I think it’s clear MLF’s biggest issue with Pettine was that he didn’t inspire any energy or enthusiasm from the D. As people have pointed out, Pettine’s D is predicated on bend/don’t break, which is very popular in the league now. We’re going to let you have 5-7 yards per play but you’re not going to hit the explosive plays and you’re not going to win a shootout like that. It’s boring for Safeties, they don’t get to really feast. It’s boring for CBs because they don’t get to mix up their coverages, jump routes, or blitz much. It’s really just the edge players that get to have fun really. So perhaps the thought is Barry can inspire players by letting them take chances, make big plays, blitz, really just have more fun. If he can do that then great, that was the clear difference between our D and Tampa’s...they played fast and hard and we’re having fun.
Other thing to note, defenses are going to get a boost next year with the return of crowd noise.
I do think it’s interesting that beyond Leonhard, who plays a 34 at UW and played in a 34 in the NFL, the top two candidates were Barry and Chris Harris. Both of those guys are Tampa 2 disciples. Wonder how much scheme change were going to see.
Will this thread top 2 pt conversion?
@Grave Digger posted:I do think it’s interesting that beyond Leonhard, who plays a 34 at UW and played in a 34 in the NFL, the top two candidates were Barry and Chris Harris. Both of those guys are Tampa 2 disciples. Wonder how much scheme change were going to see.
Considering the coveted scheme is essentially Fangio's scheme I would think that would be the focus. I'm curious to the creativity level overall.
@Grave Digger posted:I do think it’s interesting that beyond Leonhard, who plays a 34 at UW and played in a 34 in the NFL, the top two candidates were Barry and Chris Harris. Both of those guys are Tampa 2 disciples. Wonder how much scheme change were going to see.
Tampa 2 works when you have a superstar linebacker(s) that can run sideline to sideline to stop the run and run with the TE down the seam.
Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, Derrick Brooks.
vs.
Khrys Barnes, Kamal Martin, and Christian Kirksey?
@Boris posted:Dom is a "sophisticated guru" -- Todays young athletes do not relate well to old white sophisticated guru's -- Charles Woodson was the guy that put the energy in the defense in 2010. In 96 it was Butler & Reggie. Getting the picture?
A young(er) guy in this case, he is 50, with energy to teach & develop younger players can help, but somebody on that defense needs to step into the Charles Woodson role. Whether it's Jaire or Z, someone else? I don't know, but this defense will never be good without that defensive energetic leader on the playing field.
Sounds like a case for trading for JJ Watt.
Any of Rod's son-in-law's former players with the Lions, Washington Football Team, or Rams tweeting out congratulations and praising their former coach yet ... other than Will Blackmon who mentioned he is a big greeter and apparently passionate about his job?
I'm passionate about his job, too. Passionate that he not have it.
Like that is so important as to how good a coach he might be. 
The clear difference between Tampa and GB was speed and athleticism across the board. Bottom line, the talent gap was significant at the LB and DL positions.
So yes, energy and enthusiasm is all fine and good but a rah rah guy won’t mean shit if they don’t have the horses to make it work.
By the way, I’m not suggesting GB doesn’t have talent on D. They had enough talent to get within a few plays of the Super Bowl. I just don’t like the DC hire. Not one bit.
Past performance is usually a good indicator of future success and that ain’t Barry.
As for the front office structure, it’s fair to speculate given decisions that were made or not made. And when they were or weren’t made. The decision tree is odd and could lead to lack of alignment on needs and priorities. Not to mention a possible conflict of interest between Gute and Ball.
No one is suggesting Murphy is an idiot but he’s an administrator, promoter, and presenter. He’s not a football guy. If he was, the first thing he’d do is combine the Ball and Gute roles and have the coaches report to that person in that structure. If neither Ball nor Gute are qualified for that position then find someone that is. We’ve seen already how they waited too long to deal with McCarthy, TT, and some of the assistant coaches. And it’s absolutely impacted their ability, or inability, to get over the top.
The single biggest reason this team has been so successful is Rodgers. Just like KC with Mahomes. Or Brady this year with Tampa. This is a .500 team at best without Rodgers and we all know it.
As I have said (probably way too many times 
) in the last two weeks, only three of our defenders ; Clark, Alexander, and one of our safeties would start for TB.
I just don't get why MLF was in such a hurry to bring Barry in, it's not like he was a hot commodity. Why not wait a few more days and talk to Mike Caldwell after TB was done. Bucs' defense is tough.
Bucs defense is tough because they have 2 LB'ers that run 4.4 40's
No coach is going to teach that.
My initial response to Barry hire was disappointment. Have to play "wait and see" game but he doesn't inspire confidence.
One thing I can say is that thete was no "quit" in the players when Barry was on Marinelli's staff during Lions 0-16 season.
Another take on this hire. https://www.acmepackingcompany...-staley-jim-leonahrd
@Grave Digger posted:I think it’s clear MLF’s biggest issue with Pettine was that he didn’t inspire any energy or enthusiasm from the D.
In contrast look at the Bucs. It’s obvious with Bowles’ attacking style he had his guys pumped every week. They played with attitude.
@RochNyFan posted:I just don't get why MLF was in such a hurry to bring Barry in, it's not like he was a hot commodity. Why not wait a few more days and talk to Mike Caldwell after TB was done. Bucs' defense is tough.
They think Caldwell is an asshole, maybe?
@Music City posted:In contrast look at the Bucs. It’s obvious with Bowles’ attacking style he had his guys pumped every week. They played with attitude.
Which is interesting, because Bowles is a really quiet reserved guy.
I had the pleasure of attending several practices when Kevin Greene was coaching. He had unbelievable energy. Running alongside the players, yelling suggestions, grabbing them by the shoulders and getting head to head with them all the while teaching them.
Hell, I'm an old man and he had me wanting to bust through the fence and hurt somebody.
Maybe there's something to be said about a high energy coach. We'll see.
@Music City posted:In contrast look at the Bucs. It’s obvious with Bowles’ attacking style he had his guys pumped every week. They played with attitude.
Easy to look at more talented players and say they are more successful because their coach "pumps them up" ... again we are not close to TB in talent. 3 guys in their front 4 were top 15 draft choices & the other guy had 8 sacks & 14 QB hits , another top 5 draft pick at ILBer. It easy for the back guys to play aggressively when your front 6 are dominating their men. This is what makes them unique, they can keep 6 guys in the box vs. 5 blockers to make it very difficult to run on them, but then get pressure with just 4 and play 7 in coverage to cover up for their weakness, which is their corners. They had the highest % of QB pressures in the history of the SB last night .... and the Chiefs had the lowest.
Wonder if Leonhard turning it down says anything about his future. Not as a pro coach, but in the Badger program.
Chryst is 55, Leonhard is 38. Maybe the reason Leonhard turned it down is to continue to build himself and take over the program down the road?
@FLPACKER posted:Easy to look at more talented players and say they are more successful because their coach "pumps them up" ... again we are not close to TB in talent. 3 guys in their front 4 were top 15 draft choices & the other guy had 8 sacks & 14 QB hits , another top 5 draft pick at ILBer. It easy for the back guys to play aggressively when your front 6 are dominating their men. This is what makes them unique, they can keep 6 guys in the box vs. 5 blockers to make it very difficult to run on them, but then get pressure with just 4 and play 7 in coverage to cover up for their weakness, which is their corners. They had the highest % of QB pressures in the history of the SB last night .... and the Chiefs had the lowest.
It's what I say about Fritz Shurmur looking like a genius because he had the best DL in history along with 3 other excellent DL and a backfield with two good CBs, a should-be-HOF safety (Butler), and another saftey (E. Robinson) who is 13th all-time in interceptions.
As you pointed out, Tampa has guys drafted 2nd, 5th, and 15th overall in their front 7. The secondary has three second picks. They might have the two fastest ILBs in the NFL (the 5th overall pick and a 2nd round pick). They hit on almost all those draft picks and went and got Pierre-Paul and Suh.
The Packers went out and got Z. Smith and P. Smith and have Clark. Their DL/edge rushers are good enough to win with. Their other LBs just aren't. They had to adjust their schemes to cover up for their deficiencies at ILB while the Buccaneers designed schemes to feature their ILBs.
@Gsands posted:I had the pleasure of attending several practices when Kevin Greene was coaching. He had unbelievable energy. Running alongside the players, yelling suggestions, grabbing them by the shoulders and getting head to head with them all the while teaching them.
Hell, I'm an old man and he had me wanting to bust through the fence and hurt somebody.
Maybe there's something to be said about a high energy coach. We'll see.
These guys are professionals. I think the "motivational screaming" aspect is overrated. If you need a guy to motivate you to play at your best in the NFC title game, they problem is with the personnel not the coach.
Maybe accountability is the more important thing. You don't need to scream at guys to teach accountability. Why was Kevin King put back on the field after the last play of the first half? If he was instructed to not get beat deep (which is how Alexander appeared to be playing in his coverage) and didn't do it, why wasn't Tramon Williams in his place?
Devon White covers up a kit of mistakes. Guy is just a terror out there. David is no slouch either. The Packers don’t have one LB like that.
Z and Clark are very good. Jaire is probably the best shutdown corner in the league. Amos is decent. Savage played really well the second half of the season and if that’s what we can expect he could become an All Pro. But they need more speed at LB. They also need another DE that can force teams not to double Clark.
The Tampa corners are pretty ordinary. But you can be ordinary when you know that no one will get past the LB group and you can apply pressure with your front four like TB does.
JPP and Barrett get a lot of credit but the unsung hero might be Suh. Yes, he’s a dirtbag. But he’s still a force inside and they got him for what they paid Kirksey. They got him for half of what they are paying Preston Smith! If that doesn’t piss you off I don’t know what does.
I bet the Packers could even win the NFCC or the Super Bowl with a ILB like that.
I said this on another thread but you shitcan Preston and Kirksey and Wagner and back up the armored bank truck for Levonte David. I’m sure Tampa will try to keep him but show that man some green and get him in here.
@MichiganPacker2 posted:The Packers went out and got Z. Smith and P. Smith and have Clark. Their DL/edge rushers are good enough to win with. Their other LBs just aren't. They had to adjust their schemes to cover up for their deficiencies at ILB while the Buccaneers designed schemes to feature their ILBs.
And the Smith's regressed this season. Z was still good but nothing like last season ( he had 1 less sack & 14 less QB hits this season) & P dropped off the face of the earth (8 less sacks & 12 less QB hits). So combined they had 9 less sacks & 26 less QB hits. Gary tempered that a little with 3 more sacks & 8 more QB hits than last season, but overall the position was not as productive as last year.
Their edge rushers would have been better by drafting TJW and signing Z and maybe using the Gary draft pick on another position and using the Preston Smith money on another position.
The hilarious part is the other guy (King) is likely needing to be replaced so how many moves were made to make up for not taking the obvious guy out of UW back in 2017??
@PackerPatrick posted:Another take on this hire. https://www.acmepackingcompany...-staley-jim-leonahrd
Bukowski is one dumb motherfucker.
Imagine how jealous Pettine must have been about a team with no stud linebacker, playing a bunch of sub-package and still stopping the run effectively.
Oh, because the Rams have Dline players like, oh I don't know, Aaron Donald. Yes Dumbshit, Tyler Lancaster and Dean Lowry were crashing the pocket and keep LBs clean all season.
This guy is such a damn clown. If you're going to take a shot at Pettine maybe don't use the biggest weakness of the entire defense that Pettine had no control over. I just can't figure out why they would go after Snacks or anybody for that reason during the playoff run?
Fucking dolt.
Wait I don’t understand why he’s wrong? I’m sure all DC’s wish they could have a set up like the Rams or Bucs where you can rely on the DL only to get it done. I don’t think he was taking a shot I think he was making the same point you are: GB didn’t have the horses to do that consistently and Pettine was more limited with what he could do on the back end.
Lancaster and Lowry can certainly be upgraded. Definitely. Might be more obvious than the LB position.
@Tschmack posted:Lancaster and Lowry can certainly be upgraded. Definitely. Might be more obvious than the LB position.
And if they aren't, they should shitcan the whole personel dept and start over.