Rankings after Week 3

[LUKE23]

Individual:

Rodgers:

Yards: 5th (796)
Yards/Attempt: 8th (8.0)
Completion %: 12th (64.6)
TD: 8th (4)
QB Rating: 8th (102.9)

Grant:

Yards: 22nd (166)
Yards/Attempt: 29th (4.2)
TD: 0 (unranked)

Jennings:

Yards: 373 (1st)
Receptions: 19 (4th)
Yards/Reception: 19.6 (7th)
TD: 0 (unranked)

Team:

Offense (yards): 8th (366)
Offfense (points): 5th (29.3)
Offense (passing yards): 7th (250.7)
Offense (rushing yards): 15th (115.3)
Offense (rushing yards per carry): 11th (4.4)
Sacks allowed (fewest): 16th (6)
3rd down conversion: 12th (42.5%)
Penalties: most (28)
Penalty yards: most (248)
TOP: 13th (30:25)

Defense (yards): 27th (373)
Defense (points): 23rd (23.7)
Defense (passing yards): 22nd (222)
Defense (rushing yards): 26th (151)
Defense (rushing yards allowed per carry): Last (5.7)
Defense (completion % allowed): 3rd (50.5)
Defense (interceptions): 5th (3rd)
Defense (sacks): 7th (9)

A few glaring points so far:

1. The defense is struggling in both aspects right now, but specifically against the run. We are last in the NFL in yards allowed per carry. Now, I know we've played probably 2 of the top 5 OL's in football the first three games, but that is still worrisome. With Pickett/Jolly's size and Jenkins resurgence, there is no excuse for people gashing us up the middle like that.

2. Penalties. Worst in the NFL in both categories. Most of it is on the piss poor OL play. Needs to get fixed right now.

3. The offense appears fine. Vikings/Cowboys both have pretty good defenses, so I don't think the numbers are skewed. We will be a top 5-8 offense again this year.

[ReasonablySober]

What worries me about the defense is the missed tackles. The linebackers aren't wrapping up and making clean hits. Rouse is a matador when he's in there. There seems to be plenty of occasions where the defense is where you want them at the point of attack but they aren't bringing them down.

[LUKE23]

Yeah, I don't know if they keep a stat like "yards after first contact" or something like that, but we can't be doing well there. The rush defense just really concerns me. People are running right up the middle on us. Granted, we have played probably 2 of the top 5 RB's in football (I'm very high on Barber), but still really concerns me.

Our passing D is good when we get people into third and longer situations, because teams do not complete a high % of passes against us (both last year and this year so far).

Another area of improvement is red zone offense. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm guessing the TD conversion % isn't high.

[Kerb Hohl]

1. The defense is struggling in both aspects right now, but specifically against the run. We are last in the NFL in yards allowed per carry. Now, I know we've played probably 2 of the top 5 OL's in football the first three games, but that is still worrisome. With Pickett/Jolly's size and Jenkins resurgence, there is no excuse for people gashing us up the middle like that.

I think the main reason for that is the Sanders' "bend but don't break" defensive mentality.

The lack of blitzing allows us to usually hold an opponent out of the endzone or hold them back from long plays, however, there are weaknesses.

1. A team with playmaking skill players is going to get a few shots with way too much time to throw and 1-on-1 deep. Dallas got this with Austin because all of our coverage was concerned with TO.

2. A team with a dominant line and good backs can grind away if the LBs aren't defending the run well.

We may be able to generate pressure or a push on the run with the front 4 many times but the problem is that we can't get it certain times we don't blitz and their blocking schemes become much easier with how predictable our front is.

All of this has caused us to get murdered in time of possession in the 2nd and 3rd quarters especially just going off the top of my head looking at the past few games. We did beat Detroit in TOP but a lot of that was due to some quick strikes by them.

Going back to the LBs stopping the run, I forgot to mention this at all in the game thread:

Hawk made some great stuffs at the line but those were mostly on aggressive fills where he came downhill and met Barber or Jones at the line.

But there are at least 2-3 times I can distinctly remember (and I only watched the game once through live) where Hawk got killed in the run. They were times where Barber was running up to the G/T or the T/TE gap and Hawk was either our guy responsible for that gap or keying Barber. Barber would come up a yard behind his lineman who was already occupied with a d-lineman and Hawk was let's say two yards back on the other side of the lineman. Barber would take a stutter-step inside where there was no hole to run and then cut outside to the hole. Hawk would step with him to the inside and then take a half-assed step back and just feebly reach his arms out at Barber who would just run right past him. Barber would then not be touched until he was 7-10 yards down field. It was even worse to let Barber get into the open like that because we don't have Bigby back there to lay the wood. Rouse has not been tackling well.

First of all, he needs to stop getting absolutely worked by a RBs juke but after that I would much rather Hawk just fill the gap or funnel him inside where there is help. As an OLB or a DE you only want to string the run outside on certain stretch plays or as a last resort if the RB has a step on you outside and you try to make him run horizontally hoping for some pursuit help from your safeties.

I think this is how Dallas really beat us in the run game. They were able to get Barber outside or OLBs and DEs where he was out in space against DBs where it is almost impossible to bring him down right away. Barnett wasn't much of a factor because of this.