Wisconsin News and Sports
The Green Bay Packers know who their opponents will be next season and six of the teams are teams in the playoffs this season.
At home, the Packers will play Indianapolis (13-3), Houston (8-8), Dallas (13-3), Carolina (7-9) and Atlanta (4-12).
On the road, the Packers will play road games against Jacksonville (11-5), Tennessee (10-6), Seattle (10-6), Tampa Bay (9-7) and New Orleans (7-9).
The Packers opponents next season have a winning percentage of .531.
The Green Bay Packers may not have been able to better themselves by winning or losing against the Detroit Lions on Sunday, but it's how they played the game that counts the most.
The Packers scored on their first three possessions, which led to a 34-13 trouncing of the Lions at Lambeau Field.
Mike McCarthy deactivated seven starters for the game, but it mattered little against the Lions, who have struggled mightily since jumping off to a 6-2 start. Detroit finished 7-9.
The Packers were coming off a bad loss to the Bears in Chicago. So it was important that they at least play well and that they did. Brett Favre tossed a couple of touchdown passes and the Packers rushed for over 200 yards as a team in the win.
They'll take four days off and won't return to practice until Friday. It's important that they have a good taste in their mouths, being away for that length of time. It wouldn't have done the Packers any good to sit and wonder about their future playoff fate. The Packers know they're coming off a solid effort and can now enjoy their time off without wondering what's in store next.
The Packers finished the regular season 13-3. The 13 wins ties a franchise record. It's another remarkable achievement for a team that most people figured would maybe compete for a wildcard playoff spot, but little more.
New Year's Eve is upon us, and the State Patrol is asking drivers to help keep the roads safe.
If your holiday plans include drinking alcohol away from home, State Transportation Safety Director Major Dan Lonsdorf says you should also make sure you have a way to get back safely. Lonsdorf says you should designate a driver, take a cab, or stay the night where the party is taking place.
Lonsdorf says police across the state will be watching closely for impaired drivers. For those heading home sober, Lonsdorf asks that they be on the look-out for any possibly impaired drivers. If spotted, drivers should dial 911 and report a suspected drunk driver to police.
As another year comes to an end, so does another year of listening sessions for a Democrat from Middleton.
And, it's a milestone. U.S. Senator Russ Feingold completes his 15 th year of listening to voters in each of Wisconsin's 72 counties, and the public's priorities have changed a bit over the years. Feingold says the leading topic had almost always been health care, but it has moved down to second place, to make room for comments about the war in Iraq.
"In the last two or three years, for the first time ever, foreign policy is the top topic. We used to get two questions a year on foreign policy. Now it's the top topic but the reason is less about 9-11 than the anger about the Iraq war.
Feingold says Wisconsinites are not unique in their concerns about the war… "But the politicians aren't listening."
UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin isn't surprised. He says it makes sense that people are interested in foreign affairs … we're fighting a war in Iraq. However, he says as casualties have dropped over the past six months in Iraq, the importance of the war in voters' minds might be going down over the next six months, and that could change the political atmosphere.
"That's really unknown territory right now. So we could go into the fall elections with the war rebounding to be overwhelmingly the most important issue, but we could paradoxically go into the election with the war having wound down enough that it's no longer at the top of people's minds."
If the housing crisis leads to a recession of some kind, Franklin says that could change the number one issue on people's minds to the economy. The politics of the election would dramatically change, he says, if voters' concerns moved away from the war to the economy, but making any prediction this early is just too dangerous.
NOTE: Following Foreign Affairs (1) and Health Care (2)Ed ucation (3), Immigration (4) and Energy (5) round out the top five issues of concern with Wisconsin residents, as related to Feingold during his listening sessions. Also on the list are Environment (6), Administration criticism (7), Veterans (8-tie), Agriculture (8-tie) and Social Security (9).
Umpire Jim Quirk, who placed Nick Barnett in a choke hold and pulled him out of a skirmish, was fined one game check, or $8,150, for what the NFL described as "inappropriate physical contact with players."
The discipline was handed down Friday at the NFL office in New York where Quirk met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
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