The Bavarian Bierhaus in suburban Milwaukee has a pretty strong NFL game-day special: No one pays for beer until the Packers score.
With Aaron Rodgers leading the Packers' offense for most of the season, that hasn't meant all that much free beer. Over Green Bay's first nine games, the Packers scored in the first quarter six times. The worst hit for the Bierhaus came in Week 1, when Green Bay didn't score until about five minutes had elapsed in the third quarter against the Seahawks.
The promotion remained viable even after Rodgers went down with a broken collarbone in Week 6. The Packers scored just two minutes into their first game with Brett Hundley as their starter in Week 7 and -- after going nearly an entire half without scoring in Week 8 -- needed only 7:40 of game time to score in Week 9.
But then Sunday's game against the Ravens happened, and the free beer never stopped flowing. Final score: Ravens 23, Packers 0, Green Bay's first shutout loss at home in exactly 11 years, when Brett Favre got knocked out of the game and the Patriots won 35-0. It was just the third time the Packers have been shut out overall since 1992.
Bierhaus general manager Scott Bell told WTMJ radio that the restaurant served between 275 and 300 servings of free beer to the 200 people who were taking in the game. He said he has no plans to halt the promotion after the Packers' offensive power outage.
"Wisconsinites and Packers fans are at least somewhat responsible," Bell said.
The Steelers are up next for the Packers. Pittsburgh is allowing only 16.5 points per game to rank second in the NFL but also has allowed first-quarter points in six of its 10 games and hasn't shut out an opponent since 2011.
Adios, Patriots
New England Coach Bill Belichick says he has no strong desire to return to Mexico for an NFL game.
"Personally, I wouldn't be in any big rush to do it again," Belichick said during his weekly appearance on sports radio WEEI when asked whether he'd like to play in Mexico again. "It's a long way to go for a game. There's a lot in terms of all the logistics of it. They are not used to having an NFL team, so you have to go in there and handle a lot of the logistics. It took a lot of manpower, a lot of hours, a lot of energy out of our organization to do that. We are exhausted from the trip."
The Patriots, who thumped the Raiders 33-8, arrived home early Monday morning.
"We dealt with it. Players did a great job dealing with all the challenges we had to deal with. I think we're fortunate there was no volcano eruptions or earthquakes, or anything else while we were down there. You have two NFL franchises in an area that I don't know how stable the geological plates that were below us [were], but nothing happened, so that was good."
The NFL announced Sunday that a game will be played in Mexico each season through 2021.
Sports quiz
Name the three men in the broadcast booth at the first Monday Night Football game on Sept. 21, 1971?
Sports answer
Howard Cosell, Don Meredith and Keith Jackson
Sports on 11/22/2017