Avenues to get better?

[call_me_ishmael]

Lotta ball game left. Vic Fangio is just sitting at home waiting for the phone call. Pick it up Matty.

They need to figure out offense. That is more troubling to me than the D.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

we have 3 really good corners, including one of the very best. our safeties are fine. so why the hell are we not playing man?

Stokes allowed 3-4 completions playing man. Savage had an abominable day - could not cover nor tackle anyone.

The defense is just too fucking predictable. 4 men rush with the rushers doing stints, all day. Occasionally, Walker or Campbell blitzes through the A-gap. How about a corner blitz? An all out blitz? Zone blitz?

Honestly, I miss Dom Capers.

[texaspackerbacker]

From winning ugly to losing ugly. Shit. Plenty of good comments, though, here and the gameday thread.

Hell yeah, lousy coaching - we got horribly outcoached on both sides of the ball. Somebody said "something like doing less with more"? Absolutely. That especially describes the Packers D. I doubt any DC in the whole league has more talent to work with than Barry, but he manages to fuck it up, bad enough in the close ugly wins and culminated in the loss today. Barry didn't make any adjustments to what the Giants were doing? Disgustingly true. He basically doesn't make any adjustments - any that work anyway - to what any other team does. Somebody said fire him and replace him with Gray; Yeah, maybe. A large part of the problem is playing to much zone pass D and not playing it very well. Is that on Barry? Or on Gray? If it's Gray's doing, I don't want him either.

And it seems like a lot of people are coming around to what I've been saying for years about the Packers O Line - mediocre on a good day, pure shit on a bad one. Other teams open holes to run; Other teams pass protect; For all practical purposes, we do not. Is there an avenue to improve that? I don't know. I don't think it's just having Bakhtiari and Jenkins get healthier or whatever. IMO, Jenkins ain't a Tackle, never was one, and never will be a good one. I do think (and said before anybody else started saying it) he should go back to Guard where he was very decent. And IMO - as that worshippers of the sacred cow really hate hearing - Bakhtiari has always been overrated and was not much better than mediocre even before the injury. That's just now being noticed. Why? (next paragraph)

NOBODY is a bigger supporter of Aaron Rodgers than I am, but sadly, he seems to have declined a little bit this season. Sure, part of it is lower quality receivers without Adams, but that's not the biggest thing. The O Line has stunk it up and kept Rodgers under constant pressure, but IMO it was always pretty much that way, just in the past, he mostly had the mobility and receivers to overcome it. The biggest thing I see in Rodgers, though, is deterioration albeit slight in his magnificent level of accuracy. With all that, he's still the best in the league mainly because of his mindset not to throw interceptions. What I see in that area, though, is a general tendency around the league to emulate Rodgers in that way and throw less stupid passes into coverage and get picked.

And what about the playcalling? Was that on LaFleur? or on Rodgers? or only noticeable because of the shittiness of the O Line and to a lesser extent the receivers? Somebody commented they doubted it was LaFleur calling those unsuccessful long passes late in the game. Maybe. They weren't RPOs, as there woulda been linemen down field. Did Rodgers change the call at the line? If that's the case, LaFleur needs to grow a pair and assert coaching control. If Rodgers had his usual accuracy or if he'd had more time to throw, it probably wouldn't have made a difference, though. 3rd and 2 on the last drive, why didn't we just run it into the line - once, twice if necessary? Maybe because we couldn't. It's a sad fact that when other teams' D know a run is coming, there's about zero hope of success with our O Line.

So what's the best avenue to improve? Is it time to just R E L A X? Maybe, but there are real problems. The O Line probably isn't correctable in the short term, but we've always won with that situation anyway. Defense, though, needs to be fixed, and Rodgers needs to be a little more accurate if possible. More early down running? Hell no.

[Fritz]

We are what we are. We're not changing DCs until after the season, and this is our defense. We've put 5 games on tape, and OCs have a plan that can beat us.

Our offensive hope was built around our rookie WRs growing into the game. Watson is Watkins-a hammy waiting to happen. Doubs can't run most of his routes to the right depth and he has suspect hands.
Rodgers is Rodgers, a guy who loves the quick strike-even without weapons. A guy who would much rather pass than run---at the goal line---on 3rd and 2 in 4 down territory. Really, pretty much any time.

Our head coach can't control Rodgers, he can't adjust when the game plan needs to be adjusted. He does usually start with a pretty good plan.

Maybe that's enough to win 10 or 11. Maybe it's not. It's what we've got.

Wow, flashbacks to Mike Sherman and Brent Favre.

[Jaire]

Rodgers being "out of control" seems completely fabricated. In the presser he says he ran the plays that MLF called (specifically three that didn't work) and said he liked them.

The oline is the problem imo. I haven't seen this bad an OL ..... since Newhouse at Left Tackle (and that was just one spot). Still a mystery why we let Turner go. They could sure use him.

The offense we knew would be rough and a work in process, but for me it's always been about the line. The receivers seem adequate.

The real surprise is defense, and if they continue on this path, Joe may lose the locker room -- hard to do with this group.

[Fritz]

I think the o-line is salvageable but depends in part upon Bakh's health. The optimum line would be Bakh-Jenkins-Myers-Runyan-Nijman. You are the first person to say what I've been thinking - Billy Turner was awfully valuable.

WTF is going on with that defense, though? WTF? Gints down two touchdowns - a team that was super banged up and had almost no passing game. Yet they came back and won. To me, that's on Joe Barely.

[RashanGary]

The OL has been really bad. If Rodgers doesn’t get rid of it immediately, the defense is right in his lap. It’s both tackles and Newman. It’s bad.

[ThunderDan]

Before we throw the Oline completely under the bus, we scored 20 points in the first half and average almost 5 yards a run for the game.

To me the issue is when we decided to throw 20 yard passes over and over in the 2nd half instead of running the ball and getting first downs.

[ThunderDan]

The line has issue. But we sure didn't ha e issues moving the ball and scoring in the first half.

[red]

Wow, flashbacks to Mike Sherman and Brent Favre.

or mike mccarthy and arron rodgers

[beveaux1]

OL can improve as the year progresses. I have less hope for improvement with the defense. We’ve played 3 beat up teams in a row and our D has played all of them into the game.

[Jaire]

OL can improve as the year progresses. I have less hope for improvement with the defense. We’ve played 3 beat up teams in a row and our D has played all of them into the game.

The OL can improve if they stay healthy. It looks deep on paper but they seem afraid to put any young guys in, especially when Newman looks terrible. But it is a health issue. They probably should be running the ball more because the line plays the run better at this point. That's situational football: you're line is having probs protecting. Don't abandon the run or rather don't worry about eight in the box unless they show they can stop you.

But I strongly disagree, and maybe you just miswrote. The defense can improve vastly. This was the worst melt down in a game in the LaFleur era. very very ugly. In fact I can't remember a melt down in his tenure. Sure, they were outmatched against a couple teams at times, or came out flat and played badly. But this was a melt down against an inferior team. They allowed the Giants to score on five consecutive drives. The only direction is up. We'll see if Barry can fix it, since I think this is almost entirely on coaching: players not being used to their strengths. At times they play well, but at times they seem totally lost. Barry should be put on notice: he's making the Pettine firing look like a mistake.

[beveaux1]

This team needs a defense that can carry it through large portions of the game. I’m not convinced that the scheme we’re running fits the personnel on the field. They struggle with zone concepts, but then they struggle playing man.

Allowing Brady to march down the field to attempt to tie is different than allowing Zappe to take us to overtime and allowing Jones to score on 5 straight drives. All three of those teams did it with depleted rosters and with our defense showing no clue of how to get off the field. Two of the games showed we couldn’t stop the run, the last that we couldn’t cover the short zone.

The talent on that side of the ball is there with Gary, Clark, Stokes, Amos, Alexander, Campbell, and Walker. The results are not and it’s not getting better.

[texaspackerbacker]

We had success in the first half because those annoying sideward short passes were working along with a few RPOs. That set up whatever small success we had with inside zone runs. The Giants DC figured a way to stop the short pass game, and the Packers lame-assed O Line couldn't run without the element of surprise. They also, of course, couldn't pass protect for anything thrown down the field.

Next week is a matter of pride - LaFleur against his good friend and his brother. I expect better offense, and if the D isn't better, ideally they do get rid of Barry - but I wouldn't really expect that midseason.

[ThunderDan]

I seriously wonder after I read the above if we watched the same game.

The Packers scored on 4 of their 5 first half drives. The Giants D didn’t stop any thing. We went away from what was working in the 2nd half. When we went back to it we had no problem moving the ball again.