The Packer Pundit

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Saints Top Packers 34-27
Associated Press
The surprising New Orleans Saints are heading home unbeaten. Drew Brees overcame three early turnovers by throwing for 353 yards, leading the Saints to a 34-27 victory over the Green Bay Packers. They will play their first game in New Orleans since 2004 next Monday night against Atlanta. The Saints, of course, spent last season without a home after Hurricane Katrina ravaged their city and the Louisiana Superdome. With the game tied at 20, Brees threw a 35-yard touchdown pass to Marques Colston for a 27-20 edge with 8:20 remaining. -- More


Green and fold
By Jason Wilde
madison.com
Aaron Kampman was having a flashback. And considering how rare the good vibes are becoming for the Green Bay Packers these days, he was thoroughly enjoying it. There the Packers veteran defensive end was Sunday afternoon, parked on an aluminum bench, looking up at a Lambeau Field scoreboard that was clearly in the home team's favor, and smiling. He knew there was still work to be done, but 11 months after the fact, he was in serious deja vu mode. Last year, his downtrodden Packers got their first victory of the season with a 49-point blowout of the visiting New Orleans Saints. And Sunday, they were well on their way again, staked to a 13-point first-quarter lead after the defense took the ball away on New Orleans' first three possessions. "It was great," Kampman said. "I was sitting on the sidelines, and I was like, 'OK, great. This is going to be just like it was when we got after them last year.' And ..." -- More


Green Bay can't stop the drops
By Jason Wilde / madison.com
With the way the folks at ESPN seem determined to find a corporate sponsor for just about every SportsCenter segment, we humbly suggest the perfect one for any so-called highlights they show from the Green Bay Packers' 34-27 loss to the New Orleans Saints Sunday afternoon. Butterfinger candy bars. By unofficial count, the Packers dropped six passes - "Way too many," according to coach Mike McCarthy - and tight end Bubba Franks and halfback Ahman Green were the primary culprits. The guys on the Budweiser Hot Seat, if you will. "Drops are unacceptable. You have a responsibility: If the ball is thrown to you, you need to make the play," offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski said. Added quarterback Brett Favre, who was 31-for-55 for 340 yards despite the drops: "It's frustrating, but I'm sure it's frustrating when I miss open guys or make the wrong reads. When a guy drops the ball, I don't think he does it on purpose." -- More


Defense shares the blame
By Jason Wilde / madison.com
Nick Collins, Ahmad Carroll, Brady Poppinga and Bob Sanders were all stand-up guys Sunday. All four took their shares of the blame for the Green Bay Packers' 34-27 loss to the New Orleans Saints. While that was admirable, if each had done his job more effectively, maybe the Packers wouldn't be 0-2. And while Sanders' the-buck-stops-here mea culpa was honorable, it wouldn't have been necessary had it not been for glaring gaffes by Collins, Carroll and Poppinga. "The thing we've got to do is continue to learn from our mistakes," Sanders said. -- More


Season rests on veteran leaders
By Jason Wilde / madison.com
The fashionable thing is to blame the young guys, to pin it on the inexperienced players who have overrun the Green Bay Packers' roster this season. A veteran team, after all, would have known what to do after taking a 13-0 first-quarter lead over New Orleans Sunday afternoon at Lambeau Field. It would have put the hammer down and made certain it erased the memory of its dismal season-opening loss to Chicago a week earlier. Instead of putting the Saints away, however, the Packers took the rest of Sunday off, suffering a 34-27 loss that put coach Mike McCarthy's first season in danger of falling apart after only two weeks. -- More


Packers Get Everything But 'W' Against Saints
By Mike Spofford / Packers.com

"It's not the outcome we were looking for," Head Coach Mike McCarthy said. "It's disappointing, and we need to find a way to win those games, find a way to make more plays, particularly in critical situations."

In Week 2, the Green Bay Packers got nearly everything they didn't get in Week 1. Except a victory. In stark contrast to their shutout loss to open the season, the Packers got off to a fast start, forced turnovers on defense, displayed an effective passing attack and scored a bunch of points. But all that still wasn't enough to get a win, and the Packers fell to 0-2 with a 34-27 loss to the New Orleans Saints in front of 70,602 fans at Lambeau Field. -- More


Kampman's Effort
Not Enough
to Lift Packers to Victory
By Nathan Hager
Packers.com

"It's frustrating," Kampman said. "Just for our whole team. It doesn't matter (about my individual performance). "It's frustrating for our team because we played well, we fought, we scrapped, but we let them back in the game. It's our own faults. We just about had that last nail in the coffin and we let them back in."

Aaron Kampman had one of his best performances as a Green Bay Packer on Sunday afternoon, but unfortunately, he can't enjoy it the way he deserves to. Kampman, the fifth-year pro out of Iowa, had three sacks, two forced fumbles, and one fumble recovery, yet the statistic that counts the most is one in which even he couldn't conquer versus the Saints: a win. Because of that, the 6-foot-4, 278-pound defensive end didn't share much enthusiasm for his individual accomplishments in a 34-27 defeat to drop the Packers to 0-2 on the season. -- More


For heaven's sake
Packers appear headed
for long season
after mistake-prone loss
By BOB McGINN
journalsentinel.com
If you're not going to win on the strength of personnel, and the Green Bay Packers basically can forget about that happening any time soon, then you better be sharp and well-schooled. When you're none of the above, it's a one-way ticket to oblivion in the National Football League. Despite being spotted a 13-0 lead, the Packers on Sunday couldn't even manage to hold off the similarly rebuilding New Orleans Saints and succumbed, 34-27, before another early-to-exit sellout crowd at Lambeau Field. -- More


Nothing seems to be going right
Packers deflated after another home defeat
By LORI NICKEL / journalsentinel.com
Bubba Franks has played on some pretty good teams in his seven years with the Green Bay Packers. Three straight NFC North championships from 2002-'04. An undefeated season at home in 2002. Pro Bowl selections for him and his teammates. A record-setting offense in 2003. Those were the days when the Packers thought winning seasons and the playoffs were their birthright, not a hope and a prayer. So after he dropped a couple of passes Sunday in a 34-27 loss to New Orleans that left the Packers at 0-2, there was little anyone could say to Franks to pull him out of his misery. "It was just one of those days," Franks said quietly, shaking his head. "Everything went wrong for me. I don't know how to explain it. Don't really care to explain it. I've never had a game like this." -- More


Offense lets game slip through its hands
Unit makes too many mistakes
By TOM SILVERSTEIN / journalsentinel.com
Dropped passes, fumbles, interceptions. Those are the signature of a bad team. The Green Bay Packers had all three in a 34-27 loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday at Lambeau Field. "If you've got the ball in your hands, the turnovers frustrate me more," offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski said. "That's what loses games. You can't turn the ball over in this league, I'm telling you. Look around this league. Turnovers are the biggest factor in winning and losing. If you turn the ball over, you give the defense a short field to defend. That makes it tough." -- More


Franks' apology sincere,
but veterans need to step it up
By Chris Havel / gbpressgazette.com
Once again, Bubba Franks displayed the outstanding leadership skills that make the seventh-year pro an integral member of the Green Bay Packers. Unfortunately, Franks did so after the Packers' 34-27 loss to New Orleans, rather than during it. Following a second straight loss at Lambeau Field, Franks addressed his teammates in the locker room to apologize for dropping passes and committing a costly unsportsmanlike penalty. The gesture was classy and sincere, and it may make a lasting impression on the rookies and first-year players. Franks wasn't the only veteran who earned the right to apologize for substandard play. With the exception of Donald Driver, who was superb, a majority of the Packers' veterans were more hindrance than help. Rookie mistakes are costly, especially when veterans are making them. The popular notion is the Packers are a young team suffering through a rebuilding phase. The perception is far from reality. The fact is, veterans such as Brett Favre, Ahman Green, Robert Ferguson, Nick Barnett, Ahmad Carroll, Marquand Manuel and Franks weren't at their best. As a result, neither were the winless Packers. -- More


Packers' quick start
turns to miscues,
34-27 loss to Saints
By Pete Dougherty
greenbaypressgazette.com
This was a winnable game that could have done a world of good for a young Green Bay Packers team groping for any kind of success and identity. Instead, it was the similarly rebuilding New Orleans Saints who walked off Lambeau Field on Sunday with victory in hand and feeling a little better about their future. Unlike in the opener last week against Chicago, the Packers did some noteworthy things right in Week 2 of the NFL schedule - they held scary Saints rookie Reggie Bush in check from start to finish and got a superb performance from receiver Donald Driver. But without a running game and with a secondary that buckled too often, the Packers couldn't make a quick 13-point lead at home stand up even until halftime in a 34-27 loss in front of 70,602 spectators on a 78-degree late-summer afternoon. -- More


Game Stats -- Here