This is a short one. I worked all day, and stayed up way past my bedtime to watch a recording of the game. A few things stood out in this one.

QB Charlie Frye is awful. He has no accuracy on passes beyond 10 yards. WR Koren Robinson made an outstretched catch on one overthrown pass, but CB Tramon Williams and CB Charles Woodson each had an INT on passes over 10 yards that were off target. He gave them no chance to win.

Seattle's offensive line is really inconsistent. They usually provided good protection, but DE Aaron Kampman made the right side of their line (Locklear and Womack) look foolish at times. Seattle's biggest play, a 50 yard run by RB Julius Jones, was called back on a hold by LG Mike Wahle. Night and day difference from last week when the Packers barely sniffed Atlanta's QB Matt Ryan on the pass rush because Atlanta's o-line is playing very well. The play by their respective offensive lines is why Atlanta is one of the big surprises this season and Seattle is one of the big disappointments.

WR Jordy Nelson. It was only 4 catches, but this was his best game yet. He caught all the passes early in the game. Before this game, most of his receptions came late in the games when the Packers were behind and the defenses were playing off. Seattle's secondary is really struggling, CB Marcus Trufant is supposed to be their shutdown corner and they threw right at him all game, but with WR James Jones out again, they really need a 3rd WR who can produce and keep the double teams off Driver and Jennings. Jennings had the big game, his big catch came when he got a step on Trufant in single coverage, but if teams have to respect Nelson it will help Jennings too.

Finally, QB Aaron Rodgers. His 4th game with a QB rating over 100, second straight game he's done that while struggling with his bad shoulder. The game against Dallas was an average 80 QB passer rating, and his only bad QB rating game was at Tampa when his stats were dragged down by 2 INTs that were completely not his fault. He had a costly fumble against Seattle, but that was his only major miscue. He's still the team MVP.

Green Bay Packers at Seattle Seahawks
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
Noon CST, FOX
This is an open thread for the game.

Wow, RB Brandon Jackson is out. He's sick, so it's sudden and shouldn't last longer than a week, but the Packers didn't need any more players out. With the exception of Giacomini and Brohm, every other player listed as inactive is out with an injury.

The biggest news is QB Matt Hasselbeck is out. With him gone their offense should be pretty one dimensional. 

Inactives from the Insiders Blog:

Packers players on the inactive list for today's game:

S Atari Bigby
CB Al Harris
RB Brandon Jackson
DE Jason Hunter
T Breno Giacomini
WR James Jones
DE Michael Montgomery
QB Brian Brohm (No. 3 QB)

The Seahawks' inactive list includes:

K Brandon Coutu
QB Matt Hasselbeck
G Mansfield Wrotto
DT Red Bryant
WR Jordan Kent
WR Deion Branch
TE Jeb Putzier
DE Baraka Atkins

I'm late with the injury report because my day job is making me work seven days a week at the moment, and I'm a little tired of scanning the weekly carnage. There's always someone new on it.

S Aaron Rouse and FB Korey Hall are back and should start on Sunday, but now WR James Jones is out again. It's still at least another week until S Atari Bigby is back. LT Chad Clifton has been working with trainers all week and should be back, although the team might be better off if he waits another week or two. Also, backups that had been playing for injured starters, like DE Jason Hunter, CB Pat Lee, and DT Michael Montgomery, are hurt too.

The Packers finally gave up on RB Kregg Lumpkin, after watching him sit for the past three weeks with a hamstring injury and placed him on I.R., while former starting RB DeShawn Wynn was signed off the practice squad and takes his place. I wouldn't be surprised to see Wynn get a carry or two.

The good news is that it's possible that all 11 offensive starters will be healthy and starting together for the first time this season. They aren't all 100%, but it's something. The defense will be missing at least three starters (Jenkins, Harris, and Bigby) and it's possible that Hawk and Pickett will miss the game too. With 3 to 5 defensive starters out, plus CB Charles Woodson is playing through a broken toe and DE Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila is still slowed after recovering from knee surgery, it's easy to see why there have been struggles on the defense with all those injuries.

QB Matt Hasselbeck hasn't practiced all week and backup QB Seneca Wallace hasn't been able to practice either. Former Cleveland starting QB Charlie Frye had been getting all the reps with the first team and the scout team, so Seattle signed a QB for the practice squad just so Frye didn't have to throw all the passes in practice.

I've been assuming Hasselbeck would skip practice, but be good enough to play on Sunday.

Instead Frye will get the start on Sunday. At least one Seattle fan is hoping Frye will spend the entire game handing the ball off to RB Julius Jones.

This changes everything. Frye doesn't have the arm to throw downfield, so this allows the linebackers and safeties to play closer to the line. Seattle was having a lot of trouble getting all their new receivers adjusted to the complex offense and now throw in a QB who has even less experience with them. Now this is a game the Packers should win, and it becomes a huge problem if they can't win against a team that is sinking as bad as Seattle.

I answered a few questions from Mike Tanier at Football Outsiders: 

What's Gone Wrong:Brandon Benson of Acme Packing Company came aboard to help me with these bullet points. 1) Injuries, and more injuries. "Eleven starters were listed on last week's injury list," Benson said, "including Cullen Jenkins, who then went on the IR, and Aaron Rouse, who has started the last two weeks for Atari Bigby. Hawk, Woodson, and Rodgers didn't practice all week but still started. Chad Clifton has been listed every week this season, usually sitting out at least one practice a week, and he finally had to take a seat mid-game vs. Atlanta." 2) Poor run defense has allowed teams to sit on the clock late in games. "It's basically the same front seven as last season and not loaded with a bunch of veterans in decline, so I'm at somewhat of a loss about it." 3) The running game is not holding up its end of the bargain. "They missed center Scott Wells. He was out the first three games, so he might help if his back is improving. McCarthy denied it in a press conference, but they might be better off without Clifton right now. They're also missing starting fullback Korey Hall."
Angry Local Columnist Speaks Wisconsin columnists don't appear to be very angry. That's because a) They are an accommodating bunch; b) they blew most of their rage neurons during the Summer of Favre; and c) their attention this weekend was focused on the Brewers. Speaking of the Brew Crew, how's this for a pay-per-view spectacle: Prince Fielder vs. Gilbert Brown in an eat-off.

But unlike my gloomy outlook, he expects the Packers to win on Sunday at Seattle:

Seattle Seahawks
What's Gone WrongDoug Farrar filled me in on the Seahawks woes. 1) Receivers? Who are they? "Mike Holmgren runs an execution offense," Doug told me. "It requires precision from each player, and the complexity lies in that precision. Players must know their routes. They must know the tempo, which is ruthlessly fast at its best." The Seahawks have been forced to patch together their receiving corps all year, and now Deion Branch is once again hurt. 2) The secondary has gone from a strength to a weakness. Farrar singled out Brian Russell as the primary culprit. "The best analogy I can come up with for Russell's timing on pass plays is Billy Rosewood, Judge Reinhold’s character in the Beverly Hills Cop movies. In every film, they'd do the bit where Axel Foley and the other cops arrest the bad guys, cuff them and start rounding them up into the cars. That's when Billy screams in, guns blazing, demanding that everyone drop their weapons and put their hands over their heads. Brian Russell is Billy Rosewood." 3) The transition from Mike Holmgren to Jim Mora has the team going in two directions at once. "In my mind, this is the main problem. Half the front office is wrapping it up, and the other half is looking forward to next year. Tim Ruskell's doing both. Without a united focus, you will get your ass handed to you in the NFL."
Angry Local Columnist Speaks Art Thiel, Seattle Post Intelligence "As a bedraggled group, the Seahawks used the bye week to work up as dull, dreary and lifeless a game as they have produced in a long while."
Pick:Mike Holmgren's last face-off with his former team should be more glamorous than this. The PACKERS should carve up that bad Seahawks secondary, even at Qwest.

This week is a little different. Instead of waiting to find out if QB Aaron Rodgers would actually play, the Packers are starting to show some signs of good health. I'm coming around to the idea that the last three losses were due in large part to bad timing. All the injuries on the defensive line (Pickett, Jenkins), at linebacker (Hawk), and safety (Rouse, Bigby, Collins) have happened at the same time they took on three teams that can run the ball (Dallas, Tampa, and Atlanta). Pickett, Hawk, and Collins have been playing through their injuries, but it still must slow them down and it can't be helping. Jenkins isn't coming back, but Rouse is back at practice and Bigby shouldn't be too far behind. Unfortunately they have to play against another good run offense on Sunday.

Most everyone knows that Seattle has been dealing a flood of injuries to their wide receivers, and QB Matt Hasselbeck has been unable to practice this week, but otherwise their team is good health. Seattle has gotten blown out in their two New York games (Buffalo and NY Giants), lost at home to San Francisco, and only has one win against the lowly, lowly St. Louis Rams. But over the last two seasons, they've shown that they play a lot better at home.

Rankings from Football Outsiders:

The pass offense and Rodgers are not getting any love from the numbers at Football Outsiders. They knock Rodgers down because the Packers have gone up against some lousy pass defenses (Dallas and Atlanta; Detroit might be one of the worst all time) and he threw 3 INTs when he actually played against a top 10 pass defense (Tampa). The pass offense and Rodgers are better than 17th, especially now that all the wide receivers are healthy.

Seattle is like Atlanta because they can run the ball and can't stop the pass. Seattle's RB Julius Jones is having a very good season. Rodgers might have a big game against Seattle, but he threw for over 300 yards against Atlanta and that didn't win them the game.

This will be another close game because the Packers will be able to come from behind any deficit with their pass offense, and Seattle can't blow out anyone with their injured and strugging pass offense. Can the Packers stop Julius Jones? If they can, then Seattle's offense is punchless like they were last week when the NY Giants held them to 187 yards on offense.

The Packers have been held under 20 points only once this season, but Seattle hasn't been held under 30 points at home this season. The Packers defense is similar to San Francisco's (poor against the run, solid against the pass) and Seattle managed to scrape together enough offense for five scoring drives against the 49ers while one of their TDs came on a fumble recovery. As bad as Seattle played last week, if the Packers can't give themselves an advantage by being able to run the football, or stop the run which would shut down Seattle's offense, two things that they haven't managed done well in the first five games, this looks like another Packer loss. I can't believe I'm writing this, but Seattle 23, Packers 17.