The rain on your parade is that most of those guys have low ceilings.
No way should Clark have been a 1st round pick - Datone Jones Part II.
Ryan and Martinez are "try hard" guys, but that's just another way of saying pedestrian.
Fackrell is a heady player and has some measurables, but he's a step slow and lacks explosion.
Randall and Rollins can be okay I think, but certainly not upper echelon material.
Of all the young guys, Ol' Alligator Arms Lowry probably has the most upside.
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Those things said, those guys represent Ted's vision for improving the defense. What does that get us to?? Average??
We were 31st in pass D last year, and the pass rush sucked... I don't hold our run defense in much regard either. In short, our defense sucks big-time, and I just don't see the young guys vaulting us into sort of respectability. TT, and you, and Packerdom, are looking at these guys with rose colored glasses.
wist
Or, instead of constantly shitting in everyone's cheerios, he's trying to add new discussion points to a forum. You know, new thoughts and ideas?
You mean like a good Swede?? Rape is not rape, when an immigrant male has a "sexual emergency"
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength"... that sort of thing??
How's that for positivity?? Am I on my way to being a Social Justice Warrior???
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If I see any positives, it is that TT is actually signing some people. If they can only hit on some defenders in the draft - then, yeah, maybe we can improve enough to contend; but - and it is a huge BUT - TT and the Packers organization will have to get IT figured out in terms of evaluating defenders in the draft; or, get wildly lucky; and, Dom will have be decidedly un-Dom like in the playoffs.
The sad fact is that TT and the Packers as an organization have a pathetically miserable record of drafting and developing defense. It is what it is... If you can't bring yourself to call a spade a spade - then watching defensive breakdown after defensive meltdown is an enjoyable thing for you, and Dom is certainly the DC for you.
wist
It's amazing how much better of a coach Capers is when he has Kevin Greene, Greg Lloyd, Carnell Lake, Levon Kirkland, Chad Brown, Rod Woodson, Deon Figures, Darren Perry, Brentson Buckner...
Players not schemes. Coaches can make a difference, but they have to have players, and those players are chosen by the GM, and scouted by the scouts. I listed players from the 1994 Steelers. Three of those guys were 1st Team All-Pro. That's a who's who list there. In the TT/MM era, when have the Packers even had half that many good players on defense in one season?
If you live by the philosophy of draft and develop and you are typically not active in free agency to fill needs, then the only way you are going to have an opportunity to build a defensive roster like the players above is through the draft. That means your hit vs. miss rate must be even more special as a GM, and your additional picks may never pan out.
Of the players I listed above, Greg Lloyd was a 6th rounder and Kevin Greene was a 5th rounder. Obviously both are self-made guys who worked hard and maximized their talents. The others listed were mostly 1st and 2nd round guys, save for Perry who was an 8th round guy (before they went down to 7 rounds).
The point is, these excellent players were great together and guess who their DC was? None other than Spray Paint Hair, Dunder Dummy himself. I bet candidly, Dom wishes he had the players above vs. some of the "developing" players he now has. I bet Rodgers wishes that too. The 1994 Steelers team was not a fart in the wind either. Capers was hired by Cowher when he took over the Steelers in 1992, and the Steelers already had a lot of good players on defense. Capers 1999 Jaguars defense was very good. A few of his defenses in Green Bay have been good.
The Packers have some talent on defense, but not to the level of defenses that Dom has coached previously. If someone else shops for the groceries and cuts corners, or doesn't realize what the right ingredients are, don't blame the cook, he did the best he could. Something was sure cooking in the front office of the Steelers in the early 90's and the Jags of the late 90's, and they had the same idiot DC.
TT has drafted okay overall on defense, but he has had a lot of misses, especially in the early rounds when you need to hit more often. When you draft Jerel Wothy and Khyri Thornton and they are gone before their rookie contracts are up, that's either bad luck (injuries) or bad evaluation. Dom can't overcome bad picks. He coaches whoever is on the roster. Give him some more excellent players.
Last edited by Carolina_Packer; 03-25-2017 at 11:22 PM.
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." -Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Quality of players may set the upper limit - how good a D can be as in the case of Capers' good Steeler D teams or how far above the abyss in the case of the current Capers' Packers D. It's the SCHEME though, compensating for mediocrity or maximizing good quality, that sets apart defenses with Capers from most of the rest of them.
What could be more GOOD and NORMAL and AMERICAN than Packer Football?
The game has changed... the rules have changed.
Dom has adapted to some extent, i.e. he was playing nickel about 1/2 the time during our SB run in '10. Don't know what the percentages were for teams running sub-packages back then, and I can't remember when the coverage rules changed, but I acknowledge that Dom was on top of it then.
That said, he had a lot more talent to work with then; he didn't play as much static 2-4 as he does now; and, he did a good job of mixing other alignments. None of those things is true today - or has been true for years now.
TT drafted defensive front "seven" players without regard to how they would fit what Capers was doing, and Capers simply refused to make any adjustments - the result was a mess, and continues to be a mess.
Things got so bad, that MM finally had to get involved with the defense in the offseason a couple of years ago, and the result was that they came out with that elephant - which as a 1/2 step in the right direction given the personnel we had.
Excuses can be made for injuries - but the bottom line is our defense is always worse than the talent we have available. That's on Dom all the way... he needed to be fired years ago. Unfortunately, he isn't going anywhere.
wist
I didn't watch all the games... but tried to tape them and skim thru as best I could. I just don't have the free time I used to have...
That said, from what I did see... Clark can hold his own 1 on 1, but I didn't see him defeat a single double team, he struggles to disengage - in fact he rarely is able to disengage - he never made any play, and he showed exactly zero burst.
He played like a mid-round pick - a rotational body. Certainly didn't show any 1st round skills.
wist
You're overestimating the value you get from a lot of 1st round picks. If he becomes a good player, not just a guy (as with Datone) then he was worth the pick. Of course he didn't look like a star most of last season, because he was a rookie. He didn't even get real reps in until the end of the year. We'll see if he improves in 2017.
I agree with wrists evaluation of Clark for the first 8 or so games. Starting somewhere around week 10 he started to improve. I don't remember him beating a lot of double teams, but I believe his arrow is pointing up not flat based on age and late season rookie growth instead of fading out like many rookies do.
I think the kid can play. Even early, when he was getting shoved around by double teams in the run game, he would occasionally get his guy in a bad position and flat out defeat him and get disengaged.
He almost looks like he had Daniels wrestling balance and strength.
At the end of the season he had stopped thinking and was beating guys by being quick too. I think the kid can play now, much unlike Jones.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.