The Sports Nut

So I'm sitting in the dentist's chair Monday afternoon. The doc's about to stab my teeth with sharp, metal, pain-peddling objects. Suddenly I get this overwhelming feeling of deja vu, like I'd just gone through this. Inexplicable, really, because I hadn't been there in six months. How could this be?

Then it hit me.

I watched the Packers on Sunday.

And suddenly the dentist's chair seemed rather tame.

Yes, just when Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson thought things couldn't get worse, they did. How do you trump losing to Brett Favre on the most-watched TV broadcast since the Academy Awards? Try losing to an 0-7 team with a rookie quarterback making his first NFL start. See how your fan base likes that.

Let’s be honest. The Green Bay Packers, in their present incarnation, are not a playoff team. Disagree? Then you’re wearing one of two things: rose–colored glasses or a Packers uniform.

The truth is, even before the Buccaneers debacle, Green Bay’s postseason hopes were in trouble.

I stumbled upon this fact last week in an e-mail exchange with loyal reader Joe, a shining beacon of Packers optimism.

Sure, Joe conceded, losing to the Vikings was tough, but that didn’t deter him. "10-6 playoff team," he wrote. "What do you think?" Well, let’s break it down, I thought, so I looked at the schedule. In Green Bay's nine remaining games, there were three likely losses (Dallas, Baltimore, at Pittsburgh), three tossups (San Francisco, at Chicago, at Arizona) and three wins (at Detroit, Seattle, and yes, at Tampa Bay). Depending on how the tossup games went, the Pack was sitting on anywhere from seven to 10 wins.

But that’s just part of the equation. The more daunting factor is who Green Bay must beat to earn a playoff berth. Barring a colossal collapse, Minnesota will win the NFC North, leaving the Packers to scrap for a Wild Card spot. And who will they be scrapping with? No less than four other teams – two from the NFC East (either Dallas, Philadelphia or the New York Giants), plus Atlanta and Chicago. Tough sledding. Nine wins might not be enough. Yes, they'd probably need 10.

Could the Packers do it? It was possible, but they’d simply have to sweep those tossup games.

Now here we are one week later, and the Packers can’t beat the bottom-feeders. Playoffs? Go ask Jim Mora about playoffs.

Am I overreacting? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Now Green Bay has to sweep the tossups and steal a game as an underdog. With an offensive line in shambles, special teams play that’s decidedly unspecial and an apparent lack of leadership, what makes you believe that can happen? Green Bay is 4-4 for a reason, and it's playing like an eminently average team.

But the Packers are nothing if not a religion, and religions are built on faith. So yes, in case you're wondering, Joe still believes. I asked what he thought after the Tampa game and got his prompt reply.

“The 10-6 record doesn’t look good, but this is the NFL, and if the Eagles can lose to the Raiders, crazy things can happen.”

On that last point, Joe’s absolutely right. Crazy things can indeed happen.

You just hate staking your future on crazy.

Milwaukee Mile Going in Circles

My motor sports knowledge basically boils down to this: I wouldn’t know Kurt Busch if he poured

I do know what red flags look like, however, and one’s been waving over the Milwaukee Mile for a while.

When Option A is letting someone promote races at the track, and Option B is letting the track close, and the track’s braintrust still doesn’t feel great about Option A, it raises some eyebrows. But that’s the vibe that’s coming from the current situation at Milwaukee’s 106-year-old track.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Dave Kallman got into the details last week, but the short story is this: A carousel of promoters have tried to make a go of it at Milwaukee Mile, and they've failed because they couldn’t produce proper financial backing. Meanwhile, brothers Frank and Dominic Giuffre, who can produce the money, have been saying they can rescue the track since the summer. But the State Fair Park Board, which controls the track, still wouldn’t embrace them. It’s only after the latest promotion team’s efforts collapsed that the board finally looks ready to deal with the Giuffres. Clearly, the board sees the Giuffres as a last resort.

Why such a cold shoulder? Apparently the Giuffres had a contentious run in a previous tenure as track promoters, and that likely plays into the hesitation. But maybe there’s more to it than just the Giuffres.

One of the Giuffres’ main financial backers is John Menard, the billionaire magnate who built the Menards chain from the ground up. Menard has long been a racing guy, owning teams and backing son Paul Menard during the driver’s fairly successful career. But it’s not all cheers and checkered flags for the elder Menard, as Mary Van de Kamp Nohl wrote in her eye-opening feature on the richest man in Wisconsin.

A telling passage from “Big Money,” which appeared in the April 2007 issue of Milwaukee Magazine (and remains one of the most-visited stories on MilwaukeeMagazine.com): “Even those who know him well describe him in contradictory terms, as both hero and villain; the very model of a successful American entrepreneur; both brilliant and charming, yet also a foul-mouthed micromanager and a perfectionist who can be cruelly demanding with employees.”

Menard and his company have also had numerous run-ins with the state’s Department of Natural Resources over environmental violations that resulted in millions of dollars worth of fines.

So has the State Fair Park Board’s apprehension over the Giuffres been exacerbated by Menard’s involvement? Is the board concerned about doing business with Menard, who can clearly be a domineering presence? Perhaps.

But at this point, none of that matters to racing fans. All they know is they still want motors running at the Milwaukee Mile, and they really don’t care who’s fueling them. Fans will take whoever they can get, be it John Menard or John Cleese, Dominic Giuffre or Dom DeLuise, Frank Giuffre or Frank Caliendo.

Out of options, and with no interest from the comedians, the board is finally joining the club.

No ballgame to watch? No problem. Check out our new TV Guru column to get the lowdown on your remote control options.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I tweet as howiemag. And tune in every Tuesday morning at 6:25 when I join Doug Russell and Mike Wickett on SportsRadio 1250 AM for Tuesdays with Howie. You can also find the segments in their Audio Vault.