Packers To Hire Pettine As DC

[3irty1]

Swapping one complex system for another is about the best we can hope for. Pettine sounds like he's a lot like Capers. That's exactly what maximizes any defense, and it's exactly what a team with mediocre personnel needs to present an adequate NFL defense.

Doesn't it concern you that everywhere Capers has ever coached his defenses have had a steady downward trajectory? Dom's only success has been as a reboot artist. The JJ Abrams of defense.

Tell me what you think of this theory. What if Capers is a mad scientist when it comes to X's and O's and a genius at innovating new defenses out of leftovers, but terrible at projecting talent into his schemes. Dom lands in a place with players from the last regime, builds a winner immediately, then gets worse and worse the longer his influence exists. What if Ted is giving him everything he's asking for but he was asking for the wrong things? This could explain why guys like Casey Hayward and Micah Hyde immediately turn to studs when they leave Dom. Contrast this with McCarthy who seems to have a very good sense of what matters most to him at each position and overall did a great job working in harmony with Ted to get those players. Its clear that the coaches are a big part of the scouting process by the insights they share in the post draft interviews they give.

Pettine hasn't been anywhere long enough to gauge whether or not his defenses reliably trend downward but fingers crossed.

[mraynrand]

Couple of problems with your Capers assessment 31. It's just as easy to say that he did well when Thompson brought in talented experience. Did well with Woodson and Pickett right off the bat and last good year was 2012. Revived when brought in Peppers and had experienced groups in 2014 and 2015.

Hayward was good right off the bat with 6 INTs in 2012 and 3 INTs in 2014 - you can't say Capers wasn't capable of getting a lot out of him. Injuries, not Capers ended his stay in GB

Same With Hyde. But Hyde still is more limited - recall the dropped game winner against SF.

Capers was an above average DC who needed talented and mostly experienced groups, but he did well with teachable youth so long as a structure was there. I think he was ranked 7 and 2 in his first two seasons because the talent was there - Wood, Pickett, #1 picks Clay and Raji and a total gems Williams, Shields, and Collins in 2010 made him look great. Losing Collins killed him for two years and losing Shields killed him last year. I think he was pretty much a top 1/3 DC. Not great, but good.

[3irty1]

Couple of problems with your Capers assessment 31. It's just as easy to say that he did well when Thompson brought in talented experience. Did well with Woodson and Pickett right off the bat and last good year was 2012. Revived when brought in Peppers and had experienced groups in 2014 and 2015.

Hayward was good right off the bat with 6 INTs in 2012 and 3 INTs in 2014 - you can't say Capers wasn't capable of getting a lot out of him. Injuries, not Capers ended his stay in GB

Same With Hyde. But Hyde still is more limited - recall the dropped game winner against SF.

Capers was an above average DC who needed talented and mostly experienced groups, but he did well with teachable youth so long as a structure was there. I think he was ranked 7 and 2 in his first two seasons because the talent was there - Wood, Pickett, #1 picks Clay and Raji and a total gems Williams, Shields, and Collins in 2010 made him look great. Losing Collins killed him for two years and losing Shields killed him last year. I think he was pretty much a top 1/3 DC. Not great, but good.

The fact remains that Dom was still a reboot artist elsewhere. And coming in as a new DC is not exactly a stacked deck. You're walking into a situation that got the last DC fired albeit probably aided by a high draft class. I think the "Dom's defenses need experience" idea is a bit overplayed. At some point if your scheme needs experience from people who've been playing football their whole lives its just a bad scheme. Plus Matthews and Shields came online and weren't even experienced by college standards and were immediate playmakers. Injuries are obviously central to the story of the Capers Packers. I can't think of a theory for why Capers defenses are more injury prone but I can theorize why his offseason input could make for a steady decline no matter where he coached. Also is there at all an equivalent to the TT/MM offensive lineman or WR? Even we as fans know the prototype there and they hit with near certainty even as midround picks. That's a type of talent that MM wants, TT could reliably find, and MM's staff could reliably coach into a solid NFL starter. We don't really seem to have anything like that on defense.

[mraynrand]

The fact remains that Dom was still a reboot artist elsewhere.

maybe he was just a better DC than what they had


And coming in as a new DC is not exactly a stacked deck. You're walking into a situation that got the last DC fired albeit probably aided by a high draft class.

OK. So Dom is better than the last guy and properly used Clay and Raji right away. He's a good coach


I think the "Dom's defenses need experience" idea is a bit overplayed.

So do I. That's why i said I thought he did well with youth if a structure is there. Maybe when Shields got hurt and Raji quit, the better solution was solid FA leadership though, rather than rely heavily on development of rookies.

At some point if your scheme needs experience from people who've been playing football their whole lives its just a bad scheme.
Not whole lives, just more than a couple of seasons maybe.

I can theorize why his offseason input could make for a steady decline no matter where he coached.
I disagree on the steady decline assessment. Dom was 7,2, gap 11 gap 12, 13 ranked. I see a guy mostly hovering around top 1/3.

Also is there at all an equivalent to the TT/MM offensive lineman or WR? Even we as fans know the prototype there and they hit with near certainty even as midround picks. That's a type of talent that MM wants, TT could reliably find, and MM's staff could reliably coach into a solid NFL starter. We don't really seem to have anything like that on defense.

I dunno, I see reasonable starters all over the defense: , Perry, Shields, Williams, Martinez. I guess I don't see the mid round guy who turned into a All pro studs, but Burnett Daniels and Hyde seemed like capable mid-rounders. Maybe not enough of them.

[call_me_ishmael]

Really good posts in here in the past couple pages. I still have mixed feelings on Pettine but I will choose to be optimistic and hopeful. Maybe it's a reflection of myself but I expect a better product on the field if only from hearing a different voice for a year.

The philosophy that I mostly closely align with personally is erroring towards a simpler scheme and maybe losing out to superior talent. I would rather my players play as fast as possible and to their greatest extent, even if it means they get beat by better players.

[Joemailman]

Really good posts in here in the past couple pages. I still have mixed feelings on Pettine but I will choose to be optimistic and hopeful. Maybe it's a reflection of myself but I expect a better product on the field if only from hearing a different voice for a year.

The philosophy that I mostly closely align with personally is erroring towards a simpler scheme and maybe losing out to superior talent. I would rather my players play as fast as possible and to their greatest extent, even if it means they get beat by better players.

http://packerswire.usatoday.com/2018...ckers-defense/

According to Bedard, Pettine believes in what he calls the “sponge theory,” a philosophy based on feeding the players more and more content until you get “feedback,” meaning the players have been saturated with as many calls and adjustments possible before it affects communication, aggressiveness and – most importantly – execution.

In Silverstein’s report, Pettine allegedly has simplified his system based on his time with the Seahawks, a team who’s notorious for its simple Cover 3 system.

[3irty1]

The fact remains that Dom was still a reboot artist elsewhere.

maybe he was just a better DC than what they had


And coming in as a new DC is not exactly a stacked deck. You're walking into a situation that got the last DC fired albeit probably aided by a high draft class.

OK. So Dom is better than the last guy and properly used Clay and Raji right away. He's a good coach


I think the "Dom's defenses need experience" idea is a bit overplayed.

So do I. That's why i said I thought he did well with youth if a structure is there. Maybe when Shields got hurt and Raji quit, the better solution was solid FA leadership though, rather than rely heavily on development of rookies.

At some point if your scheme needs experience from people who've been playing football their whole lives its just a bad scheme.
Not whole lives, just more than a couple of seasons maybe.

I can theorize why his offseason input could make for a steady decline no matter where he coached.
I disagree on the steady decline assessment. Dom was 7,2, gap 11 gap 12, 13 ranked. I see a guy mostly hovering around top 1/3.

Also is there at all an equivalent to the TT/MM offensive lineman or WR? Even we as fans know the prototype there and they hit with near certainty even as midround picks. That's a type of talent that MM wants, TT could reliably find, and MM's staff could reliably coach into a solid NFL starter. We don't really seem to have anything like that on defense.

I dunno, I see reasonable starters all over the defense: , Perry, Shields, Williams, Martinez. I guess I don't see the mid round guy who turned into a All pro studs, but Burnett Daniels and Hyde seemed like capable mid-rounders. Maybe not enough of them.

You're right that guys like Hayward, Hyde, and even Peppers or Walden aren't good evidence of the theory I put forth. If Dom can use his guys well he can use them well no matter where they came from. And I don't think the problem is Dom's scheme. I've never really bought the media narrative that learning it is akin to a graduate degree. NFL rookies have played football their whole lives and I think Dom's scheme is probably fine for them. I'm still theorizing though because the defense does seem worse than the sum of its parts and the parts break too much.

Theory #2: On the Athlete:Football Player continuum that exists when making tradeoffs outside the top 10, Ted is on the Al Davis end. Especially on defense this is true. Rarely did Ted spend resources on guys without elite measurables. When he did it was because they were simply too good of football players to ignore where the market placed them (Haha, Hayward, and Bishop come to mind). Because of this the Packers have a disproportionate amount of powerful freaks that more often exceed the structural limits of the human body. We draft athletes whose body's pull themselves apart leading to a disproportionate amount of tendon and hamstring injuries.

Theory #3: The Star theory of team building. For whatever reason a defense with 3 HOFers and the rest suspect starters is a consistently better unit than a defense with 0 or 1 HOFers otherwise staffed by quality starters. The opposite of this theory might be that you're only as good as your weakest link. The Packers lost all their top defenders even while plugging some pretty bad holes with some pretty good players. The overall talent might be the same or higher than ever but football doesn't care. It takes stars to move the needle and jags are jags. I shouldn't expect a defense with talent distributed like ours to perform like a sum of its parts.

[mraynrand]

I'll take Theory #3, for $600 Alex. Star players or difference makers. Woodson, Collins, Matthews, Peppers, Shields. All replaced by decent guys but not by guys who can, with some consistency, make big plays and change games.

[pbmax]

Theory #4: Interference.

Not the kind from nincompoop Snyder and his cronies, but the kind the head coach or GM could introduce by mandating an approach. And one of the things M3 and Dom agreed they could not have were big plays in the passing game against the Defense. Dom was free to experiment but he couldn't allow quick scores via the pass. McCarthy pushed the nickel starting in 2010 and even more in 2011. He is a big believer in matchups and personnel groups.

Dom had featured leaky defenses that played better as the year went on until this year (in 2016 in went from good to train wreck to kinda pathetic due to injuries). I take that as a sign that the coach and the players need a long lead time to settle in for whatever reason (unstated above is the chance the assistant coaches were not working well together).

This year it started OK then got worse quickly. When they started hemorrhaging big plays, Dom sent Dix 25 yards deep and apparently threatened to harm his family if he got closer to the sticks. That was to stop big plays. But it so limited the coverage that they simply leaked everywhere with no pass rush. So you had a LOT of long scoring drives.

McCarthy approach to numbers is simplistic. He sees teams that win tend to run late so he runs a lot late with ANY kind of lead or game play. I'd bet a mortgage payment he has a similar approach to defenses that allow big plays/TDs being harmful to your overall record.

But if they learn Dom's D (or any D) during the season for whatever reason, then pulling the normal D in favor of the do no harm D in the middle of the schedule is bound to backfire.

[mraynrand]

Theories 3 and 4 are not mutually exclusive. You have to ask yourself why they started hemorrhaging big plays on defense. The answer is they ran out of bodies to wreak havoc - both in the pass rush and in coverage. If you can't blanket cover and you can't rush the passer, the #4 option of the slow bleed is your only solution. But without a scoring offense to force the opposing team into a catch up offense, you have no leverage at all. Slow bleed and hope for error is all that remains.

[3irty1]

Yes. The slow bleed defense might actually be the best strategy for an outmatched, underdog team. Slow bleed shortens the game much like a run-heavy offense. Sprinkle in some risky maneuvers and this is the recipe for stealing games.

[pbmax]

I don’t think it pairs well with Hundley at QB. Need turnovers and risk from the D.

[Bossman641]

Yes. The slow bleed defense might actually be the best strategy for an outmatched, underdog team. Slow bleed shortens the game much like a run-heavy offense. Sprinkle in some risky maneuvers and this is the recipe for stealing games.

Did we sprinkle in risky maneuvers though? Seems to me Cspers played more and more cautious as the year went on....I'm guessing due to the db's we were playing.

[3irty1]

Perhaps not Capers but MM sure does. For a list of games where he most felt like an underdog look at games where a surprise onside kick was performed.

At some level turnovers are a numbers game. Slow bleed at least means numbers.

[mraynrand]

I don’t think it pairs well with Hundley at QB. Need turnovers and risk from the D.

I agree. But I just don't think they had the personnel to run it this year. Talent on defense is spread out - solid in many places but entirely unspectacular.

Even with risk, they really couldn't make plays against moderately good or better QBs.

[Fritz]

You people are so dumb. If Capers's first defense when he's hired is always so good, why not fire him and then hire him back every year?

Sheesh. It's obvious.

[pbmax]

I agree. But I just don't think they had the personnel to run it this year. Talent on defense is spread out - solid in many places but entirely unspectacular.

Even with risk, they really couldn't make plays against moderately good or better QBs.

Its kinda chicken and egg though. I do agree this year's combo of DB injury and pass rush incapacity was weirdly worse yet more coordinated than last year's wet paper towel of a defense.

However, if you take no risks on 3rd and medium to long (and the run D held up for the year) you are going to allow more converted 3rd downs regardless of your talent level. Hundley needed a hand, got one occasionally, but the D was usually not in a position to help. I will say that Capers D did get some stops especially in the second halves of games the offense was just standing in place. With BH at QB, the D delivered much more often than the O.

[pbmax]

You people are so dumb. If Capers's first defense when he's hired is always so good, why not fire him and then hire him back every year?

Sheesh. It's obvious.

He would need a disguise. Lom Drapers can't look like his previous incarnation. Might need a new voice too. Maybe do a Bane thing.

[pbmax]

Being in the same defense does have advantages. But it’s probably not what gets you from 30th to 15th ranked.

Roger Mays
Of the Vikings' 11 starters on defense, 7 have been with the team for at least four years. I wrote about Minnesota's key advantage: a unit-wide bachelor's degree in Mike Zimmer's scheme.

https://t.co/flu3nVIX86

[Pugger]

You people are so dumb. If Capers's first defense when he's hired is always so good, why not fire him and then hire him back every year?

Sheesh. It's obvious.