I'm going to say this and then duck behind a huge mound of those horrible yellow cheesehead cowboy hats.

I hope the Green Bay Packers lose on Thanksgiving Day to the Detroit Lions or the following week against the New York Giants.

I know it seems like heresy for a loyal Packer fan (me) to hope for any loss in what so far has been a remarkable season. But I'm not a heretic. As the drunk said after the cop pulled him over, "Let Me Explain."

Football coaches (as well as coaches and managers in other sports) have a multitude of tasks and roles to fill. Some people think all they do is develop a scheme and then send the troops out to do battle.

But there is so much more to the job. Being a head football coach is an 18-hours a day, seven days a week job. Their influence on players is immense. If a coach walks by a player without saying good morning or how you doing, the player is likely to fall into a funk or wonder why the coach isn't talking to him.

Football players, along with other world class athletes, are notoriously fragile beings with psyches and egos that demand skillful manipulation.

A big part of the job of a coach is to manipulate those psyches and egos to keep pressure away from his team, or to at least help them deal with the pressure.

This is a pressure-filled season for the Packers. They have the normal pressures all football teams do. But there are some extras at work against the team. The defending Super Bowl champ always has added pressure because opponents want to beat the champion a little more than they want to beat anyone else. And there is the pressure of living up to just about unanimous pre-season predictions of superiority.

Playing in a town like Green Bay is different than any other team in the league. In Green Bay players see their neighbors in the gas station. Their wives and girlfriends see their neighbors in the checkout line at Copps.

The one thing the Packers do not need is to have hordes of the charming members of the world's sporting press assaulting them if they remain undefeated as the season moves along. You can't imagine how disruptive that kind of attention can be.

I've been a part of those kind of mosh pits on both sides of the coin. When something both big and unusual is happening, like an unbeaten NFL streak, it's like a siren call for vultures. I love reporters and have a great deal of respect for a free and unfettered press.

But a thing like an undefeated season will bring out a media horde mentality that is like a tsunami, unstoppable and potentially very destructive. Everybody wants a scoop, a story, a soundbite.

Green Bay is a great place to play football because there are very few distractions. No dance clubs, not much theatre, not many fine dining places. But the atmosphere that allows for maximum focus on your job can also be a trap if you need to get away from the game for awhile. Where do you go?

If the Packers can find a way to prevent this kind of mind numbing distraction they will make their chances of a repeat title better. I really believe that finding a way to avoid major distractions when you get to the playoffs is one of the major tasks of a coaching staff.

By losing a game in the next couple of weeks the Packers will slam the door on the potential for one huge distraction. It won't impact their spot in the playoff seedings and it won't make them doubt themselves.

What it will do is give them a much better chance to keep their focus where it needs to be as the playoffs begin.

I'm done. Start throwing those foam cheese bricks now.