Daniels maybe a little frustrated

[Pugger]

They don't hit in practice. When some guys miss tackles in games I see posts on any number of forums that the home team needs to have more tackling practice. How about some tackling practice bc they don't do it. There is no tackling practice in the NFL.

Some fans think so bc of their own football background, but at the NFL level it ain't done,

I've read articles about this & I don't know why it's even brought up. Well, I have a notion. the other day, McCarthy mentioned that the Pack would have more tackling practice. That's a joke. they don't do it. They do run thru's so defenders are in position to make a tackle, but with pads or minimum contact.

There are many reasons for this and it's evolved over the years:

- Most players are basically hurt and are saving their health for Sunday

- Likewise, the CBA limits in season contact so there is only a couple practices that have even todays limited contact

- It's assumed that all players at this level know how to tackle as a basic skill. the drill is to learn the schemes and games plan so those players know how to be in position to hit somebody.

The drills that would teach the basics (Oklahoma's, bull in the ring, that kind of shit) are only run once or a couple times in camp. I know it drives football purists nuts, but there is very little contact in NFL practices. I hear everybody pissing and moaning about "our training staff" being responsible for the incidence of injuries on the team. Can you imagine the freakin' cry that would go up if our top people were hurt in practice?

I know fans don't wanna hear it, but NFL practices have very limited to no contact in 'em.

IMO this is why tackling in the NFL is a league wide problem. I don't care if you are a pro player or not, if you don't practice hitting and tackling you won't be any good at it. Why do professional baseball players shag grounders all day long and have batting practice every day? And the guys don't need to knock heads together. That's what tackling dummies are for.

[Guiness]

I think KY is right wrt the lack of tackling at NFL practices. I just don't the teams can afford the risk of injury. Look at the number of guys hurt just because of games, imagine if the team started hurting each other in practice as well? Because it would happen.

I would think this is a by-product of a 20 game schedule and players being significantly bigger and stronger than they were a few decades ago. The linemen in particular of course.

[KYPack]

IMO this is why tackling in the NFL is a league wide problem. I don't care if you are a pro player or not, if you don't practice hitting and tackling you won't be any good at it. Why do professional baseball players shag grounders all day long and have batting practice every day? And the guys don't need to knock heads together. That's what tackling dummies are for.

I know Pug.

You (&Bobble) speak the truth, but it's also a bygone era for which you both yearn.

They don't tackle in practice in the NFL anymore.

This kinda reminds me of the old farts when I was a kid who used to bemoan that modern players (in the 60's!) were pussies bc they didn't play both ways anymore. Those old guys were Iron men and all, but it's a bygone era.

So's "tackling practice" in the NFL. The last coach I can remember who preached practice contact and midweek scrimmaging was Chuck Noll.

All coaches have cranked the practice contact down to mock tackling and contact only in pass rush for many moons now.

Some of you want us to live tackle in practice to solve our missed and poor tackling problem, right?

Who ya gonna tackle? Our RB's are all banged up, so are our TE's and WR's. There isn't really enough guys on an NFL roster to have as tackling fodder for the defense. The PS only has 7 guys on it, 2-3 skill players. Dummies? They are good for form and conditioning, but in order to make good tackles in live action you must prepare so you are in good position
and unload a solid form tackle on his ass. If you aren't in good position, just grab hold of what you can get and get the guy's ass on the ground. It's attitude, I don't question our practice regime, I question the D's attitude

[KalamazooPackerFan]

It's interesting how bad tackling is in the NFL. These guys are supposed to be experts in their field and should already know how to tackle, but they don't. A real world example would be teaching a nurse how to start an IV, or a programmer how to program. They are supposed to be experts in their field and already know how to do those basic (to them) tasks. An NFL defender that doesn't know how to breakdown and tackle is an embarrassment that can't even do the most basic of football techniques.

As a nurse I can tell you, starting an IV (without multiple sticks) is a physical skill that requires consistent and ongoing practice. It is not something you learn how to do and then can just go in and do once a week and be good at it. In that respect, I think it is like the Packer tackling. They may have known how to do it at one time but the lack of consistent practice has left with them with all the theoretical knowledge and and none of the muscle memory.

And regarding not tackling in practice for fear of injuries.....how's that working out? We have more walking wounded than ever!

[bobblehead]

KY, I don't think they need to unload on each other, but solid contact like t/w/fr might be in order. You got plenty of guys to do it. I hear how backups don't get snaps in practice. That tells me they have bodies and need to commit more time. I get it. Coaches have it in their mind they can't afford it. Pitchers can't throw more than 100 pitches, and don't play long toss anymore. The last pitcher to long toss and constantly throw 130 pitches was Randy Johnson. An ironman. He didn't compare to Nolan Ryan though, who didn't compare to Cy Young. As Pugger points out...hows that workin' out for ya in the words of my favorite Alaskan governor.

To me (and I know I am a minority) its folly to not practice something, then do it full speed and expect you won't get hurt. I also think its folly for a gov't to run up 1.5 TRILLION in debt in one year, but wtf do I know?

edit PS: I lift weights. When I don't lift enough I get very sore when I do (and even achy from sitting around too much). I guess the answer is more rest, then go in and bench 315 on sundays only. That should maximize my effectiveness and minimize my injury risk right?

[KYPack]

KY, I don't think they need to unload on each other, but solid contact like t/w/fr might be in order. You got plenty of guys to do it. I hear how backups don't get snaps in practice. That tells me they have bodies and need to commit more time. I get it. Coaches have it in their mind they can't afford it. Pitchers can't throw more than 100 pitches, and don't play long toss anymore. The last pitcher to long toss and constantly throw 130 pitches was Randy Johnson. An ironman. He didn't compare to Nolan Ryan though, who didn't compare to Cy Young. As Pugger points out...hows that workin' out for ya in the words of my favorite Alaskan governor.

To me (and I know I am a minority) its folly to not practice something, then do it full speed and expect you won't get hurt. I also think its folly for a gov't to run up 1.5 TRILLION in debt in one year, but wtf do I know?

edit PS: I lift weights. When I don't lift enough I get very sore when I do (and even achy from sitting around too much). I guess the answer is more rest, then go in and bench 315 on sundays only. That should maximize my effectiveness and minimize my injury risk right?

Bobble, I don't wanna argue with you & Pug, yer two of my fav posters. What you guys want ain't happening. Just to take your example. There will never be any contact practice on T-W-Th. Tuesday, all the players are off. Monday is film and rehab (seriously injured players rehab on Tuesday, too). Wednesday is install. They put in the gameplan on Wednesday. Both Gameplans, which the coaches put together on Tuesday while the players are off. There is NO time to do anything on Wed except do the install. Thursday is install day part II. If there was a day that you could have "tackling drills" it would be Thursday. Really, putting in the gameplan takes both days, Wed & Thursday. Friday? walkthoughs. if the ST coach gets any practice time it's on Friday. Many teams have a deal where if you won on Sunday, you get to wear a ballcap on Friday. Saturday is walkthrough with no equipment. Some teams do Saturday's practice at the hotel where they are staying. Maybe they could have "tackling practice" in the hotel coffee shop.

I know what you guys want and what yer saying, but we are in the new era. Tackling practice is a thing of the past.

Bobble, I still weight train, so no, you lift and then take a day to rest. I wasn't born this old, ya know?

[pbmax]

As with most things, it is not this simple. The last CBA didn't limit padded practice and simply cancel hitting in practice in the process. Padded practices had been doomed since before Walsh would give his players weeks in the latter part of the season where they had no padded practice at all in the early 1980s. I will let coaches or the Walsh family tell you whether this was more effective than popular, but its been the model for a long time.

Second, you have to distinguish between hitting and tackling because the teams do. The Packers hit in their padded practices, even McGinn's bad article about this earlier this year had to concede that. And they hit in camp as well.

What they no longer do is live tackle. They do not take teammates to the ground. Now it might be that certain Packer players need this help, though its clear several have gotten better without it (Shields). There are less than 10 teams that live tackle in camp and none that do scheduled live tackling during the season. Even the teams that do it only do it for brief periods of a practice. But you have to be careful about drawing conclusions from this data. Several of the teams doing the live tackling are terrible defensively and several that don't live tackle are very good.

Its hard to diagnose tackling on TV because the angle can fool you, what looks like a missed tackle can be a player making a desperate dive for a shin or shoe at a player he has little hope of catching. This is not to say the Packers are good tacklers, as a group they are mediocre and concentrate too much on forcing turnovers.

But its also instructive to remember the same techniques won these coaches a Super Bowl. Practice is great, players who can STAY IN POSITION to tackle are better. There are far more defeats for the defensive players this year than missed tackles and that is more worrisome to me.

[KYPack]

Pug and Bobble are right about one thing, our tackling is lousy. MM, in his post mortem presser stated that we had 20 missed tackles vs Detroit. He further stated 10 missed tackles in a ball game was unacceptable.

We've got to do something to come up with a fix to this problem.

[Guiness]

Pug and Bobble are right about one thing, our tackling is lousy. MM, in his post mortem presser stated that we had 20 missed tackles vs Detroit. He further stated 10 missed tackles in a ball game was unacceptable.

We've got to do something to come up with a fix to this problem.

I know! Live tackling drills

[woodbuck27]

IMO this is why tackling in the NFL is a league wide problem. I don't care if you are a pro player or not, if you don't practice hitting and tackling you won't be any good at it. Why do professional baseball players shag grounders all day long and have batting practice every day? And the guys don't need to knock heads together. That's what tackling dummies are for.

Tackling dummies tackle better than a lot of the Green Bay Packers.

I've never seen worse in decades being a loyal Packer fan. It's not even a joke anymore. It's become a ridiculous tragedy that we have so many prima donna's on our roster.

Ted Thompson has to clean this up before next season. This cannot continue.

The Green Bay Packers . . . PACKER PRIDE

Where in HELL has that gone?

[Pugger]

Pug and Bobble are right about one thing, our tackling is lousy. MM, in his post mortem presser stated that we had 20 missed tackles vs Detroit. He further stated 10 missed tackles in a ball game was unacceptable.

We've got to do something to come up with a fix to this problem.

If we can only have one padded practice a week what can be done to fix it?

[pbmax]

If we can only have one padded practice a week what can be done to fix it?

Well, the answer is to cut down on the number of participants at any one time. They do half line drills to practice running in their padded practice and that lets them reduce congestion and total number of reps.

If you were going to do live tackling, it would need to be similar. You can't do 11 on 11 live tackling much and expect to survive.

The other thing that has changed is 1 versus 1s. No coach does that during the regular season. And it doesn't happen much in camp either. I wonder if the half line drills included the starting D, would the up front run defense be better?

[Guiness]

Well, the answer is to cut down on the number of participants at any one time. They do half line drills to practice running in their padded practice and that lets them reduce congestion and total number of reps.

If you were going to do live tackling, it would need to be similar. You can't do 11 on 11 live tackling much and expect to survive.

The other thing that has changed is 1 versus 1s. No coach does that during the regular season. And it doesn't happen much in camp either. I wonder if the half line drills included the starting D, would the up front run defense be better?

I guess pro teams don't have a hamburger squad, i.e. the 3rd/4th ranked D. I remember playing safety on that crew...against an O that started a fireplug at tailback (seriously, the guy was 5'5" and over 200lbs) and was the #1 rushing offense in the CIAU. Yup, that landed me in the hospital.