WHAT IS YOUR VIEW OF DOM CAPERS

[vince]

And I really meant this you idiot - if you don't know anything about football, you should probably keep your commentary restricted to how much like the team colors.

With authority!
Packers Defense: What My Eyes Might Be Missing

Packers Yards Allowed

The Numbers: The Green Bay Packers defense ranks 26th in the NFL with 374.4 yards allowed per game. The Atlanta Falcons nearly came back on it Monday night. At first glance, the defense looks very vulnerable over the long haul.

The Truth: No one will mistake the Packers defense for the Seattle Seahawks defense. But there is an incredible amount of fluff in its yardage allowed totals, due to the fact that the Packers offense is so good that opponents rack up gobs of garbage yardage against a prevent defense.

Opponents have accumulated 1,126 passing yards and 359 rushing yards when trailing by 17 or more points (all stat splits come from the Football Outsiders internal database unless noted otherwise). Those 1,485 yards work out to an average of 114.2 yards per game, over 30 percent of the Packers total yardage allowed! It's safe to assume that the Packers defense can tighten up and cut down on that 114.2 yard figure if it has to. After all, those 17-point leads never happen if the defense does not make a few early stops.

Coming at it another way, Football Outsiders ranks defenses by quarter in its Premium Database. Here is how the Packers defense shakes out on a quarter-by-quarter basis:

Packers Defensive Rank by Quarter
Quarter....Rank
First.........10th
Second.....14th
Third........14th
Fourth......28th

Football Outsiders' methodology adjusts for late-game blowouts, but it does not completely ignore them; scares like the Packers received on Monday night are a reminder that so-called "meaningless" drives can pile up and cause a problem. But the quarter-by-quarter analysis shows a better-than-average defense through three quarters with a habit of letting up when it enters the fourth leading 48-7. That's as good a defense as the Packers need to remain Super Bowl contenders. When the games are tighter, the Packers are less likely to let up.

And now I see in another thread that PB once again beat me to the punch.

I love green.

[mraynrand]

It's just possible a lot of guys took the night off. Can't get away with that against the Bills. They are gonna bring the hammer.

[woodbuck27]

Well we diverge here too. Daniels, Guion, Boyd and Jones all had awful, pedestrian games against a bunch of scrubs. Neal was the only front seven guy to show up other than Matthews.

I felt that Sam Barrington had a decent game with 5 Tackles and 2 Assisted Tackles:

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2014120800/2014/REG14/falcons@packers#menu=gameinfo%7CcontentId%3A0ap3000000441493&tab=analyze&analyze=boxscore

[wist43]

Well we diverge here too. Daniels, Guion, Boyd and Jones all had awful, pedestrian games against a bunch of scrubs. Neal was the only front seven guy to show up other than Matthews.

It sounds like dunderdummy ran a pretty vanilla 2-4 most of the game, no?? Regardless of what coverages he ran on the back end... if he ran his patented static 2-4 most of the game - then he set his players up to fail before the first snap.

I can't really comment on the type of game those guys had b/c I haven't seen the game. If we ran a 2-4 most of the game, and remained fairly static in our presnap looks, then that front is very predicatable. The players do not have the assistance of scheme helping them gain an edge - it is straight forward mano-o-mano... no deception, and very little stunting and blitzing.

If that is what dunderdummy ran most of the game, then the lack of pressure is more his fault than the players. If he put them in the best position to make plays - and it certainly sounds like he did not, and the results would say that he did not - then it would be on the players.

Someone posted that we ran the 3-4 front 8 times during the game... what else did he run, how often, how many blitzes, etc??

[Joemailman]

Someone posted that we ran the 3-4 front 8 times during the game... what else did he run, how often, how many blitzes, etc??

Blitzed only 24% of the time, the least since week 3.

[Zool]

Blitzed only 24% of the time, the least since week 3.

And a lot of that was during the 4th quarter attempt to not lose.

[mraynrand]

I had the feeling the Packers were in 'prevent mode' the entire game.

[George Cumby]

I had the feeling the Packers were in 'prevent mode' the entire game.

Which is what one does with a big lead, n'est ce pas?

Je t'aime vert!

[vince]

It's pretty clear that Dom's approach revolves around this, from the Quality Stats link in Woody's thread... He's said as much before.

3. Owning the Quarterback Battle

As you've likely heard from us, efficiency in the passing game on both sides of the football gives you best chance to win in this league. That's why we call Passer Rating Differential the "Mother of All Stats." However, if you want a spin off to this story, look at Real Quarterback Rating Differential. This stat applies better to today's discussion particularly because of how Russell Wilson is running the football under center. RQRD adjusts the PRD to sacks and rushing totals from quarterbacks to give a more complete picture.

Don't be surprised that these four teams lead the league in RQRD. This includes four of the top five offenses in this area (the Dallas Cowboys rank fourth in REALQBR). The Green Bay Packers led the league with a 27.18 RQRD, followed by the Denver Broncos with a 18.77 RQRD.

The New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks rank third and fourth in RQRD, respectively. However, they are only two teams to rank the in the top 9 on both sides of the football (the Indianapolis Colts are quite close, ranking 9th and 10th on offense and defense, respectively).

Defenses obviously don't operate in a vacuum. Having (by far) the most efficient QB in history tends to make his defensive approach more conservative.

[woodbuck27]

With authority!
Packers Defense: What My Eyes Might Be Missing



And now I see in another thread that PB once again beat me to the punch.

I love green.

This is a solid find:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2295593-packers-defense-and-seahawks-o-line-lies-my-statistics-told-me

Did B/R come through here? Give us a ditto heads up on a Football Outsiders Report/Analysis Result?

I believe so. I also find it comforting.

[wist43]

It's pretty clear that Dom's approach revolves around this, from the Quality Stats link in Woody's thread... He's said as much before.


Defenses obviously don't operate in a vacuum. Having (by far) the most efficient QB in history tends to make his defensive approach more conservative.

I would say that is a bunch of crap - however, it is obvious the Packers put stock in the fact that their offense is so good, that they sew that fact into how they approach defense. The only time it works is when the team has a lead; the opponent isn't very proficient at running the ball, or isn't running the ball due to the lead; the opponent is offensively challenged and inferior; or we're getting a lot of turnovers.

Too much of that formula is dependent upon things that are outside the control of the defense itself. When we run into teams that can contain our offense - our defense is usually in big, big trouble - b/c we don't have an identity (or at least prior to getting back to some 3 man lines we didn't) to play tough and get stops... at least enough stops to overcome the opponents ability to stifle our offense.

Even given that our defense is now being used in a more traditional way, i.e. more 3 man fronts, and more shrift being given to contesting the LOS, we are still constructed to deal with the pass over the run; hence, a heavy running team like Seattle, SF, or Dallas can usually control the game by controlling the ball on the ground and turning that running game and those yds into points.

Yes, it is true that the league is largely a passing league, but that doesn't mean you can just abandon run defense - like Capers has done for the pass 3 years. We're 0-4 against SF, and 0-2 against Seattle in the past few years - that is not an accident; and almost all of the games went by the same formula. Only the 23-20 loss to SF in the playoffs was a competitive game where Capers played a lot of 3-4 (with the players they cut loose this offseason). The fail mary game Seattle was just coming on the scene, but they held us to 12 pts in that game, and sacked Rodgers 8 times in the first half.

I don't like the approach at all. Defense should be a stand alone proposition apart from whatever the offense is doing. The goal of defense should be to get stops, force punts, and prevent points - it should not be a hope and prayer that we force a turnover, or be minutes off the clock before the offense gets back out there and scores us a TD. I would much rather force 5-7 punts/game, 3 FG attempts, and get 3-4 sacks/game, than to get 1 turnover, and give up 450+ yds and 35+ pts/game.

[vince]

There's not a fan out there who wouldn't want the best defense in the league to go along with the best offense in the league.

- Most experts put the Packers at the very top of the league in terms of Super Bowl odds this year as they fight down the stretch for the #1 seed in the NFC.

- The Packers are alone with the Pats (who they just beat) in terms of enjoying sustained success over the last 8 years or so, including a Super Bowl win.

- You could go on and on with all the great things about this team.

Yet your outlook is just loaded with nothing but doom, gloom and a fixation on the negative.

- You called the 2013 Packer draft class - which looks like one of Ted's best in his tenure, perhaps outdone by the 2014 class - an "unmitigated disaster" when it was happening and shortly after...

- You characterized the team as years away from being competitive when they were on the precipice of huge success.

- You can probably count on one hand the number of posts you've made without the word dunderdummy in the past year... Maybe that's an exaggeration but not by much.

- The defense is average in most respects. Could be a hell of a lot better no doubt. They're 21st in Rushing YpA. 12th in Passing YpA. 25th in Yards Allowed. 18th in Points Allowed. Not good but not as horrible as you regularly characterize it.

The team gets the lead and Dom goes into bend/take time off the clock mode. Statistics show that they are much better when the game is competitive and they let up when they have big leads.

Sure they have struggled with really good defensive teams. Those have been the teams that have either won the Super Bowl or were right there at the end every year. Most teams have struggled with the Packers.

- Above you say, "The only time it works is when the team has a lead." Do you recognize that the team hasn't been behind in any second of any game in about seven weeks?

- Anything remotely positive you grudgingly acknowledge is almost always immediately followed by something negative.

My question is this: Why so fixated on doom and gloom when there's so much to celebrate and enjoy as a Packer fan?

[vince]

Here's the win probability graph for the Falcons game from Pro Football Reference. The game was never in doubt but reading some posts you'd think they got killed.

http://www.pro-football-reference.co...1412080gnb.htm

[Bretsky]

WHERE do we rate in turnovers this year is Dom's Defense ????

[Joemailman]

WHERE do we rate in turnovers this year is Dom's Defense ????

5th In INT's with 16. 15th in fumble recoveries with 8. Tied for 1st with 4 defensive TD's scored.