The end of the Season Breakdown
The Green Bay Packers had a fantastic regular season, averaging over 35 points a game and over 40 points a game at home. Unfortunately the Packers laid an egg this post season. Riding a poor defense into the playoffs giving up over 400 yards a game for the season the Packers had to have another strong offensive performance led by Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers. Unfortunately the Giants were ready for the Packers high powered offense and were able to shut down Aaron Rodgers down field passing attack and took advantage of the Packers rare turnovers.
The Packers have obvious holes especially for a team that went 15-1. The defense was pathetically bad and I can’t hold Dom Capers 100% responsible. Players this organization counted on to step up failed, Mike Neil, Erik Walden, Frank Zombo, and Howard Green. One of the most valuable players and playmakers on defense was lost early in the season and possibly for his career, Nick Collins might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to shut down the opponent’s passing games. Due to the loss of Nick Collins the Packers had difficulty communicating all season in the defensive secondary which led to blown assignments, and breakdowns in coverage. Collins’ ability was not replaced, his speed to cover ground and get over the top on coverage and make up ground that his replacement wasn’t capable of doing. Losing Collins also put pressure on the Packers other safeties and they were not able step their games up. They were young, inexperienced, lacking physical and mental abilities to consistently impact the game in a positive fashion for the Packers. The rest of the Packers defense fell apart on the basics, they missed too many tackles, missed assignments, breakdowns in technique, things that could be corrected and fixed but continued for the entire season.
The Packers inability to get to the passer effected the scheme of Dom Capers’ defense. The lack of consistent pressure from all areas brought the Packers once dominant passing defense to screeching hault . Lack of a pass rush opposite of Clay Mathews damaged his ability to consistently put pressure on the QB and live up to his standards as a elite pass rusher. The expectations that Raji would create pressure on the QB by himself was created from his success last year getting several sacks at the end of the season when the Packers had their best numbers in terms of rushing the passer. These were unrealistic expectations for Raji, he was a run stuffer in college and made his name as a run stuffer in the NFL. The lack of a pass rush from the right side limited the effectiveness of Dom Capers 3-4 defense. For the 3-4 defense to succeed the defense need 3 competent defensive linemen, not two.
Offensively the Packers were as good as they have ever been. They made it through the season losing 3 offensive linemen for extended periods of time and not having a reliable rushing game. The Packers had two 1,000 yard receivers in Jennings and Nelson, Aaron Rodgers threw for 45 touchdowns in 15 games for an average of 3 per game, and he threw for over 4,500 yards.