Capers' Accountability

[Cheesehead Craig]

So, should MM have fired Capers mid-season? Or should he have trusted that the same DC who had an excellent defense last season was going to turn it around with pretty much the same cast of characters?

[woodbuck27]

So, should MM have fired Capers mid-season? Or should he have trusted that the same DC who had an excellent defense last season was going to turn it around with pretty much the same cast of characters?

Fire your Defensive Coordinator when your team is 8-0. What does 8-0 suggest to you? Given that response as you look at yourself in a mirror. Ask yourself why? are you posing this question...Uhh?

[Cheesehead Craig]

Fire your Defensive Coordinator when your team is 8-0. What does 8-0 suggest to you? Given that response as you look at yourself in a mirror. Ask yourself why? are you posing this question...Uhh?

It was in response to ZachMN's hystrics over MM and believing it was his fault how the defense was.

[woodbuck27]

Capers was trying to create something out of nothing sometimes. If we were in our base 3-4, Wilson & Wynn were horrible, and the OLB on their side either Walden, Zombo, or Jones were horrible, so there is a weakness. Tramon was not the 2010 Tramon, Woodson was trying to do more than he is able to, Burnett was essentially having his rookie season, and Peprah is a joke. If we were in any other defense, the 2-4-5, we then lacked run support, and if Bush was in he's just as bad as Peprah, so there are more weaknesses. If we truly want our defense to improve, we need to replace the a DE, OLB, and S to start with unless Collins is able to come back. Then we need to hope that Shields continues to develop, but we need another DB caues Bush, Lee, Peprah should all be gone.

That post is the way I see it. Not sure what happened to Walden this season as he was 'on fire' after arriving late last. Guessing his fire was lost to his belly. Collins was a very HUGE loss. We all felt a chill come on after that. We know now, how valuable he really was. The DC cannot have it all right or basically that way one season (last) and lose it the next. It comes down to reacting to adversity and personel changes physically OR ATTITUDINALLY. Having the men in to do the best job as a team that's possible. I always liked the Bill Bilichick method. That man is busy. He's trying to improve the Pat's every minute.

You have to work with talent or players willing to learn and work their tails off. I suspect alot of teams would certainly welcome Dom Capers as a DC and maybe he'll land a HC position and really test himself again. I see a world of pain becoming very evident very soon, somehow. . . . .
the house in bad need of repairs.


GO Ted Thompson.

[run pMc]

Solidifying the DE, OLB, and S spots will help.

I think the Giants have repeatedly proven that a good pass rush can hide a lot of secondary issues.
Pickett, Raji, and Wilson/Wynn aren't gonna give you a pass rush, and doubling or chipping Matthews is too easy.
Walden/Zombo has to give way to someone who can threaten the other edge and take some heat off Matthews.
The safeties didn't play well this year -- the miscommunication was shocking at times. Either Collins was that good or Burnett that clueless.

[Joemailman]

Seems to me Capers played conservative all year, counting on the offense to score a bunch and the other team to make enough mistakes to win the game. That philosophy is fine in certain situations, but sometimes you just have to take the game to the other team. I feel that with the Offense being so high octane you wouldn't mind taking chances on D and really come after the other team, but it seems Capers and MM thought differently.

He may have gotten conservative at times with a big lead, but overall Capers called more blitzes this year than last.

[pbmax]

Nonsense?!?!?!?! MM is the Head coach and he TOLERATES this defense! Yeah he wants an aggressive defense that emphasizes takeaways at the expense of fundamentals!

Per the TMQ:

"Now about the Green Bay defense. It finished last in the league; Packers faithful said this was because Green Bay was often so far ahead that the defense faced a lot of extra snaps from teams with no chance to win, allowing opponents to pad their yardage. Against the Giants, Green Bay was behind the entire game. The "we're just cleaning up for the offense" excuse did not apply. And the defense was cover-your-eyes awful.

Jersey/A converted eight of 16 third downs. On six of the eight conversions, the Packers blitzed, which meant someone would be open. If you're going to blitz you'd better get to the quarterback, which Green Bay did only once. During the season, the Green Bay defense compensated for its yards allowed by 31 interceptions, as the Packers finished second in the NFL with plus-24 in give/take. Sunday, Green Bay was minus-three in give/take as the defense got the ball only once. Maybe emphasizing fundamentals on defense would have been a better plan for Green Bay.

TMQ supposed last week that one reason for this season's offensive stat-a-rama is that: "Today's defensive players are bored by topics like tackling fundamentals or stripping blockers so a teammate can make the play: They want to generate flashy 'SportsCenter' visuals." I cited the Packers as my example. What did the Packers' defense do versus the Giants? Tried for flashy plays instead of using fundamentals.

Game tied at 3, Hakeem Nicks caught a short pass over the middle. Packers safety Charlie Peprah had the angle for a routine wrap-up tackle. Instead he hurled himself into Nicks, trying to make Nicks fly sideways for a SportsCenter-class highlight play. Nicks bounced off the poor-form tackle attempt and went 66 yards for a touchdown. "

Make apologies for that crap- they were bad the year they lost to Arizona- they aren't allowing mega yards to just high powered offenses- they allow every team to go insane against them!! Most teams could forgo suiting up their punter against us!

PLUEEEEEEZ take off the green and gold goggles!

I cannot take seriously any poster who puts this man's tripe on the board as authoritative.

Gregg is an idiot and I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that his 6 of 8 first down conversions versus blitzes is wrong. Because Gregg has misidentified rushers from blitzes before (4 rushers of any stripe is not a blitz, 5 or more is when you are talking about the number of people in coverage).

The other thing Gregg fails to share is what happened on the 8 stops. Because I bet they blitzed the same ratio and that would render his point moot. He also fails to share down and distance information. I would bet the 6 of 8 number is also explained by the distance to go.

He is leading you to the conclusion he wishes to make: that today's players do not play the game the right way. He is not going to give you honest analysis in the pursuit. That has been his theme all year with the Glory Boys mentions. Be careful, following Gregg's advice will lead you to go Hue Jackson with all your first round picks.

Lastly, in a long and roundabout way, Gregg has discovered another reason why Peprah is not suited to being a starter.

Why do I have the sense that every trolling poster has come out of the woodwork in the last 2 weeks?

Is this some sort of site page and click generation plan where all the nuts will blame Ted Thompson for measles (because he hasn't drafted an immunologist) and McCarthy for the death of the coffin corner punt (Slocum!) ?

[Upnorth]

I cannot take seriously any poster who puts this man's tripe on the board as authoritative.

Gregg is an idiot and I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that his 6 of 8 first down conversions versus blitzes is wrong. Because Gregg has misidentified rushers from blitzes before (4 rushers of any stripe is not a blitz, 5 or more is when you are talking about the number of people in coverage).

The other thing Gregg fails to share is what happened on the 8 stops. Because I bet they blitzed the same ratio and that would render his point moot. He also fails to share down and distance information. I would bet the 6 of 8 number is also explained by the distance to go.

He is leading you to the conclusion he wishes to make: that today's players do not play the game the right way. He is not going to give you honest analysis in the pursuit. That has been his theme all year with the Glory Boys mentions. Be careful, following Gregg's advice will lead you to go Hue Jackson with all your first round picks.

Lastly, in a long and roundabout way, Gregg has discovered another reason why Peprah is not suited to being a starter.

Why do I have the sense that every trolling poster has come out of the woodwork in the last 2 weeks?

Is this some sort of site page and click generation plan where all the nuts will blame Ted Thompson for measles (because he hasn't drafted an immunologist) and McCarthy for the death of the coffin corner punt (Slocum!) ?

It isnt Ted fault for measels, its polio.
Take it you don't agree with Eastbrook? I have always enjoyed reading his article, but more for amusement than analysis. I don't thin khe played football so misses many of the concepts. One thing I do give him lots of credit for is that he pays attention to the oline, which I think is under appreciated in todays media coverage.

[Smidgeon]

I don't think Mathews did either.

Except after the 14th or 15th game, he was second in the league in QB pressures. Sure, he didn't have the sacks, but he was asked to do a heck of a lot more than just rush the passer and still was second in the league.

Doesn't mean you're wrong. I'm not even sure I disagree. I just wanted to add that nugget to the conversation.

[Smidgeon]

I cannot take seriously any poster who puts this man's tripe on the board as authoritative.

Gregg is an idiot and I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that his 6 of 8 first down conversions versus blitzes is wrong. Because Gregg has misidentified rushers from blitzes before (4 rushers of any stripe is not a blitz, 5 or more is when you are talking about the number of people in coverage).

The other thing Gregg fails to share is what happened on the 8 stops. Because I bet they blitzed the same ratio and that would render his point moot. He also fails to share down and distance information. I would bet the 6 of 8 number is also explained by the distance to go.

He is leading you to the conclusion he wishes to make: that today's players do not play the game the right way. He is not going to give you honest analysis in the pursuit. That has been his theme all year with the Glory Boys mentions. Be careful, following Gregg's advice will lead you to go Hue Jackson with all your first round picks.

Lastly, in a long and roundabout way, Gregg has discovered another reason why Peprah is not suited to being a starter.

Why do I have the sense that every trolling poster has come out of the woodwork in the last 2 weeks?

Is this some sort of site page and click generation plan where all the nuts will blame Ted Thompson for measles (because he hasn't drafted an immunologist) and McCarthy for the death of the coffin corner punt (Slocum!) ?

You noticed that too?

[pbmax]

It isnt Ted fault for measels, its polio.
Take it you don't agree with Eastbrook? I have always enjoyed reading his article, but more for amusement than analysis. I don't thin khe played football so misses many of the concepts. One thing I do give him lots of credit for is that he pays attention to the oline, which I think is under appreciated in todays media coverage.

Easterbrook makes a half-hearted attempt at thinking about football. He does mention interesting material elsewhere. He is mostly a media critic, and when he is debunking announcers and writer's tropes about football, he does a fine job, culling material from many good sources. Easterbrook is one of the first writers on a major media website to write that the establish the run trope might be a tad overstated and self defeating for some teams.

But when he attempts to analyze the game himself, he ties himself in knots by making everything a simplistic one dimensional choice. He used to trot out down and distance average of an offense, then when the opposing defense blitzed and failed, he would state that is they simply played standard defense, the odds would have been in their favor. Easterbrook is enough of a scientist to know that data is riddled with complicating factors (such as the offense having an average gain of so many yards while facing a substantial percentage of blitzes, etc.). And he never analyzed the defense's performance, only critiqued the coordinator as a Big Blitz guy.

The column is not his main job and it is interesting and different from most other football writers. But the licenses he takes with his points is tiring after a while.

[KalamazooPackerFan]

For my money, I saw the D winning early downs consistantly sunday. 3rd and longs all day were picked up, because they play 8 man coverage with 3 man rush. Only superb rushers are going to get any pressure with a 3 man rush. Later in the game they started bringing pressure and it worked for awhile, enough to keep the pathetic offense in the game. Like anything though when the Offense gives the ball away, we kick an onside kick early in the game the D just wore down.....to blame this game on the D is ludicrous.

I wouldn't go so far as to blame this loss on the defense. They played better run D than they had all year except for the first Bear game. I just don't think they were good enough to overcome a bad day for the offense. And teams where one side of the ball can't step up when the other side is having a bad day inevitably lose at some point.

[wist43]

Capers was trying to create something out of nothing sometimes. If we were in our base 3-4, Wilson & Wynn were horrible, and the OLB on their side either Walden, Zombo, or Jones were horrible, so there is a weakness. Tramon was not the 2010 Tramon, Woodson was trying to do more than he is able to, Burnett was essentially having his rookie season, and Peprah is a joke. If we were in any other defense, the 2-4-5, we then lacked run support, and if Bush was in he's just as bad as Peprah, so there are more weaknesses. If we truly want our defense to improve, we need to replace the a DE, OLB, and S to start with unless Collins is able to come back. Then we need to hope that Shields continues to develop, but we need another DB caues Bush, Lee, Peprah should all be gone.

I agree... and would argue that the results from this years defensive unit are more in line with the lack of talent we have in our front 7.

We have Raji, Pickett, and Matthews... the other 4 starting spots are empty, and there is exactly zero depth. Last year we got lucky, and Capers was masterful at using smoke and mirrors... but our lack of front 7 talent showed up in all its horror this year.

The blame for this years defensive shortcomings is more accurately laid on TT. What does anyone want to bet our 1st 3 picks this spring will all be offensive players??

[Cheesehead Craig]

Easterbrook makes a half-hearted attempt at thinking about football. He does mention interesting material elsewhere. He is mostly a media critic, and when he is debunking announcers and writer's tropes about football, he does a fine job, culling material from many good sources. Easterbrook is one of the first writers on a major media website to write that the establish the run trope might be a tad overstated and self defeating for some teams.

But when he attempts to analyze the game himself, he ties himself in knots by making everything a simplistic one dimensional choice. He used to trot out down and distance average of an offense, then when the opposing defense blitzed and failed, he would state that is they simply played standard defense, the odds would have been in their favor. Easterbrook is enough of a scientist to know that data is riddled with complicating factors (such as the offense having an average gain of so many yards while facing a substantial percentage of blitzes, etc.). And he never analyzed the defense's performance, only critiqued the coordinator as a Big Blitz guy.

The column is not his main job and it is interesting and different from most other football writers. But the licenses he takes with his points is tiring after a while.

To me, he dislikes the blitz and thus will only use examples that will prove his point that it's no good. I used to read him for entertainment but it got to the point where he's simply too long winded and frankly, he wasn't all that entertaining any longer. He tries to hard to be witty and clever.

[woodbuck27]

The Defense plays the way it does because MM wants to play that way! Another poster mentioned priority of turnovers over tackling and that is what I see week after week after week. MM is the head coach- he tells Dom what he wants and that's it unless he can't see what EVERYONE with a pair of eyes sees. MM is responsible plain and simple for the BS way they play defense! Can't be consistent with that and consistency is what matters- Run what You 'Brung and hope you 'Brung Enough! (I do recall MM describing the way he wants defense played and it was exactly how this bs crap of defense looked all year!)

I think your saying that MM wants to see aggressive on both sides of the ball. He want points going up on the board when our 'D' is on the field and if that is the plan. MM will lose in terms related to the BIG picture. We must see our team play some decent defense not be last in the NFL. A Green BaY Packer defense RANKED LAST in the NFL. Would any Packer fan believed that was even a possibility with Dom Capers as OUR DC? We need to see basic defense the is based in fundamentals and assignment sure attitudes from the players on 'D'. Where did tackling go! Wev need fast athletic CB's and Charles Woodson is slowing down. We need solid coaching for OUR defensive backs and decent to superior talent on 'D' overall. Ted thompson has to clean house on 'D'. He needs to start anew. Go on a 3-5 year plan or just hope that Aaron Rodgers can carry his team.

Ted Thompson has to make cuts in our secondary and at LBer and move forward. He has to accept taking a step back to do that. We need two more strong to relaiable defenders on our DL. Cut the deadwood there and on our OL as well.

We are not close to returning to the Super Bowl. Any Packer fan that imagined we would get back there moreso win another this season was incredibly optimistic. Winning last season was very fortunate IMO. We did it because we came on like the team that just dumped us on our ass's. We turned the same trick last season that the GIANTS might very well turn this. How in blue blazes could we have won the Super Bowl last season? We did it because Aaron Rodgers would not be denied and so many Packer players were on the same page. The team was into the groove from top to bottom. That result with two - three games remaining in the season was unlikely to one of extreme delusion. Well we have basically that same team roster.That same roster with rust, with serious playing ability because of deterioration, decline and extinction.

Looking honestly at OUR defense we have loads of liability and need in certain positions. We should be considering that Nick Collins is gone to simplify analysis. If he comes back that's great but the blue print should now omit Nick Collins.Ted thompson has to cut the deadwood and make some hard decisions concerning players like Donald Driver,Charles Woodson (see Nick Collins),Chad Clifton, Scott Wells, Jermichael Finley and what does Ryan Pickett want. What is AJ Hawk's real value to the Packers. What is his emotional commitment to playing as we believed he would? Where is his consistency and value to us? He gets a lot of money.

How much are Ryan Pickett and Scott Wells worth in terms of their value to the team? Weigh that against keeping Jermichael Finley. Charles Woodson and what? $11 million$ ...good grief. I wouldn"t want to be Ted thompson as he has top clean up a real mess.

How much is Donald Driver Worth? Consider his play and leadership. Is a $2 million$ BONUS going to factor into a decision RE: DD? You've got to be kidding me if you want to consider it is. Donald Driver has pride in his game. He wants to play football. See Brett Favre....not retire or be a coach or special assistant. He had six TD's in a very limited role. He has it. That's the reason we saw his disgust on Sunday. He wants the same thing Favre wanted. Loyalty returned or he's out as a Green Bay Packer not put out to pasture.

We need a pass rush. We please..need a running game to control the clock and take pressure off Aaronn Rodgers. There are interesting prospects at RB available possibly in FA.

Good Luck Ted Thompson.

[mraynrand]

I agree... and would argue that the results from this years defensive unit are more in line with the lack of talent we have in our front 7.

We have Raji, Pickett, and Matthews... the other 4 starting spots are empty, and there is exactly zero depth. Last year we got lucky, and Capers was masterful at using smoke and mirrors... but our lack of front 7 talent showed up in all its horror this year.

The blame for this years defensive shortcomings is more accurately laid on TT. What does anyone want to bet our 1st 3 picks this spring will all be offensive players??

TT is to blame of course, but he always is. That's not very insightful. The question is what really happened? Last year, TT was able to find some raw young guys that could come in and contribute - but all the raw young guys this year had none of the OTAs to prepare. So when Collins goes out, when Burnett breaks his hand, Shields gets a concussion, Williams separates his shoulder, and Neal is lost for almost the entire season with an injury, there's no rookie FA to step in and save the defenses' collective ass. Still, you did have Francois and Smith come in when Hawk and Bishop were out, so it wasn't a complete failure. I suspect next year there will be a lot more quality, young depth, and it will be more prepared.

But look at the defense: It dealt with a lot of injuries this year. That's just the reality. Even if 'only' Collins and Jenkins were missing come playoffs, the collective result of having ever critical player but Woodson and Raji miss time due to injury was significant. (even Matthews was playing with a pretty bad quad all year).

The offense covered up a lot of malaise in the defense, and failed to carry the team when it mattered most.

[Smeefers]

I honestly am not that impressed with Capers. We've sandwiched one good defensive season between two horrible ones and called him a genius. More like Mangenius.

I'm not saying that the talent is really there to be a top ten defense but I'm surprised as hell that we're the worst one in the league. The buck has to stop somewhere and I think it stops with Capers. I'm not saying fire him. I'm not saying we need to revamp the system or anything like that, but the blame should be placed somewhere. And it's Mad's job to do it.

Hmm.. I'm waiting.

[denverYooper]

To me, he dislikes the blitz and thus will only use examples that will prove his point that it's no good. I used to read him for entertainment but it got to the point where he's simply too long winded and frankly, he wasn't all that entertaining any longer. He tries to hard to be witty and clever.

I'm the same. I'll still look at them from time to time if I'm bored but I have to skip over large swaths of his articles.

[hoosier]

I honestly am not that impressed with Capers. We've sandwiched one good defensive season between two horrible ones and called him a genius. More like Mangenius.

I'm not saying that the talent is really there to be a top ten defense but I'm surprised as hell that we're the worst one in the league. The buck has to stop somewhere and I think it stops with Capers. I'm not saying fire him. I'm not saying we need to revamp the system or anything like that, but the blame should be placed somewhere. And it's Mad's job to do it.

Hmm.. I'm waiting.

I lost you at the start of your second sentence.

[Smeefers]

I lost you at the start of your second sentence.

You know what, I was totally wrong on that. 2009 we were top 5, 2010 we were #1 and this year we were 32. It was 2008 where we had that horrible D. We dropped Sanders and picked up Capers. Man. What happened this year?