Favre has all the answers:QB leaves Vikings dazed, confused

[RashanGary]

Do you ever remember a game where a defense said they felt dazed and confused under Sherman? I remember us saying Sherman looked dazed and confused (like a deer in the headlights). I don't ever remember teams saying how we out schemed them

Sherm did a good job getting guys prepared, but he certainly lacked a little something during game time. MM coaches with a killer instinct. Sherm (a pear shaped deer in the headlights).

[pbmax]

/threadjack

I was going to put this into the Sharper thread, but I have nothing personally against him, and truthfully, I am not against running your mouth to get into an opponents head. Even if occasionally it turns around and bites you in the hindquarters.

My beef is with McGinn (who wrote the article under discussion here and hence the tenuous connection) and the Sharper article from last week. Saying the Packers and T2 had never adequately replaced Sharper at safety was a dubious assertion at best and he qualified none of it.

Sharper at $7 million per should have been a top flight safety for the Packers, not a gambling, bad angle, let too many people get behind you liability. He has considerable skill as a cover guy and route jumper in the middle of the field.

But even his best skills weren't a good fit with the Packers in Bates scheme. The Tampa 2 that Tomlin employed last year wasn't the best fit for Sharper either and I believe he made mention of this. And while the Packers do not play the Tampa 2, they do often play both safeties deep when they are not facing Brooks Bollinger.

Point is that even at the reduced rate of $4 million, Sharper was a veteran player who wasn't going to get better and whose best attributes would not get used by the scheme. McGinn fails to mention you may not have seen Bigby or Collins develop if Sharper had accepted the pay cut.

And I don't believe we would have had a better defense this year if he was still around. He wouldn't have made the 4-12 season better and I'm not certain he makes the Packers a playoff team during last years 8-8.

Without animosity for the player, it was a necessary move and has paid off. His play during the game (twice trailing on deep throws and failing to get to Jennings on the underthrown ball, then failing to dislodge it) only served to highlight the discrepancy of Sharper's rep and his play.

[FritzDontBlitz]

Point is that even at the reduced rate of $4 million, Sharper was a veteran player who wasn't going to get better and whose best attributes would not get used by the scheme. McGinn fails to mention you may not have seen Bigby or Collins develop if Sharper had accepted the pay cut.

Since when have Bigby and Collins developed into anything more than two decent runstopping safeties who are liabilities in the passing game because they both have a bad habit of staring into the backfield too much? Both play like strong safeties and prefer to attack the run. Sharper is a free safety, and his resonsibilities are pass first/run second. We haven't replaced him yet. I agree he wanted a little too much at the time but I feel McGinn showed that he was very productive at the position since he left Green Bay to join Minnesota, much more than the players who replaced him.

[HarveyWallbangers]

The safeties have had some breakdowns, but most safeties do. I'd hardly call them liabilities in the passing game. The fact that we aren't giving up big plays in the passing game always point to good coverage play by the safeties to me.

[Pacopete4]

screw sharper and his mouth.. i hope everytime we play them we shove it down his throat, longwell too... crosby is better already in my opinion

he had his chance with us and hes got too much pride to suck it up and be a team player.. we dont need that.. perfect example was the last martin TD when his teammate had a for sure pick

[SD GB fan]

yeah i like what i see from the team this year. i just dont understand how we got blown out by the pats and jets last year. amazing how far we have come.