studs 'n' duds - bears

[King Friday]

Cobb was a dud...he was invisible, and he normally has big games against the Bears.

[Pugger]

Cobb was a dud...he was invisible, and he normally has big games against the Bears.

Is he playing on a bad wheel right now?

[texaspackerbacker]

I just wish Matthews was healthy and playing like a beast. The defense just does not have that dominant guy. To me, you need one beast who must always be double-teamed and still can't be contained, plus a shut-down corner, plus some solid starters and the usual marginal guys. The Packers have marginal guys and solid starters, but no beast (I don't think Daniels is at that level right now) and no shut down corner.

I agree with this completely, but Aaron Rodgers - injury and all - is gonna take the Packers to the playoffs, through the playoffs to the Super Bowl, and WIN the Super Bowl - call that a PREDICTION! Why? Mostly because he's just so damn good that he makes up for a multitude of mediocrity, and partly because the whole league is a little bit down right now - call it parity or whatever, but the super teams of recent years aren't that super this season, and the up and comers aren't that far up yet.

[King Friday]

Is he playing on a bad wheel right now?

Isn't Rodgers playing on two bad wheels?

[texaspackerbacker]

Studs this game: Montgomery, Rodgers, Clinton-Dix, Cook, most of the O Line (which I have criticized in the past), Gunter and Rollins - when you don't see much of Corners, it usually means they are doing a good job.

Duds this game: the whole front 7 of the defense at times, even though for much of the game, they played like studs. Similarly, Capers - whose schemes make it all possible on D with limited talent, but who must get some blame for the large part of the game where the D fell apart. Also, Randall - he's pretty consistently a day late and a dollar short. Adams - I've gotten to like him after really being down on him before, and he did a great job of getting open even in this game, but the drops were horrible. I'm still gonna call McCarthy mostly a dud. His play calling was still shoddy at times (like 3rd and 1 and 4th and 2 of the second series). I'd say the Packers won in spite of him, not because of him - and you can pretty much say that all the time.

One more on the Stud side: the Bears - give 'em some credit, they played damn good in a lot of ways. Just not having Cutler is pretty damn studly hahahahaha.

[pbmax]

The front sever misplayed several key runs and had no pressure. They weren't studs.

[denverYooper]

Peppers gets a "stud" for his strip sack. That seemed to have gotten into Barkley's head for a few series. After that, it looked like he drew a lot of doubles.

For all of the hoopla about whether he is worth his contract, he seems to come up with big plays when they need them.

[King Friday]

The front sever misplayed several key runs and had no pressure. They weren't studs.

Yeah, I was very disappointed that they could not get any pressure on the QB against a mediocre Bears OL.

[King Friday]

Adams plays well on turf and indoors. Soft!

Yeah, he looked cold yesterday...even with a huge jacket on standing next to a heater. I don't think we are going to be able to count on him much outdoors in December/January.

[texaspackerbacker]

Yeah, I was very disappointed that they could not get any pressure on the QB against a mediocre Bears OL.

In their defense, Barkley was getting rid of the ball damn quick, and his receivers were getting open to make that possible. As I said earlier, our front seven was hot and cold - studs at times, duds at times.

I fully expect Adams to bounce back. He did get open - even in the cold, and I think the drops were an aberration.

[denverYooper]

While I am extremely glad the Packers are in the position in which they find themselves, I also foresee another "just falling a little short" playoff run, should they get there. It's the defense. Yes, I do know the Packers have an injured and MIA Clay Matthews and were missing Nick Perry and Jayrone Elliot and so on. But the Bears were missing nine starters, yet Barkely really did, as Burkhardt and Lynch pointed out, look like Aaron Rodgers in the fourth quarter. The Packer defense has no punch, no real nastiness that a great defense has. The secondary doesn't hit guys; they just drag them down. And I don't know if Randall;s injury is still affecting him, but they need a stud cover corner, but he was awful. In addition, he gave lots of ammo to those who call him an ankle-biting tackler.

They just don't have the defense. Kudos to McCarthy for transforming this offense on the fly - first time he's done that in a couple of years - but the defense is just not championship caliber.

They do seem to play reverse-complimentary football at times when they have a substantial lead. The offensive stalls did not help to stem the Bears comeback.

But this seems to be a year of "just enough" defense around the league and it is set up well for Green Bay to make a run if they can win out.

[Tony Oday]

I really liked the play of the front 7 yesterday. Forced Barkley to throw early and high, strip sack and bottled up the run game for most of the game. MM as usual got a small lead and thought that he could coast to a win, no killer instinct. Davante should easily have iced the game with the two TDs and Jordy had a bad game even with the 60 yard bomb on 3rd and 11, that should have been a TD. Cook had a decent game and Cobb was no even on the field or was he?

[Patler]

It is difficult to find studs on offense or defense for me, just because of the way they closed out the game in the 4th quarter. Until the Bears final possession, the defense couldn't even slow them down, let alone stop them. Two drives of 70+ yards for TDs. each requiring less than 4 minutes, as I recall. With a three score lead, all they needed was to make them work and expend significant time to get the first and second scores, and the game should have been about done. Just the flip for the offense. Scoring again didn't seem critical, but getting 1st downs and using up the clock was. Neither did their jobs in the 4th quarter.

At the end, it came down to 3 players making two big plays. Micah Hyde to keep the Bears out of the endzone, and Rodgers and Nelson converting a single play to put Crosby in position to win it. Big plays at crucial times. Does that make them studs? or clutch?

[Patler]

For as many times as we have criticized Guion for "dumb" plays, we need to point out the smart play he made on the Bears final play before the FG.

Due to a miscommunication, GB had only 10 on the filed, (OK, maybe Guion started out "dumb" on the play), but instead of running directly on the field, he ran down the sideline out of bounds to avoid a possible off side, then ran onto the filed onside as the ball was snapped, so sort of ran into a pass coverage area to try an have some impact on the play. At least he ended up being heads up, even if late.

[Fritz]

I agree - I thought about his not running onto the field until he was onsides as I was recalling an article about him in which it was said he's one of the less football-intelligent guys on the field.

Weird that it sounds like he was almost in position to make a play on the ball. I didn't even see him on the TV screen until the replay, and then I thought, "Oh, it's that new give-the-DL-a-running-start" play that Capers just put in!