The Official Packers v. saints Gameday Thread

[LL2]

A-Rod stood in the pocket tonight and played tough. I actually thought it was one of his better games outside of a few bone headed throws.

Gotta blame him for the loss though. 3 picks is pretty poor. Can our team stop anybody?!?

MM does not seem like the answer. He isn't the same coach as he was last year.

Really? You think this loss is on Rodgers? I know he had a part in it since he couldn't lead us down the field in the second half (again). But the piss poor play of the defense was what cost us this game.

I agree about MM. Does this guy make ANY halftime adjustments? NO took what we were doing on offense and stopped it, and we didn't do anything different on defense to stop them.

The defensive adjustments are on Sanders. The offense is McCarthy's area. ALso, to bhlame this on Rdogers when NO punted only once in the first half and then not until the 4th is assinine. The Defense and Special teams were responsible.

What Defensive Adjustments ?

The defense was atrocious. They couldn't stop anything if their lives depended on it. NO scored on what....7 consecutive drives? The Packers O was keeping the team in the game in the first half and part of the 3rd qtr, but the Packers D did not contribute one thing to help the team. I think Arod was the only player trying as hard as he could to help the team win. He was running for 1st downs, putting his body on the line in the TD score and knocking David out after he threw the pick. The Packers D was a complete failure and you can't expect the Packers O to compete in a shootout.

[Cheesehead Craig]

Gotta blame him for the loss though. 3 picks is pretty poor.

Way to just look at the box score for what you want to see and ignore the absolute atrocious defensive play by the Pack.

Has Pacopete taken over Partial's acct?

[Joemailman]

I'm not usually not one to blame losses on coaches' game plans, but Sanders got schooled Monday night. Sean Payton had a great plan for attacking the Packer defense, and Sanders had no answer. Continuing with Sanders as DC is a guarantee of defensive mediocrity.

[hurleyfan]

I'm not usually not one to blame losses on coaches' game plans, but Sanders got schooled Monday night. Sean Payton had a great plan for attacking the Packer defense, and Sanders had no answer. Continuing with Sanders as DC is a guarantee of defensive mediocrity.

I'd certainly agree with you here Joe.

I never liked this style of defense, but Bates made it work, almost the same players, but I think he had a little more imagination than Sanders.

And don't forget the wonderful punter... 24 yarder... inside a dome

[red]

The season was lost in the 2nd vikling game.

Now the Packers just don't care.

Nominated for stupid post of the week.

Hey doofus, they are 1 game out of 1st place now.

thats like winning a gold medal in the special olympics

we're a game out of first in what might be the worst division in nfl history

[Partial]

Gotta blame him for the loss though. 3 picks is pretty poor.

Way to just look at the box score for what you want to see and ignore the absolute atrocious defensive play by the Pack.

Has Pacopete taken over Partial's acct?

Dude, like I said, Aaron gave them the ball in premo position for two of those touchdowns. Before the interception fest it was 24-21.

That is being a homer not to put significant blame on the QB.

[Partial]

I'm not usually not one to blame losses on coaches' game plans, but Sanders got schooled Monday night. Sean Payton had a great plan for attacking the Packer defense, and Sanders had no answer. Continuing with Sanders as DC is a guarantee of defensive mediocrity.

Yep. They have to rebuild the lines anyway, so bring on the 3-4!!!

[Partial]

Another chicken or the egg first.

Was it the defense couldn't stop them because A-Rod kept putting them in awful positions with limited breaks?

You guys are cutting Aaron way too much slack. He played a solid first half, unfortuantely, games are two halves, not one! He played incredibly poorly in the second half.

The game has to lie on his shoulders. He's the quarterback who couldn't lead the team down the field in the second half against a defense we consistently exploited earlier. He also threw three picks and made plenty of bad decisions.

Partial; you have gone way, way overboard in pinning the blame for losses on Rodgers. Not that he is blameless, but he certainly hasn't been the primary factory in the recent losses, just one of the contributing factors.

There is no "chicken or egg" quandary in this game. The defense (with "help" from special teams) had already given up 31 points before Rodgers threw his first interception. At that point Rodgers had lead three TD drives in in 5 possessions. The drives covered 37, 72 and 83 yards. Rodgers was 11/17 for 108 yards, 1 passing TD, one rushing TD, no interceptions. Unfortunately, while Rodgers was doing that, the defense gave up touchdowns on three consecutive drives covering 70, 41 and 76 yards, a fieldgoal on the next drive (probably only because the Saints ran out of time at the half) then an 80 yard drive on the fifth drive in that string. They gave up 31 points on the Saints first 6 drives, five consecutive scoring drives after the intial 3 and out.

No, the defensive collapse was firmly established before Rodgers committed a single turnover. Rodgers was by no means blameless, but the defense gave up 51 points, only 7 of which came after one of Rodgers interceptions.

Rodgers played "incredibly poorly in the second half"? Really? He conducted a 15 play 86 yard drive for a TD and completed a pass for a two point conversion. In the second half he was 12/24 for 134 yards and 1 TD. He had 17 yards running with the ball. Yes, he threw the three picks. The first certainly looked bad, and I won't try to excuse it; but if Jennings had not fallen, would it have been intercepted? I think it probably would have, but you never know. The second interception would not have happened if Nelson continued his route instead of stopping, and from all reporters at the game the coaches apparently got on Nelson pretty good on the sidelines after that. The final interception was on a fourth down play, after Rodgers looked and looked, bought time by moving away from pressure and finally put it up in the endzone giving a receiver a chance for it. Wasn't that just one of those "doing everything for a win" interceptions that so many forgave Favre for routinely? I have little problem with putting it up for grabs on fourth down. Why not try something? I do have a problem with throwing it up for grabs on 1st or 2nd down; but not on 4th and 16, trailing by 22 with 6 minutes left in the game. At least he threw it into the endzone and gained 10 yards of field position on the touchback (not that it mattered much at that point).

I am not absolving him of some fault on any of the interceptions, or maybe on some decisions he made. I'm just not convinced it was an incredibly poor performance by Rodgers. Yes, he did not play well enough to keep up in a shoot-out type game. But on the other hand he did conduct 4 pretty decent scoring drives.

Spot on, Patler!

I disagree with you Patler. He couldn't capitalize against a weak secondary with minimal pass rush, and was chucking the ball to the defense left and right. Everyone would be at Favre's throat for the 3 INTs in the second half, and rightfully so. That is unacceptable. A-Rods second half stat line is 12-24 (50% sucks), 3 INT (sucks), 1 TD (against prevent... awesome!).

The defense takes some blame, sure, but Aaron had the chance to keep pace, and instead couldn't move the ball down the field, and handed NO the win on a silver platter with the INT that they returned to the 3ish.

[Patler]

Dude, like I said, Aaron gave them the ball in premo position for two of those touchdowns. Before the interception fest it was 24-21.

That is being a homer not to put significant blame on the QB.

No, it was already 31-21 before Rodgers threw his first interception, and the Saints scored only one touchdown following a Rodgers interception. They scored after the first interception, threw their own interception after Rodger's second, and punted after the third interception

[cpk1994]

A-Rod stood in the pocket tonight and played tough. I actually thought it was one of his better games outside of a few bone headed throws.

Gotta blame him for the loss though. 3 picks is pretty poor. Can our team stop anybody?!?

MM does not seem like the answer. He isn't the same coach as he was last year.

Really? You think this loss is on Rodgers? I know he had a part in it since he couldn't lead us down the field in the second half (again). But the piss poor play of the defense was what cost us this game.

I agree about MM. Does this guy make ANY halftime adjustments? NO took what we were doing on offense and stopped it, and we didn't do anything different on defense to stop them.

The defensive adjustments are on Sanders. The offense is McCarthy's area. ALso, to bhlame this on Rdogers when NO punted only once in the first half and then not until the 4th is assinine. The Defense and Special teams were responsible.

What Defensive Adjustments ?

I know there weren't any, but I thought he was blaming McCarthy for the non adjustments to the defense. McCarthy usally handles the O not the D.

[Bossman641]

I disagree with you Patler. He couldn't capitalize against a weak secondary with minimal pass rush, and was chucking the ball to the defense left and right. Everyone would be at Favre's throat for the 3 INTs in the second half, and rightfully so. That is unacceptable. A-Rods second half stat line is 12-24 (50% sucks), 3 INT (sucks), 1 TD (against prevent... awesome!).

The defense takes some blame, sure, but Aaron had the chance to keep pace, and instead couldn't move the ball down the field, and handed NO the win on a silver platter with the INT that they returned to the 3ish.

Some blame? The defense deserves about 80% of the blame. Rodgers could have certainly played better, but the Packers were down ten before he threw his first pick.

After their 3 and out on the first drive of the game the Saints scored 5 straight times. You can't expect your QB to have to score TD's every drive just to hold serve.

I was disappointed in the throw to Jennings. Rodgers had plenty of time and it looked like he read the coverage wrong. David had a great jump on the ball. What if Jennings hadn't slipped though? You're probably looking at an incomplete pass and an offense that could still mix run with pass.

Once the pick happened and Deuce scored, everything changed. The Packers were down 17 and the Saints knew Rodgers would be passing every down. Completely different game after that as the Saints were able to focus solely on rushing the passer. I'd say Nelson let Rodger down on the second INT. He needs to learn to run through the route, as I remember him doing the same thing in another game this year.

[Cheesehead Craig]

Gotta blame him for the loss though. 3 picks is pretty poor.

Way to just look at the box score for what you want to see and ignore the absolute atrocious defensive play by the Pack.

Has Pacopete taken over Partial's acct?

Dude, like I said, Aaron gave them the ball in premo position for two of those touchdowns. Before the interception fest it was 24-21.

That is being a homer not to put significant blame on the QB.

It was 31-21 before his first INT. Yes, that INT led to a TD by New Orleans and it was not a good pass. His 2nd INT was where Nelson stopped his route and the coaches reamed him out for doing so. That INT didn't hurt us at all as the Saints turned it right back over. His 3rd INT was near the end of the game when it was already 51-29. So one of his INTs gave the Saints 7 pts. Our defense gave up 44 other points.

Exactly how is the atrocious play of the defense not the primary reason the Packers lost this game? Blaming A-Rod is laughable. Sounds to me like you didn't even watch the game.

[Badgerinmaine]

The season was lost in the 2nd vikling game.

Now the Packers just don't care.

Nominated for stupid post of the week.

Hey doofus, they are 1 game out of 1st place now.

thats like winning a gold medal in the special olympics

we're a game out of first in what might be the worst division in nfl history

Not to be unkind, but so what? The competition is to get in this year's playoffs, and you deal with the competition you have now. If it's weak, you take advantage of it. When the New York Mets went 83-79 in a totally mediocre division and went on to the 1973 World Series, they didn't say "Well, our division's bad, so we don't deserve to be in the playoffs".

[Badgerinmaine]

Exactly how is the atrocious play of the defense not the primary reason the Packers lost this game?

Absolutely. Rodgers only started throwing picks when they got behind and the Saints knew he was going to have to throw and take chances. My #2 culprit behind the defense would be some awful kick coverage on special teams.

[denverYooper]

Picks happen.

especially in playoff games...

Here's the thing:

I'd rather have 2 TDs and 2 picks, versus no picks and no TDs.

Looks like you got something resembling your wish this game