McGinn on the Packers Defense - and offense, page 2

[th87]

And why does AJ Hawk start? The defense looked a lot better with Francois in, and he himself got two interceptions. Hawk came back for the Chiefs game, and all of a sudden the ability to cover the middle of the field diminished significantly.

[El Duderino]

The 2nd most glaring player re-watching that game was Clay,Clay's effort and intensity seemed the same from 2010 to 2011 but Clay just seemed a lot less effective in 2011.I think the lack of Jenkins and the lack of pass rush is what hurt Clay's numbers,the effort was still there as it was in 2010.Obviously Clay was easier to block,double team and chip in 2011 without the presence of Jenkins and a pass rush.

But Raji...wow,it was depressing watching how awesome he was in that game compared to how he played this past season.

Nothing really groundbreaking here just thought I'd share my observations.

I remember around week 4-5 or so, i started having some concerns about Raji and started a thread on here about him. At the time, i just mainly thought his pretty much lack of any disruptive plays was due to him playing such a high number of snaps. Then though the team lessened somewhat the number of snaps he played and still he was rarely causing any havoc to quarterbacks, whether it was beating his man for a sack/pressure or at least collapsing the pocket so the QB couldn't step up.

Speaking of Clay this year vs last year and the 7.5 less sacks, keep in mind something. Jenkins last year had nearly as many QB pressures as the whole DL combined last year and mix in the far fewer pressures Raji provided, that's a ton of less interior pressures coming from the inside. Well, often when a QB is pressured from the interior, they slide out of the pocket to avoid the inside pressure and that can lead to sacks from guys coming from the outside.

My guess is of the 13.5 sacks Clay had in the previous season, at least 3-4 of those sacks came mainly from Jenkins and/or Raji first causing interior pressure, which flushed the QB out of the pocket and there was Clay to finish it off for a sack. This year though, look how often Matthews would beat the RT around the edge and get his arm near the QB, but the guy would just step up in the pocket a few feet and then the RT could push Clay right out of the play.

Interior pressure is so disruptive to any quarterback because it's the quickest path and it usually takes away the ability of the quarterback to step up in the pocket. So what was so devastating by losing Jenkins and Raji regressing was two-fold. The two not only combined for 14 sacks in the Super Bowl year which vanished this year, the defensive lineman this year also rarely just at least collapsed the pocket some so that if Clay or anyone beat the tackle on the outside, there wouldn't be an easy path for the QB to step up in the pocket and avoid that outside pressure.

I'm at a loss though to figure out why Raji was significantly less disruptive and it can't just be blamed on Jenkins being gone. His play declined for whatever reason, as did it with Tramon and Shieds.

[th87]

^Complacency, I think. Jenkins played until week 12 last season, and returned for the playoffs, where he was a situational player. The defense did just fine when he was gone, as evidenced by impressive performances against the Lions, Patriots (relatively), Giants, and Bears.

Williams and Shields looked far less aggressive and disinterested in tackling. Raji regressed, and it just might be too many snaps. Howard Green showed up overweight. CJ Wilson disappeared. Walden didn't grow. Zombo's injury hampered what little upside he had. Hawk sucked. Woodson wasn't as sharp. And of course, Collins' injury.

It seems like this was a perfect storm of players regressing simultaneously, and I can't think of any other reason than the loss of hunger. It sounds crazy, but that's all I can think of.

[humanrefutation]

a. Teams figured Capers out. I highly doubt this, as a 30 year coach (with seasoned assistants) wouldn't suddenly get outfoxed after two years of dominance.

Well, his defenses have historically followed a pattern of improving considerably for his first couple years before declining considerably.

So...yeah. That could be a problem.

[El Duderino]

Exactly. The Cullen Jenkins myth to explain our defense's demise has been blown WAY out of proportion. He did not play down the stretch of the season and was reduced to a situational player when he did. Coaches were also pissed that he abandoned playing the run in favor of padding his sack stats. I'd guess that's why he was let go.

That supposed myth can only be true if most fans were saying that just losing Jenkins was the reason for the defensive decline. That isn't the case though.

What many fans, reporters following the Packers, and players on the defense actually said was that the loss of Jenkins did hurt the pass rush quite a bit, because that's obviously true and being able to rush the passer in today's NFL is hugely important.

That said, losing Jenkins didn't explain away why both Tramon and Shields played significantly worse than the previous season. Tramon went from playing like an elite corner to setting a team record for allowing the most plays over 20 yards. Neither guy tackled. Raji regressed. With the regression of Raji and missing Jenkins 35 QB pressures, it exposed more the poor job Ted did at putting an at least somewhat competent pass rusher at the other OLB spot.

As for why Jenkins wasn't always a full time player, you over-exaggerated why. Cullen isn't bad vs the run. It was more that Capers played a ton of 2-4-5 alignments that year, even on early downs, so on early downs in that 2-4-5, he wanted two fat bodies in the middle via Raji and Pickett. When though it was a regular 3-4 alignment, Cullen was out there.

And why does AJ Hawk start? The defense looked a lot better with Francois in, and he himself got two interceptions. Hawk came back for the Chiefs game, and all of a sudden the ability to cover the middle of the field diminished significantly.

When i look at where Ted made his biggest mistake in the offseason, it was retaining Hawk over Jenkins. In a 3-4 scheme, unless an ILB is an elite to upper tier guy, i just don't think they should be given big money. Well, Hawk has never been more than mediocre to solid, yet Thompson gave AJ a 35 million dollar deal with 11 million guaranteed. That was quite a bit more cash than Jenkins got and i'd always pay a quality and proven pass rusher in today's NFL over any solid at best 3-4 ILB. With how the passing game dominates offense now and how often they spread out teams with 3-4-5 receivers, it's hard to find enough guys who can cover multiple quality receivers. The best shot is being able to pressure QB's without having to blitz a ton and thus, pass rushers are worth their weight in gold, even if they don't play 80 percent of snaps.

Oh well, Ted is a great GM, but not infallible. Even top GM's make mistakes and i'm sure TT wishes he could go back in time and have paid Jenkins instead of Hawk. He badly miscalculated the importance of both players to the defense.

[El Duderino]

^Complacency, I think. Jenkins played until week 12 last season, and returned for the playoffs, where he was a situational player. The defense did just fine when he was gone, as evidenced by impressive performances against the Lions, Patriots (relatively), Giants, and Bears.

Williams and Shields looked far less aggressive and disinterested in tackling. Raji regressed, and it just might be too many snaps. Howard Green showed up overweight. CJ Wilson disappeared. Walden didn't grow. Zombo's injury hampered what little upside he had. Hawk sucked. Woodson wasn't as sharp. And of course, Collins' injury.

It seems like this was a perfect storm of players regressing simultaneously, and I can't think of any other reason than the loss of hunger. It sounds crazy, but that's all I can think of.

I don't buy the loss of hunger argument much because i think the team overall really wanted the acclaim that comes with repeating as champions. Maybe a player or two fits that, but i don't think it was the main reason the defense faltered.

Maybe Tramon wasn't really quite as good as he looked the last half of the Super Bowl year, but instead more that he had a great stretch of games? Or maybe he got to caught up in going for to many picks after his success doing so last year, thus teams caught on and that's why they kept running and then burning Tramon on double moves? Double moves routes which were aided by the lack of pass rush. I don't know, but he doesn't strike me as the lazy/complacent type. Shields doesn't tackle mainly because he looks soft in that regard to me unfortunately. Obviously the Collins injury was huge and Burnett didn't develop as quickly as i hoped he would. Safety was a big weakness.

Birthday candles piling up hurts Woodson more than anything. Wilson just isn't more than a spare part. Same for Green and Wynn. None of the three can provide QB pressure. Zombo and Walden are what they are, fringe undrafted NFL outside 3-4 backers. The previous season their limited talent wasn't exposed as much with Jenkins, Raji, and Clay all applying significant pressure.

Raji is the one guy i wonder most about and maybe he didn't bring it as hard as the previous season. I don't know. For those fat bodies inside, conditioning and effort is huge. Either way, while i disagree strongly with you on how much the team missed Jenkins, i thought the regression of Raji as a disruptive force was just as important to the decline in pressures as losing Cullen was. The end result was flat out non-existent interior pass rush pressure from the DL, a wet dream for quarterbacks.

[midranger]

It's a butterfly effect when you lose a solid defensive playmaker like Jenkins. Remember many people here were calling him the best 3/4 DE in the NFL last year.

Anyway. If the tackle can swallow a nobody like Neal, the guard isn't thinking about the outside and focuses on inside responsibility, hurting Raji's ability to get upfield. Take away those two rushers and suddenly blocking Matthews is far less daunting. Once that's done, you effectively eliminated any pass rush whatsoever, leaving your mediocre LBs and risk taking press type CBs (who lets face it, have made careers out of jumping routes. Not just this year) on an island against an ever improving crop of TEs and WRs for what seemed like minutes at a time. Sitting in your stance and playing for the interception works a whole lot better if the front 7 is forcing any quick throws. Then, to top it off lose the best safety in the league, and replace him with poop so the back end is almost always exposed.

Everything is connected and Capers' defenses rely on consistent QB pressure. Losing Jenkins killed us there. The rest just follwed from there.

[MickeyDavis]

As McGinn pointed out our DB's gambled far too much. So while they did get their picks too often the gambling failed and a big play was the result. To me much of that falls on the coaching staff for allowing them to get away with it. Capers seems perfectly happy with the bend but don't break defensive philosphy. And it worked because of our powerful offense. Until the offense had a bad day and season over.

Williams was absolutely horrible this year. Shields did not improve one bit in year two, a year when many players make a big leap. Maybe lack of OTA's due to the lockout was part of the problem, I don't know. But it certainly isn't an excuse for vets like Williams.

I don't know what the answer is. We had no pass rush. So Capers blitzed. And blitzed a lot. Second most in the league. And we still had no pass rush.

[-Jragon-]

Keeping A.J. over Jenkins was terrible.

Our defense was less powerful, but still effective if the offense kept pressure on and made the other team make throw after throw. Eventually they would make a bad throw and turn it over; the defense usually could hold teams to a field goal often enough to win while the offense got a lot of touchdowns.

[MickeyDavis]

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/ ... 19428.html

Some more stuff from McGinn, including offense.

[El Duderino]

It's a butterfly effect when you lose a solid defensive playmaker like Jenkins. Remember many people here were calling him the best 3/4 DE in the NFL last year.

Anyway. If the tackle can swallow a nobody like Neal, the guard isn't thinking about the outside and focuses on inside responsibility, hurting Raji's ability to get upfield. Take away those two rushers and suddenly blocking Matthews is far less daunting. Once that's done, you effectively eliminated any pass rush whatsoever, leaving your mediocre LBs and risk taking press type CBs (who lets face it, have made careers out of jumping routes. Not just this year) on an island against an ever improving crop of TEs and WRs for what seemed like minutes at a time. Sitting in your stance and playing for the interception works a whole lot better if the front 7 is forcing any quick throws. Then, to top it off lose the best safety in the league, and replace him with poop so the back end is almost always exposed.

Everything is connected and Capers' defenses rely on consistent QB pressure. Losing Jenkins killed us there. The rest just follwed from there.

I of course agree that losing Jenkins was huge, but i don't buy that he alone was responsible for the regression of Raji as a disruptive force. McGinn would point out in his weekly grades for each unit how disturbing it was for the defense that even when single blocked by non-elite lineman, BJ just wasn't able to defeat his man like he did last year. After McGinn started bringing this up, i would focus close on Raji sometimes in games and it was easy to see what McGinn pointed out about Raji. He was consistently getting stoned by his blocker when trying to pass rush, even when single blocked.

As for Tramon and the corners as a whole being risk takers, that's obvious. It doesn't excuse though them not adapting at all to the lessening pressure and a talented guy like Tramon repeatedly getting burned for big gains. It's a lack of discipline and also doesn't excuse the poor tackling by both Williams and Shields.

[MickeyDavis]

Wynn led the D-line in pressures per snap. Playing 467 snaps, he registered a pressure every 46.7 snaps. Last season, Cullen Jenkins led the unit with one every 16.1 snaps.

Following Wynn at the position were Raji, one every 47.49 snaps; Neal, one every 79; Wilson, one every 113.43; Pickett, one every 330; and Green, one every 460.

Capers blitzed five or more on 42.2% of drop-backs, an increase from 33% a year ago and 27% in '09. It was the highest five-man rate since the Journal Sentinel began tracking rush numbers in 1998.

Capers blitzed six or more on 6.7%, up from 3.7% in 2010 and 4.5% in '09.

In all, Capers blitzed inside linebackers 348 times, cornerbacks 154 times and safeties 28 times.

The most effective rusher among inside linebackers and defensive backs with 15 or more blitzes was Bishop for the second straight year. He had 20 pressures in 137 rushes, or one every 6.85 snaps. He was followed by Burnett, one every 8.5; Bush, one every 8.6; Hawk, one every 9.23; Smith, one every 11.25; Woodson, one every 12.86; and Rob Francois, who didn't have one in 23 attempts.

Clearly, Capers' blitzes from the secondary have dropped off in effectiveness. The unit had one pressure every 6.8 snaps in 2009 followed by one every 9.4 snaps in '10 and one every 10.7 this season.

[rilamann]

Bob McGinn is the probably the only sports writer at the Journal Sentinel whose work I would actually pay money to read.

[Bucksfans1and2]

McGinn has a man crush on Wells. He allowed one sack for sure in the second Lions game. I'm pretty sure he had 3 or 4 on the year.

He still played well but he didn't pitch a shut out.

[CousinOfDeath]

You guys are all spot on. Raji regressed, Clay had less help from the other side of the line, guys got complacent, the corners gambled too much, Collins wasn't there to cover up for a lot of our guys' mistakes etc. It was all the butterfly effect. Jenkins would have helped, but throughout the season when people kept bringing up Jenkins I thought I was the only one who realized he didn't even play in the last 6 games. Down the stretch we used a DT by committee system at the right 3-tech position. The reason we were able to get away with it was because Raji was such a beast. Clay was still bringing the energy but his production dropped off in the latter part of the season. Raji was the anchor and the beginning of our chain of defense.

Raji provided pressure, freed up Clay, forced QBs to throw earlier, therefore making it easier for our DBs to cover. It also allowed Capers to blitz less in effort to generate pressure, leaving more guys in coverage. This all had nothing to do with Cullen Jenkins. And when we didn't get a good push from the D line, and one of our corners or Peprah ****ed up, we had Collins and his speed to make up for a ton of mistakes. The loss of Collins and the apparent regression of Raji were our biggest problems this year, not Cullen Jenkins. He would have helped, but he shouldn't be given credit for the bulk of the defensive fallout.

[James1980]

Still don't know how Raji made the pro bowl. He had 14 solo tackles this year, less than one a game.

[MickeyDavis]

Often you make the pro bowl based on what you did the season before. Especially first timers.