Week 2 PGT: Bears @ Packers (23-10 Packers win)

[emunney]

I wish we could play the Bears again this week.

[MickeyDavis]

Good breakdown of the fake punt by King:

The fake field goal attempt that was turned into a touchdown pass from Green Bay punter Tim Masthay to backup tight end Tom Crabtree Thursday night at Lambeau Field was remarkable for three reasons:

1. It was 4th-and-26. Green Bay was in field goal range. The chances of getting a touchdown on a 4th-and-26 fake field goal would be what? Ten percent? Five?

2. Dave Toub coaches the Chicago special teams and is far and away one of the smartest and most opportunistic special teams coaches in the league. His special teams have blocked more kicks and punts (22) in the nine years since he's been in Chicago than any other team in the league. If you're a good fan, you know Dave Toub. But before Thursday night, when the NFL Network's Mike Mayock and Brad Nessler started talking up Shawn (son of R.C.) Slocum, be honest: You had no idea who the Packers special teams coordinator was. You do now. That was one well-coached play.

3. It required such good coordination on the offensive line, and if any of six Packers up front had made an error, the play would have failed. No doubt about it.

I've watched the play now maybe 30 times, on the TV and all-22 video the NFL has made available this season. And I've spoken with the touchdown man, Crabtree. Here's how it happened.

The play was installed early in training camp this year, though as Mike McCarthy said Friday, the Packers had a similar play in the kicking game playbook for the last couple of years. The play has a chance to work when the defense overloads one side, as Chicago did on this play with seven men to the Packers' left. But here's what's amazing to me: Green Bay has to rely on three linemen blocking five Bears. If those Packer linemen don't do the job right, the play collapses. And if Slocum hadn't changed kicker Mason Crosby's assignment a couple of weeks ago, I say the play would have failed also.

Everything had to go right for the Packers, struggling on offense for the first 28 minutes, to score here. And just barely, it did.

The Green Bay line had Crabtree on the left flank and right tackle Bryan Bulaga on the right flank. The long-snapper, Brett Goode, had three men between him and Crabtree, and two were playing their second NFL games. To Goode's immediate left were the seventh and last offensive lineman on the roster, Don Barclay (an undrafted rookie free agent from West Virginia), regular left tackle Marshall Newhouse and rookie defensive tackle Jerel Worthy.

Across from the left side of the Green Bay line were five Bears -- three on the line, including Julius Peppers, and two behind them to act as pushers (linebackers Brian Urlacher and Nick Roach). "That is very standard when you're going for a field goal block,'' one veteran NFL special teams coach told me Saturday. "But what was different -- first time I've ever seen it, actually -- is the Packers putting a guard in motion to act as a lead blocker.''

That, the coach said, is amazing because of the pure mass of man the Packers were going to have to block to make the play work. Five men were charging or pushing through three Packers -- Goode, Barclay and Newhouse (Worthy was to the left of the scrum) -- and the Packers were willing to take a huge risk and send Barclay pulling right at the snap of the ball to clear the hole for the pitch-receiver, Crabtree, to run through. Blocking five with two. How does that make sense?

Goode and Newhouse, combined, weigh 574 pounds. The five Bears trying to knock the door down across from them (Urlacher and Roach pushing, with Julius Peppers, Henry Melton and Corey Wootton), combined, weigh 1,347. What a risk to think Goode and Newhouse could road-block five men for the time it would take Crabtree to go into motion, catch the pitch and turn upfield to try to score.

But at the snap of the ball, they did. Goode snapped, then leaned to the left to block, and right guard Josh Sitton came over to help, through the hole before it got filled by Crabtree. Newhouse did the best job; he blocked down to his right, and his big body created something like a huge log rolled into a pile. If you were going to get over it or through it, you have to be either very strong or jump very high. At the snap, Barclay sprinted into the hole, and Crabtree was a few steps behind him, taking the pitch-pass and turning the corner. Just as he turned, Peppers got a big hand on him, barely. "Never felt it,'' Crabtree told me. "Must have been the adrenaline."

Now for the role of Crosby. "That's where a little bit of luck comes into play,'' Crabtree said. "Mason rolls left, and holds their wing guy [Charles Tillman] from coming after me, and coach Slocum just put that in a couple of weeks ago.'' At the snap, Crosby took a step forward, as if he were going to kick it, then immediately wheeled to run very wide around left end. That froze Tillman. If Crosby doesn't run left, Tillman could have chased his man, Crabtree, and easily caught him from behind. "That,'' said Crabtree, "is a wrinkle that really paid off. We needed it.''

Sitton sealing the left side, and Bulaga cutting off the other wing man, Eric Weems, on the right, really helped, as did Evan Dietrich-Smith cutting off safety Chris Conte. When Barclay entered the hole, he helped eliminate Conte, but the real impressive thing was how quickly the 305-pound Barclay got out of the scrum, turned, and ran upfield. Really, he was the insurance agent here -- if any Bear clogged the lane, it was Barclay's job to eliminate him.

The next thing Green Bay knew, Crabtree was leaping into the south stands at Lambeau with the touchdown that kick-started the Packer offense -- and eliminated the play from being called for at least the rest of this season. Now, every special teams coach in the league will be wary of it. No more pulling 305-pound guards, no more shock-the-world 4th-and-26 calls, for a long time.

"That play's pretty much dead for a while,'' Crabtree said, laughing. "But I'd say the one time we ran it was worth it."

[humanrefutation]

Remember all the "FIRE SLOCUM!" posts around here? I made them too. It's funny how your perspective changes when you have a talent like Cobb returning kicks, a good kicker in Crosby, and a good punter in Masthay.

[chuckleslove]

Remember all the "FIRE SLOCUM!" posts around here? I made them too. It's funny how your perspective changes when you have a talent like Cobb returning kicks, a good kicker in Crosby, and a good punter in Masthay.

Yeah, our coverage against Hester was outstanding too.

[Ayt]

So with Finley... when do we start to say he's just not that good? He has a ton of talent and he can have a major impact on certain games.

But with the drops and the bonehead mistakes... when he does it every game, when does that start to really impact how people view him?

It seems to me that all of his problems are mental. He's a shell of the player that he was prior to getting hurt. If he can't get back to that, we'll just have to move on.

What do you mean by move on?

Finley only has one more year left on his contract and i've pretty much assumed all along that those would likely be his last years with the team because either

I meant that we'd move on after his contract was up.

[Ayt]

I like Williams and I would do this, if for no other reason, just to challenge Finley's playing time and wake him up a little.

I feel like our receiving core, without Jennings, got exposed as average. I think that Ted needs to start finding ways to keep Jennings on the roster without sacrificing Rodgers, Matthews, or Raji. The easiest answer is getting rid of Finley. I think that our offense focuses too much on him, when our offense has proven in the past that it is capable of running perfectly well without him.

The difference in how much we score with and without Finley over the last 3 years has been huge.

[Kerb Hohl]

Do you have those readily available anywhere? I'm trying to give my friend that would rather have a run-blocking, slow TE over Finley some numbers.

[Marley2Hendrix]

Do you have those readily available anywhere? I'm trying to give my friend that would rather have a run-blocking, slow TE over Finley some numbers.

Green Bay played nearly 16 full games without Finley in 2010 and averaged 25.2 points per contest. Finley played in all 17 games a season ago and Green Bay averaged 34.1 points - a remarkable leap of 35.3%

Disclaimer - Needs to be said that there were a litany (notably the maturation of Rodgers, Oline, and Receivers) of reasons which contributed to the difference between the 16 games included in the 2010 sample and those included in 2011 sample. Finley was a large part of that (it needs to be again emphasized that Finley was replaced by arguably replacement level/sub replacement level guys), although I don't think we had any backup who was anywhere near the threat that DJ Williams could be.

To me, the value of Finley is impossible to quantify, but for Jermichael and his Agent (or for the finley detractors), the above statistic seemingly is telling.

[MikeIsGood]

So this is going awesome:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/criticism- ... --nfl.html

[BUCKnation]

So this is going awesome:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/criticism- ... --nfl.html

Stun.

[Kerb Hohl]

Some Bears fans still defend him, which I find as a legitimate stun.

Clearly Webb and the line played an awful game, but Cutler did, too. This also isn't the first time he was a douche about it, this was probably the 15th or more.

[LUKE23]

Hope Cutler is the Bears QB for a long time. They will never win a SB with him.