It's the run defense. I do think the NE running backs sliced through or ran over the defense. I grudgingly agree with Wist on the point that NE could've run for lots and lots of yards had they run it more.
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It was a move a lot of people discussed trying to upgrade the talent on the field. My concern was coverage and it has been borne out, however the pluses have outweighed the negatives so far.
I think it will be wise for Dom to keep changing personnel not only to get the best matchup, but I suspect teams could take greater advantage of Clay if they knew each game he will be the dime ILB. The Patriots got one by him in the second half by flooding his zone. Matthews reacted to the first guy, even though he had help there, and the next guy was wide open.
Did you use Cellcom?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgfzX-TV-40
I have mentioned this before but I am nearly convinced that the Steelers unconventional player personnel structure (esp. college side) was not just a reaction to Dan Rooney booting his brother Art Rooney Jr. out of the department (he had been the GM) in the mid-80s, but also a reaction to the needs of the 3-4 defense Cowher/Capers/LeBeau wanted to run. Cowher wanted a hand in personnel and the roster and I think finding the correct D personnel was always an issue.
When Capers and LeBeau left and Haslett was the DC, they changed the LBs. When LeBeau came back, they changed them again.
I suggested moving Clay there as the new "W" position - like Woodson, except that in Clay's case, he would shuttle three positions: DL, OLB, Safety, where Woodson shuffled LB, Safety, Corner. But the freelancing aspect is what I liked, because Clay was getting eaten up by LTs.
And you're right about the coverage. Cheat game-planned to get Vereen (I think) across from Clay as much as possible to exploit his limitations in coverage.
mix it up, keep 'em guessing. Even if you're out of position from time to time (as the Packer D was against NE), the switching schemes and formations can befuddle an offense, even one led by Brady.
I wonder if some of this recent success is a result of having fewer injured players and thus being able to field a defense that is not only more talented but better understands the schemes and calls as well. There seems to be less confusion and Capers seems to be able to dial up more shit than he has in the past. Maybe Clinton-Dix deserves a lot of credit; he seems to understand a lot for a rookie. Dom finally isn't being forced to play raw rookies everywhere.
Health definitely helps. Not sure about number of calls. It was the offseason goal to make fewer adjustments and play more personnel, but I am not sure that has led to fewer alignments or coverages. It might mean he is tweaking game plans less to cover shortcomings.
Agreed, Fritz. HHCD has solidified the back end and the new practice schedule seems to have solved (fingers crossed) the injury problem. Dunderd-dominator is now weapons free and can dial up all sorts of stuff that he can't with an injury depleted squad.
That's what I think this week but the winds of a fan's heart blow fickle.
On Matthews evolving role:
http://www.espnwisconsin.com/page.php?page_id=278Quote:
“Believe me, there’s an awareness on my part in terms of the number of times he’s rushing and dropping. The bottom line is, what gives us the best chance of getting them stopped? He’s done a nice job with the run. You just obviously have to be conscious of how much you’re asking him to go backwards and how much you’re asking him to go forwards.”
So, how do you reconcile the defensive performance we saw against New England and the one we saw last night in the second half vs. Atlanta? What gives?
For the X's and O's people on the board, what did you see the Packers trying to do to defend and what adjustments needed to be made? Coverage lapses, no consistent pressure against a patch-work Atlanta line. It should have been easier for Capers to come up with something to take away Julio and Ryan torching them like they did.
Were the schemes sound but the execution just not there? That Shields free release give up on the Jones TD was amazing. It looked like he had no recognition. If he re-directs him at all in his 5 yard window of opportunity, then the safety help may have gotten there in time, it may have thrown off the timing enough or Ryan may have had to go to a different read.
Shields obviously wasn't himself. But even after they replaced him with House, they left House on an island against Jones. Obviously the game plan was to allow Jones to catch 200-300 yards and run himself out of the game from pure exhaustion. Another Capers stratagem that worked to perfection. I think a raise is in order.
I'm sure that like most of us wist43 is shell shocked after that 2nd half last night.
It will take time to absorb and analyze it all ... or simply toss it into the dumpster and forget it?
No...that last thingy won't work.
Right now to me it's still 'a HOT MESS'.
No pass rush, one other worldly WR. Jones is more Calvin Johnson than Brandon Marshall. Much more speed.
One other note, Packers started with a lot of nickel early and no base. Falcons were running on it pretty well. As the game went on, there was more 3-4 looks. And that introduced a whole new problem in the second half. Completions across the middle to backs, TE and WR. Brad Jones got picked off by the umpire on a 3rd or 4th down.
There just isn't enough coverage ability out there at linebacker. And Peppers mainly helps in zone drops. In man, its a nightmare.
Now wist has suggested this means you put more pass rushers in and take ineffective LBs out and that is understandable, certainly at certain down and distance (3-3!). But only Matthews can move well enough to cover at ILB, Jones is hit or miss and Barrington doesn't have enough speed. Bob might be disappointed but he isn't wrong, ILB needs to be rebuilt completely.
And that pass rush is not reliable enough to get home. Ryan had plenty of time on most drop backs. I also think its possible the D line was doing a controlled pass rush ala facing Wilson or Kapernick. Because Ryan ran very effectively and the did tend to close the pocket rather than break free for a one on one shot.
They had a safety over the top most of the time, but Dix, in one case, still couldn't get there in time after the CB trailed Jones.
I did eventually expect Capers to pull the old Belichick move with Tony Gonzalez, double him at the LOS and beat him to submission.
This game reminded me - painfully and vividly - of just about every game from 2011.
Man, if last week's defense was the "real" Packer defense, this team could go far. If last night's defense is the "real" Packer defense, this is a one-and-done team.
If it's in between, it's not a Super Bowl defense.
That's interesting, because I've always felt that the 2011 Packers were a team of destiny, and that their loss in the divisional round was one of those rare moments when the grand design of the universe develops a bug and crashes. Even with all the bumps in the road (the drop by a rusty Jennings, the bye-week tragedy with Philbin's son), the Packers probably win that game nine times out of ten. We just happened to roll a 10. If the 2014 team turns out to be the reincarnation of the 2011 team, the odds of them capitalizing on their destiny have to be really, really good.
Though it didn't show up last night, the Packers pass rush this year is better than 2011.
I don't think so. They mostly ran 3 wide 1 back and when they wanted to change it up they went two TE or extra lineman. They had an extra OL twice I saw (Gabe Carimi), but those were runs and play action to change tendency.
Ryan was just throwing the ball early and when he had heat he is nimble enough to run. That interior pressure that moved Brady wasn't as obvious last night.
Though to be fair, it might be the same pressure but Ryan could just loft a deep floater to Jones and make a play where the Patriots couldn't.
Beyonf Jones, the killer in the second half was all the short five yard throws that went for 9 yards, many of them in the middle of the field. I am not sure Atlanta is the team to play man against.
I thought Gruden was saying they were playing lots and lots of zone.
I know Ryan was quick, but still, there was no pressure.
If it was mainly zone then it took a step backward from the rest of the season. Lots of false steps and people out of position or late. I saw a lot of trail coverage on Jones, so I thought at least on him they were manned up with a safety over the top.
I was reserving comment until I had a chance to watch the game - listened to it on the radio - but went to play it back today, and the recording fritzed for some reason, so I can't watch it.
Listening to it on the radio, and reading some of the JS comments - it sounds like the bottom line was that dunderdummy simply wouldn't make the necessary adjustment; worse, he wouldn't make any adjustment.
It's not that difficult to adjust from the original gameplan, but dunderdummy has a terrible habit of riding the horse that brung him all the way over the cliff.
Prep for a team like Atlanta should begin with the Ryan-Jones connection. Okay, so dunderdummy thinks he can just run vanilla zones and some man, and that should be good enough; but alas and behold, suppose it's not?? Plan B should be to take that #1 option/threat away, and force Atlanta to beat you in other ways.
Far too often dunderdummy will scratch out a gameplan, and then simply live or die by it - my theory is that the spraypaint he uses on his hair has seeped into his brain, and while he may have a few lucid moments here and there, ala the NE game, most of the time the guy is in a fog.
The NE game, followed by this stinker, is exactly my point about the guy - and has been a point I've been making since the day we hired him, i.e. he has the potential to gameplan and execute an outstanding gameplan which gives his team more than ample opportunity to win; but the Jekyl/Hyde in him, can turn around the next week and vomit a complete mess that will lose you the game.
The guy simply cannot be trusted - week in/week out... regardless of talent available to him, you simply don't know what you're going to get. We have enough talent on this team to win a title - the biggest question mark surrounding this team and our chances?? Is Dunderdummy.
The interesting thing about this stinker is rather than sitting in a pass defense and hemorrhaging rushing yards it was the other way around. We sat mostly in run defense formations with zone behind it against a team with an old RB and no tight ends. What I think is revealing was that our idea of an adjustment wasn't to the game plan, at least from what I saw, it was to replace Sam Shields with House. That did help a little but I think that says something about Capers that the game plan depends on our secondary hanging with Julio Jones one on one all night. After what he did last week it I'd think there'd be a plan B.
The passrush wasn't great and the announcers mentioned that but I honestly don't think they were the problem. Some of it was perfect execution that was contested, a lot of had to do with them taking desperation mode risks, but a lot of it was quick passes to wide open Julio.
Can someone go thru the defensive snaps and give the alignments, i.e. 3-4, 2-4, 1-whatever??
Listening to it on the radio, every once in a while they'd say we were in a nickel, but for the most part they rarely give alignments, and they never speak negatively, i.e. a big gainer against us is never the fault of the defense, but rather it is the result of a great play by the offense... and so it goes with all media - positivity on steroids, no one is ever to blame for anything, it's always about being being positive; reality be damned.
Talked to my brother fairly early in the game, and he said they were in a 1-?? nickel right then...
Don't trust Max to give the breakdown though - Max thinks 3 down linemen is a 2-4, lol... so can't take his word for it ;)
The D did fine in the first half and then got complacent in the 2nd half with the big lead. The game was never really in doubt and Capers continued to play bend D to force time off the clock only to watch Shields and Dix peeking into the backfield in zones repeatedly and getting burned as a result. When the under zone was in place the over safety was late. When the safety was in place over, the corners were out of place due to peaking. Jones found open spots repeatedly.
You might have thought Capers would cheat to Jones but this was a case of players not doing their job and getting beat. He beat Williams like a red-headed stepchild to start the half in man coverage, then zones with over coverage were undisciplined. In the end, the game dictated the defense and short of over-compensating for Jones, the game came down to a hot receiver having his way with DB's - just about all of them - not scheme.
I did notice that the Packers played just about all 2-4 the first half when they dominated on both sides of the ball - jumping out to a 31-7 lead and winning ToP by 21-9.
Echoing others, but my take on the game was that the Packers played mostly zone.
Also, I don't have the exact formation breakdown other than they played 8 downs of 3-4.
I didn't write it down or anything, but there was quite a bit of Neal, Daniels, Guion, Peppers all with a hand in the dirt alignment. None were getting pressure though. When Clay would move to the edge, the would run away from him time and again. They moved Julio Jones to the slot and Ryan would just stare at him waiting for him to get open. This was a full team effort to suck that bad in the second half.
The first Falcons drive yielded some good runs, but that was against nickel. Hawk did go in, but played the lowest number of snaps for him since 2008 (8 total).
First half D yielded 160 yards and 7 points and collected zero sacks and 1 INT. Perry played ROLB but had only one effective rush I saw and was not in time.
What I don't have is the numbers of snaps for Matthews at ILB with Barrington. So there could have been some run D 3-4 with Hawk on sideline, but that wasn't the predominant defense in the first half. Jones was the dime linebacker. I do think Hawk played more in the second half, but I don't have the snap numbers yet.
EDIT: Said 1 first half sack, but that was incorrect.
My hope, which is completely unsupported and just a guess out of left field, is that Dom didn't want to show anything in the 2nd half with the game well in hand. So we played vanilla D and let the WRs run all day.
No need to give away new wrinkles in your D when you are up 20+ points at half. When the Falcons got it close enough that we need to come out of our "prevent" D our pass rush was gassed.
Good thing the O scored 43.
It looked like there was man coverage on Jones on almost every play, and there was supposed to be safety help but it was dramatically late far too often. Allowing Jones to get 250 yards receiving left him totally spent, and the Packers won. Capers' plan worked to perfection.
I was at the game so the "All-22" showed a number of times when corners (Shields in particular) come off Jones, flatten out and look back to the QB only to see Jones stay in their area and find gaps after the corner lost him... It was zone technique on a bunch of 2nd half plays in my estimation, though they did mix it up. House played man more and shadowed Jones on a few ocassions where he had a couple break-ups.
The main story in the 2nd half was tons of cover 1/cover 3 with a safety in the box. It doesn't make sense.
When we gave up 200 yards rushing to the Bears I wasn't unhappy with the defensive effort because it was a good plan to sell out against their top 10 WR's and make Forte beat us. I would have expected last night's defense to look similar in game plan although better in results because Atlanta is more 1 dimensional than Chicago and our tackling efforts in general have somewhat improved. These are the games I just can't make sense of where our opponent appears to have a clear strength, they're having a lot of success with that strength, there's no reason to suspect they'll stop leveraging that strength, yet we're defending against something else entirely. The Bears game was a much better game plan with much better results. Running backs and tight ends can hurt you but WR's and QB's will kill you. You'd think Green Bay would know that as well as any team in the league.