Packer's "Big Game" tendencies

[motife]

Greg Bedard, who covered the Dolphins before this year, made an interesting comment about "Jim Bates"/Bob Sanders defenses in big games :

"Defensively, I was afraid of this (the Dallas game). One of the running traits of Jim Bates and his protege Bob Sanders is that the bigger the game, the tighter they get calling their defenses. And we saw that tonight. Not as much man-to-man, not many blitzes. Very tight."

This is in contrast to Jim Johnson (Eagles DC) and Bill Bellichick who seem to get MORE aggressive in Big Games. I'd say the same thing about Wade Phillips and the Cowboys.

That's not to take away from the absence of Charles Woodson, and the inexperience of low Wonderlic score prize winners Nick Collins and Atari Bigby, "biting on play action and letting people get behind them" something they'd both been warned about all week.

But how about Favre in Big Games? He also seems to have a brain freeze. I couldn't stand listening to Bryant Gumble and Chris Collinsworth, but that's one thing I agree with them on. In Big Games, Favre seems to throw out the game plan that got us there, and starts taking all kinds of chances. Green Bay is number 1 in the league in "yards after catch" leading into the game, and that's the specialty of Driver and Jennings in particular, but also Jones and to some extent Donald Lee. The beauty of the 4/5 wideout spread offense is the short pass with guys like Driver, Jennings, Jones and Lee's ability to spin out of tackles and tack on more yards.

I remember seeing Favre's face before the 6 interception Rams game. Talk about tight. He was grim faced, and looked like his grandma just died.

Here was a quote from a questioner in Greg Bedard's chat :

"You can do a study of Farve's accuracy over his career and discover he isn't very accurate (in Big Games). Go back and review objectively his performances in "big games" and you will find tonights performance is the norm. The Super Bowl victory was one of his worst."

If Favre had remained in the game, someone said he would have had 4 or 5 picks, not 2. Aaron Rodgers came in and ran Mike McCarthy's offense the way it's supposed to be run, and the way Favre ran it up unti the Dallas game.

[RashanGary]

One problem I have with the scheme is that the LB's are so far off the line of scrimage that any blitz is telegraphed by a LB coming up or it takes so long for the LB to get to the line that the protection realizes its coming in time to stop it.

When a cornerback or safety are up on the line bumping the slot reciever, that might be a good place to sneak in a blitz. Regardless, it's a tough scheme to play becuase you have to have CB's who can bump and run and you have to have Dlineman who can get pressure consistanlty with just 4. Most teams have neither, we need both.

If 100% healthy, the Packers have the personal. With KGB, Jolly and Woodson out, it played right into Dallas' hands.

Bedard makes some good points though. The defense is very vanilla and requires top talent to be even average.

[cpk1994]

Re: Packer's "Big Game" tendencies

Here was a quote from a questioner in Greg Bedard's chat :

"You can do a study of Favre's accuracy over his career and discover he isn't very accurate (in Big Games). Go back and review objectively his performances in "big games" and you will find tonights performance is the norm. The Super Bowl victory was one of his worst."

Incidently, the guy who posted that question should brush up on Favre's Super Bowl victory facts(unless he mistyped). Favre was 14 of 27, 294 yds, 2 TD, 0 INT in Super Bowl XXXI.

[packers11]

Bedard makes some good points though. The defense is very vanilla and requires top talent to be even average.

I agree, this defense is so vanilla... The Lb's should be moving back and fourth (near the line of scrimmage), and the blitzes from lb's shouldn't be 7-10 yards away...

I have been noticing this all year, but it was very apparent when playing Dallas that the defense doesn't surprise the QB at all (coverage/blitz wise)...

[4and12to12and4]

Well, Favre won a Superbowl and made it to another, and beat some very good teams in the playoffs in doing so. The 49ers especially with TO and Young, and Favre played great. He has had some real big wins over the years, so to say that he sucks under pressure is not fair. They said the same thing about Manning until last year. I never believed Manning was a choker, shit just happens sometimes. If we go by a game here or there, we have to say Brady and the Patriots choked in the playoffs last year.

I don't understand some of the throws Brett made in the game, but he may have just been overconfident in his arm and his receivers because of the success we have had on offense this year. I think he'll learn from it, and go back to dinking and dunking the rest of the year, and the playoffs.

Maybe Brett got jealous that Grant had a 60 yard run and wanted to one up him.

Who cares. I'm somewhat glad we lost that game. Can you imagine the pressure our team would be facing each week trying to keep homefield advantage throughout, and then the players would be reading the headlines of how we may be the second best team in the NFL, and believing the hype. This loss should put a fire in the team's belly, and if we meet the Boys again, you know what they say, it's hard to beat a team twice in the same year, so we technically should have the advantage. We won't be going into the game cocky and unprepared, that's for sure. On the other hand, the Boys are gonna start reading and listening to all the hype they're gonna get, and that can only hurt them. We'll get the bye and that should be enough to enable us to get to the Superbowl IF we get healthy and stay healthy. Dallas didn't see the REAL 10-1 Packers, and that could be a good thing.

[motife]

Re: Packer's "Big Game" tendencies

Here was a quote from a questioner in Greg Bedard's chat :

"You can do a study of Favre's accuracy over his career and discover he isn't very accurate (in Big Games). Go back and review objectively his performances in "big games" and you will find tonights performance is the norm. The Super Bowl victory was one of his worst."

Incidently, the guy who posted that question should brush up on Favre's Super Bowl victory facts(unless he mistyped). Favre was 14 of 27, 294 yds, 2 TD, 0 INT in Super Bowl XXXI.

51.9% completions is not real accurate, if that's all the questioner meant. But they did win the game and zero interceptions. I think Favre had 246 yards though. Favre is 61.4% lifetime on completions.

If we're just talking playoffs as far as big games, one and out, Favre has 2 wins and 6 losses on the road in the playoffs. His stats in 8 games are :

164 comp, 280 att, 2108yds, 15 TD, 15 INT, 58.6% comp, 77.8 QBR.

His worst away game was at STL a 17-45 loss in the 2001 season with a 36.3QBR.
Second was at Dallas in 1994, a 9-35 loss with a 58.2QBR.

Of the 8 away games, 3 were at Dallas all losses, 2 at SF a split, a loss at Philly and St. Louis, and a win at Detroit.

[motife]

At Lambeau in the playoffs, Favre is 8-2 in 10 games.

His stats were :

198 comp, 314 att, 2295yds, 13TD, 10 INT, 63.1% comp, 85.62 QBR.

Favre's lifetime QBR is 85.9 in the regular season, with a completion %age of 61.4%

Both at home and away, Favre has a worse TD to INT ratio than in the regular season.

Favre two worst games at home were the 2 losses, Atlanta 7-27 loss in the 2002 season, his QBR was 54.4.

In the 2004 season, a home loss to Minnesota 17-31, Favre threw 4 INT's, and had a 44.5 QBR.

At home, GB had 3 wins against SF, split with Atlanta, and beat Carolina, Seattle, Detroit, and Tampa Bay, and lost to the Vikes.

[gbgary]

it all boils down to the head coach. in this case his inexperience at big game coaching can be forgiven in that it was his first, of hopefully many, big games. his errors in game planning, play-calling led to the player's errors. i wrote this in another thread were m3 seemed to focus on player error...

it was a big game but not a game with no tomorrow. i figured it would be a shoot-out. their offence being a little better than our's and our D being a little better than theirs. it would come down to who had the ball last. i really don't have a complaint about the D. they did what they could with who they had. as for the offense...

i'll put this loss on him (m3) as i do the bear loss. it looked like 2005 out there. playing this game in panic mode (from dallas' second kick-off), like they were down by 25 points, was stupid. abandoning a formula that's worked all season (except the second half of the bear game where he did the same thing) he put the players in a position they couldn't escape from. only when Rodgers came in did he change his thinking but it was too late, as it was in the bear game, when he went back to what the Packers do best...ball controll passing with some runs mixed in to keep the D honest. surprise the other team with a bomb instead of throwing one every-other play...into double coverage...with your eyes closed. in the bear game he let his ego get in the way after Brett's interception. last night he out-smarted himself.

he didn't put the players in position to win. he's GOT to learn to stick with what works for this team.

he took the players out of there comfort zone and paid the price. i hope the next big game will be different.

[4and12to12and4]

Re: Packer's "Big Game" tendencies

Here was a quote from a questioner in Greg Bedard's chat :

"You can do a study of Favre's accuracy over his career and discover he isn't very accurate (in Big Games). Go back and review objectively his performances in "big games" and you will find tonights performance is the norm. The Super Bowl victory was one of his worst."

Incidently, the guy who posted that question should brush up on Favre's Super Bowl victory facts(unless he mistyped). Favre was 14 of 27, 294 yds, 2 TD, 0 INT in Super Bowl XXXI.

51.9% completions is not real accurate, if that's all the questioner meant. But they did win the game and zero interceptions. I think Favre had 246 yards though. Favre is 61.4% lifetime on completions.

If we're just talking playoffs as far as big games, one and out, Favre has 2 wins and 6 losses on the road in the playoffs. His stats in 8 games are :

164 comp, 280 att, 2108yds, 15 TD, 15 INT, 58.6% comp, 77.8 QBR.

His worst away game was at STL a 17-45 loss in the 2001 season with a 36.3QBR.
Second was at Dallas in 1994, a 9-35 loss with a 58.2QBR.

Of the 8 away games, 3 were at Dallas all losses, 2 at SF a split, a loss at Philly and St. Louis, and a win at Detroit.

The STL game cannot be blamed on him. Ahman fumbled 3 times, putting us in a hole, and two balls were tipped for interceptions. One of the Dallas losses, his weapons were injured on offense, and Dallas in both games gave him no time to throw the ball because they won those games in the trenches, their lines were much better than ours, that's why we picked up Reggie and what's his name on the other side. The Philly game, he played well, of course the 4th down play is what killed us there, and that was against an excellent defense in Philly. So, just looking at numbers doesn't tell the whole story, when you go back and see just why things went the way they did, you will USUALLY see the madness behind some of Brett's bad game.

Having said that, there were no such excuses for his poor decision making in the Dallas game, but for all we know, he would've drove for 4 TD's in the second half, I don't agree with some here who assume this would've been one of those 4 to 5 pick games. You know, for all the shit he takes for his interceptions, look at the stats vs. other great QB's and you'll find that his interception vs. attempts ratio is very close to the greats. He has just thrown the ball more than anyone else, which is why he has so many more interceptions, not to mention years of bad defenses and running games he battled against.

Brett will come back and finish this season strong, if healthy, and I wouldn't bet against him in the playoffs this year, he finally has a good defense to help him, the last time he had that, we went to two Bowls. We shall see. One half of a game in a 10-2 season certainly shouldn't illicit this type of criticism. He has done amazing things in many big games, and if he truly was bad in big games, the Chargers, and a few other teams would've killed us this year. Let's get off his back. He's fine, and anyone here who wants to put money on his performance or lack of this postseason, let your money do the talking, cuz the bank of 4and12 is open for business.