The Facts

[Partial]

- A game is many drives long, and you cannot pin the game on the defense for surrendering one scoring drive and playing bend-but-don't-break sufficiently all game.

- Surrendering 21 points up to the 2 minute mark in the 4th quarter is more than sufficient against a potent Texans offense

- The amount of yards given up by the D had very little impact in the game beyond time of possession. This was neutralized to some degree by the 4 turnovers and excellent field position the Packers were starting in. Giving up only 21 points for the amount of yards is pretty incredible.

- Forcing 4 turnovers against a potent Texans offense is phenomenal

- Scoring 21 points against a journeymen defense like Houston's is unacceptable, and should be looked at as a colossal disappointment given the strong field position and the 4 turnovers forced by our defense

- Our offense averages a meager 20.1 points per game. Total points per game does not factor in our anomaly of the year and league leading by a wide margin of defense and special team scoring.

- 20.1 points per game is not sufficient. Dominating defenses, like the NFLs all-time great defense the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, have been on record saying they expect to win if their offense can score > 17 points. We don't have anywhere the defensive talent, and thus it is unreasonable to expect to hold an opponent to < 20 points.

- The offense was missing one starter, right tackle Mark Tauscher.

- The defense was missing it's starters at MLB, WSB, RDE, SS, CB and at Pass rushing 3rd down DE. They are so banged up defensively that they had to shift corners to play safety, and have been playing with a makeshift linebacking corps, as well have had a makeshift DE position.

- The offense went one for 10, or a 90% failure rate, 10% success rate offensively on third down.

- The defense did alright on third down, and stopped the Texans nearly half of the time, achieving a near 50% success rate. Significantly better than the offense fared.

- We had the ball, with a 1st down inside the 25 yard line of the Texans with two minutes to go. We did not score to take the lead and protect the defense.

- It is unreasonable to expect a defense to stop the potent Texans offense again after being blown out in time of possession and being physically dominated all day. Asking a defense to stop a potent offense that many times a game and hold them to < 24 points is pretty ridiculous given it was a close game and they are so well balanced.

Those are the facts of the game. Blaming the defense for the ending is pretty ridiculous. The offense was an even bigger failure than the defense at the end imo.

The Achilles heal of the Packers all season has been their offensive short comings. They're average 20.1 offensive points a game, which is awful. They're also the worst team in the league at third and long, a position they're often in do to penalties and a poor running game.

Whats next? Are we going to blame the defense for losing to Tennessee despite the offense only scoring 16 points? What about Dallas? Shouldn't our defense have held the dynamic Dallas offense to less than 9 points?

While the defense has been poor all season, the offense has been equally bad if not worse, and has not done the defense any favors by scoring points, or sustaining drives. Their third down percentage is the biggest factor in their failure.

[packrulz]

I think a lack of a running game hurts their offense, Grant might not even get 1,000 yds, and defenses aren't fooled by the playaction fakes. Grant has been dinged up, so put BJack in there then. The O-line isn't opening much of a hole for them though, Taucher and Clifton are on the downside of their careers, and the Guards/Centers seem to be too small to open holes the entire game. M3 passes way too much, defenses can tee off on ARod, I prefer to see more of a 50/50 run/pass balance. I still blame the defense for bending and breaking though, mostly the line, I guess since they lost Corey Williams and Jenkins it's to be expected, Harrell really hasn't stepped up yet. One thing I'd like to add, they need to build the Pack as a cold weather, grind it out team, all the 5 wide receiver stuff is great during the season but is tough to do when the ball is frozen and slippery and the receivers are slipping and sliding around, that's part of the reason the Giants won the Super Bowl last year, they can run the ball.

[denverYooper]

I think a lack of a running game hurts their offense, Grant might not even get 1,000 yds, and defenses aren't fooled by the playaction fakes. Grant has been dinged up, so put BJack in there then. The O-line isn't opening much of a hole for them though, Taucher and Clifton are on the downside of their careers, and the Guards/Centers seem to be too small to open holes the entire game. M3 passes way too much, defenses can tee off on ARod, I prefer to see more of a 50/50 run/pass balance. I still blame the defense for bending and breaking though, mostly the line, I guess since they lost Corey Williams and Jenkins it's to be expected, Harrell really hasn't stepped up yet. One thing I'd like to add, they need to build the Pack as a cold weather, grind it out team, all the 5 wide receiver stuff is great during the season but is tough to do when the ball is frozen and slippery and the receivers are slipping and sliding around, that's part of the reason the Giants won the Super Bowl last year, they can run the ball.

Grant has 980 yards. Barring injury, I'm pretty sure he'll get 20 in the next 3 games.

[Bossman641]

I think a lack of a running game hurts their offense, Grant might not even get 1,000 yds, and defenses aren't fooled by the playaction fakes. Grant has been dinged up, so put BJack in there then. The O-line isn't opening much of a hole for them though, Taucher and Clifton are on the downside of their careers, and the Guards/Centers seem to be too small to open holes the entire game. M3 passes way too much, defenses can tee off on ARod, I prefer to see more of a 50/50 run/pass balance. I still blame the defense for bending and breaking though, mostly the line, I guess since they lost Corey Williams and Jenkins it's to be expected, Harrell really hasn't stepped up yet. One thing I'd like to add, they need to build the Pack as a cold weather, grind it out team, all the 5 wide receiver stuff is great during the season but is tough to do when the ball is frozen and slippery and the receivers are slipping and sliding around, that's part of the reason the Giants won the Super Bowl last year, they can run the ball.

I disagree. I think play action has been one of the best parts of the Packer offense. Rodgers is seond in the league off PA passing.


Fact

The defense allowed the Texans to drive for the game-winning score from their own 2 yard line.

BTW, a 50% conversion rate allowed on 3rd down is horrible and would place the defense last in the league. I'm not ignoring the fact that the offense sucked on 3rd down but still, if you are trying to make the point that the defense played OK you could pick better stats then that.

[packrulz]

I think a lack of a running game hurts their offense, Grant might not even get 1,000 yds, and defenses aren't fooled by the playaction fakes. Grant has been dinged up, so put BJack in there then. The O-line isn't opening much of a hole for them though, Taucher and Clifton are on the downside of their careers, and the Guards/Centers seem to be too small to open holes the entire game. M3 passes way too much, defenses can tee off on ARod, I prefer to see more of a 50/50 run/pass balance. I still blame the defense for bending and breaking though, mostly the line, I guess since they lost Corey Williams and Jenkins it's to be expected, Harrell really hasn't stepped up yet. One thing I'd like to add, they need to build the Pack as a cold weather, grind it out team, all the 5 wide receiver stuff is great during the season but is tough to do when the ball is frozen and slippery and the receivers are slipping and sliding around, that's part of the reason the Giants won the Super Bowl last year, they can run the ball.

Grant has 980 yards. Barring injury, I'm pretty sure he'll get 20 in the next 3 games.

Probably, but he still only has 4 TD's, BJack & Kuhn each have one, my point is the running game sucks imho.

[TravisWilliams23]

Re: The Facts

-
- We had the ball, with a 1st down inside the 25 yard line of the Texans with two minutes to go. We did not score to take the league and protect the defense.

We DIDN"T HAVE THE BALL WITH A 1ST DOWN INSIDE THE 25 YARD LINE OF THE TEXANS WITH 2 MINUTES TO GO!

That drive started with 4:37 left on GB's own 16. A 59 yard pass to Driver got the ball to the Texan's 25 with 4+ minutes left. A run of 3 was followed by a run to the 15 which was called back by the Moll "so called" holing penalty.
A sack took the ball back to the Houston 41 where they had to punt after a shitty 3rd down play to Lee.

The punt was downed at the 2 freekin' yard line with 1:49 left.

The 2 minute warning came after the 3rd down 3 yard pass to Lee at the Houston 38 YARD LINE.

I didn't get the game here in PA so I can't comment on the 2nd down sack.
If Rodgers could have thrown it away, then it's on him. I'll grant you that.
But to say the defense did it's job is just beyond belief.

[Bossman641]

Re: The Facts

-
- We had the ball, with a 1st down inside the 25 yard line of the Texans with two minutes to go. We did not score to take the league and protect the defense.

We DIDN"T HAVE THE BALL WITH A 1ST DOWN INSIDE THE 25 YARD LINE OF THE TEXANS WITH 2 MINUTES TO GO!

That drive started with 4:37 left on GB's own 16. A 59 yard pass to Driver got the ball to the Texan's 25 with 4+ minutes left. A run of 3 was followed by a run to the 15 which was called back by the Moll "so called" holing penalty.
A sack took the ball back to the Houston 41 where they had to punt after a shitty 3rd down play to Lee.

The punt was downed at the 2 freekin' yard line with 1:49 left.

The 2 minute warning came after the 3rd down 3 yard pass to Lee at the Houston 38 YARD LINE.

I didn't get the game here in PA so I can't comment on the 2nd down sack.
If Rodgers could have thrown it away, then it's on him. I'll grant you that.
But to say the defense did it's job is just beyond belief.

The second down sack was pretty much a jail break.

[Deputy Nutz]

I don't think Partial is saying that the defense is playing well, but that they are taking the brunt of the criticism for the team being 5-8 even though the offense is failing in many regards as well.

This team is playing like shit in all three phases of the game I watched the game last night and our lines are getting the job done. It all starts up front and I have seen better defensive tackles on the Oakland Raiders. Pickett is no where near the player he was a year ago, and Jolly isn't playing as well as he did last year either. Both have injury problems, but there is nothing sufficient to back them up either.

Same goes with the offensive line, they are actually playing a bit better this last part of the season but I am certainly not impressed.

[channtheman]

Okay Partial, you've made your point that the offense is horrible and every game we lost has been there fault while effectively ignoring games like Carolina and New Orleans. After making 4 topics about almost the same issue of horrible offense, do you think you can stop now?

[dissident94]

The defense is horrible, but it put us in position to win when the offense couldn't do anything. Our only score in the first half came off of a turnover.

Yes the defense stinks but lets not forget the offense does as well.

[Partial]

I don't think Partial is saying that the defense is playing well, but that they are taking the brunt of the criticism for the team being 5-8 even though the offense is failing in many regards as well.

That's exactly what I am saying. The offense is nowhere near what it was last year, nor is the D.

[Zool]

I don't think Partial is saying that the defense is playing well, but that they are taking the brunt of the criticism for the team being 5-8 even though the offense is failing in many regards as well.

That's exactly what I am saying. The offense is nowhere near what it was last year, nor is the D.

Maybe if you made like 650 more threads about it......

[denverYooper]

Re: The Facts

-
- We had the ball, with a 1st down inside the 25 yard line of the Texans with two minutes to go. We did not score to take the league and protect the defense.

We DIDN"T HAVE THE BALL WITH A 1ST DOWN INSIDE THE 25 YARD LINE OF THE TEXANS WITH 2 MINUTES TO GO!

That drive started with 4:37 left on GB's own 16. A 59 yard pass to Driver got the ball to the Texan's 25 with 4+ minutes left. A run of 3 was followed by a run to the 15 which was called back by the Moll "so called" holing penalty.
A sack took the ball back to the Houston 41 where they had to punt after a shitty 3rd down play to Lee.

The punt was downed at the 2 freekin' yard line with 1:49 left.

The 2 minute warning came after the 3rd down 3 yard pass to Lee at the Houston 38 YARD LINE.

I didn't get the game here in PA so I can't comment on the 2nd down sack.
If Rodgers could have thrown it away, then it's on him. I'll grant you that.
But to say the defense did it's job is just beyond belief.

The second down sack was pretty much a jail break.

That was a bit of a head scratcher. The Texans LBers made the blitz pretty obvious, I thought. I was annoyed that Rodgers didn't call an audible at that point, but maybe he trusted the line to see it and pick it up. Maybe it was just the omniscient eye of the cable cam that made it seem obvious.

[imscott72]

I don't think Partial is saying that the defense is playing well, but that they are taking the brunt of the criticism for the team being 5-8 even though the offense is failing in many regards as well.

That's exactly what I am saying. The offense is nowhere near what it was last year, nor is the D.

Maybe if you made like 650 more threads about it......

+1. Why do you keep starting threads making the same point over and over? Compare the offensive stats to the rest of the league. They're top 10 in yards and top 5 in pts scored. As I said in the other thread, Arod has a better completion % than both Mannings and a better QB rating than Favre and Peyton.

For futher comparison last year we scored 27.2 pts per game and ranked 4th. This season so far we've scored 27.3 pts per game and are also ranked 4th. So is this year's offense better than last year's? Right now it looks like a dead heat. I have to head to class so I don't have time to pull the defensive numbers from last year and this. If someone else wants to feel free otherwise I'll do it when I get home.

[PackerTimer]

Re: The Facts

- A game is many drives long, and you cannot pin the game on the defense for surrendering one scoring drive and playing bend-but-don't-break sufficiently all game.

- Surrendering 21 points up to the 2 minute mark in the 4th quarter is more than sufficient against a potent Texans offense

- The amount of yards given up by the D had very little impact in the game beyond time of possession. This was neutralized to some degree by the 4 turnovers and excellent field position the Packers were starting in. Giving up only 21 points for the amount of yards is pretty incredible.

- Forcing 4 turnovers against a potent Texans offense is phenomenal

- Scoring 21 points against a journeymen defense like Houston's is unacceptable, and should be looked at as a colossal disappointment given the strong field position and the 4 turnovers forced by our defense

- Our offense averages a meager 20.1 points per game. Total points per game does not factor in our anomaly of the year and league leading by a wide margin of defense and special team scoring.

- 20.1 points per game is not sufficient. Dominating defenses, like the NFLs all-time great defense the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, have been on record saying they expect to win if their offense can score > 17 points. We don't have anywhere the defensive talent, and thus it is unreasonable to expect to hold an opponent to < 20 points.

- The offense was missing one starter, right tackle Mark Tauscher.

- The defense was missing it's starters at MLB, WSB, RDE, SS, CB and at Pass rushing 3rd down DE. They are so banged up defensively that they had to shift corners to play safety, and have been playing with a makeshift linebacking corps, as well have had a makeshift DE position.

- The offense went one for 10, or a 90% failure rate, 10% success rate offensively on third down.

- The defense did alright on third down, and stopped the Texans nearly half of the time, achieving a near 50% success rate. Significantly better than the offense fared.

- We had the ball, with a 1st down inside the 25 yard line of the Texans with two minutes to go. We did not score to take the lead and protect the defense.

- It is unreasonable to expect a defense to stop the potent Texans offense again after being blown out in time of possession and being physically dominated all day. Asking a defense to stop a potent offense that many times a game and hold them to < 24 points is pretty ridiculous given it was a close game and they are so well balanced.

Those are the facts of the game. Blaming the defense for the ending is pretty ridiculous. The offense was an even bigger failure than the defense at the end imo.

The Achilles heal of the Packers all season has been their offensive short comings. They're average 20.1 offensive points a game, which is awful. They're also the worst team in the league at third and long, a position they're often in do to penalties and a poor running game.

Whats next? Are we going to blame the defense for losing to Tennessee despite the offense only scoring 16 points? What about Dallas? Shouldn't our defense have held the dynamic Dallas offense to less than 9 points?

While the defense has been poor all season, the offense has been equally bad if not worse, and has not done the defense any favors by scoring points, or sustaining drives. Their third down percentage is the biggest factor in their failure.

First of all you're assuming that the Packers wouldn't have scored any points as a result of those turnovers if the defense had not scored.

Second, if you subtract the 42 points the defense scored last year, the offense only averaged 24.56 points a game.

I think plenty of people would agree with you when you say the offense isn't playing as well as they were last year. But it's your implication that it's Rodgers fault with your posts about him not being the answer if his accuracy doesn't improve even though his accuracy has been fine. Yeah yesterday was tough but look at the Bears and Giants games in the cold last year. Favre's accuracy wasn't anything special either.

The offense is not playing as well as were last year, but you know what the defense is playing a shit load worse. The offense has been good enough to win some more game and the defense hasn't performed near as well in some of those games. Overall, we are much better offensive team that defensive team right now.