Quote Originally Posted by vince View Post
It's pretty clear that Dom's approach revolves around this, from the Quality Stats link in Woody's thread... He's said as much before.


Defenses obviously don't operate in a vacuum. Having (by far) the most efficient QB in history tends to make his defensive approach more conservative.
I would say that is a bunch of crap - however, it is obvious the Packers put stock in the fact that their offense is so good, that they sew that fact into how they approach defense. The only time it works is when the team has a lead; the opponent isn't very proficient at running the ball, or isn't running the ball due to the lead; the opponent is offensively challenged and inferior; or we're getting a lot of turnovers.

Too much of that formula is dependent upon things that are outside the control of the defense itself. When we run into teams that can contain our offense - our defense is usually in big, big trouble - b/c we don't have an identity (or at least prior to getting back to some 3 man lines we didn't) to play tough and get stops... at least enough stops to overcome the opponents ability to stifle our offense.

Even given that our defense is now being used in a more traditional way, i.e. more 3 man fronts, and more shrift being given to contesting the LOS, we are still constructed to deal with the pass over the run; hence, a heavy running team like Seattle, SF, or Dallas can usually control the game by controlling the ball on the ground and turning that running game and those yds into points.

Yes, it is true that the league is largely a passing league, but that doesn't mean you can just abandon run defense - like Capers has done for the pass 3 years. We're 0-4 against SF, and 0-2 against Seattle in the past few years - that is not an accident; and almost all of the games went by the same formula. Only the 23-20 loss to SF in the playoffs was a competitive game where Capers played a lot of 3-4 (with the players they cut loose this offseason). The fail mary game Seattle was just coming on the scene, but they held us to 12 pts in that game, and sacked Rodgers 8 times in the first half.

I don't like the approach at all. Defense should be a stand alone proposition apart from whatever the offense is doing. The goal of defense should be to get stops, force punts, and prevent points - it should not be a hope and prayer that we force a turnover, or be minutes off the clock before the offense gets back out there and scores us a TD. I would much rather force 5-7 punts/game, 3 FG attempts, and get 3-4 sacks/game, than to get 1 turnover, and give up 450+ yds and 35+ pts/game.