I've never had much good to say about the Packers O Line, and I've mostly tried to shut up about what I thought of them - and their lack of importance - in the many many games the Packers win.
The Packers generally have been - and absolutely should be - a pass first team, with the passing game setting up a relatively few change of pace runs. And mediocrity of the O Line - which IMO we have literally always had with or without Bakhtiari - doesn't do any real harm most of the time against most teams. If the pass blocking drops to worse than mediocre, though, as it did with damn Hanson at Guard and Newman at Tackle, then it can at times do harm. And the primary purpose of the O Line - IMO, opening holes for those change of pace runs, which shouldn't be that tough, just didn't get done in this game. Jenkins was so good at Guard in the run game, so what are they gonna do? Move him out to Tackle where he was mediocre like the rest of the line. Bakhtiari - the "Sacred Cow" to many in here - was never that good anyway. Nijman did as good in the run game and pass blocking as he did, or at least it seemed that way because we mostly ran inside and because Rodgers even in this game was good at avoiding the outside pass rush. But you put a real stinker like Hanson at Guard, and the pass rush is tough enough that even Rodgers can't beat it, especially without Adams to unload it to quick.
I see we brought Caleb Jones up to the 53. Hopefully he is an improvement over Newman at RT and Newman at least gets damned Hanson off the field ....... but somehow, I don't think they do that. We'll probably see too much of Hanson at G and Newman at T again. Runyan, according to what I heard, passed concussion protocol and could have come back in right there during the game. Why they held him out, who knows. If that's true, he would seem to be ready to play next week.
I still say what I've always said: the Packers O Line is mediocre, but that's all we really need. This last game, though, it dropped below the normal mediocre level.
The golden example of that mediocrity was that 4th and 1 goal line play. Just about any other team can line up, push 'em back a little bit, and get the yard. I knew damn well our line couldn't. Last year, they usually threw to Adams in that situation. They handed it to Dillon who slammed into the retreating butts of his linemen - predictably.
Reply With Quote