Strange Season, Weird JuJu

[pbmax]

Fans made it for him.

Do we yet know whether is was Schroeder or Favre to blame for that miscommunication pick 6 in the Divisional game at St. Louis in Jan 2002?

BFFFs are an interesting group. Favre could come into your dining room and drop a turd and they'd blame you for not having a toilet installed there for him.

Brett also loved the half explanation: I thought he was running a slant, but he bent it back out like a post and sometimes it just doesn't work out.*

*Int to end the 2007 Championship Game to Driver

[Deputy Nutz]

Fans made it for him.

Do we yet know whether is was Schroeder or Favre to blame for that miscommunication pick 6 in the Divisional game at St. Louis in Jan 2002?

BFFFs are an interesting group. Favre could come into your dining room and drop a turd and they'd blame you for not having a toilet installed there for him.

Your point?

[Rutnstrut]

Brett also loved the half explanation: I thought he was running a slant, but he bent it back out like a post and sometimes it just doesn't work out.*

*Int to end the 2007 Championship Game to Driver

That's right, that was the game where the defense couldn't cover a hobbled Plaxico Burress and frittered the game away.

[mraynrand]

That's right, that was the game where the defense couldn't cover a hobbled Plaxico Burress and frittered the game away.

14 rushes, 28 yards.

[Carolina_Packer]

n

The Packers have won football games and championships with less at the receiving corps. Favre and Rodgers have made average receivers great for a long time. Something doesn't jive with me that we can sit back and blame the receiving corps for all the problems on offense. They haven't played well, their routes are suspect, but why? Why are the receivers playing like shit?
It doesn't take talent to run good routes, it takes skill and dedication to the profession. This offense is disorganized and you can blame the receivers, you can blame Rodgers, but in reality the blame falls on MM and his offensive coaches.

Good post! Obviously it always comes down to execution. There's the whole scheme vs. personnel question. Would all of the problems magically go away if Jordy Nelson was suddenly on the roster never having been injured? Would all the other boats be raised by his presence?

I think it comes down to counter-punch. Like the Giants in the 2011 playoff game, teams came up with a way to defense Green Bay's offense. We've all been waiting for this team to counter-punch. Jordy chain reaction? Sure. Defensive scheme vs. the Packer offense? Sure. The time to make adjustments to what other teams are doing defensively is NOW! As far as I'm concerned, the playoffs start this weekend. Lay your cards and lay some wood. Oh, yeah, and catch the ball.

[mraynrand]

Cold analysis in the bitter grey of dawn. This team isn't going anywhere. If fortunate they get past the WC round. Die in Divisional round at Carolina. Carolina gives TD balls to sweet little children. Lacy eats children's Luck Charms. MVP Cam will show Rodgers what it used to be like to play unafraid, taking game on shoulders and not shaking head at WR errors (like Ted Ginn dropping passes).

[Patler]

The Packers have won football games and championships with less at the receiving corps. Favre and Rodgers have made average receivers great for a long time. Something doesn't jive with me that we can sit back and blame the receiving corps for all the problems on offense. They haven't played well, their routes are suspect, but why? Why are the receivers playing like shit?
It doesn't take talent to run good routes, it takes skill and dedication to the profession. This offense is disorganized and you can blame the receivers, you can blame Rodgers, but in reality the blame falls on MM and his offensive coaches.

I raised this question a few weeks ago, have we seen Edgar Bennett hit his ceiling? He seems to have been a great position coach. RBs & WRs both seemed to excel under his coaching. Players improved. Emergency fill-ins came in and functioned well. But, has he failed this year as OC? If some of the blame falls on his shoulders, is it simply inexperience, or has he hit his ceiling?

How about Van Pelt? The idea behind a combined position group of QBs and WRs was to enhance communication and understanding. Promote common understanding and responses having more combined film reviews and meetings. The WR problems have been well-publicized, and I think AR is having a very off year performance wise both physically and mentally. Is Van Pelt failing, or is the concept bad? Has the combined group resulted in too little specific attention for each position group? The very thing that this change was supposed to improve has in fact regressed significantly. Is Van Pelt at fault? The concept? Or, is it just something that happens from time to time?

Looking back at it, when you consider that a new OL assistant was added, the overhaul of the coaching structure on offense was extensive:
- new position of Associate Head Coach/Offense
- new play caller (now reversed)
- new OC
- new WR coach
- new dynamic by combining QB and WR position groups
- new OL assistant coach

In 2014 GB lead the league in scoring at over 30 points per game. They set a team record for 1st downs and gained the fourth most total yards ever. Did MM go overboard fixing something that wasn't broken?

[ThunderDan]

14 rushes, 28 yards.

264 Yards Total Offense
Favre - 19/35 236 Yards 2TD 2INT

[Maxie the Taxi]

Cold analysis in the bitter grey of dawn. This team isn't going anywhere. If fortunate they get past the WC round. Die in Divisional round at Carolina. Carolina gives TD balls to sweet little children. Lacy eats children's Luck Charms. MVP Cam will show Rodgers what it used to be like to play unafraid, taking game on shoulders and not shaking head at WR errors (like Ted Ginn dropping passes).

+1

My bitter grey of dawn assessment of this team boils down to two words: Too slow.

And for all the guys blaming the coaching staff for this year's failures, there is this cliche: You can't coach speed.

Sunday we'll see what it's like to have team speed, on offense and defense. Even with Jimmy Graham Seattle didn't shine on offense until Tyler Lockette got involved in a big way. One guy with speed, who knows how to use it, can change an offense. Baldwin is benefiting from Lockette's speed.

When Jordy went down we lost effective WR speed. Jordy's route running, ability to fake, his sure-handedness and his experience only made his natural speed more effective. The rest of our WR's are either naturally slow or lack effective speed.

Add to this our lack of speed in the backfield (Sparkplug has some, esp. contrasted with Lacy) and our plodders at TE and there you have it.

On defense, we've got some speed in the secondary but it loses it's effectiveness because of lack of experience. Clay has natural speed but its wasted at ILB, plus he loses his speed's effectiveness for lack of experience at ILB. Same with Palmer and Thomas. Ryan does not have natural speed; never will.

[Patler]

+1

My bitter grey of dawn assessment of this team boils down to two words: Too slow.

And for all the guys blaming the coaching staff for this year's failures, there is this cliche: You can't coach speed.

Sunday we'll see what it's like to have team speed, on offense and defense. Even with Jimmy Graham Seattle didn't shine on offense until Tyler Lockette got involved in a big way. One guy with speed, who knows how to use it, can change an offense. Baldwin is benefiting from Lockette's speed.

When Jordy went down we lost effective WR speed. Jordy's route running, ability to fake, his sure-handedness and his experience only made his natural speed more effective. The rest of our WR's are either naturally slow or lack effective speed.

Add to this our lack of speed in the backfield (Sparkplug has some, esp. contrasted with Lacy) and our plodders at TE and there you have it.

All those things were true last year as well, and they finished #1 in scoring, set a franchise record for first down, etc. Except for the loss of Nelson, the personnel on that side of the ball has not changed at all. However, the coaching structure on offense changed dramatically.

It could be that we just happened to see Rodgers, Nelson, Cobb and Lacy all have their career years at the same time in 2014.

[pbmax]

14 rushes, 28 yards.

I was a fan of 0-5 on third down.

[Maxie the Taxi]

All those things were true last year as well, and they finished #1 in scoring, set a franchise record for first down, etc. Except for the loss of Nelson, the personnel on that side of the ball has not changed at all. However, the coaching structure on offense changed dramatically.

It could be that we just happened to see Rodgers, Nelson, Cobb and Lacy all have their career years at the same time in 2014.

It could be, but the loss of Nelson was pretty much my main point. To my mind his loss was catastrophic and we don't have the horses to compensate for that loss.

[Rutnstrut]

264 Yards Total Offense
Favre - 19/35 236 Yards 2TD 2INT

Favre did plenty to win in that game, Al Harris on the other hand did nothing with an INJURED Plaxico that was significantly slowed down. Burress caught 11 passes for 154 yards and if I remember right Harris also had 2 pI's. The shitty non covering or tackling defense lost that game as much if not more than Favre.

[Airin' Rodgers]

Favre did plenty to win in that game, Al Harris on the other hand did nothing with an INJURED Plaxico that was significantly slowed down. Burress caught 11 passes for 154 yards and if I remember right Harris also had 2 pI's. The shitty non covering or tackling defense lost that game as much if not more than Favre.

I agree with you on the defense, but Favre played terribly.

That was the game that McCarthy was caught saying that if his name wasn't Brett Favre he would have benched him at halftime....made a career out of being a warrior but was scared of the cold that day.

[ThunderDan]

Favre did plenty to win in that game, Al Harris on the other hand did nothing with an INJURED Plaxico that was significantly slowed down. Burress caught 11 passes for 154 yards and if I remember right Harris also had 2 pI's. The shitty non covering or tackling defense lost that game as much if not more than Favre.

Come on, take off your Favre kool-aid glasses.

Other than the 90 yard TD pass BF was 18/34 146 Yards 1 TD and 2 Ints (kind of like a few ARod games this year). He played like shit that game. He didn't want to be out in the extreme cold.

And the defense also didn't play well. But you don't have to make shit up.

In fact using your same logic, the D played well enough to win the game if BF didn't turn over the ball in OT.

And Bush should have jumped on the muffed punt.