More Banjo - Packers vs. Bears

[George Cumby]

I watched Quay a fair bit.

Dude looks really disciplined, stays in position or stays with his man until it's time to address the ball carrier.

He also looks skinny AF.

[RashanGary]

Elgton had a shaky first game back, but that’s just his starting point. He’ll be closer to 100% by seasons end. Newman back at guard is big. I like our OLs chances of being decent if we get a bit of health luck.

[call_me_ishmael]

How'd Devante Wyatt play?

[Joemailman]

How'd Devante Wyatt play?

Wyatt only had 4 snaps on defense and 4 on special teams. He had no stats.

[Fritz]

The OL is gonna get better as they settle into their spots. Crossing fingers for health.

On special teams I kept saying “who the hell is #6.” He’s a hell of a special teams player. Big come up for us.

I saw the same thing with #6. In on almost every special teams tackle. Good ST player, whoever that is. I also became very confused last week watching the Vikings because the announcers kept talking about a former Packer who now played for the Vikes, names "Ladarius Smith." I couldn't for the life of me figure out who the hell that was. Ladarius Hamilton? Whut? Took me the whole game to figure out that they couldn't get the name right.

I think Royce Newman is not very good. I'd like to see them work on replacing him; he's the weakest link. Jenkins will get better at RT as he gets back into the swing, as you say. But Newman is the weakest link. I don't know if Tom is better at guard, but I hope he's getting lots of reps at RG.

I am still disappointed with this defense.Don't agree with Joe, really, that it's a long season and all that. This is the second year in the system, they have blue chippers on that defense - Clark, Gary, Alexander - and other good pieces, but the supposed lousy Chicago OL pushed that defense all over in the run game. Not, like, four or five yards. Lots of eight or nine or twenty-nine yard types of runs, just controlling the LOS. I hope it will get better, but I am feeling let down. I love watching a good Packer defense, and having that is rare, so I thought this would be the year they had a dominating defense while the offense tried to figure things out. But the defense has been really just meh. I'm frustrated.

[Joemailman]

I think people need to keep in mind that the NFL is a league geared toward offense. Dominant defenses are rare. Among the 28 teams that have played 2 games, the Packers are 5th in points allowed and 9th in yards allowed. There is plenty to work on, but the sky is not falling.

[Fritz]

I think people need to keep in mind that the NFL is a league geared toward offense. Dominant defenses are rare. Among the 28 teams that have played 2 games, the Packers are 5th in points allowed and 9th in yards allowed. There is plenty to work on, but the sky is not falling.

No, it's not falling. But you have to admit that all the talk about how dominant the defense looked in training camp is not measuring up to the performance so far. I am mostly disappointed in the line - I suppose the hope is that by year's end Wyatt will begin to contribute, and hopefully TJ Slaton will play better, too. He seemed to have a poor game yesterday.

Again, I love watching a superb defense, but that's not what the Packers seem to have, rules or no. I hope they get better. I hope I am overreacting. I am just disappointed so far.

[George Cumby]

Still way too early in the season to be passing judgement on anything.

This D may still round into form. The horses are there.

[run pMc]

I think for defensive metrics, scoring defense and opposing QB rating are decent high level numbers, vs. things like yardage given up.
That run defense sure wasn't great though. Montgomery is a tough runner with good contact balance, but he shouldn't have been getting free like that. Aaron Jones was too, so maybe it's early season stuff to iron out.
Quay is rangy and he looks like a rookie, there were a couple times where it looked like he picked the wrong gap to plug and that allowed some of those big run plays. But overall he's pretty good and looks like a rookie R1 pick. He looks a lot better than Wyatt.
Hard to tell if the secondary fixed their issues because CHI offense was not good.
Also, I think Fields crossed the plane on that 4th & 1 dive. Pretty dumb doing it from shotgun. Running out of shotgun in 4th & inches is generally not smart IMO. I also think even had they scored the Packers would've gone down and scored at least another FG again and won the game.

On offense:
Jenkins looked rusty. Nijman had trouble too, but Jenkins looked like a G trying to play T. The game speed was a challenge for him and he'll need to get better. I thought Runyan and Myers played well, they got to the second level nicely and the RBs ran with attitude. Aaron Jones was a beast, and Dillon helped keep the chains moving as well.

Rodgers looked better, but it still seems like he has some off-season rust to shake off. He's still holding the ball a little too long and not trusting his reads. He also got pressured by the DEs a lot -- Quinn and Gipson gave the OL and by extension Rodgers trouble. That should improve but he's gotta stay healthy/upright and continue to build rapport with the receivers. Was nice to see Watkins make some contributions, nothing really to say either way for the rookies... the WR screen Doubs ran on 2nd & 28 was nice.

[texaspackerbacker]

I think at this stage of the season, those rankings have more to do with who you've played than anything else, and ours are skewed upward by playing the Bears. Our D's performance has been a colossal disappointment compared to the apparent talent level. I blame Barry a LOT for that. Other teams certainly seem to do a LOT more with less talent available. Is the Bear O Line really that outstanding? Or did our front seven just stink it up? I tend to think the latter. In the Bears passing game also, the Packers left a lot of openings in that lame excuse for a zone they were playing. One of the great things about LaFleur is that he has subordinated his ego and tailored his offense to the personnel for the most part. Barry seemed to damn dumb or whatever to do that. He forced HIS way on the D even though we have easily the best cover Corners in the NFL, and his zone just wasn't working. "looked a lot better than Wyatt"? Wyatt wasn't even on the bench, he was sitting behind the bench the only time I saw him. WHY would they be playing that old plug, Lowery instead of Wyatt when the opponent is running like crazy over Lowery and the rest of the D Line?

Regarding our offense, I've said consistently, I wish they'd play Jenkins at Guard where he has been great in the past instead of Tackle. He was worse than mediocre at OT yesterday, and IMO, Guard is the more important position they way the Packers use their run game anyway.

I've also said consistently, it's absolutely inexplicable that some people seem to favor Dillon over Aaron Jones. Dillon is a decent average plodder of an RB. Jones IMO is a top 3 or 4 RB in the league. Furthermore, Jones is the TYPE of RB we need to use primarily - a breakaway threat. Every time Dillon did make a decent gain, I couldn't help thinking, Jones would have gained twice as much, and every time Jones made a sharp cut or dodged a tackler, I couldn't help thinking, Dillon woulda got stopped right there.

I get a LOT of flack in here for saying our O Line has pretty much always been mediocre at best in pass protection - Rodgers gets pressured virtually every pass play. Well, do ya'all still claim otherwise? One thing I will yield a bit to what others have said: yes, Rodgers maybe is slightly less capable of avoiding that major pass rush that he used to be. He's still damn good at it, though. I watched Joe Burrow - who's still young and spry - get sacked a huge number of times, a lot more than Rodgers even though the pressure level seemed about the same.