McGinn - Packers too soft for NFL Elite

A true must read for all us Packers fans.

This article is Bob McGinn at his best. Cutting, to-the-point and accurate. I can only hope Thompson and McCarthy read it too.

Here is the beginning and it only gets better.

Green Bay - A week ago, Jim Harbaugh called the Green Bay Packers the best team in the National Football League over the last number of years. Green Bay -
"They play tremendous as a team and they have guys step up when others are injured," the 49ers' second-year coach said before the San Francisco-Green Bay divisional playoff game. "They have great coaching . . . they have great talent.

"They do the things that all teams aspire to be. Which is not just consistent, but consistently good."

Three days later, the Packers showed their consistency in another area. They're a soft football team, and in a sport that forever favors the tough, soft is a very, very bad thing to be.

The Packers' season ended just as it started, in a convincing defeat handed down by an opponent that is physically superior.

What general manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy do about it will determine if this team is to go down as "just another fart in the wind," as the 1990s one-and-done title team was characterized by GM Ron Wolf, or wins another championship.

A little more

By winning 15 games last year and 11 more in the regular season this year despite a long list of debilitating injuries, the Packers have demonstrated their dominance over the NFC North Division and the weaker teams on their schedule.

Aaron Rodgers, his exceptional receivers and McCarthy's offensive practices and philosophy have over time compensated for weaknesses at various positions.

But here Thompson and McCarthy sit, the football heads of an organization that has been in position to win Super Bowls five times in the past six years and came away with one.

The Packers were seeded No. 2 in 2007, No. 5 in 2009, No. 6 in 2010, No. 1 in 2011 and No. 3 in 2012.

How, you might ask, did they win the Super Bowl two years ago?

By being physical, that's how.

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I can only hope Thompson and McCarthy read it too.

Do you really think TT and MM give a flying **** what Bob McGinn thinks about anything?



Pretty sure they're contemplating what Bob thinks here.

Yeah, but you all are forgeting one thing: this game is morphing into flag football.

Straight up pot stirring with a dose of truth.

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Originally posted by Pakrz:

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I can only hope Thompson and McCarthy read it too.

Do you really think TT and MM give a flying **** what Bob McGinn thinks about anything?



Pretty sure they're contemplating what Bob thinks here.

no they don't. no more than they care what we say about the team here.

I'm very concerned about the lack of the toughness in this team as well. Just look at the numbers from the combine for draft picks over TT's stint. Our guys have insanely low 40 Yard Full Metal Jacket Warfaces.

Average GB warface:

AHHHHHHHH!!!

Average SF warface:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you know that when there is a disparity of at least ten "H"s and "!"s in a team's average warface, the team with the greater Warface index is 23-1?

If you move CMIII to MLB and cut Raji for sucking, doesn't that equate to more H's and !'s?

If Clay moved to MLB that would add plenty of "!", but I think he needs to cut the hair to add some "H" to his game. Your ability to produce a quality Warface is hampered if you look like you're getting ready to go to Comic Con dressed as Thor.

The team doesn't respond well to being punched in the face and I can't disagree with Bob at all. It's pretty surprising that a blue-collar guy from Pittsburgh has a team that too often displays a tissue paper temperament.

Regarding our DB's....McMillan & Hayward look like the only two who are dedicated weight lifters (maybe House, but haven't seen enough of him). The others really have not looked like they've added much muscle at all since coming to GB. Heck, if I was Tramon Williams & knew I was going to have to at times be forced to tackle 220 pound running backs, I'd really want to put on some muscle.

I think McGinn is a pompous ass most of the time but I have to admit I agree with a lot of what he mentioned in the article.

The one thing I struggle with though is that maybe, just maybe, you have to give some credit to your opponent and understand that the NFL is designed to work against sustained championship success. Just like the Packers did the Giants got hot last year and won it all and what happened this year? They didn't even make the playoffs. For as good as the Niners have been how many Superbowls have they won? Don't even get me started on the Falcons.
And I still contend for all their regular season greatness the Patriots have been as bad if not worse than Green Bay in the playoffs recently.

Playing physical football is just one part of it. You need talent and good coaching and a fair bit of good luck at the right times. SF played a clunker a year ago against the Giants and lost. They were the better team but not that day. We see it every year in the playoffs.

The mental edge is what I think gets lost in a lot of these discussions because the talent gap is not that significant between the better teams in the league. Talent does matter but heck, the Eagles only won 4 games and do we all think they are devoid of talent?

Wells may have helped but they just did not play with enough emotion and intensity enough. If you want to call that playing soft so be it. The Packers have the physical talent but I think they have gotten a little too complacent and that needs to be stripped out and started over.

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If Clay moved to MLB that would add plenty of "!", but I think he needs to cut the hair to add some "H" to his game

I think he needs to go for the Don King look.

You can have all the emotion and intensity in the world but it won't turn backups into all pros. The lack of experience doesn't/didn't help either. That's the thing that really sucks about Perry (as an example). It's not so much what he brought to the D this year,it's the experience he missed getting injured so early in the season. That will only delay his development and it's something you can't coach.

I don't know how you determine whether this team lacks emotion or intensity or whatever you want to call it. But, injury situation aside, I'm willing to wait until the young guys gain some experience playing as a unit before drawing any conclusions.

I have to agree, when you get manhandled by more physical teams like the Giants and 9'ers, it is quiet obvious this team doesn't have the toughness like these teams do. But I will get them a break, you can't have the kind of injuries that Packes experienced without having some kind of impact on your football team.

It is interesting in college that spread offense teams that rack up points all have at best average defenses. Green Bay is not a spread, but surely not a ground and pound team. I am trying to come up with a team that had/has a big passing attack, not much of a running game and a real tough D. Name one if you can. Tramon Williams shying away from tackling A.P. in the last regular season game said a lot to me. He is a starter.

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Originally posted by 4 Favre:
I'm very concerned about the lack of the toughness in this team as well. Just look at the numbers from the combine for draft picks over TT's stint. Our guys have insanely low 40 Yard Full Metal Jacket Warfaces.

Average GB warface:

AHHHHHHHH!!!

Average SF warface:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you know that when there is a disparity of at least ten "H"s and "!"s in a team's average warface, the team with the greater Warface index is 23-1?

WTF are you talking about?

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It is interesting in college that spread offense teams that rack up points all have at best average defenses.

The defensive talent is rather more concentrated among 32 professional teams than it is among ~120 1A teams, never mind the smaller number of 1AA and below players who wind up in the NFL (no, I'm not going to use the new nomenclature).

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WTF are you talking about?

Apparently, Tundra Power's needs re-calibration.

High fives and belly fire

not a complicated formula

Makes me miss Nick Collins even more.

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The one thing I struggle with though is that maybe, just maybe, you have to give some credit to your opponent

A lot of this. Not sure where the Packers land on the physicality scale (we know for sure that Tramon is as low as you can get) but I'm pretty certain the 49ers are at the top.

I'd counter that the physicality was a big problem, but all those third and longs given up really killed. They were plenty physical enough to get them into favorable down and distance but then broke down on the crucial third downs. A lot of what I saw out there was too many guys trying to make a splash play and doing their own thing instead of staying within the scheme and rushing the QB responsibly. Discipline, patience, and again tackling factored in too. Giving up those third downs is demoralizing to a defense.

The safeties are a mess right now and that's not easy to fix or easy to find. They were not playing to their assignments a bunch in that game and were a zero factor in stopping the big plays.

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Originally posted by The Crusher:
Makes me miss Nick Collins even more.

As bad as it is to dwell in the past couldn't agree more. Steelers D is at it's best with Polamalu, Ravens with Reed and ours with Nick. His impact changed the way offenses played in the same way as the other two. There's not too many of those kind of guys to go around.

Feeding the team nutraloaf during training camp would fix everything.

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Originally posted by Lap-Ka-Dog:
High fives and belly fire

not a complicated formula

Seriously guys. Give some credit to the Niners. But give us some credit too!

Has anyone thought about this....

It took the feared Green Bay Packers to pull out the best game the Niners have played in probably 15 years or so. The Niners are a talented team. They have been for about 5 years now. But it was US that brought their best out of them. Some of you guys don't like Harbaugh. I like him. Did you hear what he said this week? "We're going to pack a toothbrush & a great attitude & go into Atlanta to try to win a football game."

You don't bring the best out of another team by not being tough yourself. Remember they get paid too. I'm not happy about getting bounced in the divisional round again either but the Packers biggest failing was last year not this year. Can't win the Lombardi every year but you can be competitive for it & we are competitive. Every bit as much as the so called "dynasty" Patriots. Who haven't won a Super Bowl in almost a decade themselves.

Harbaugh is right. The Packers are what every team aspires to be.

Prepare yourselves. SF is going to win today.

I agree with Bob as usual. Though if it were all about toughness wouldn't the Giants win the Super Bowl every year? Sounds like some of the Packers' issues were a lot about motivation and BELLYFIRE.

Borderline soft-Burnett, Lang, MD Jennings.
Soft-B.Jones, Hawk
Sta-puff soft-Williams

Middle of the field needs to be upgraded. That starts as soon as Bishop steps back on the field. haven't replaced Collins yet but how many GM's have drafted multiple pro bowl safeties?

Burnett drives me nuts cause every so often he plays like an animal for a play or two and then you don't see anything from him for a couple quarters.

What is also missing when a team is soft is the ability to impose its will on the other team. This is what I think kept teams in our games this year. When we get ahead we don't have the physical players to just shut down the other team and break their backs. Every team thinks they're in it until the end against us. If we were more physical, we could impose our will and break them. We did that under Holmy, and we did it in 2010.

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As bad as it is to dwell in the past couldn't agree more. Steelers D is at it's best with Polamalu, Ravens with Reed and ours with Nick. His impact changed the way offenses played in the same way as the other two. There's not too many of those kind of guys to go around.

It wasn't just Nick. It was just as much 2010 Woodson and probably Jenkins.

I think it's difficult to have a physical mindset when your DC is the "intellectual, mad-scientest" type who calls his games from up on high. It may come down more to the assistants but at some point the buck stops at Dom.

Toughness is usually at the point of attack. Our lines are not nasty tough. We need a nasty offence that can run the ball to set up the pass. We need linemen and a back. We should have snagged Martin last year b4 Tampa got him. We have skilled guys at D-Back and Wide out but where are the tough guys up front?

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Originally posted by Orono:
I have to agree, when you get manhandled by more physical teams like the Giants and 9'ers, it is quiet obvious this team doesn't have the toughness like these teams do. But I will get them a break, you can't have the kind of injuries that Packes experienced without having some kind of impact on your football team.

Since the middle of the 2009 season this team has won more than two thirds of the games they've played, won a Super Bowl, while having starters miss more games because of injuries than any team in football.

Yes, there are positions that need to be upgraded. But pointing to two losses and saying this team is soft seems a little short sided. Nothing incites more knee jerk reactions than a post season loss.

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When we get ahead we don't have the physical players to just shut down the other team and break their backs.

There's truth in that imo, and there's also truth in that they don't seem to have the mentality for piling on the points either. The whole team seems to ease up when things are going their way instead of keeping the pressure on ala Belichek.

I think a lot of it had to do with a lack of confidence in being able to protect Rodgers. The line was shaky as it was and with the way he likes to extend the play MM seemed to try and look out for him as much as possible.

What concerns me more is how shaky Bulaga looked even before he was injured. Hopefully he was dinged at the start of the season and no one knew about it because he did not look like the all pro guy we thought he was about to become.

Well, Bulaga is a cream-puff from IC's home land ...

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Originally posted by titmfatied:
There's truth in that imo, and there's also truth in that they don't seem to have the mentality for piling on the points either. The whole team seems to ease up when things are going their way instead of keeping the pressure on ala Belichek.

Here's the quote from #Packers QB Aaron Rodgers on Tuesday about the team lacking hunger this season: "I think there was (were) two things in particular that most people would agree with. One, there was a very strong appreciation (in 2010) for the opportunity, and for whatever reason the appreciation wasn’t the same this year. The guys just really were thankful to have a job in some cases, some of the guys we brought in, but also thankful to be able to get into the playoffs and to be somewhere where they felt special and felt important and that it was a very united group, more than we’ve had in any of the eight years I’ve been a part of. And the second was, we were hungry. We hadn’t done it before, there were a lot of doubters out there and we just, you know it’s hard I think when you have success to be able to have the same amount of hunger that you had when you haven’t had that success before, so we need to be able to figure out how to get back to that place." 3 days ago

From Jason Wilde. I really don't understand how something like this is possible.

DISCLAIMER: Not sure what my opinion on this is. Just providing a quote I thought was appropriate in this thread. Chickenboy has the right to form an opinion on this later and maybe even revise that opinion down the road.

For whatever reason, I thought offensive line more than defense when reading this thread.

Admittedly, these were all time great lines, but I don't think the Packers have the philosophy of building a line like the Redskin hogs or the early 90's Cowboys. I remember, for example, in the 95 NFC Championship game, how Emmitt Smith's runs were more successful as the game progressed. By the 4th quarter, it seemed he wasn't touched until gaining at least 4-5 yards.

I wish the Packer's had the personnel philosophy of building an offensive line that mauls the defense. Just rips them apart.

quote:

Originally posted by titmfatied:
As bad as it is to dwell in the past couldn't agree more. Steelers D is at it's best with Polamalu, Ravens with Reed and ours with Nick. His impact changed the way offenses played in the same way as the other two. There's not too many of those kind of guys to go around.

Definitely agree with this. The Ravens D, for example, has depended on 4 guys in particular for several years: Suggs, Ngata, Lewis, and Reed. When all 4 are there, the D is beyond stout. When one or multiple of them are out, they struggle. I think the Packers have/had the same dependency on CM3, Cullen Jenkins, Des Bishop, and Nick Collins. I'm not saying those players are as good as those mentioned from the Ravens, but I think they mean just as much to the Packers. All 4 were at full strength in 2010, they lost Jenkins and Collins in 2011, and in 2012 they were without Jenkins, Collins, AND Bishop. Those guys were key to the championship. Imagine how much the Ravens would struggle without Ngata, Lewis, AND Reed and you put in back-ups to replace them for the whole season. That's why you could win a SB with Charlie Peprah at SS, he had Nick Collins next to him. That's why Raji looked like an All-Pro in 2010, he had Jenkins next to him. And that's why Hawk's deficiencies weren't as noticeable in 2010, he had Bishop next to him AND Jenkins in front of him.

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I think it's difficult to have a physical mindset when your DC is the "intellectual, mad-scientest" type who calls his games from up on high. It may come down more to the assistants but at some point the buck stops at Dom.

I think Capers deserves some flak but at the same time when the Right side of your run contain is depending on Walden, Jones, and Tramon to get the job done I'm not sure what to think. They could hardly run the cross blitz by the ILB's this year. I think Capers deserves the opportunity to make right in 2013 and I think TT knows he needs to get some better pieces over there. MM didn't help by sitting Zombo for Driver in that 49er game, either. They needed any help they could get.

Terrell Manning could go a long long way to solving some of those issues if he can step up. Hopefully he doesn't get the Bishop treatment of being the best guy know one knows about because he doesn't get the chance.

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Originally posted by Orlando Wolf:
Feeding the team nutraloaf during training camp would fix everything.

Well that's just too foolish! It's about the beer, Dude! They need to man up and trade in that girly beer for IPAs! Sorry about being a bit harsh on yah tis mornin, but jeez!