WHAT IS YOUR VIEW OF DOM CAPERS

[wist43]

Can someone go thru the defensive snaps and give the alignments, i.e. 3-4, 2-4, 1-whatever??

Listening to it on the radio, every once in a while they'd say we were in a nickel, but for the most part they rarely give alignments, and they never speak negatively, i.e. a big gainer against us is never the fault of the defense, but rather it is the result of a great play by the offense... and so it goes with all media - positivity on steroids, no one is ever to blame for anything, it's always about being being positive; reality be damned.

Talked to my brother fairly early in the game, and he said they were in a 1-?? nickel right then...

Don't trust Max to give the breakdown though - Max thinks 3 down linemen is a 2-4, lol... so can't take his word for it

[vince]

The D did fine in the first half and then got complacent in the 2nd half with the big lead. The game was never really in doubt and Capers continued to play bend D to force time off the clock only to watch Shields and Dix peeking into the backfield in zones repeatedly and getting burned as a result. When the under zone was in place the over safety was late. When the safety was in place over, the corners were out of place due to peaking. Jones found open spots repeatedly.

You might have thought Capers would cheat to Jones but this was a case of players not doing their job and getting beat. He beat Williams like a red-headed stepchild to start the half in man coverage, then zones with over coverage were undisciplined. In the end, the game dictated the defense and short of over-compensating for Jones, the game came down to a hot receiver having his way with DB's - just about all of them - not scheme.

I did notice that the Packers played just about all 2-4 the first half when they dominated on both sides of the ball - jumping out to a 31-7 lead and winning ToP by 21-9.

[Bossman641]

Echoing others, but my take on the game was that the Packers played mostly zone.

Also, I don't have the exact formation breakdown other than they played 8 downs of 3-4.

[Zool]

I didn't write it down or anything, but there was quite a bit of Neal, Daniels, Guion, Peppers all with a hand in the dirt alignment. None were getting pressure though. When Clay would move to the edge, the would run away from him time and again. They moved Julio Jones to the slot and Ryan would just stare at him waiting for him to get open. This was a full team effort to suck that bad in the second half.

[Freak Out]

I didn't write it down or anything, but there was quite a bit of Neal, Daniels, Guion, Peppers all with a hand in the dirt alignment. None were getting pressure though. When Clay would move to the edge, the would run away from him time and again. They moved Julio Jones to the slot and Ryan would just stare at him waiting for him to get open. This was a full team effort to suck that bad in the second half.

This is about right. A Good QB/WR Combo can make a defensive backfield look bad when there is no pressure but man...that was ridiculous. I remember one Julio Jones play where Shields looked concussed....just lost out there.

[pbmax]

The first Falcons drive yielded some good runs, but that was against nickel. Hawk did go in, but played the lowest number of snaps for him since 2008 (8 total).

First half D yielded 160 yards and 7 points and collected zero sacks and 1 INT. Perry played ROLB but had only one effective rush I saw and was not in time.

What I don't have is the numbers of snaps for Matthews at ILB with Barrington. So there could have been some run D 3-4 with Hawk on sideline, but that wasn't the predominant defense in the first half. Jones was the dime linebacker. I do think Hawk played more in the second half, but I don't have the snap numbers yet.

EDIT: Said 1 first half sack, but that was incorrect.

[ThunderDan]

My hope, which is completely unsupported and just a guess out of left field, is that Dom didn't want to show anything in the 2nd half with the game well in hand. So we played vanilla D and let the WRs run all day.

No need to give away new wrinkles in your D when you are up 20+ points at half. When the Falcons got it close enough that we need to come out of our "prevent" D our pass rush was gassed.

Good thing the O scored 43.

[mraynrand]

It looked like there was man coverage on Jones on almost every play, and there was supposed to be safety help but it was dramatically late far too often. Allowing Jones to get 250 yards receiving left him totally spent, and the Packers won. Capers' plan worked to perfection.

[vince]

I was at the game so the "All-22" showed a number of times when corners (Shields in particular) come off Jones, flatten out and look back to the QB only to see Jones stay in their area and find gaps after the corner lost him... It was zone technique on a bunch of 2nd half plays in my estimation, though they did mix it up. House played man more and shadowed Jones on a few ocassions where he had a couple break-ups.

[3irty1]

The main story in the 2nd half was tons of cover 1/cover 3 with a safety in the box. It doesn't make sense.

When we gave up 200 yards rushing to the Bears I wasn't unhappy with the defensive effort because it was a good plan to sell out against their top 10 WR's and make Forte beat us. I would have expected last night's defense to look similar in game plan although better in results because Atlanta is more 1 dimensional than Chicago and our tackling efforts in general have somewhat improved. These are the games I just can't make sense of where our opponent appears to have a clear strength, they're having a lot of success with that strength, there's no reason to suspect they'll stop leveraging that strength, yet we're defending against something else entirely. The Bears game was a much better game plan with much better results. Running backs and tight ends can hurt you but WR's and QB's will kill you. You'd think Green Bay would know that as well as any team in the league.

[wist43]

I remember from the radio broadcast that we were already into the 2nd quarter, and there had only been 3 possessions. We had the ball twice, and ATL had it once... so long drives/possessions ate up much of the 1st half - so our defense "holding them down" is a bit of a mirage. We ate up 10:47 of the 1st quarter on 2 possessions.

Atlanta's first drive, they drove it 72 yds, in 9 plays, 4:13 TOP, and scored the TD.

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In the 2nd quarter, we forced a 3 and out, punt; gave up a 25 yd pass play before Burnett's INT; gave up a 1st down, and then forced a punt after 3 incompletes.

So those 3 possessions were okay... anyone have alignments, coverage, and rush packages for those series??

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Then on the last possession of the half, Atlanta moved the ball 45 yds, in 2 plays, in 22 seconds, to set up a makable FG - which was blocked.

That knife thru butter impersonation at the end of the half was a precursor of things to come in the 2nd.

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Not much need to go over what happened in the 2nd half - we got absolutely gashed over, and over again. TOP can't be used as an excuse, b/c overall for the game, we out possessed them 33 to 27.

I'll call around to some buddies and see if anyone recorded it and hasn't deleted it yet... asked a couple of guys already, but no one recorded it.

You guys were all giddy over the NE game, and I gave dunderdummy his props; but I'm here to tell ya - he is a huge ?

[woodbuck27]

I remember from the radio broadcast that we were already into the 2nd quarter, and there had only been 3 possessions. We had the ball twice, and ATL had it once... so long drives/possessions ate up much of the 1st half - so our defense "holding them down" is a bit of a mirage. We ate up 10:47 of the 1st quarter on 2 possessions.

Atlanta's first drive, they drove it 72 yds, in 9 plays, 4:13 TOP, and scored the TD.

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In the 2nd quarter, we forced a 3 and out, punt; gave up a 25 yd pass play before Burnett's INT; gave up a 1st down, and then forced a punt after 3 incompletes.

So those 3 possessions were okay... anyone have alignments, coverage, and rush packages for those series??

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Then on the last possession of the half, Atlanta moved the ball 45 yds, in 2 plays, in 22 seconds, to set up a makable FG - which was blocked.

That knife thru butter impersonation at the end of the half was a precursor of things to come in the 2nd.

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Not much need to go over what happened in the 2nd half - we got absolutely gashed over, and over again. TOP can't be used as an excuse, b/c overall for the game, we out possessed them 33 to 27.

I'll call around to some buddies and see if anyone recorded it and hasn't deleted it yet... asked a couple of guys already, but no one recorded it.

You guys were all giddy over the NE game, and I gave dunderdummy his props; but I'm here to tell ya - he is a huge ?

Yup.

I recorded this game and watched the glorious first half this morning. Yes the Packers 'O' dominated and the defense was well rested. They went to the locker room for half time and went for a nap. Woke up stiff...dazed and confused. It was a dramatic shift in style and execution.

I'll watch the second half tomorrow morning. I can stand the pain.

[Tyrion Lannister]

Yup.

I recorded this game and watched the glorious first half this morning. Yes the Packers 'O' dominated and the defense was well rested. They went to the locker room for half time and went for a nap. Woke up stiff...dazed and confused. It was a dramatic shift in style and execution.

I'll watch the second half tomorrow morning. I can stand the pain.

Just watched the first half tonight. Probably won't watch the 2nd half til sometimes in the off-season.

I know I should be watching the 2nd half b/c Matt Ryan is my favorite non-Packer QB, but I can't stand the pain.

[vince]

With the exception of a handful of 3-4 downs, the Packers played pretty much exclusively 2-4 nickel personnel against almost all 1-back, 3 wide offensive groups. Peppers, while always wide in an OLB position outside the tackle on the left, tended to stand up when covered by a TE/H-back and put his hand down when uncovered. The ROLB always stood up in either a one-foot forward rush mode when uncovered or a parallel stance ready to go any direction and press the TE/tight slot when covered up.

Matthews shifted from ILB to ROLB as has been his norm recently and the combination of Neal/Jones patrolled the DL increasingly as the game went on obviously to generate more pass rush, but that didn't materialize.

Coverages tended to match up to personnel, situation (and tendencies I'm sure), but as far as I could tell tended to shift from cover 3 zone - which was too often played too softly - to cover 1 man - which turned out to be too aggressive (against Jones) who had success going over the top of Shields and making double moves on Williams. He was just too big for Hyde early and Heyward later on some slants and crosses from the slot. House played him much too softly in zone a few times but did have a couple break-ups in man on the perimeter.

There was a down early on the first series when the Falcons scored where they went 1-4 dime and all 5 rushed backed up by man press coverage. Jones was too much for Hyde on a quick slant and the pass was completed. I don't recall seeing that again in the game.

It all pretty much worked well in the first half and then leaked a shit ton against the pass with a big lead but got them the win in the second half - particularly the 4th quarter.

[George Cumby]

GBPG says it was the plan to go vanilla after building the big lead:

http://www.packersnews.com/story/sports/nfl/packers/baranczyk/2014/12/09/julio-jones-feasts-packers-vanilla-defense/20173407/