Quote Originally Posted by Maxie the Taxi View Post
My takeaways from the game:
1) Our secondary at this stage of the game is about as bad as it was last year. If the opposing QB has time in the pocket, we can't stay with quality receivers. This may improve as Kevin King improves and as Dom gets his personnel sorted out. Putting Randall on Jones is not the answer.

2) Our ability to pressure the QB is about the same as last year. Whether it's scheme or players, we just weren't able to get into Atlanta's backfield consistently enough. I watched the Denver/Cowgirls game earlier and the Packers D is not anywhere near Denver's. We need to get Daniels healthy, but even then I don't think we're where we should be.

3) We live and die with Arod. Yesterday we did both. His great plays were overshadowed by his bonehead ones. Take away his interception at the end of the first half and his backward pass pick six at the start of the second and we're still in the game. When Arod tries to do too much, he's not the Super Star QB we've become accustomed to.

4) The NFL is getting to be like the NBA. OPI, DPI and blocking-related penalties are all but arbitrarily called and, as a result, their impact on the game is way too significant. I form this opinion not only by watching our game, but on other Week 1 and 2 games I've watched. Maybe the answer to this is to give each team one or two replay reviews of calls that are not now reviewable.
One bright spot certainly was King looking a LOT better than he ever looked in the preseason. We were in a screwed if you do/screwed if you don't situation on blitzing. We seemingly shoulda done more of it, but that too much left single coverage. Montgomery also had a good game under bad circumstances.

I watched the Dallas/Denver game too - another case of home field being a major factor. Dallas's Corners are worse than ours and their defensive scheme is worse too. Usually their D Line and Backers are good enough to compensate - not this week. You're right, Denver's D - in this game for sure, maybe in general - is better than ours, although I recall times we shut down Adrian Peterson the way they did Ezekial Elliot.

Hell yeah, we live and die with ARod - thanks Ted for not building up the rest of the team any better. As for the "bonehead" plays, the so-called backward pass was not; It was slightly forward, as the replay showed - and the rotten O Line gets most of the blame for getting the QB clobbered that way. And the interception may have been Rodgers' mistake, but it more likely was Allison's fault at least in part.

We had a bad day on penalties, true, but I think your replay challenge thing might bite us in the ass more often than not. Unlike some of my favorite sports teams that I'm convinced get shafted regularly, the Packers most of the time get fair, even good treatment. The play where McCarthy got his penalty, as the commentators completely missed, I think he was complaining that Atlanta did the same thing that was called a pick against the Packers and got away with it on the TD play.

This was one game - a bad day and shitty circumstances. The Packers will be all right. We are as good as if not better than Atlanta probably way better than anybody else in the NFC, maybe in the NFL.