Tackling

[denverYooper]

PB's point about tackling in Studs and Duds brings up another thing that I've been mulling over: when you look at teams who tackle well (9ers, Ravens), is that because those coaches teach good fundamentals or is it the raw material? I mean, Sam Shields is not a good tackler but he was a receiver until late in his college career and didn't need to tackle for much of his life. Patrick Willis and Navorro Bowman came out of the womb tackling. DJ Smith has looked good, too.

Maybe M3's focus next year will be tackling, but hasn't he called out this problem and "focused" on it in the past? From my experiences in sports and music, imprinting fundamental changes to the point where they become automatic takes a significant amount of time. The gross rule of thumb I've learned is that it takes 10,000 repetitions to impart those kinds of changes to motor pathways.

It could be that they just need *at least* an offseason of getting back to good tackling fundamentals, and they don't need 10k tackles apiece to get there, but color me doubtful that even that will suddenly turn any Packers not named DJ Smith or Clay Matthews into tackling machines. At the very least, I'm definitely not sold on the idea that a few handfuls of padded practice is going to be enough to erase behavior that has been engrained through many years of repetition.

[Upnorth]

Good tackling comes from good habits. I think the strip maybe over emphasized on D leading to poor tackling habits.

[ND72]

Good tackling comes from good habits. I think the strip maybe over emphasized on D leading to poor tackling habits.

Agreed. It is nowhere near the same, but one year our Head Coach at the school I was coaching at worked every day on strip drills during our tackling drills. GREAT drills, but in our first game our tackling lacked very badly. We stopped the strip drills and focused on tackling and things improved...and as things improved the kids started stripping the ball.

[woodbuck27]

Tackling...bring it back to the Packers defense. Wrap em up...bring em down.

[Old School]

McCarthy should follow the same course that took the Packers from one of the most penalized teams to one of the least penalized. That was a roaring success.

If it's fair to give Sam Shields a pass because he is new to defense and therefore tackling, then we should find Peprah a position on offense seeing as how he prefers blocking to tackling. His block on Hicks was not very effective though. Scratch that.

I thought it was interesting that Brandon Jacobs said he's hoping for some helmet to helmet hits because as long as the defense is hitting him high,he will be running over them. I commented recently that nobody can run with his knees or ankles pinned together. That requires the defensive man to lead with his SHOULDER and WRAP UP. It might not make the highlight reel, but it gets Rodgers back on the field sooner.