Keys To A Monday Night Win In Philly

[RashanGary]

I don't think PHL is very good. We're horrible so we'll probably lose but I'm not a big believer in Philly.

[pbmax]

Everyone Repeat After Me: "A Safety or Linebacker In Coverage Is Not The Same As Zone Pass Coverage"

1. Manuel getting toasted by Berrien, Bryson or Williams was not zone coverage.
2. Woodson switching on motion to the outside WR is not zone coverage.
3. Poppinga coverage on Horn is not zone coverage. Stupid maybe, but not zone.
4. Safeties deep is not zone coverage. Could be, doesn't have to be.

See below:

Defense must defuse situation
Explosive plays hurt Packers
By TOM SILVERSTEIN
tsilverstein@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 25, 2006

Green Bay - Big plays helped the Green Bay Packers win their first game Sunday in Detroit, but they just as easily could have been what lost it for them.

Were it not for a near flawless performance from quarterback Brett Favre and his pass catchers, the story of the day at Ford Field would have been the big-play disease that continues to afflict the Packers defense.

In the 31-24 victory over the Lions, the Packers gave up nine explosive plays, which by coach Mike McCarthy's definition are runs of more than 12 yards and pass completions of more than 16. Through three games, the Packers have allowed a whopping 23 explosive plays, 19 of which have come through the air. Eleven of the 23 have gone for at least 25 yards and six have gone for touchdowns.

At best, defensive coordinator Bob Sanders figures a team can handle five explosive plays a game, but when you're averaging eight per game and two of them are touchdowns, it's a recipe for disaster.

"The problem right now is we can't give up any for touchdowns," he said. "We're giving them up for touchdowns. That's what we're looking at hard to eliminate."

As hard as they're looking, Sanders gave no indication he planned to make any significant schematic changes even though a common theme through it all has been the defense's inability to handle one-on-one match-ups, especially when the safeties have been involved.

Communication has often been identified as a cause for the problems, but often it's the fact that safeties Marquand Manuel and Nick Collins and linebacker Brady Poppinga have been exposed in single coverage. Other times it's players who don't seem to understand where their help is on the field or don't receive the help they're supposed to.

"We're trying to get the best matchups we can and we'll work at that," said Sanders, who is in his first year as coordinator after serving as one of Jim Bates' defensive line coaches last season.

It would seem to be a priority with the Philadelphia Eagles and their multi-talented tandem of quarterback Donovan McNabb and running back Brian Westbrook on deck for a Monday night meeting in Philadelphia. Westbrook had 162 yards and three touchdowns from scrimmage against San Francisco Sunday and in his last two games against the Packers has 324 yards from scrimmage and four touchdowns.

The Packers should be nervous, but Sanders insisted matchups weren't the problem against the Lions even though Manuel gave up a touchdown when matched up with running back Shawn Bryson, and Collins gave up a touchdown when matched up against receiver Roy Williams.

Both Sanders and McCarthy said Manuel's mistake was not coming up to the line of scrimmage soon enough to cover Bryson, who was a release for quarterback Jon Kitna with the blitz coming. Manuel gave so much room to Bryson that he left himself open for a hard juke, which he couldn't handle.

"Manuel's got to come down quicker," McCarthy said. "He gave him way too much room to get up on him. We were blitzing. That should have been a positive play for us."

Manuel, who was signed to five-year, $10 million free agent contract in March, has ties to Sanders from their days at the University of Florida in the late 1990s. Several football executives questioned the Packers' decision to sign Manuel because they felt he was not good in coverage and needed to be in a defense in which he could play close to the line of scrimmage.

The Packers play their safeties back on most passing downs and require them to play man-to-man coverage in some instances. Manuel's lack of speed has been evident on a number of plays, but Sanders disputed observations that he was a one-dimensional player.

"Scouting report from who?" Sanders said. "You'll have to ask those people. He made a lot of good plays for us this week. We go from there."

Collins is a much better athlete than Manuel and continues to make outstanding plays in other areas of the game. He was a major factor in bottling up New Orleans' Reggie Bush two weeks ago and had three pass break-ups and several saving tackles against the Lions.

After giving up two long plays against the Saints in which he was in single coverage, he gave up a 42-yard touchdown to Williams Sunday. Not all of it was Collins' fault because he was supposed to have help from linebacker A.J. Hawk, who dropped his coverage and left Collins to handle both options on Williams' route.

"We were a little late getting some help on the inside, so he (Collins) had a two way go on him," Sanders said. "He's as good a athlete as there is, but we try to work hard so those type things don't happen. For the most part, I don't think any of the big plays were any kind of mismatches."

Nevertheless, the safeties have been involved in coverage on four of the team's five touchdown passes allowed this season.

The weakness the Packers have shown in coverage and their inability to function as a cohesive unit in the secondary won't go unnoticed by future opponents. Detroit offensive coordinator Mike Martz saw it and was successful putting pressure on the safeties.

It's unlikely Sanders will do anything drastic with his defense, which is basically the same as Bates' was last year. One option would be for him to play more zone coverage, but that requires a lot of coordination and this group doesn't seem to have that right now.

All it has is a résumé of big plays and touchdowns.

"That's a problem," McCarthy said. "That's our problem on defense right now. We need to get it fixed. We had seven (explosive plays) last week; we had nine yesterday. Communication is the start of a lot of them. It's really not one individual. We need cleaner communication; we've got to be more decisive, more urgent. We'll get that cleaned up."

[BF4MVP]

2-2 would be nice.Let's hope Sanders can get this unbelievably talented defense to perform better this week..Go Pack

[mraynrand]

I was at that game in Philly in 2004 (the shellacking), and was really able to watch the secondary wrok. I was impressed by the difference between the free safeties - back then Sharper versus Dawkins. Dawkins had a much better sense of where the play was going - he seemed to take no false steps and guess right almost every time. Sharper guessed wrong and took bad steps, but often covered with his tremendous athleticism. In any case, Reid took advantage of weaknesses (too many to count) in the secondary and created matchups that the Packers weren't able to counter - specifically moving Westbrook over LBs and safeties. Barnett, as fast as he is, is too slow to cover Westbrook and he also takes false steps.

That being said, I don't think the Packers can go with a safety on Westbrook - they really need to line up a corner over him. Woodson seems too soft for the job, and Harris too slow. The guy they need to step up is Carroll. But overall, they need a secondary that recognizes plays as they develop or before (like Dawkins), whether they are running zone or man. And they can't afford mental errors (like Collins on the TD to Williams last week) or physical errors (Like Manuel not being able to break down and tackle the RB out of the backfield).

On offense, they need to protect Favre against the exotic blitzes, and this would be a good game to have the running game start to produce. The most amazing thing about the Detroit game is that the Lions pretty much knew what play was coming at them (pass or run) on almost every down, and yet the Packers still moved the ball. Showing the same to Philly will make it very hard to win. They really need to have some play-action working.

[Cheesehead Craig]

Isn't it obvious what needs to happen?

We all need to drink more for the Packers to win!



So drink up kids!

[KYPack]

[quote="pbmax"]Everyone Repeat After Me: "A Safety or Linebacker In Coverage Is Not The Same As Zone Pass Coverage"

1. Manuel getting toasted by Berrien, Bryson or Williams was not zone coverage.
2. Woodson switching on motion to the outside WR is not zone coverage.
3. Poppinga coverage on Horn is not zone coverage. Stupid maybe, but not zone.
4. Safeties deep is not zone coverage. Could be, doesn't have to be.

Good post BTW

We'd have to have tape to correctly debate this.

1. He was in zone on two of 'em.
2. It doesn't have to be, but Woodson was playing the wide zone and shifted to pick up the guy that went to his outside.
3 Looked like a blown cover, but that would have to be zone to have a LB on Horn. Where his help was coming from, I dunno
4. Two deep safeties deep is zone 98% of the time. The only two S deep man coverage is the old cloud coverage which NFL teams play as often the single wing.

Most of the man cover in the Bates D in Man underneath, Zone on top.

I haven't seen manuel play much man & Silverstein doesn't know what he's talkin' about, he only knows what he's told.

[pbmax]

Glad to have this discussion. And I wish I had tape to review, it would be nice rather than memory.

On point 4, two deep safeties, yes, the Safeties playing the deep zones waiting for the routes to come to them, but the CBs are in man and if a RB goes wide, the OLBs must cover them.

These are man responsibilities, are they not?

And this is the defense Bates ran last year. We haven't switched schemes, and to bring up a safety to cover the TE or a back moving wide is not the Bates D.

Aren't we basically running the same coverages as last year?

My question to the critics of the two deep safeties is which safety do you bring up to the line to play man to man against if the offense goes three wide?

Isn't this why Woodson was brought in, so Carroll could be the nickle?

[Packnut]

Sanders

[quote="KYPack"]

Everyone Repeat After Me: "A Safety or Linebacker In Coverage Is Not The Same As Zone Pass Coverage"

1. Manuel getting toasted by Berrien, Bryson or Williams was not zone coverage.
2. Woodson switching on motion to the outside WR is not zone coverage.
3. Poppinga coverage on Horn is not zone coverage. Stupid maybe, but not zone.
4. Safeties deep is not zone coverage. Could be, doesn't have to be.

Good post BTW

We'd have to have tape to correctly debate this.

1. He was in zone on two of 'em.
2. It doesn't have to be, but Woodson was playing the wide zone and shifted to pick up the guy that went to his outside.
3 Looked like a blown cover, but that would have to be zone to have a LB on Horn. Where his help was coming from, I dunno
4. Two deep safeties deep is zone 98% of the time. The only two S deep man coverage is the old cloud coverage which NFL teams play as often the single wing.

Most of the man cover in the Bates D in Man underneath, Zone on top.

I haven't seen manuel play much man & Silverstein doesn't know what he's talkin' about, he only knows what he's told.

I believe youjust nailed the problem! Sanders does'nt know what coverage scheme he's using. He thinks it's man but it's really zone. When a corner releases a man to the saftey, that IS NOT MAN COVERAGE. We all saw the Berian play and that's what happened. Frankly I'm surprised that someone who claims to know so much would fall for the Silverstein article and use it to try and prove us wrong. I guess we're not suppossed to believe what we see. No big surprise as it's the same guy who told me Dr Z forgot more about football than I'll ever know. I believe that was when I said Favre was'nt washed up when Z said he was. Gee, let's see, who was right about that one?????????????????

[KYPack]

Glad to have this discussion. And I wish I had tape to review, it would be nice rather than memory.

On point 4, two deep safeties, yes, the Safeties playing the deep zones waiting for the routes to come to them, but the CBs are in man and if a RB goes wide, the OLBs must cover them.

These are man responsibilities, are they not?

And this is the defense Bates ran last year. We haven't switched schemes, and to bring up a safety to cover the TE or a back moving wide is not the Bates D.

Aren't we basically running the same coverages as last year?

My question to the critics of the two deep safeties is which safety do you bring up to the line to play man to man against if the offense goes three wide?

Isn't this why Woodson was brought in, so Carroll could be the nickle?

You are confused.

Man coverage is cover 1
Corners take the x & z
Strong safety takes the TE
Free safety gives help in a variety of ways
Mike on FB (Cover 1 was used when there was FB)
Sam chuck the TE & drops
Sam or Wil takes the HB on circles or rainbow routes, etc.

Cover 1 is what has been classically called man to man.
Man to man that people refer to is man all the way and is rarely used. The Pack hasn't used it all year.

Are there man elements in the covers that Pack uses?

Hell yeah

Solo technique IS man cover and almost any Dback will find himself in Man through out the course of a games. When the D does there roll-overs to give support on the strong side, the weak safety will find himself in single technique with the Z receiver, fer instance. if the WS gets beat, it is his fault, but he ain't in man to man. It's still a zone cover.

Many other covers have man AND Zone elements.
Cover 3 can be Zone on top, Man underneath, Fritz Shurmur was a cover 3 and cover 4 pioneer,

Cover 4 can be quarters (zone) on top, Man underneath.

The Bates zone runs some zone on top man underneath, but it isn't a true man to man.

All of 'em are special Covers with a ton of man responsibilities, but they are zones.

Cover 1 is the only true man to man & I never see it anymore, cause nobody runs it. Unless you got a secondary like Philly had few years ago, Cover 1 will get yer ass beat.

[Joemailman]

Re: Offense

Speaking of the hurry up offense, would'nt it be fantastic to see MM start the game with a no huddle offense? I never understood why Sherman did'nt give Favre the same chance that Manning or Palmer have. Take advantage of his experience and go with it. MM seem's to like the shotgun so what the hell, give it a try.This way you take away the Philly D's advantage and you dictate to them. There is a HUGE advantage in checking their defensive alignment BEFORE calling the play. The QB mike works up to the 15 second mark so MM will still have input.

No way was Sherman going to let a scrub like Favre mess with Rossley's brilliant game plans. I think McCarthy Has planned to give Favre more leeway on calling audibles than Sherman did, so the no-huddle wouldn't be a bad idea. I think the objective should be to expect more responsibility from Favre in terms of decision making, but give him more responsibility in terms of play selection.

[BEARMAN]

"Key" to winning, ..... simple, .....
1. Block better
2. Protect Farve better
3. Tackle better
4. Protect Farve better
5. Special teams..... better
6. Protect Farve better
7. Run pass paterns better
8. Protect Farve better
9. play the game of football better
10. Did I mention, Protect Farve better ?

Good luck Monday Night ! (you are goning to need it)

GO BEARS !

[Kiwon]

No killer ints. Brett needs to keep his hot streak going.

[Terry]

The question that will be answered Monday night will be, are our coaches smart enough to fix these defensive issues so Poppinga isn't covering Stalworth and Woodsen is covering a FB.

There's only so much any coach can do in the space of a week. I'm sure they are working on the Poppinga problem - they aren't blind. But they can't perform magic either. There just may be problems until Poppy gets better in coverage. One weak spot can make the entire unit look bad.

It would be nice to see them come out with 90% of the pass protection problems solved. I'm sure stranger things have happened. But it's not the sort of thing that one can expect, really.

[Fritz]

This has all the makings of a blowout, one of those games where I leave the bar at halftime, unable to stomach the Packers' (lack of) defense. But they do play the games for a reason, so I'll be there, hoping that the Packers will show improvement on both sides of the ball, and keep the game tight.

I do think the game plan for the Lions will help - lots of three-step drops against that blitzing Philly D. Defensively, man, I don't know. It looks like a mess out there, kind of that keystone kops routine from 2004.

I keep fantasizing that Sander will step down claiming stress or exhaustion, and Bates will come back, fire Shittenheimer, and whip these guys into shape.

[BooHoo]

Everyone Repeat After Me: "A Safety or Linebacker In Coverage Is Not The Same As Zone Pass Coverage"

1. Manuel getting toasted by Berrien, Bryson or Williams was not zone coverage.
2. Woodson switching on motion to the outside WR is not zone coverage.
3. Poppinga coverage on Horn is not zone coverage. Stupid maybe, but not zone.
4. Safeties deep is not zone coverage. Could be, doesn't have to be.

See below:

Defense must defuse situation
Explosive plays hurt Packers
By TOM SILVERSTEIN
tsilverstein@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 25, 2006

Green Bay - Big plays helped the Green Bay Packers win their first game Sunday in Detroit, but they just as easily could have been what lost it for them.

Were it not for a near flawless performance from quarterback Brett Favre and his pass catchers, the story of the day at Ford Field would have been the big-play disease that continues to afflict the Packers defense.

In the 31-24 victory over the Lions, the Packers gave up nine explosive plays, which by coach Mike McCarthy's definition are runs of more than 12 yards and pass completions of more than 16. Through three games, the Packers have allowed a whopping 23 explosive plays, 19 of which have come through the air. Eleven of the 23 have gone for at least 25 yards and six have gone for touchdowns.

At best, defensive coordinator Bob Sanders figures a team can handle five explosive plays a game, but when you're averaging eight per game and two of them are touchdowns, it's a recipe for disaster.

"The problem right now is we can't give up any for touchdowns," he said. "We're giving them up for touchdowns. That's what we're looking at hard to eliminate."

As hard as they're looking, Sanders gave no indication he planned to make any significant schematic changes even though a common theme through it all has been the defense's inability to handle one-on-one match-ups, especially when the safeties have been involved.

Communication has often been identified as a cause for the problems, but often it's the fact that safeties Marquand Manuel and Nick Collins and linebacker Brady Poppinga have been exposed in single coverage. Other times it's players who don't seem to understand where their help is on the field or don't receive the help they're supposed to.

"We're trying to get the best matchups we can and we'll work at that," said Sanders, who is in his first year as coordinator after serving as one of Jim Bates' defensive line coaches last season.

It would seem to be a priority with the Philadelphia Eagles and their multi-talented tandem of quarterback Donovan McNabb and running back Brian Westbrook on deck for a Monday night meeting in Philadelphia. Westbrook had 162 yards and three touchdowns from scrimmage against San Francisco Sunday and in his last two games against the Packers has 324 yards from scrimmage and four touchdowns.

The Packers should be nervous, but Sanders insisted matchups weren't the problem against the Lions even though Manuel gave up a touchdown when matched up with running back Shawn Bryson, and Collins gave up a touchdown when matched up against receiver Roy Williams.

Both Sanders and McCarthy said Manuel's mistake was not coming up to the line of scrimmage soon enough to cover Bryson, who was a release for quarterback Jon Kitna with the blitz coming. Manuel gave so much room to Bryson that he left himself open for a hard juke, which he couldn't handle.

"Manuel's got to come down quicker," McCarthy said. "He gave him way too much room to get up on him. We were blitzing. That should have been a positive play for us."

Manuel, who was signed to five-year, $10 million free agent contract in March, has ties to Sanders from their days at the University of Florida in the late 1990s. Several football executives questioned the Packers' decision to sign Manuel because they felt he was not good in coverage and needed to be in a defense in which he could play close to the line of scrimmage.

The Packers play their safeties back on most passing downs and require them to play man-to-man coverage in some instances. Manuel's lack of speed has been evident on a number of plays, but Sanders disputed observations that he was a one-dimensional player.

"Scouting report from who?" Sanders said. "You'll have to ask those people. He made a lot of good plays for us this week. We go from there."

Collins is a much better athlete than Manuel and continues to make outstanding plays in other areas of the game. He was a major factor in bottling up New Orleans' Reggie Bush two weeks ago and had three pass break-ups and several saving tackles against the Lions.

After giving up two long plays against the Saints in which he was in single coverage, he gave up a 42-yard touchdown to Williams Sunday. Not all of it was Collins' fault because he was supposed to have help from linebacker A.J. Hawk, who dropped his coverage and left Collins to handle both options on Williams' route.

"We were a little late getting some help on the inside, so he (Collins) had a two way go on him," Sanders said. "He's as good a athlete as there is, but we try to work hard so those type things don't happen. For the most part, I don't think any of the big plays were any kind of mismatches."

Nevertheless, the safeties have been involved in coverage on four of the team's five touchdown passes allowed this season.

The weakness the Packers have shown in coverage and their inability to function as a cohesive unit in the secondary won't go unnoticed by future opponents. Detroit offensive coordinator Mike Martz saw it and was successful putting pressure on the safeties.

It's unlikely Sanders will do anything drastic with his defense, which is basically the same as Bates' was last year. One option would be for him to play more zone coverage, but that requires a lot of coordination and this group doesn't seem to have that right now.

All it has is a résumé of big plays and touchdowns.

"That's a problem," McCarthy said. "That's our problem on defense right now. We need to get it fixed. We had seven (explosive plays) last week; we had nine yesterday. Communication is the start of a lot of them. It's really not one individual. We need cleaner communication; we've got to be more decisive, more urgent. We'll get that cleaned up."

Good article. Thanks for posting.