stud: Lacy
dud: Lane Taylor
I was thinking of giving TT a dud for having backups of Sherrod, Taylor and Gerhardt. But then I thought about Linsley and decided to spare Ted.
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stud: Lacy
dud: Lane Taylor
I was thinking of giving TT a dud for having backups of Sherrod, Taylor and Gerhardt. But then I thought about Linsley and decided to spare Ted.
You are forgetting Barclay. We have solid depth until Barclay and Tretter went down.
Stud: Lady Luck for giving us two very good maybe great quarterbacks in a row, which has kept the hope alive for more super bowls.
Dud: Lady luck for not giving us the supporting cast to take advantage of Rogers, which may mean no more super bowls in my lifetime.
Life sucks and then you die...
Studs: none
duds: Stubby and dunderdummy.
Studs: MM, Rodgers, Lacy, Cobb, Sitton, Linsley, Bakh (minus few penalties) and HHCD. Would add Peppers if he didn't drop that TD. I liked MM aggressiveness with the 4th and 1 and the onside kick.
Duds: Capers, Bulaga, Taylor, Daniels, Boyd, Hawk, Lattimore, Barrington, Jones, Matthews, Hyde, Williams, House, Perry, and Neal.
Studs - Lacy, Cobb
Duds - Lane Taylor and the OT's, Quarless, Peppers as a TE, the run D, House, tackling by the secondary
As for thread title:
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade your heroes for goats?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
Heros for ghosts
Smh
Ill mention tramon again. His inability to jump was exposed last week. The saints paid attention and took advantage of that 2 or 3 times that i saw last night.
Bigger wrs dont even need to jump with him on them
Wish I was back in the dorms
https://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m...p9uuo1_500.gif
Actually the dorm sucked and lead to unhealthy lifestyle choices like endless bagels and cream cheese.
I think "Dark Side of the Moon" was only Pink Floyd I endulged in, and lava lamps were already corny.
I totally agree with this.
Start with Capers... Reportedly, Capers game plans to stop either the run or the pass, depending upon the opponent. This game, the defense stopped neither the run nor the pass. Mark Ingram rushed for 172 yards, for crying out loud. You can't beat a team with an elite QB by letting them rush for those kind of numbers.
As the game went on, the rush defense got worse. No adjustments at halftime on the defense. If there were some, they failed.
Capers didn't fool Payton and Brees. The Packers' pass rush was negated by quick throws to the middle and the judicious use of screen passes. In the second half, when Brees got Jimmy Graham involved, the Packers had no answer and it was game over.
As bad as Capers performed, Stubby was worse...
The Packers' offense started fast, but instead of playing to their strengths, McCarthy got cute. The pass to Peppers was a joke. You've got two of the top WR in the league, a sure-handed rookie, and Quarless who caught the same pass two weeks earlier to win the game against the Dolphins. Instead, Rodgers throws a bullet to an elephant LB. I'm assuming Stubby made the call. I'm assuming they spent valuable game-prep time practicing it. My only question is: Why?
Then, for some unknown reason, Stubby decides to get cute with an onsides kick, giving Brees the ball in Packer territory. Again, why? You're 3 points yup. The offense is moving the ball. It's early. Why?
Some say Stubby was just being aggressive. I disagree. It was a foolish risk, with an improbably upside, for what? To demoralize Brees?
And if Stubby is such an aggressive, risk-happy coach, consider the 4th and 1 call: a fairly pedestrian -- and predictable -- Lacy carry. If McCarthy was a risk-taker, why not fling a pass downfield on that play, with the defense up?
The week before, when Payton, Brees and Company took a licking, they took inventory of themselves. Each player looked within himself and took responsibility. They vowed to turn their game around...and did.
Let's hope Stubby, Capers and company do the same. This team is not as good as they thought they were.
I thought the Peppers play was clever. McCarthy rarely shows any creativity, as he is a dull moor, so its nice to see a clever play out of him other than the "Raji fullback gut freezer X."
The D couldn't stop Brees or that no name RB. Shoulda onsided after every score. Woulda prevented the Saints O from milking too much of the clock.
They came out after halftime in single high safety to stop Ingram. The result was Graham going off and then the deep game got involved. So there were adjustments and they made the situation worse. What defensive alignment would you suggest that Capers deploy instead?
All you suggest is for Capers, against one of the five best QB and one of the 3 best passing attacks to focus on the run. That approach allowed NO to score 30 points in a half. I prefer letting Ingram rush for 100 in a half and allow 16 points total because they had trouble getting into the end zone from the red zone as well.
How about this instead? The only Packer defenders who get clear off blocks on a regular basis are Peppers and Matthews. Add in the deep safety and that is three guys free to make a correct form tackle. The deep safety is usually a rookie.
Eight other guys are in the process of being tied into knots by their blocker and cannot disengage. Some never get loose, some get one hand free, some dive at the ground trying to bury the block or trip the ball carrier. But guess what those 8 guys look like when they try to tackle? They look like players who cannot employ fundamentals to make a tackle. McCarthy mentioned this today in his presser.
But I don't think its tackling fundamentals. Its defeating the blocker across from you and disengaging at the correct moment. That had been happening in the previous 4 games, it didn't last night.
The question isn't whether Capers is dumb or the scapegoat for his game plan. Do the Packers have the players who can play a scheme he can coach? After that one game, it looks again like a colossal mismatch. And it has seemed that way whenever they meet a team they cannot turn into a one dimensional opponent.
The DC will always take the fall, but the brain trust has to figure out how to match the players to a coach's scheme. It hasn't happened since they had Collins, Woodson and Matthews at his peak health.
The other alternative is that the Asstants on D cannot coach how to defeat a block. Its possible, but while there are some thin coaching pedigrees on the offense, the D has some guys who have had major success before. Results don't match though.
The worst failing on defense beside tackling was pass rush. It disappeared in the second half. Despite Peppers, its still way too intermittent to protect the backend.
So, the scheme only works if you have at least 3 Pro Bowlers on your defense? In addition to those, I would add that Tramon and Raji had career years in 2010. There are teams that play respectable defense with less. At times, the defense has looked like they've turned a corner, and then you have a performance like last night. Halfway through the season, the defense is still a bit of a mystery.
I also disliked the pass to Peppers. I don't like passes to OT's playing TE, or handoffs to DT's playing FB for the same reasons. These are guys not comfortable with handling the ball. If they are there because injuries have decimated a position, that's one thing. But a bullet pass to Peppers when you have three able-bodied TE's on your roster? Why?
I'm not as opposed to the onside kick. Crosby is pretty good at them, and it is a surprise that has worked in the past. But it seemed kind of early to tell the defense that you have no faith in their ability to stop the Saints, so you are resorting to trickery to steal a possession.
How is that clever? You split him out wide and throw to him? Clever might be lining him up in the backfield, or as a TIGHT end, positions in which the D might expect him to block, then freeing him up for a pass. Splitting him wide and throwing to him is not clever at all.
Its only in the top 8 (25%) in the League with 3 Pro Bowlers and 2 near Pro Bowlers, yes. That kind of goes with the territory.
I would tend to think that defenses doing much more with less (say the Cowboys this year) in a non-fluke, non-no film, new scheme way are actually more talented that people realize at the time (see Packers D in 2009).
But its possible Capers scheme yields huge variability when poorly executed. And I believe its been poorly executed. Even the players who have been lauded in this short season have been very up and down (Matthews, Daniels, Peppers, Shields). Ironically, the most consistent might be Burnett. In the front seven, who was free and clear to make a tackle versus Ingram last night? All the missed blocks, other than dives by filling DBs, were guys that couldn't get off their blocks.
wist might get his wish because I am not sure that any nickel he throws out there this year can defend the run. So it will only be of use when they have a good lead later in the game. The only problem is that when they ran 3-4 in the second half after getting gashed on the ground again, it was just as leaky.
For all the talk of how great Cobb has been in the red zone (and he has), did we throw to him even ONCE in the red zone last night? I don't recall any. I liked the early onside kick and even contemplated doing it every time as we never stopped them between the 20's either. I also liked the 4th down decision, but absolutely hated the call. As soon as I could tell he was going to run, I knew we weren't going to get it. Lacy looked great in the screen game. It'd be nice if we could utiize that a bit more this season. He had a couple of nice catches on at least one occasion when the ball was behind him.
The genius of the NFL coach is a myth though. Sean Payton early in the 2nd half went for it on 4th down as well by running twice up the middle. The first time lost 2 yards, the second got no gain. 2 guys, same mistake. I thought both HC should have passed in those situations.
But that is exactly the issue, relying on a guy who is unaccustomed to handling the ball, and expecting him to cleanly catch a hard pass from Rodgers. When you you see OTs and others getting passes from a TE or FB position, it tends to be lob they can handle. I know, Peppers is a tremendous athlete, but the fact is he dropped a very catchable ball for a person accustomed to catching.
I thought Peppers lined up in the backfield, then motioned wide?
That was a clever play. Packers simply did not execute. Otherwise, it would be the most talked about play in Packers nation since Favre threw a lateral to Bubba Franks who then threw a TD to Driver, I believe.
It was depressing to read JSO this morning to find that our run defense has sunk to 32nd. Eight games into the season with no real improvement in that aspect of our defense. Same problems, same answers from the coaching staff.
Hero - Lacy, Cobb,
Goat - The Defense, M3, Hair Piece, Zebra Crew
I know this dead horse has been beaten to a pile of flesh and hair and pulverized internal organs. But expecting Peterson to catch a Rodgers fast ball is like playing an athletic offensive lineman at linebacker. It's insulting to the receiving craft to think you can just do it skillfully in game situations without lots of practice.
I liked the idea of having Peppers in there but that needs to be a jump ball not a fastball on a slant.