The great first half and the miserable second half illustrate exactly what I've been saying: PASS FIRST, Pass on early downs, pass quick if it's open, escape and pass down field if necessary - which it usually is, pass, pass, pass ....... and then mix in a few runs for change of pace. They approached that, although still short of the optimum, in the first half.
In the second half, McCarthy stupidly reverted to run-first. He basically took the ball of the hand of his all world QB and did what he has been doing for more than 3 quarters of other games.
Do you suppose he learned anything from the two vastly different halves? Somehow I doubt it.
Regarding the D, I occasionally read disparaging remarks in here about Clay Matthews. Well, we survived without him, but I can't help thinking a lot of those near misses of sacks when the Lions were passing like crazy on us would have been sacks if Matthews had been playing. Our D all the way around was a lot shakier without him.
Regarding the O Line, they performed fairly decent if you take into consideration very low expectations. Rodgers was still rushed in about 1.5 seconds a lot of the time, and the running game still had way more unsuccessful plays than successful. Is Stafford as good or better a QB than Rodgers? I say a big hell no to that. However, he illustrated how a decent but lesser QB with an O Line giving him time to throw can have a helluva lot of success. Just imagine if Rodgers ever had pass protection like that.
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Originally Posted by texaspackerbacker
