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Bretsky
01-11-2012, 10:09 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/ny-giants-stop-green-bay-packers-qb-aaron-rodgers-article-1.1004383

In the year of the quarterback, the Giants have to stop perhaps the quarterback of the year.

Aaron Rodgers set an NFL record this season with a quarterback rating of 122.5 with 45 touchdowns against six interceptions. The Giants came close to beating him once this season. Now they’ll have one more shot with a lot more on the line.

Can they stop him? No.

Can they beat him? They do possess a number of elements needed to pull that off. It will take near perfect execution, but here is one formula for getting that done:

BRING THE HEAT TO THE KITCHEN
Here’s a quote from the Lions Ndamukong Suh from before this year’s Thanksgiving Day game. It still pertains:

“He’s playing at a very high level, but the way to stop him is to continue to hit him. We had a great game plan against him last year. He wasn’t able to come back in the game, and that’s one way to take care of business. Another way is to continue to be in his face and cause him problems — just don’t allow him to get in a rhythm.”

NY GIANTS PLAYOFF REWIND: A LOOK BACK AT BIG BLUE'S THREE SUPER BOWLS

“It doesn’t really matter what coverage you play if you hit Aaron Rodgers silly,” said Matt Bowen, a former safety who played for Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell and now writes on X’s and O’s online for the National Football Post. “It doesn’t matter what you draw up on the chalkboard. If you can get Aaron Rodgers to move off the spot, slide his feet, make him avoid pressure, routes break down when that happens. The timing’s off.

“You can’t throw the ball from your back,” Bowen adds. “The Giants’ front four is the most dominant and most physical that anyone is going to see at any stage of the playoffs.”
This is where the entire hopes of the Giants lie, that they can get to and disrupt Rodgers. It’s happened before. The Chiefs held the Packers to 14 points in handing the Packers their only loss and they has just one dominant pass rusher – Tamba Hali. On the Giants, Jason Pierre-Paul, Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora have spearheaded a dominant D-line rotation that has allowed Fewell to drop seven into coverage.

In other words, make this a Super Bowl XLII reprise.

“The big thing is can they get to Aaron Rodgers early in the game?” notes Brian Baldinger, analyst for the NFL Network. “Can they get to him and hit him and affect him? As good as he is, it’s much like Brady in the Super Bowl. Perceived pressure is just as real as real pressure sometimes. And it you can get him to take his eyes off down the field for just a second, I think that’s pretty big.”

Chiefs coach Romeo Crennel says that what his team was able to accomplish.

“We were able to put a little pressure on him at times and get him off the spot. He wasn’t quite as accurate as he normally is,” Crennel said. “We used five-man pressure and Tamba Hali had a great game for us. They’re more effective with a four-man rush.”

Baldinger thinks Fewell will have four defensive ends on the field at once at times, another Steve Spagnuolo tactic from ’07, and, at the least force the Packers to max-protect, eliminating a potential receiver.

“What you try to do it, can you make him move, can you make him bring the ball down? Can you make him pump? Can you get a hand in his face where he doesn’t have clear vision?” Baldinger ask. “Those are the type of things you try to do and I don’t know if there’s anybody in the league playing better than JPP. There’s no one who can handle him.”
Of course, Rodgers isn’t going to go soft like Matt Ryan did Sunday. Pierre-Paul, for the most part, put Rodgers under a lot of pressure in the regular season game but the Packers offense still put 31 points on the board. On the game-winning drive, Tuck, at full speed, was in Rodgers’ face and Rodgers made a throw few other QBs could make, hitting Jordy Nelson up the left sideline.

YOU CAN ALWAYS HOPE TO CONTAIN HIM
The Giants will also have to do a better job of contain, something the Chiefs did quite effectively. Rodgers is the most accurate quarterback in the league throwing on the run, moving to either his right or left (where he’s one of the best - ever). He was also able to pick up scramble yards, especially when the Giants played man coverage.

“You definitely don’t want to let him get outside the pocket,” former Jet head coach and current ESPN analyst Herm Edwards told CBS Sports earlier this year. “He’s so dangerous there. The problem is not what’s happening there but what’s happening on the back end where your zones are fragmented. I’ve seen this guy roll to his right, stop, then throw to his left 60 yards and hit his receiver in stride. Your coverage zones can get distorted when he’s running around like that, and that’s tough.”

In a perfect world, the Giants would be able to create quick pressure up the gut, breaking up the rhythm of the play, while flushing Rodgers out to the guys responsible for contain.

It’s noteworthy, too, that the Packers’ offensive line is healthy again and will have both OTs, Bryan Bulaga and Chad Clifton together for one of the few times all season.
“But,” Baldinger notes, “the Giants are as healthy as they’ve been all season up front and the Packers’ two tackles haven’t plays in a long time.”

Pierre-Paul will have a chance to win his matchup, and, as the theory goes, all you have to do is win one.

A PRESSING ISSUE
There’s an old theory that goes back to the Raiders and the old AFL, that brawn beats finesse.

“You look historically at how some of the great offenses have been shut down,” Bowen notes. “They physically whipped guys in press coverage. That’s one way to do it. But you really have to beat that wide receiver to death at the line of scrimmage.”

The Giants got very physical with the Falcons receivers Sunday and were able to stifle the passing game. The Chiefs played press coverage (Greg Jennings didn’t play) and took the Packer receivers out of the game.

“They challenged us and, frankly, that’s the way you stop a team that can throw the football,” head coach Mike McCarthy admitted after the game. “They played us a lot of two-man or cover one. They got up, and they pressed us from the time we got off the bus.”

Baldinger sees the Giants going the same route

“I don’t think they’ll play very far off the receivers. I think they’ll play on a lot because if you do play off, Rodgers will just throw smoke on you,” he said. “He’ll go to an automatic and get the ball out to any one of them and make you pay.”

But ESPN’s Tim Hasselbeck doesn’t think the Giants have the personnel to match up in press coverage all game.

“To look back and say they had this formula that no one else had is inaccurate,” he says of the Chiefs’ game plan. “Here’s the other thing that people don’t know. People say, ‘oh, the Kansas City Chiefs, they’re not any good.’ Well guess what? Brandon Flowers and Brandon Carr, are really good players. The Kansas City corners are better than (Corey) Webster and (Aaron) Ross. People don’t know about them but the reality is they’re better.”

“Green Bay’s got great players. It just comes down to technique,” Bowen says. “I thought the Giants’ DBs were excellent in the Atlanta game. I thought they were very active. I thought they challenged routes. I thought they played good man in coverage. The Giants aren’t going to be afraid of these guys. They’ll play press coverage.”

“Just don’t get beat at the line of scrimmage,” Bowen adds, however. “You get beat at the line of scrimmage, you’re toast. You’re put in a trail position, you start to panic a little. And these Green Bay receivers: Jordy Nelson has shown the ability to get off press. Jennings has. (Donald) Driver’s a veteran, he’s seen press man for a decade.”

Bretsky
01-11-2012, 10:09 PM
MIX IT UP
The Packers may not have expected the Giants to play as much man-under coverage (with two deep safeties) in the first game. Fewell mixed that in with a lot of early zone. That Cover 2 approach worked for the Bears last year but Rodgers can too easily carve up the middle of the field that way.

Hasselbeck likes the man-under approach.

“Generally speaking, that’s a difficult coverage to complete passes against. Generally speaking when you complete passes against it, it’s on some form of an out-breaking route. Because of the leverage, it’s difficult to complete in-breaking routes. You see a lot of people try to attack the middle of the field but if you’re running some type of seam that bends to the post versus two-man, that’s still a difficult pass to complete.”

That’s why tight end Jermichael Finley was so involved in the passing attack in the first game.

Baldinger thinks the Giants can get away with their big nickel, using three safeties on the field.

“They’re all good tacklers and that’s one thing you’ve got to do to this team, you’ve got to tackle well,” Baldinger said. “It helps with their run game, it helps with their blitz game.”

Last week, the Giants got away with playing safety Antrel Rolle on Atlanta’s third WR, Harry Douglas. Can they take that kind of chance against these guys?

“I just don’t think there’s a lot of correlation or carryover necessarily between what happened last week in Atlanta and what’s going to happen against Green Bay,” Hasselbeck notes.

“Atlanta really wanted to live in two backs, a tight end and two wide receivers, a base personnel grouping. For the most part, the Packers want to live in multiple receiver sets,” he added. “If Prince Amukamara wants to get up and challenge Jordy Nelson and there’s one safety in the middle of the field, Green Bay will take that matchup every time.”

Baldinger agreed the Packers aren’t the Falcons.

“When Matt Ryan is going max protection on first down, throwing a five-yard stop rout to Roddy White, the Giants knew they had them beat,” he said.

“I thought Matt Ryan was afraid to throw the ball. He was shell shocked,” Bowen said. “All week long they said (Tim) Tebow needed to pull the trigger. Well so did Matt Ryan. He didn’t really test them down the field. Aaron Rodgers will. When he needs to make a play, he’s not afraid to throw it.”

DISGUISE, DISGUISE, DISGUISE
A central part of the game plan against the Falcons was not allowing Ryan to feel he had a bead on the Giants’ coverage schemes. Ryan almost became preoccupied with Deon Grant’s pre-snap movements, for instance. That’s not as easy with Rodgers, who will take the clock down as long as he wants.

“It’s not about confusing the guy but you can’t let him know what you’re doing,” Broncos safety Brian Dawkins explained before their game. “You can’t give him a clean pre-snap read every play. You have to move it around, disguise it and play with confidence. That’s key because they’re going to put the ball in the air. You know that back shoulder throw is coming so you have to have the game plan ahead of time.”

“We knew we had to mix things up so he had to figure some things out, instead of him standing there looking and saying, O.K., I know what they’re in and this is where I need to go with the ball,” Crennel said. “We didn’t do a lot of pre-snap looks but we mixed personal groups on him and used multiple defensive backs a couple of times.”

Confidence, as Dawkins put it, is not something the Giants are lacking.

“They have a bounce in their step. They were getting off the field before third down was even finished the other day. And that’s the thing, when you play defense like that, I don’t care who the quarterback is . .. if you expect to get off the field, you will. And that’s the thing that looks like they have going for them.”

KEEP THINGS IN FRONT OF YOU
The Packers matched their speed against the Giants DBs in last year’s regular season matchup and ran them out of Lambeau Field. Fewell could decide he wants to play more Cover 2 at times.

“The defense that has had the most success against Green Bay has been the Bears and Lovie Smith plays a lot of Cover 2,” Bowen notes. “He says, ‘O.K., we’re going to take away the vertical game. We’re not going to let you get down the field. We have Brian Urlacher that can run down the field and we’re going to make you throw it underneath.’

“Defenses like to do that because their mindset is if an offense has to go 12 plays, that offensive coordinator is going to get impatient because those guys have huge egos and they’re going to throw it down the field. Two, you have penalties and three turnovers. There are plenty of opportunities to make a mistake.”

The Giants really couldn’t stop the Packers on third down in that first game. Bowen thinks Fewell might go to a variation of Cover 2 on third and long.

“When Perry was my defensive coordinator in Buffalo, that’s all we were was Cover 2,” he said. “We had some zone blitzes and some man-to-man but predominantly, when you had to stop them it was Cover 2 and when it was third and long we played what’s called Green Cover 2, where the corners will play what’s called a soft squat and the safeties will line up about 18 yards deep and there was just no way to throw the ball deep against that. There were just too many guys back there and you’d force the quarterback to take the checkdown.”

KEEP HIM WITHIN REACH
That means on the scoreboard.

Tuck said it best.

“If you fall behind, you can pack your bags and go home,” noting that the Saints and Packers are the best teams he’s ever seen “letting their athleticism take over games” once they’re in front.

After the first meeting, Tom Coughlin said he had a number in mind what he thought the Packers would have to be held to in order to win the game. He didn’t say what that number was but it couldn’t have been 38, with the seven extra points coming on an Eli Manning pick six.

The Giants proved they can trade points with the Packers but that was at home, and with the emergence of their running game, it would be wiser to play a little more ball control in order to keep Rodgers on the sideline.

“Everybody tries that, but those guys score so often, man,” Vikings coach Leslie Frazier says. “They get seven possessions and score six times. It’s a good strategy, it’s a good thought when you sit down and strategize, but...short of keeping the football for 15 minutes of a quarter, you've got to find a way to slow him down."

Of course, when we asked Crennel what he felt he had to take away from Rodgers going into the game, he said the clock.

“We felt offensively if we could move the ball and keep Rodgers on the sidelines, that would be helpful to out,” he said. “The other thing Green Bay does is create turnovers. We felt like if we didn’t turn the ball over, that would be helpful and we were able to get some of that done.”

When asked for a key for the Giants, Crennel said it would be the Giants running game.

“They have those big backs and they’ll throw them at Green Bay. If they can get that running game going where they can churn the yards out, that will have a big impact on the game.”

AND FURTHERMORE
It’s not just about how the Giants will try to stop Rodgers. It’s how Rodgers will try to attack the Giants. Who will take away more from the first game?

“How about if you’re the Packers? What’s your answer to that pass rush?” Hasselbeck asks. “If you look at them, maybe the best thing Green Bay has done all year long it the quick game. The ball comes out so fast, teams are for them post part afraid of the speed the Packers have to they’re not always up challenging the receivers. And so the offensive line can cut defensive ends and they aren’t pass-setting all game long. If you get into the quick game, it basically eliminates the pass rush.”

Baldinger says the Giants have to be able to defend the back shoulder throw.

“It’s what Aaron Rodgers had perfected,” he said. “There’s a difference in the back shoulder throw the Giants were using back when they had Plaxico (Burress). They’ll do it with any receiver on any part of the field. They feel it’s indefensible and when you have that type of confidence in your accuracy, it is indefensible.”

AND FINALLY
Hope he’s off. Hope his receivers are off. If you take a look at the Packers’ win over the Giants this year, they dropped six passes on Rodgers, who in turn missed a few plays he should have made. The same thing occurred against the Chiefs. Finley in particular, had the dropsies.

Can the Giants affect that? That’s why they will play the game.

.

Upnorth
01-12-2012, 09:44 AM
I am not convinced pressure has affected Arod as much as the WR drops this year. Does pressure affect him on a specific play, yes. Does it affect him beyond the play at hand, I dont think so. He rarely gets happy feet even with continued pressure, even in KC it only happened once or twice.

Pugger
01-12-2012, 11:17 AM
It got kinda ugly in KC after Bulaga and Sherrod went down. We had a make-shift O line with guys playing out of position. We won't have this issue on Sunday.

smuggler
01-13-2012, 07:48 AM
Yeah, as long as you can simultaneously flood the defensive backfield with bodies and cover everyone and also pressure Rodgers and hit him and sack him with 3 or 4 guys, you've got him good. God what a fucking retarded article.

jdrats
01-13-2012, 07:51 AM
Yeah, as long as you can simultaneously flood the defensive backfield with bodies and cover everyone and also pressure Rodgers and hit him and sack him with 3 or 4 guys, you've got him good. God what a fucking retarded article.

Lol! +1--My thoughts exactly!

mraynrand
01-13-2012, 09:49 AM
If the Giants get pressure - a lot of pressure - with 4 linemen, they have a chance. The games I remember the Packers just absolutely struggling with pressure are those Vikings games from 2008 and 2009. Clifton is a bit of an unknown, since he was rusty against Detroit, but otherwise, the Packer O-line in 2010 is significantly superior to those lines. I don't see Rodgers spending a lot of time on his rump against 4 man pressure, and they routinely burn five and six man pressures.

denverYooper
01-13-2012, 09:49 AM
Yeah, as long as you can simultaneously flood the defensive backfield with bodies and cover everyone and also pressure Rodgers and hit him and sack him with 3 or 4 guys, you've got him good. God what a fucking retarded article.

LOL. Pretty much a recipe that will beat any team's passing game.

denverYooper
01-13-2012, 09:51 AM
If the Giants get pressure - a lot of pressure - with 4 linemen, they have a chance. The games I remember the Packers just absolutely struggling with pressure are those Vikings games from 2008 and 2009. Clifton is a bit of an unknown, since he was rusty against Detroit, but otherwise, the Packer O-line in 2010 is significantly superior to those lines. I don't see Rodgers spending a lot of time on his rump against 4 man pressure, and they routinely burn five and six man pressures.

Pretty unlikely they get any more pressure than last time they met, with Green Bay being at home and having a healthier OL this time around. That pressure didn't seem to win the game for the Gmen.

smuggler
01-13-2012, 11:34 AM
That doesn't even count the dropsies from the KC game.

sharpe1027
01-13-2012, 03:23 PM
Blueprint:
1) Get pressure
2) Contain him to the pocket (at the expense of #1?)
3) Use mostly press coverage
4) Mix up coverage a lot (what happened to #3?)
5) Keep things in front of you with Cover 2 (what about #3 and 4?)
6) Keep the score close (brilliant!)
7) Defend the quick pass (what about #5?)
8) Defend the back shoulder throw (what about #3)
9) Get lucky

Man, I really hope none of the Giants coaches see this. The Packer's won't have a chance.