Bad and Ugly...Where's the Good?

During an appearance on the Railbird Central podcast on Monday morning, 247Sports insider Luke Rodgers gave some tough love to his brother, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, following a 29-10 loss to the Denver Broncos on Sunday evening.

 

"Aaron didn’t play well at all," said Luke Rodgers. "He missed some shots that he had down the field. I love giving the defense their due, but I think Aaron really had a clunker if we’re going to be on honest on his performance."

 

Luke Rodgers isn't out to make controversy for the sake of controversy, and he's not making comments because he thinks he can do better than his brother. His job is as a football analyst, and the statistics would seem to bear out that he's not exactly going out on a limb.

 

"I think the Packers are just very, very poor at making adjustments, in game especially," said Luke Rodgers. "I think oftentimes, and this is going to be just my opinion here obviously, I think the Packers line up and expect their guys to win a one-on-one match-up and oftentimes instead of possibly scheming.-gnb.247sports.com

 

More past the click

Mike Spofford video analysis "No one was open"

 

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Approaching PFF territory here

 

Aaron Rodgers (77 y, 0 TD) had a higher QBR this week than: Brady (356 y, 4/0) Ryan (397, 2/1) Hoyer (235, 2/0) Flacco (319, 1/0)

— this is a good tweet (@KennethArthuRS) November 2, 2015

 

Nice job Dilfer

that game really, really ****ing sucked.

I don't think it's wrong to predicate your scheme on guys winning 1 on 1 matchups, that's what they pay their players to do. Offensively I do agree that they could have done more, scheme wise, to get Aaron in a rhythm. They did it against Kansas City and Seattle and really negated those pass rushes. Defensively I don't think there's much scheming to do to make life easier on your players, they were flat out losing 1 on 1 matchups...they call man coverage and Hayward gets beat, they go in to Zone and Denver found the gaps in the zones, they get aggressive and they run a counter, Raji getting a push so they Trap him with no support behind him. Not much to do when guys are losing those battles.

Found on the internet:

 

There was a 3rd and 2 early in the 2nd quarter: 

- Packers line up trips left, Adams 1:1 with Talib on the right. 
- All 11 Broncos were within 5 yards from the LOS. 
- Both safeties are lined up near the trips leaving 

Talib had no help anywhere and the Broncos 100% played the run. If Adams can get inside of Talib a well delivered ball is probably a TD as there is literally no one on the right 2/3rds of the field to help out. Instead there was a run right that got stuffed.

And it seemed to me that Rodgers checked into the run.

betcha the people who wish Rodgers took more risks with the ball also feels a strike out is worse than any other out.  

If you are going to take risks, you better wear a coat.

If you are going to wear a coat, you best wear matching shoes.

Not monogrammed velvet slippers and capri pants?

Are you one of those people who applaud pitchers with High K ratios but don't take into account k ratio when judging hitters?

 

 

There are simpletons out there who cannot figure out that difference.  

Okay I'll say it.  When the game was out of hand, why not throw Janis in there?  How fkin worse could it get?  What was there to lose? Obviously, the group of receivers playing were not effective.   Call me "fan boy" whatever.  I just do not get it. Sorry. Maybe he would of sucked or maybe he could have made a big play or two. 

If one is looking at a called 3rd strike, yes.

Swing and a miss? It happens.

Is "coat" a euphemism for "condom"?  

Does Timmy rhyme with Jimmy?

Watch the first clip. Cobb seems to force a vertical route into the corner getting nothing accomplished. Breaks it off then reverses back outside. Why didn't he bend that route to the middle faster? There is no one in the middle. I mean no one. That's an easy pitch and catch with Cobb 1-1 in space with the other corners running with receivers. 

 

Scheme or execution? Isn't that a breakdown of both? That's leaving easy yards on the table to ramp up the difficulty level. 

 

Cobb clearly had a tree he was asked to climb (scheme) but when it wasn't there he has to spot that real estate and create space (execution) 

To Chilli's point. Was thinking about this last night. When MM shuffled coaching responsibilities the Packers did away with a dedicated WR coach. Right now Alex Van Pelt has both the QB group and the WR contingent and they share meeting rooms. Sounds good, right?

 

Perhaps an unintended consequence is that the WRs aren't getting the hands-on attention they'd been getting for years from the great Jimmy Robinson and then Edgar. Especially when it comes to learning and honing the fundamentals and the finer points of the position. Remember that all the WRs other than Mother****ing Jones are 25 or younger. Are we seeing a resulting sloppiness due to a relative lack of attention to detail and constant focused drilling of a young group?

 

Dunno. One would think that the WRs are getting TLC somehow under this new lash up. And without question Jordy's loss and nagging injuries have rippled through the way plays are called and the remaining cohort is dealt with by opposing defenses. 

 

Combine this with a decline in talent from Jordy's loss and also, the staleness of the formations and personnel due to running hurry-up so much. Drip drip drip.

 

As as one who was gobsmacked in earlier years by the inventiveness and metronomic precision of the Green Bay passing game (e.g. backshoulder throws) the difference has been pretty apparent. 

 

One last point. MM and staff have publicly come across as saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it." Well it might not be broke but it needs some fixin. Come on, Boot.

Need to add in the failure of the organization to really address the TE position adequately since the loss of Finley. Richard Rodgers doesn't scare anyone or require much defensive attention and Packers desperately need to upgrade the position. Really a bad reach in the third and the experts who had him in the 5-6 range were correct.

Listened to Josh Sitton yesterday afternoon on the Big Show. He said Eddie Lacy "getting only 10 carries is not going to cut it. He needs to at least double that. He can't get going with only ten carries." He went on to say our offense "did just fine earlier in the season when he was getting 20 carries."

 

He sounded pretty frustrated, and implied that went for the whole group of OL.

I like Richard Rodgers. Unfortunately, he half assed it last week in DEN, and we saw the results. Kid needs to commit to good technique in run blocking, and finishing plays.

 

He was just one of the many Packers players who had a bad game. Really bad.

They are all frustrated. So execute better. Lacy isn't getting 20 carries when they are only running 40 offensive plays. Rodgers is going to get 20 or so throws and then you have the odd run with Kuhn or Cobb/Monty if healthy, plus 5-8 carries for Starks. That only leaves 10 or so runs for Eddie. Convert more on 3rd down and they'll get closer to their 70 plays per game and Eddie will be closer to 20 carries.

 

Lacy only had 3 games last year of 20 or more carries (25, 21, 26), and they all came in the last 6 games of the regular season.

 

 

W-O-W

 

If the analyst for the first link is accurate (obviously, he does not show every single offensive play), that is compelling.

 

NO ONE WAS OPEN!!!

 

Stick a fork in any team whose receivers are that well covered in a given game.

I'd like to see some comments from scouts or coaches about how many "good" games he's had. It's hard for us to know what his blocking has been like other than a few GIFs that show him being abused like a rag doll. Is he consistently bad, or is he at least adequate. If he can't block to the level of at least an average NFL TE, there is virtually no reason to play him. Heck, he and Janis are the same height and RichRod only outweighs him by 20 pounds. Janis may never be an NFL quality WR, but he's great on special teams as a gunner. That's basically hand to hand combat on every punt. Maybe Janis can at least get in the way of a LB or a safety on a running play.

If Janis is a great gunner those skills should translate to getting off the line and running a go.  Even if it's all he can do and even if the defense knows what it's going to be it's worth the shot when they're down by 17 .  Should he be an integral part of the game plan? Absolutely not.  When they're down 17 should they at least give it a couple snaps?  What's to lose at that point?  Down by 17 and no one open all day I don't care if the kid is consistent or knows his ass from his elbow. At that point they just need someone to make a play.  Mind boggling that they didn't even give him a chance.             

Good point, Tit, about Janis being a really good gunner. Those gunner skills should help him get off the LOS. Even if he's not totally trustworthy, I have to think if you sent him on a crossing route he could use his speed to get open or send him down the middle or on a post route to draw a safety. He doesn't have to be an integral part of the plan to help open up the field. Sometimes MM/Clements/TT/AR stick to the tried-and-true too long. As mentioned earlier, if you're down by 17 and the game is essentially lost, why not toss in Abby, Janis, etc., and let them get some work? At least you'd see how much they've progressed -- or not. 

<<THIS>>

Well, as I mentioned, those were Josh Sitton's words...

I agree with Sitton, but as Hungry pointed out you don't take the ball out of the hands of your best player for half the game. Rodgers gives us a better chance to win than Lacy does with the ball in his hands.

Sitton's words could also be interpreted to mean that the offense needs the ball more. Under 50 plays a game isn't going to cut it in this league. The D needs to get off the field more often. They're not giving up an alarming amount of points, but even if they only allow 17, Rodgers and Co still need to be on the field to score more than 17. Rodgers didn't get enough opportunities against Denver or San Diego.

Packers were 2-8 on third down against the Broncos. Not good enough and what opportunities they did have they didn't take advantage of.

 

And execute better was McCarthy's answer.

 

 

 

 

This was brought up a few weeks back. Head scratcher for sure. 

"Can't take the ball out of your best player's hands" is another truism that carries significant caveats.  When your best player is your QB and your QB's biggest contributions are in the passing game, his impact is biggest when the O is running on a balanced diet that allows the running game to loosen up the passing game.  Unless you are BB and Brady.  Unless you have a game breaker at WR (ours was apparently Jordy), you'll see more and more teams do what SD and DEN just did.

Given the lack of receivers getting open, running more and passing less makes even more sense than usual.

No, he was pretty adamant that they all want to run more. And, I mean overtly so. I believe it opens everything up for their offense, when they can get S and DL, LB having to respect the run.

Blocking better makes sense for both phases

GB should run the ball more against a thin DL that was gassed two minutes into the 4th quarter trying to rush Luck? I don't get the logic. 

 

GB needs to run that DL into the ground by slinging it all over the yard the first three quarters. I don't care if AR completes less than 50% of them. I think Luck had completed 5 passes midway through the 3rd against Carolina with 3 INT's. He ended up around 27 completions for the game.