Green Bay Packers Thread

Billy86

Billy86 wrote: »

In a weird one, delighted to see Martellus Bennett draw a foul. KJ Wright, scumbag that he can be, went in for a cheap shot on Rodgers which Bennett responded to by marching across and absolutely mauling him to the ground. We all know what happened against Seattle in times past, and SF before that - we looked like kids getting the sh*t beat out of us in a physical sense and despite the skill and experience just got beaten up and down the field. We've got Clay on defense, and it's good to see the same on offense - someone who doesn't give a f*** what flags get thrown if someone takes a pop at one of our guys. Genuinely might give the game ball to him for actually drawing a penalty, mad as that sounds - and then he went and got the first to end the game.

Rodgers appreciated it too.

http://packerswire.usatoday.com/2017/09/11/aaron-rodgers-on-martellus-bennetts-late-penalty-it-meant-a-lot-to-me/

Billy86

Deleted User wrote: »

Rodgers appreciated it too.

http://packerswire.usatoday.com/2017/09/11/aaron-rodgers-on-martellus-bennetts-late-penalty-it-meant-a-lot-to-me/

As good as Jared Cook was for most of last year and as much as we all were probably a bit down over him leaving (though we can all probably agree Bennett is at least as good a TE) I don't think we'd ever see that from him. Seattle have tonnes of those guys - Chancellor, KJ Wright, Martellus' brother Michael actually, Lynch before he left, Baldwin at WR and while I can't think of any particulars, quite sure I've seen similar their offensive line a few times down the years, and it really does make a huge difference - the 49ers under Harbaugh and Ravens/Steelers a few years back were also great examples. You give up a few penalties here and there but guys likely to take cheap shots give it a serious second thought if they know they're getting hit hard after it, and likely targeted through the game (my guess is if this happened earlier, Bennett would have taken shots on Wright throughout when he could).

It feels bizarre that I'm this happy and borderline excited about an unnecessary roughness penalty!

Moral of the story: every team needs a James Harrison.

seiphil

Well, that was bad.

Randall is looking like a really poor player.

OldMrBrennan83

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Billy86

Yeah, poor Dom. Who could possibly be expected to succeed with a half dozen first rounders, another half dozen second rounders, and another half dozen third/fourth rounders on top of more free agents. Serious lack of investment there, it's just not fair on poor old Dom.



Only saw the first half and a glance at the scoreboard would hint the second was better, but this game was over the second Bakhtiari and Bulaga were ruled out - especially since our third and fourth OTs were out (Spriggs, Barclay). How is it that we manage to get hit really hard in an important position every year, especially as it is pretty much always a position we lack depth in? That said, the line did decently all things considered but if forced Rodgers to get rid of the ball extremely quickly and were caught out by his hard counts a few times, which combined kept us out of rhythm - Jordy going down made this a whole lot worse. Once again the same old story... would it really kill that much to establish the run, or even try? Over 80% of our plays were pass plays, for christ sake!

Defensively, that first drive set the tone again... why in the name of jesus did we have single coverage on Julio Jones to begin, where he picked up the majority of his yards? Why were we playing off coverage on him, including single man off coverage? It wasn't all bad though, the second half seems like an improvement (if it wasn't a case of the Falcons stopping trying because they just didn't have to), we got a good number of sacks, and had what could have been some important stops that the offense couldn't convert for reasons listed above (including when it was 7-7 in the first). A plus was when Kevin King came on he was allowed get close from the LOS and looked to do well, an 6'3 athletic freak like that is a great thing to have among your cornerbacks and he should be on AJ Green next week with a bit of a safety help (whether or not that happens on the other hand...). Martinez, Joe Thomas and Josh Jones looked fairly good out there for the most part in covering that medium-distance area over the middle that has haunted us for close to a decade, which is a bonus - there's a lot of rangy athleticism in the ILB/S positions for us which is nice.

The calls didn't break for us from the ref either, particularly before Rodgers interception near the half. Nothing egregious and they went in our favour last week so can't really complain, just it didn't help us obviously - such is life. The final scoreline was closer than I expected before kickoff.

Not to down on the loss, as I said the result was decided as soon as Bakh and Bulaga were ruled out - I just read Cobb got injured too. We need those guys and Jordy back sharpish. And Daniels missed a chunk of the game injured too. It will be interesting to see where our defense stands but we have the Bengals and Bears the next two weeks so they shouldn't (shouldn't!!) really be tested there, so far my estimation is it's not as bad as the scoreline last night would suggest but not as good as the week previous either (Seahawks struggled badly against the 49ers of all teams yesterday) - going to Dallas in week five should be a good indicator. We absolutely have to be going into that game at 3-1.

At least we know someone cares...

OldMrBrennan83

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Billy86

Well considering you were literally trying to write one of them off as not good enough during an all pro season... but hey, we heard similar excuses from Capers apologists when we had to slum it with the likes of this guy in the secondary too.

Like I said, the defense looked poor yesterday but not atrocious - and it was the Falcons in Atlanta. They looked good last week but then again the Seahawks offense looked pretty desperate again last night. The truth is probably somewhere in between but the jury is very much out at this point. They have no excuses for the next two weeks and Dallas is the big test. It will be interesting to see if we put 6'3 Kevin King or a sub-six ft CB on AJ Green.

OldMrBrennan83

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Billy86

Patww79 wrote: »

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Interesting that despite "the secondary draft picks have been awful" we have one of the better safety pairings in the league, until he had to retire also had a top 10-12 CB in Sam Shields to go with them, and wound up letting an all pro talent leave us because he didn't look remotely like an all pro talent playing for Capers.

Hayward had a very impressive rookie season and didn't seem to follow through on it after (remind you of anyone?), starting 20 games over four years with us and was let go as he was not deemed to be worth keeping because Capers wasn't able to get much from him on the boundary, and so we let him walk for $5mn/yr to San Diego when we had about $10mn in free cap space.

raze_them_all_

Patww79 wrote: »

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no he was ok. Dom capers still thinks he has an in prime Woodson and hasnt changed **** all. When you see players leave and play better year after year you dont say the players werent trying, you blame the coach, Bengals 0 home tds in two games, fire the oc, packers 7/10 worst defensive performances in history under one guy, keep him on

OldMrBrennan83

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Billy86

Patww79 wrote: »

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That's what I said this offseason - not that he has to go, but that I wouldn't mind it too much at this point. But not for bad picks, Thompson is known around the league for being one of the best in the business as drafting for a reason... for not getting rid of Capers, who can make an all pro #1 CB look like a so-so guy that can't play on the boundary, has almost zero ability or even inclination to adjust during a game, and who makes the same mistakes in the same situations over and over and over again.

Randall and Rollins clearly have the talent which they showed as rookies, just as Hayward did. He's got a top 5-8 safety in Haha, and a very solid guy alongside him in Burnett. He had a top 10-12 CB, one of the best OLBs of the last decade, and a bunch of other talent like Peppers, Daniels, etc to work with and time and again the same nonsense comes up. I wonder what team will score 50+ on us or get a game winning drive with 1 minute or less on the clock this offseason (assuming we make it there)?

EDIT: Just noticed the bolded bit... the fact a guy who went to the pro bowl and more importantly was voted all pro last season is "not good enough" for Capers to get work with says all it needs to. Sweet jaysus! :pac:

Barney92

Patww79 wrote: »

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Dix was ranked at the sixth best safety on NFL's top 100. I don't think that's the best measure of players but in general I'd agree with their groupings of the best players by position. He and Burnett are ranked consistently as one of the better safety pairings in the league. So it's not like Capers has absolutely no-one to work with. He's got at least 4/5 players that if they were put into a new team wouldn't look too out of place. They also had Shields whose career was cut short. Kevin King looked a decent player based on last night actually.

baby and crumble

Hell of a 2nd half last night, but you do have to wonder how long the whole team, basically, can ride on Rogers tailcoat. He can't keep being expected to pull off miracles. We need a serious upgrade in the running game (as much as I do like Montgomery). Given what the Bears did yesterday, I'm a little bit worried for Thursday, not going to lie.

Billy86

Our offensive line is a wreck right now to be fair, and it's showing in how quick Rodgers is trying to get passes off and force into really tight spots since they're not getting open much in short distances - he had to put the ball into a lot of tight spaces yesterday. I would want to see a pretty big improvement in our run game and more rotation (apparently Monty is on pace for 1,100 snaps this year which would be ridiculous even for a prime Adrian Peterson).

Slow start from the defense but a huge step up, especially considering Daniels and Perry, possibly our two best pass rush era, were out. Josh Jones and Blake Martinez grew over the game and really made statements in overtime... loved Martinez' effort on that first OT play where he just ran straight over the runner, we often lack that enphaticness outside of Matthews (though Biegel is supposed to be equally intense and let's hope he is seeing the game Carl Lawson who we could have had in his place had) so it was nice to see. I could be wrong but it felt like we held Dalton to under 100 yards for a good 50 mins too (40 mins from their second TD, plus 10 more in OT).

Also great to see Geronimo Allison come up big, he's really been a very quietly godo wr and outside of Nelson and possibly Cobb might be out best guy at getting open early. Fully expect him to be a 50+ catch starter in the league by the end of the decade, either in gb or elsewhere depending g on if we can keep him.

Also Trevor Davis was a mixed bag again, some poor decisions taking punts (and the worst fair catch call I can remember right before the pick 6), but once he had it he looked electric and really, really fought for every yard, literally even if it was the difference in a 17yd return or an 18yd one. If he gets it together (and it could easily still be nerves) this guy could be one of the best in the league I reckon.

But my god we need Bulaga and especially Bakhtiari to return asap, hopefully Bakhtiari was precautionary for Thursday. And hopefully it's cooler on Thursday, 32c yesterday at kickoff! Might be lucky in a sense we weren't playing a California, Texas or Florida type team.

Brendan Bendar

Extremely poor first half, Bengals seemed to be moving at a different speed especially Joe Mixon,whereas the Packers seemed to be operating in 'porridge'.

Few things I took from the game:

Rodgers is class and Nelson dug us out several times.

We don't have a running game, stutter stepping doesn't usually work
Monty seemed slow and predictable.

Wondering why we signed Bennett, didn't seem to be used at all.

Need to teach the D how to wrap up the opponent and bring them down.

Need to play at a higher tempo, I know the temp was in the 90s but Bengals seemed yards faster.. Temp of 59F expected Thur.

Kyle Murphy is not tackle material.. Guard maybe .def not LT?


We got away with that one .

raze_them_all_

Stole a win, nothing else to say, next

ScummyMan

I hope we kept the receipt for Marty B. Not good enough

OldMrBrennan83

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Billy86

Dozed off somewhere in the second quarter, but given the state of our line right now as win is a win and 35 points is a big positive. Hopefully Montgomery is OK, been saying we need to for a few weeks but it was good to see us dedicate to the run early - makes big sets (to help with the line, which we can do well with Bennett/Kendricks at TE and Ripkowski at FB) a much more viable threat when the defense think you might actually run the ball. Rodgers also getting sacked just twice after the last two weeks is a big bonus.

It's been against two very poor offenses so far this year so not time to jump the gun or anything, but it's been nice to see our defense keeping a good low score, we gave up a long TD drive in junk last night and had a bad first 18 minutes or so vs the Bengals, but only 10pts and 418 yards allowed otherwise over 7 quarters (2,3 4 + OT last week; 1, 2, 3 last night) is still a big improvement. Kendrell Brice looked decent last year when he had to step in at safety and kept that up last night with the pick, Haha had a dumb roughness penalty (though it looked like he expected the receiver to turn and run rather than hit the deck) but made up for it with another interception, and Blake Martinez again came up big (as well as Jon Ryan making plays too) - despite other ups and downs we look more impressive at ILB than we have in some time, two fumble recoveries from them last night. Every time I see Martinez out there I'm coming away liking him a little more than the last! Dix and Burnett have done a good job the last two years or so in terms of taking away the deep middle we used to get pillaged for weekly... with a little bit of luck, Martinez, Josh Jones and Jake Ryan/Joe Thomas look like they might have it in them to make the short/medium middle of the field away and force teams to beat us on the boundary more often.

Also in terms of our CB woes, Josh Hawkins looked fairly decent last night - like Brice he featured a bit later on last year when out CBs were depleted. Both were UDFAs last year and are looking like they might have been pretty excellent steals for essentially nothing. It's only Mike Glennon though, the next two weeks might be a better test (same for Martinez/Jones/Ryan at ILB/S), but we've got a good few young guys performing well out there for three of the first four weeks. And all of this without arguably our best defensive player in Mike Daniels!

seiphil

Yea we were better the other night. A lot of it being down to the Bears being awful though. O-line worked a bit better.

Horrible hit on Devantae. Hopefully not out too long. Williams did well when replacing Montgomery.

Anybody else not that impressed by Bennett so far. His hands have been awful. And I would be benching Randall from now on. Too far off his player all the time.

Billy86

Yeah, I would be sticking with King and probably House, let Rollins, Randall and Hawkins battle it out for the other spots. With Bennett I'm not overly impressed, but the condition of the line has not helped as he has been doing a good bit of assisting in blocking with Bulaga & Bakhtiari out. I liked that we looked to establish the run early against the Bears too (esp with the line injuries) but want to see more of it and more rotation of the backs without injuries having to force our hand, a few weeks with a good line and balanced system could help him and Kendricks quite a lot. Just checked and he's currently on pace for 68 catches for 564 yards with no TDs so far - upping that YPC from 8.3 to about 10.5-11 would be a big help.

Brendan Bendar

Really strong play from the Pack to beat Dallas last night.

The have a good one in Aaron Jones at RB.

Rogers was awesome.

seiphil

That last drive by Rodgers was the definition of confidence.

He knew he was getting that td as soon as Dallas ran one in.

The greatest QB easily!!

Brendan Bendar

seiphil wrote: »

That last drive by Rodgers was the definition of confidence.

He knew he was getting that td as soon as Dallas ran one in.

The greatest QB easily!!

Sssssssssssteeeeady!!

Let’s not lose the run of ourselves.

However, seriously, that was a stellar drive and catch under severe pressure.

Easily the most cohesive display this year so far.

If they can do that with a banged up OL!

Hopefully it will be fully restored before Minnesota.

Sky Sports Mix, channel 121.

10.45, America's Game is on the 1966 Packers, Starr, Hornung, Taylor, Wood, Davis, Adderley, Gregg, Nitschke and co.

Brendan Bendar

Packers D. .... abysmal.

Letting a journeyman QB tear them apart.

Missed tackles, missed interceptions, .........abysmal.

Billy86

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

Packers D. .... abysmal.

Letting a journeyman QB tear them apart.

Missed tackles, missed interceptions, .........abysmal.

I'm... weirdly not too down on them so far. Some terrible drives and whiffed tackles but if any other team had the injuries we always get every year they'd struggle too. Clarke and Martinez have been absolutely lights out, and we've got turnovers to get us in position on both our scores.

Not happy, but there have been positives. As soon as I saw Rodgers carted off I expected it to be 30-3 by now.

Billy86

Rodgers season over.

Sure nothing surprising, we are "lucky" so far with injuries for Green Bay.

Billy86

That loss isn't on the defense, they got us in position for both our scores and started 2 (3?) of their drives in scoring range already. They were far from flawless, but did their bit. The season is over, we'll be lucky to win 3 of our next 10 games, but Capers called a decent game in total, and despite Hawkins have a nightmare a CB and being bailed out play after play after play by Blake Martinez who was everywhere today. Clark and Martinez (plus Haha, Josh Jones, hopefully King and a few others) look really legit young players. But we'll not be winning anything this year and I'm very confident Rodgers will retire with one SB ring.

The injuries continue to be comical, I have never seen any team in any sport as consistently hit with outrageous amounts of injuries even nearly as much as the Packers. We'll lose another 7-10 starters to injury for most of the season too by week 12-13, and we all know it.

I'm done caring about this, it's every single year without fail.