Postulated: The Packers 8-6 Record Is A Good Achivement This Season

[vince]

Grant and Finley are really missed. Losing Rodgers for 1 1/2 games may have cost us 1-2 victories. Losing Matthews for 1 1/4 games may have cost us 1-2 victories. Those were big losses. Losing Ryan Pickett and Cullen Jenkins were big. Driver being ineffective for 4-5 games hurt, but we have depth there. Losing Mike Neal was big also--especially with the injuries to Pickett and Jenkins.

This. The offense has obviously been a bit more inconsistent than in previous years, and it took a bit for them to adjust to the absence of Finley, but it's still been relatively good overall - better than I would expect with the injuries they've suffered - particularly to Finley and Rodgers IMO. I think the problems in the running game are attributable as much to the line as to the loss of Grant, although it obviously hurts to lose your workhorse.

I stole this from Louder on his Packersnews.net board. It shows how McCarthy's terrible playcalling has held back his offenses...

Yr. Yds. Pts. 
2006 9th 22nd 
2007 2nd 4th 
2008 8th 5th 
2009 6th 3rd 
2010 11th 10th

[PaCkFan_n_MD]

What harvey said. Matthews and Rodgers hurt a lot. Jolly, Neal, Finley, and Grant are the only those ones that really hurt. Problem is they have been out almost the whole year. Burnett, Barnett, Jones, and Tuascher really made no difference.

[Bretsky]

NFC talent levels are very watered down

Cut the excuses; just make the dam playoffs or I'll be disappointed

[pbmax]

Horse feathers. The AFC stinks out loud but no national media have noticed yet. Tide has turned back.

[bobblehead]

When the season started people bitched that TT hadn't addressed the OLB position. Then we lost 2 of them to injury....now 3. Its amazing to me that Dom has kept our D competitive much less really good.

[sharpe1027]

What harvey said. Matthews and Rodgers hurt a lot. Jolly, Neal, Finley, and Grant are the only those ones that really hurt. Problem is they have been out almost the whole year. Burnett, Barnett, Jones, and Tuascher really made no difference.

They've been replaced, but IMO to say that they made no difference isn't looking at the big picture. Even if your backup is nearly as good as your starter, moving them up hits your special teams pretty hard. You also end up changing your schemes to suit different players, having less packages available, less rotations and overall being less flexible. For example, last year Dom used all sorts of different schemes utilizing all the LBers and DL (not just starters) in unconventional ways that suited their skills. They don't have that option this year.

[Fritz]

sharpe's making a good point. And I also think it's disingenuous to discount all the other injuries. After all, Burnett was the preferred starter at safety, as was Barnett at linebacker. And don't forget that the packers' difficulty at times stopping the run might have to do with a lack of preferred defensive linemen. What if Jenkins had played the Detroit game? What if Mike Neal was in the rotation? What if Jones was playing right outside linebacker instead of a replacement for a replacement?

[Bossman641]

When the season started people bitched that TT hadn't addressed the OLB position. Then we lost 2 of them to injury....now 3. Its amazing to me that Dom has kept our D competitive much less really good.

X1

Going into the year the big questions were whether the pass D would hold up and if they could manufacture enough pressure.

To me, those questions have been answered with a yes. Just a shame the defense was never really healthy together so we could see what they could do.

[Fritz]

Funny how in each of the last two years, after the preseason the questions were all about the defense...but it turns out the offense is the unit that has more problems.

I'm not counting special teams. It's clear that is the red-headed step-child of this team.

[Bretsky]

When the season started people bitched that TT hadn't addressed the OLB position. Then we lost 2 of them to injury....now 3. Its amazing to me that Dom has kept our D competitive much less really good.

I'm still not sure any of those four or five OLB were any good..........lol

Dominator has been great though

[denverYooper]

I'm still not sure any of those four or five OLB were any good..........lol

Dominator has been great though

2010 is just a training camp for a 5 year superbowl run.

[mmmdk]

We're entering the "Great effort" era of Green Bay Packers history; lots of boring chapters of how injuries got the better of us and how McCarthy came so close but no cigar. Isn't that ironic?

Thank goodness for Packers thick history 'cos what's being inked now ain't worth reading.

[Patler]

8-6 is a disappointment because many of the "6" were games that the Packers had golden opportunities to win against teams that they should have beaten even with the injury situation that existed. I do not include the NE game in that group. That was an uphill battle all the way. Some of those losses came before the injury situation got out of hand, and/or resulted from questionable strategies at game end as well as gaffe's by veterans (Chiller, Collins, Peprah) on ST. Others were lost when vets didn't come through when needed, or when veterans showed game-long ineptitude (unbelievable penalty numbers in some games like the Bears game, the game-long O-line performance against the Lions). Injuries were not the cause in many of the losses. You can argue that injuries depleted STs, but many of the ST mistakes were by experienced veterans, not the last minute inexperienced replacements.

[RashanGary]

8-6 is a disappointment because many of the "6" were games that the Packers had golden opportunities to win against teams that they should have beaten even with the injury situation that existed. I do not include the NE game in that group. That was an uphill battle all the way. Some of those losses came before the injury situation got out of hand, and/or resulted from questionable strategies at game end as well as gaffe's by veterans (Chiller, Collins, Peprah) on ST. Others were lost when vets didn't come through when needed, or when veterans showed game-long ineptitude (unbelievable penalty numbers in some games like the Bears game, the game-long O-line performance against the Lions). Injuries were not the cause in many of the losses. You can argue that injuries depleted STs, but many of the ST mistakes were by experienced veterans, not the last minute inexperienced replacements.

I agree. We lost 3 of the first six games and that was before we were really hammered by injuries. The injuries now are a bit of an excuse for why I don't think we're a real SB competitor, but not early in teh season.


ST's are still bad

And it took us 6 games this year instead of 8 last year to simplify the offense and really play well. Hopefully next year it takes him less than 4 games. Capers always talks about keeping it simple. MM talks about being multifaceted, flexible and diverse. . . . I like Capers simple approach better because when MM is forced to go simple his offenses dominate too.

[denverYooper]

8-6 is a disappointment because many of the "6" were games that the Packers had golden opportunities to win against teams that they should have beaten even with the injury situation that existed. I do not include the NE game in that group. That was an uphill battle all the way. Some of those losses came before the injury situation got out of hand, and/or resulted from questionable strategies at game end as well as gaffe's by veterans (Chiller, Collins, Peprah) on ST. Others were lost when vets didn't come through when needed, or when veterans showed game-long ineptitude (unbelievable penalty numbers in some games like the Bears game, the game-long O-line performance against the Lions). Injuries were not the cause in many of the losses. You can argue that injuries depleted STs, but many of the ST mistakes were by experienced veterans, not the last minute inexperienced replacements.

That's it right there. Personnel on the return by Connoly were:
Crosby, Hall, Kuhn, Bigby, Peprah, Bush, Francois, Underwood, Briggs, Johnson, Swain.

Now, initially I thought that Johnson and Briggs ran into each other to spring Connoly's return. But going back and looking at the highlight (which includes footage from behind the kicking team, Bush vacated his lane right into a block and that's exactly where Connoly went to start his run. After that, Peprah caught him around the 40 but tried to force the fumble instead of tackling. Those are 2 core guys making huge mistakes that resulted in ~30 yards apiece.

Also, Korey Hall, who is usually very good, overrunns the kick by quite a bit, so he's also out of the picture on the side of the field that Connoly cut back to. It's almost as if he didn't know where the kick was going. John Kuhn gets turned around too but I think he was where he was supposed to be and he comes back to make the tackle in the end.

Quinn Johnson actually got blocked in the back and shoved into Briggs after Bush had already screwed up. If Johnson doesn't get blocked in the back, there's a good chance he gets Connoly. Although, with this unit this year, you just don't know. I don't even care about the block in the back because the play should have been over before that.