The Elephant In The Room

[pbmax]

The problem with the Defense AND the Offense is their ability to execute the plan on the field. I have very little doubt that Capers had a good plan. Worked on Jones early. They were going to zone it and get to Ryan is pass rush (that part did not materialize early). The Packers had two good drives early but a turnover and a missed FG kept them off the board. Heck, even Rodgers was throwing the ball short, though he seemed to want to force things to Nelson.

The question is why don't Randall, the safety to his side and say Matthews/Ryan/Thomas understand their coverage assignments? Why doesn't Randall get zone coverage?

If he's too inexperienced in zone, why are you playing it?

On offense, the first wave of completions looked good. Almost looked like they were playing zone. Then that stopped, they played man and every route started heading deeper. And the Falcons had enough time to generate pressure from delayed blitzes up the middle or unblocked off the corner.

They had no answer to this except to screen. And there were too many drops.

Why after 4 years of this crap, demonstrated over and over again by the 49ers D, haven't they solved their problems against man coverage? Rodgers can't be a miracle worker every week. Not even he is this good.

McCarthy's approach of leveraging his superior assists to the maximum doesn't work as well in the playoffs against good teams.

[pbmax]

Hyde being out probably forced their hand at CB. They could not replace Randall in zone because Rollins had to play inside.

So they went man and the defense started to hemorrhage even worse.

[mission]

Saw this on twitter:

Aaron Rodgers has 3 playoff losses where his defense allowed 44+points. Tom Brady's defenses have NEVER allowed 44 points in his 267 starts


Pretty telling.

[Maxie the Taxi]

Are we sure they deferred? I missed the coin toss.

I heard Buck (or Aikman) say Pack won the toss and deferred. It just doesn't make sense to me IF Stubby expected an offensive battle. Why throw a patched up and shaky defense immediately against the best and hottest offense in the NFL?

[pbmax]

I don't think Whitt can survive this. Not do I think he should survive this.

He does wonderful work turning marvelous athletes into man coverage CBs. But there are cases you need to do something different. Yesterday was that day. bad zone coverage has been a feature for a while.

And I will say this, pass rush has been horrible, especially in the interior. Is that Trgovac? I tend to think its the bodies. Jenkins did fine, Daniels is fine as long as he is not double teamed. I trust Ted will find CBs, but he needs pass rushers in FA as drafting them has been almost impossible.

[pbmax]

I heard Buck (or Aikman) say Pack won the toss and deferred. It just doesn't make sense to me IF Stubby expected an offensive battle. Why throw a patched up and shaky defense immediately against the best and hottest offense in the NFL?

Even Belichick did not defer to the Steelers offense. At home.

[Maxie the Taxi]

The problem with the Defense AND the Offense is their ability to execute the plan on the field. I have very little doubt that Capers had a good plan. Worked on Jones early. They were going to zone it and get to Ryan is pass rush (that part did not materialize early). The Packers had two good drives early but a turnover and a missed FG kept them off the board. Heck, even Rodgers was throwing the ball short, though he seemed to want to force things to Nelson.

The question is why don't Randall, the safety to his side and say Matthews/Ryan/Thomas understand their coverage assignments? Why doesn't Randall get zone coverage?

If he's too inexperienced in zone, why are you playing it?

On offense, the first wave of completions looked good. Almost looked like they were playing zone. Then that stopped, they played man and every route started heading deeper. And the Falcons had enough time to generate pressure from delayed blitzes up the middle or unblocked off the corner.

They had no answer to this except to screen. And there were too many drops.

Why after 4 years of this crap, demonstrated over and over again by the 49ers D, haven't they solved their problems against man coverage? Rodgers can't be a miracle worker every week. Not even he is this good.

McCarthy's approach of leveraging his superior assists to the maximum doesn't work as well in the playoffs against good teams.

I tried to put myself in Stubby's shoes prior to kickoff and come up with my game plan. On Defense, I just could not imagine a solution to Ryan's offense after having watched last week's game vs Seattle.

So I figured, if I were the Packer coach I would install a game plan that emphasized ball control, by means of emphasizing Monty, both in running the ball and in short passing game. By doing so I would try to control TOP and keep Ryan off the field. I'd accept the opening KO and, hopefully, after a patient drive, I'd have a 7 point lead.

On defense I'd just try to hang in there and if things got too desperate I'd do what Aikman recommended: sellout on the pass rush. Yet, to my knowledge that never happened. We activated Elliot but he either didn't play or didn't do anything. Same with Fackrell.

My feeling is if you're going to take high risk/high benefit chances (like the early onsides kick), why not take the high risk/high benefit tact of selling out on a serious blitzing pass rush. They were getting torched anyway.

I just don't get it.

[vince]

Saw this on twitter:

Aaron Rodgers has 3 playoff losses where his defense allowed 44+points. Tom Brady's defenses have NEVER allowed 44 points in his 267 starts


Pretty telling.

Very. Here's another one that yours prompted me to look up...

The Packers gave up 42+ 3 times in the last 11 games.
In the 15 Brady years (267 games, since 2001) the Pats have never given up 42+.

[yetisnowman]

Good points all. And just a couple of weeks ago we were singing Capers's praise when he managed to shut down NY. With all of the injuries to the defense, Capers has been doing it with smoke and mirrors. Bottom line is, Packers ran into a team that couldn't miss today. Nobody would have beaten Atlanta today, not the Packers, not New England, not the 85 Bears.

No, a team that could play competent defense and not turn the ball over could have certainly beat that team yesterday. I'm sorry but to me that's a copout. Busted coverages. Terrible tackling. Zero pressure. Inability to make the plays right in their face. Atlanta's a good offense but we offered no resistance.

[red]

I heard Buck (or Aikman) say Pack won the toss and deferred. It just doesn't make sense to me IF Stubby expected an offensive battle. Why throw a patched up and shaky defense immediately against the best and hottest offense in the NFL?

i've been saying that for awhile

when you're offense is that much better then your D, why not let them set the tone?

[pbmax]

No, a team that could play competent defense and not turn the ball over could have certainly beat that team yesterday. I'm sorry but to me that's a copout. Busted coverages. Terrible tackling. Zero pressure. Inability to make the plays right in their face. Atlanta's a good offense but we offered no resistance.

A competent D was hard pressed to keep this team at 33 points the week before.

[pbmax]

i've been saying that for awhile

when you're offense is that much better then your D, why not let them set the tone?

That tone was to fiddle around for an entire half. They did not hit on plays they needed and they turned it over.

[red]

I don't think Whitt can survive this. Not do I think he should survive this.

He does wonderful work turning marvelous athletes into man coverage CBs. But there are cases you need to do something different. Yesterday was that day. bad zone coverage has been a feature for a while.

And I will say this, pass rush has been horrible, especially in the interior. Is that Trgovac? I tend to think its the bodies. Jenkins did fine, Daniels is fine as long as he is not double teamed. I trust Ted will find CBs, but he needs pass rushers in FA as drafting them has been almost impossible.

at the very least whitt should lose his job, his guys were clueless this year, and pathetic yesterday

and so help me god, if i ever see randall looking around after a play throwing his hands up looking for help again i will invent a time machine and go back in time and abort him

[vince]

I tried to put myself in Stubby's shoes prior to kickoff and come up with my game plan. On Defense, I just could not imagine a solution to Ryan's offense after having watched last week's game vs Seattle.

So I figured, if I were the Packer coach I would install a game plan that emphasized ball control, by means of emphasizing Monty, both in running the ball and in short passing game. By doing so I would try to control TOP and keep Ryan off the field. I'd accept the opening KO and, hopefully, after a patient drive, I'd have a 7 point lead.

On defense I'd just try to hang in there and if things got too desperate I'd do what Aikman recommended: sellout on the pass rush. Yet, to my knowledge that never happened. We activated Elliot but he either didn't play or didn't do anything. Same with Fackrell.

My feeling is if you're going to take high risk/high benefit chances (like the early onsides kick), why not take the high risk/high benefit tact of selling out on a serious blitzing pass rush. They were getting torched anyway.

I just don't get it.

Capers obviously didn't have much confidence in going after Ryan, but as you said, his patented soft read and react approach was just as fruitless. I think we both said last week Maxie that the Packers HAD to get to Ryan to have a chance. They're the #1 offense in the league by a good margin (more than 5 points/game over #2) for a reason, but that obviously didn't happen.

I know they were burned equally when they did blitz on those occasions when they did but I tried to find some stats on the game, and I'll continue to look but here's what PFF said:

If Green Bay was going to have any chance of slowing the Atlanta offense, the Packers needed to get pressure. On the surface, pressure on 11 plays out of 40 isn’t terrible, but it was the nature of those pressures that tell the story. They were rarely quick, and were often the result of Matt Ryan extending the play, inviting the pressure in order to open up throwing lanes. It meant the Green Bay corners had to win their matchups; they were unable to, with Ladarius Gunter exposed as overmatched as he fruitlessly tried to track Julio Jones. His 20.4 grade was the lowest of any player, getting beat for 144 yards, two touchdowns, two penalties and missing a tackle for good measure. The streaky Gunter has flashed talent, but this is a postseason that has not been kind to him.

Bottom line is Capers' defense was seriously outmatched no matter what they did.

I suspect McGinn's grades after reviewing and charting the game will offer some additional details.

[pbmax]

The Packers did not have too much trouble with Atlanta's running game. They played six in a box with nickel personnel and were stout enough for most of the game.

McCarthy encouraged Capers to switch away from base 3-4 to match personnel rather than pay attention to down and distance in 2010-11. During a couple of those years, the Packers lead the League in QB differential.

Almost every other team has made this switch. A lot of teams are in nickel personnel well over half the time.

Has this advice gone stale? Do they simply not have the personnel to play it? Because this is a case of McCarthy being ahead of a trend. But something has gone horribly wrong.