The State of The Power Sweep

Where we were and where we're going.

Hello there!

It’s been far too long since we’ve talked like this, but it’s been an eventful first third of 2024, and now that DRAFT SEASON is winding down, I thought we should take a few minutes and catch up about a few things.

Usually I like to do these “state of the site/project/blog/podcast/whatever” updates early in the year, but this feels like an appropriate time for a few reasons.

First, the first third of 2024 has been complicated for me in an “off the field” sense. The finer points don’t really matter, but I’ve had some health stuff to deal with for the past few months, and it’s restricted my output, somewhat, and unfortunately Patreon content comes last in my content priority list. We’ve still maintained a great flow of stuff on the podcast and a pretty decent flow on The Power Sweep, so I’m happy about that.

But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it felt right to hold off on this for this year because of where the Packers were as a team. The end of 2023 felt like an insane sprint to the finish, and from there we went right into our position-by-position recaps, then draft prep, and now we’re here. There wasn’t really an opportunity to stop and look inward when we spent so much time looking at the team.

The team itself is at an incredibly interesting position, too. With last weekend’s draft over, the Packers have now spent every last bit of the compensation they received in the Aaron Rodgers trade. The old era is well and truly over, and we’re all on to new things.

That seems like a perfect opportunity to stop and talk about The Power Sweep and Blue 58, what happened in 2023, and what things will hopefully look like in the future.

How did 2023 go?

First and foremost, I was alternatively very happy and moderately frustrated with how 2023 went from a content perspective.

We had another banner year for podcast downloads in 2023. Nine of twelve months featured more downloads than the same month the previous year, and the only months where we missed the target had reasonable explanations. In January 2023, the Packers were at home instead of in the playoffs, so we had fewer podcast episodes to release. In July, we had to take some time off due to illness, and in October I had to take some time off due to a death in the family (in addition to still feeling the effects from our family COVID outbreak in September). But truly, I have no complaints, and I did almost everything I wanted to do, podcast wise, in 2023. We’ll get to the “almost” in a second.

As far as written content, I feel very whelmed by what I put out last year. I hit the numbers I wanted to, but wasn’t able to dive as deeply into somethings as I’d hoped. I hope to change that in 2024, as I’ll outline in a second.

A big part of the underwhelming written content involved my biggest misses of 2023. I mentioned an “almost” as far as podcast content above, and that’s where this comes into play. There were some special podcast episodes I wanted to put out in 2023 that I just didn’t get the chance to put together. One of them is about half written and another is barely 10 percent done. I’d hoped they would both be combo written/podcast releases, but they just didn’t come together and I don’t know if they will going forward. I consider them both shelved for the time being, and we’ll see if they come together in the future.

All in all, though, 2023 was a satisfying year, and I came out of the 2023 season fully prepared to go into another year of doing the best I can to write and talk about the Packers.

What do we want The Power Sweep to look like going forward?

So what does this project (The Power Sweep, Blue 58, and more) look like in 2024 and beyond? I’ve been putting a lot of thought into that, especially since we’re starting to get to some big numbers. One in particular, as a matter of fact: the 2025 season will be The Power Sweep’s 10th year in existence (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, as my mom would say), and with nearly a decade under my belt, I want to take a serious look at what this project is and what it can be, and I figure that might as well start now.

First and foremost, I want to be less concerned about the amount of content that I produce. I still want to have a regular flow, but as I work on being less work-focused in “real life,” I want to bring the same attitude here: when I publish stuff, it’ll be the very best I can do, but I don’t want this to ever be burdensome. That’s why, for this year at least, I’m not going to worry about the number of episodes/posts/whatevers I do and focus instead on hitting shorter-term weekly goals for content production.

That starts with more written content at The Power Sweep and here on Patreon and via Substack. My goal for 2024 (starting with this next week) will be two written pieces per week and one subscriber-only piece on Patreon and Substack. Subscriber-only stuff will include our quarterly AMAs and other content that’s a little more experimental and maybe just weird. But that’s the most fun stuff to write, and I think it’s a good value-add for subscribers.

I also want to do a better job of being more experimental in general, both with the podcast and with stuff that I write. If this whole deal is a big blank canvas, let’s do some Jackson Pollock podcasting and Packers writing. Let’s throw some stuff out there and get weird. Let’s do some bits, bring in some off-beat audio, and try more guests. MIght as well, right?

I also hope to present our TPS-specific data a little better on the site, revamping how we do our custom stats and polling, which will be making a return in 2024. I don’t know exactly what this will look like, but I want to be better about making use of the data we’re tracking and generating.

Most of all, thank you

Most importantly, though, I want to express my thanks to you, the supporters of The Power Sweep and Blue 58. I always say I would do something like this even if nobody listened, but it sure makes it a lot easier knowing that people are. Thank you for your generous financial support; you make so much of this project possible, and I am eternally grateful for your generosity. I hope to make 2024 the best year yet for our corner of the Packers internet, and I’m grateful to have you along for the ride.