, while the showing off is annoying, I do think we need to be able to poke fun at ourselves. Blind devotion to a country with no room for a sense of humor is a dangerous path. Love the country, but putting it on a pedestal may be ill-conceived.

Well, I only started taking them 3 weeks ago. I find I am a more agressive driver and I could eat a Ford Pinto if I could find one. I, personally, am consuming 2/3 of the M&Ms and 1/2 of the Breyers Vanilla Fudge Twirl ice cream being produced today.

Didn't watch the game or the flubbing of the national anthem for the record, but Imo the anthems should be sung by people other than pop stars, maybe someone from the forces, choir or just a regular "Joe(Jo-Anne!) off the street. As mentioned, it's not meant to be a means to promote someone's carreer, it's meant to honour your country and the people who sacrificed dearly for the freedoms inherited by us.

If Roseanne Barr was allowed to sing the anthem, anyone off the street is fair game.

Well done, Bob!

I had the "over" on the anthem time and cleaned up.

Second this - and everything else said. The pop stars - the ones that actually have talent not the manufactured ones - should sing what Francis wrote - how he wrote it and let their talent speak for itself. The manufactured stars shouldn't be allowed onto the field. The soldiers and airmen or police and firemen that sing at the baseball games give me chills when they sing - not like the nausea that (as the reverend Billy Ray Collins says) Christine Alligator evoked.

I know I am probably in the minority here, but I thought that the BEPs put on a very good halftime show. The sound system was not the best, but they put on a good show. I also think that they are very talented. I do have three of their CDs and I find The End to be recorded very well. Everyone at the office seems to disagree with my assessment of the halftime show though.

I will totally give you that! The mix was awful and they kept changing the levels on the only one who CAN sing. It was bad. Made the Prince 1/2 time look even more cool.

Been there... Steroids are gross! And they make everything taste like you first licked a metal pipe! Only had the rage thing when I took myself off morphine w/o permission. I wanted people to get outta their cars to fight me! ME!?! My hair was much blacker then, so, luckily, no one took me up on it.

Yeah.

Never fight men with black hair.

I thought you said you have never had any mind altering experience?

The half time show just sounded like 3 dudes hollerin' and a woman yelling to me?

My 7 yr old said "..that guy looks like he belongs in Guitar Hero" when Slash arrived on stage

That depends on how many people are watching you play checkers, Charles.

What if I'm playing Chinese checkers in front of a thousand Norwegians?

Both the U.S. and Norwegian anthems must be sung in such cases. The board won't be offended.

One should not try to "own" any national anthem as Christina did...which sucked regardless. I'm sorry, but I can't STAND her. It reminds me of an episode of The Osbournes when Kelly was doing an impression of Christina singing "Jingle Bells". She said it takes her five minutes to get to "bells". I can believe it!

Ha ha, yeah, I really do hate Christina Aguilera. Whoever picked her to sing the anthem should be blamed, really. It's not like it couldn't be anticipated what she'd do with it.

Fair enough, John. You know EVERYTHING!

Second degree anthemic manslaughter!

I say we get JohnK to bring up the charges.

This is the best point made in the entire thread. SO....conspiracy theorists - someone wanted the anthem to be butchered....yes? Alligator was just the means to the end?

I doubt that very much. It's just that her star has risen again, what with Burlesque. Sure, Cher might have been a better choice, but hey... to some, Christina is cuter. Actually, given the choice between the two, I would run away screaming.

But Cher would have done it in a "costume" that, if made into a rectangle, all the fabric used wouldn't cover a tray table.

Well....I was at my Brother-in-law's and he had his TV on some stretch mode that made her look like an Oompaloompa. SO I don't know about cute. Later in the second quarter, I was able to grab the remote and surreptitiously change the setting to a more normal look.

I hope you didn't get charged too much... but those aren't real steroids...

They're steroids for the waistline, which, due to water weight gain from the real steroids, is redundant. I'm putting on weight like a bear preparing for winter.

Uhhh, Jack, springtime's around the corner, you're a little late.

Adrian, we don't know that for sure. You can make wild guesses based on what happened in previous years, but we could be in for months of winter.

I just went out to restock the firewood bin and it sure feels like we're in for months of winter

Months of winter? I guess you're not a believer in global warming, John!

Your point is well taken, but the steroids are mandatory, and the hunger comes with the package. Speaking of that, it's time for LUNCH!!!!! YEA!

And, there is some irony in reading "springtime's around the corner" on what is, thus far, the coldest day of the year. It was 3F right outside my door around 9 AM this morning. Who knows what it was at 6AM.

Evidently, when I was a kid of 3 or 4, my mom couldn't find me in the house, anywhere. In a panic, she started looking outside and found me all the way down at the end of the block (our house was in the middle of the block). Mad and scared, she asked what I was doing there and evidently, I told her that I was looking for Spring around the corner because she told someone on the phone that's where it was.

I think she's still a little mad about it.

Fixed it for ya!