I wanted to make sure to get back on this thread and respond since I was one of the ones originally saying that I didn't see the 5 road games in a 6 game stretch as such a bad thing considering how we played on the road vs. at home just this past season.
Lot of those "road wins" last year were luck-based.
Playing GB when GB had a ton of starters out that week. We beat their "B" team and just squeeked by in dong so.
Chad Henne completes 5 passes vs the Jets and we win. TOTAL LUCK! When your QB completes 5 passes and you have 30 passing yards and the opposing QB throws for over 200 yards and we somehow win....LUCK!
Farve giving us gift after gift in Minny along with no Sidney Rice and Harvin leaving the game early on. Once again, had everything in our favor and we just squeeked by.
Beating Buffalo, Cincy, and Oakland on the road....not exactly murderers row there. Oakland was decent last year, so that was a nice win but decent for a non-playoff team. They weren't special.
And the "real" teams we played on the road Baltimore and New England, we lost!
While we
did just "squeak" by GB that game, beating them in OT on a Carpenter FG (big surprise there!) and I do recall that the Pack had several starters out from that game after suffering through a lot of injuries early on in the season, I actually was still *impressed* that we won (if you can call it impressed) because, yes, while we played pretty shitty that game, we still managed to pull it out in the end...even after we gave up another QB draw by Rodgers up the middle down on the goal line (again, big surprise there!) to send it into OT. We made some big plays offensively in the 4th quarter to put ourselves in a good position, though, and considering the sloppy, inconsistent play in a lot of the game, I was glad that we still found a way to win...and no, I didn't feel like it was a game we were lucky to win, but more like one that if we had played much better, we would have actually beaten them handily. Given, that was a Packers team dealing with a lot of injuries, but as someone else already said, that's the game in today's NFL, so I'll take the W.
Calling a Dolphins' victory over the Jets @ NYJ "total luck" just because Chad Henne only managed to complete 5 passes is like a complete slap in the face of the Dolphins' defense and Brandon Fields' play in particular on that day. They both played really, really well (actually, Fields punted phenomenally that game) and had just as much to do with our winning a much needed game in hostile territory as Henne's and the receiving corps' ineffective passing game had to do with keeping the game so close. Really, though, thank God for 3 phases of the game, because if it was up to you, it sounds like a team's winning a game would be solely based on the QB rating rather than the points put on the scoreboard!! Actually, I think we would have fared even worse than 7-9 last year if that was the case..... (Sanchez' rating was actually lower than Henne's that game, btw, despite the 216 yds passing
)
As for the road game @ Minnesota, that one has been discussed pretty much ad nausem back during the season due to all the Jason Allen crap, it seems (at least regarding how it related to Favre's "gifts", as you put them), but basically, that's part of the game if you ask me...Lord knows Henne provided some nice "gifts" to New England Patriot and Baltimore Raven and Cleveland Brown defenders last season, to name a few. The goal line stand we had against them and AD with 4 rushes within the 10 yard line deep into the 4th quarter was worth claiming a victory alone if you ask me!
You play the schedule that you have. Beating Buffalo, Cincy, and Oakland, while not exactly a daunting task (particularly Buffalo at the beginning of the season), still requires you to beat an NFL team that has prepared to play for a week and all of those teams (including Cincy) were still alive for postseason play at the time that we played them, so they didn't exactly roll over for us.
Finally, Baltimore and New England.....we actually didn't look too bad at all the first half against the Ravens, but unfortunately we never made great adjustments to that stupid little underneath screen they kept running with Flacco to Ray Rice and really killed us with when we had them in some good 2nd- and 3rd-and-long situations, and then our offense started to show its *true* form in the 2nd half and really went to shit with turnovers (tipped balls, falling down on routes, lack of blocking/effort/execution), plus Baltimore was coming off a bye going into that game so I'm kinda surprised we played them as close as we did most of that game, to be honest. Whether we'd admit it or not (and I think most of us did by that point!), I think we all knew that we'd lose to NE if they played their starters the last game of the season, though maybe we would've hoped it wouldn't have been in such pitiful fashion. I'll give you that was bad, but if you're going to hang your hat on a team that was undefeated at home besides the playoffs making us look bad, then I think you're not really complementing your argument that well (as for Baltimore, they went 7-1 at home last season, with the lone loss being the game where Polamalu jumped over the LOS to strip Flacco late in the end of the game, btw).
So, going 6-2 with our 2 losses coming against teams that went a combined 15-1 at home in the regular season is enough to say that we weren't too shabby on the road last year. Not necessarily counting on it repeating this season, but I wouldn't mind it, either!
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