Pass Defense

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny Boy:
I'd say to stop the pass in many cities you must have a combo of pass rush and cover.

Only if they believe in gravity in those cities. That rules out the Cards, Chiefs, Cowboys and Texans.

I personally believe it's a combo of delicious pizza flavor in a tasty, crunchy shell.

We've been vulnerable in the middle for a couple years now. Blame personnel, blame scheme, blame lack of adjustments, but that's their best route to beat us.

quote:

Detroit was able to go early and often to their tight ends against us and we had no answer other than "Outscore Them".

Not to ignore the big picture but in that particular game, who else was on the bench other than AR?

edit: Woodson and Matthews both inactive. mmm...probably had an impact.

What fried me last year was all the missed assignments. I chalk it up to playing more zone and less jam at the line due to Williams' shoulder injury, but time and time again they were blaming Bush, Peprah or even Shields with glares and pointing after big plays.

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny Boy:
...... we had no answer other than "Outscore Them".

It worked for a 15-2 record last year.

The games are much easier to stomach if you line up the anti-indigestion drugs.

There were many factors that lead to our anemic 2011 defense. TT & MM are working on the cure. Hopefully they got the ingredients right.

A good pass-rush improves coverage, especially if you can generate that with the front 4.

The pass rush should be much improved with Worthy, Perry, Daniels, possibly a healthy Mike Neal (not holding my breath on that one), with potentially Muir, Merling,and Hargrove (after his suspension) contributing more in the rotation than Wynn, Wilson, and Green did last year. Not sure what Lawrence Guy could bring to the table either. Hopefully the coverage will improve as well with a healthier Tramon, more exxperience for Shields, Burnett, and House, and the addition of Heyward. It will be interesting to see who the starter at safety is opposite Burnett.....

Ryan,

Proof of your theory is the Giants. HORRIBLE secondary. Guys were running free in both games last year, but their rush saved touchdowns. Not saying we have to have a pass rush as good as theirs (doubtful this year), but getting as productive as the previous year might be good enough.

quote:

It worked for a 15-2 record last year.

Yeah, but one of their losses was in the playoffs.

pass defense SUUUUUCKS!

Your 'standards' might be a little high, J' Boy. Without looking, I think the better passing teams have a completion percentage in the range of 55%-65%. If we could hold 'em to <55%, that would be ideal; anything under 50% would be gravy.
35 sacks is an average of 2+ per game, and is an realistic goal. With the additions to the defense over the last couple of years, I'd expect this kind of production from the pass rush.
25 INT's is an average of 1.5/game, and is a little harder for me to gauge. While the pick has been a 'specialty' of our defense in recent seasons, I just don't know how our 'new' defensive backfield is going to respond. Maybe we will get a better idea as TC progresses.

JMO, but Detroit tests our pass rush ability more than any other team. Typical Stafford-to-Johnson passes are jump balls, and is too hard to defend preditably. If the rush doesn't get to Stafford, that risk is always present, as well as wearin' out our LB's with their TE's.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryan Grant:
The pass rush...

Pretty much could have stopped right there. QB can't pick you apart if he's looking out his earhole.

quote:

Originally posted by YATittle:
Ryan,

Proof of your theory is the Giants. HORRIBLE secondary. Guys were running free in both games last year, but their rush saved touchdowns. Not saying we have to have a pass rush as good as theirs (doubtful this year), but getting as productive as the previous year might be good enough.

Once again perception is not the truth. Giants ranked 25th in total D last season, 27th in yards D and 29th in passing D. So much for their great defense. Yes, they had 48 sacks but 11 of those were in the final 2 weeks vs Dallas and Jets. They had 11 sacks combined vs. those powerhouses of Miami and Buffalo. You can look it up.

They were a 9-7 team, so yeah they weren't world beaters all season long. They were also injured signficantly most of the season until the end. Are you saying that simply because they had a similar ranking that their defenses were similar? That's laughable.

The Packers miraculously won 15 games last season with a D that set records for yardage allowed. It's pretty stupid to think that they were anything but horrible. And I've said this before- Ted Thompson agrees- he drafted half a defense because they sucked.

I doubt Ted Thompson agrees with you about anything. He didn't draft defense "because they suck", that is pretty stupid to think. He drafted three pass rushers because we had holes there. We were 27th in sacks and we gave up 4.7 yard per carry, those are things he needed to address by bolstering the front 4. He drafted a CB because our two starters are in their 30's, not because they suck.

The defense wasn't horrible, they gave up some horrible stats, but they did some things right. We had 31 INTs which was 8 more than the next team. We were 9th in the league in QB rating. Yeah we gave up a ton of passing yards, but who cares how many passing yards they give up when they're only allowing 2 passing TDs per game when our offense is scoring 4 TDs per game. Things like passing yards and yards per game are just stats for fans to moan and groan about.

quote:

Originally posted by YATittle:
Ryan,

Proof of your theory is the Giants. HORRIBLE secondary. Guys were running free in both games last year, but their rush saved touchdowns. Not saying we have to have a pass rush as good as theirs (doubtful this year), but getting as productive as the previous year might be good enough.


Once again perception is not the truth. Giants ranked 25th in total D last season, 27th in yards D and 29th in passing D. So much for their great defense. Yes, they had 48 sacks but 11 of those were in the final 2 weeks vs Dallas and Jets. They had 11 sacks combined vs. those powerhouses of Miami and Buffalo. You can look it up.

In the two Packer games, their rush was strong and their DBs were horrible. Don't care about their rankings in other games. They can't cover, but the pass rush, when it was there, covered up for that deficiency.

I believe that when the deficiency wasn't there, something was covering it up

quote:

Originally posted by Grave Digger:
I doubt Ted Thompson agrees with you about anything. He didn't draft defense "because they suck", that is pretty stupid to think. He drafted three pass rushers because we had holes there. We were 27th in sacks and we gave up 4.7 yard per carry, those are things he needed to address by bolstering the front 4.

Yeah, nice spin. In other words the pass rush was so bad they're overhauling the roster at those positions. But they didn't suck.

quote:

The defense wasn't horrible, they gave up some horrible stats, but they did some things right. We had 31 INTs which was 8 more than the next team. We were 9th in the league in QB rating. Yeah we gave up a ton of passing yards, but who cares how many passing yards they give up when they're only allowing 2 passing TDs per game when our offense is scoring 4 TDs per game. Things like passing yards and yards per game are just stats for fans to moan and groan about.

You can dress it up any way you like. The team had a bad defense, and when the offense want able to score their customary 36 points, the lost. It was bad that the 4 TOs hurt the cause, but the Giants were scoring on big plays all game long. We've rehashed this over and over again- fine. You thought the D was good enough... Not as bad as the stats. I think they were. I feel that (and the Packer personnel obviously thinks) that the team didn't have good enough personnel on the field and despite their win/loss record needed an overhaul of several key positions. 2 DL, 2 LB, and 2 DBs later, they made steps to accomplish that. It's not so bad to say they sucked. They know it, and they've been talking about being better all off-season. I haven't read too many players or Packers coaches/officials talk about how they "weren't that bad". The consensus is that they were.

not everything in the world is black and white.

The defense overall had some good points. It made key stops, big plays, and was better in the red zone than they were between the 20s. They stepped up in road games against good offensive teams like Atlanta and Detroit on the road.

The part of the defense that I thought truly lived up to the stats in terms of badness was the pass rush itself. That part of the defense truly was bad and I don't think anybody is denying it. BJ Raji really regressed in all parts of the game, Cullen Jenkins was badly missed and the guy that was supposed to be his replacement, Mike Neal, was hurt and ineffective when returning from the knee injury. The pass rush was awful and hopefully all the new blood plus some re-dedication by Raji will get it closer to its' 2010 level.

I'd say we lost the playoff game cause we couldn't stop Eli and his big plays. Our D was poor. That said I don't think the Pack was emotionally ready to play due to the death of Philbin's son and the wacky week.

The 32nd ranked D didn't deserve to go further.

Losing Jenkins because he got pissy, Nick, Tramon @ half mast, and Neal IMO were as big as anything.

I'd say we lost the playoff game because of TOs.

Dropped passes were huge.

We went 15-1 with the 32nd ranked defense & one of the worst (statistically) defenses in NFL history. The Giants are lucky the real Packer offense didn't show up that day.

Saying it was the D's fault we lost that playoff game is kind of like saying the D won us the other 15 games. The offense scores enough to win 15/16 games and should have scored enough to beat NYG. But it dropped passes and dropped fumbles so it fell short. Everyone knows the D must get better so that situation doesn't happen again.

GB lost becasue Matt Flynn didn't start coming off his 6TD performance.

GB lost twice last year. Ironically those two games were the worst showings of the season for the offense. A shaky D couldn't cover the lack of points. The ball buster is one of those games was the playoff opener. It hurts, but it happens.

The D is going to improve in 2012. But let's be realistic. It's a point scoring league. Almost 11,400 total points were scored last year. The most ever. And that number has been going up consitently for years. It's becoming almost impossible to assemble a secondary to cover given the passing rules (not to mention the $$$ you would have to tie up for those 4-5 people).

The best bet is to pressure the QB on a consistent basis.

quote:

Originally posted by DH13:
Saying it was the D's fault we lost that playoff game is kind of like saying the D won us the other 15 games. The offense scores enough to win 15/16 games and should have scored enough to beat NYG.

It's a great point- the Packers beat the Bears in the NFCC game the previous season when Rodgers threw a pick near the EZ and scored just 14 points, the D picked them up by getting a pick six and beating the crap out of Culter knocking him out of the game. The Packers D needed to pick up the O on a bad day, and they give up a bunch of big plays. That hail Mary was a killer.

But I think a few of you are right. It's not like they have to be the 2000 Ravens. But a lot better than last year for sure.

They damn near ran the table with a defense whose issues have been beaten to death for months here. If they improve even to the point where they're in the middle of the league this season, it's gonna be an awfully fun year. There's no reason to think the offense will be worse with MM running that ship and guys like AR stewing all offseason about that playoff game.

I really can't think of a glaring roster deficiency that Ted didn't get fixed since he got here. The only one I can think of that took a long time was punter. Obviously his approach this offseason was to fix the defense. He's added athletes all over the place on that side of the ball and even dipped into low-level FA to do so. They also have a full offseason to gel, so IMHO JMO last year's defense will be looked back upon as an anomaly.

Super post. I'm stoked.

quote:

Originally posted by JJSD:
last year's defense will be looked back upon as an anomaly.

yes and no

GB defense will definitely be much better in 2012, but Packer fans will still have to come to grips with the reality of the current situation

When you have a record-setting offense - guess what ? They kick-off A LOT

GB kicked the ball to their opponents more than any other team last season, so its hardly a surprise that they also gave up a lot of offensive production as a natural result of their own scoring onslaught.

But even though they had the most kick-offs and faced the most passing attempts, they still came in at number 19 in points allowed. Crosby also was Top 3 in touchbacks, meaning a longer field to drive, and more yards given up

It'll happen again this year (lots of kickoffs and lots of yards given up) and the meme-screamers will be happy to pee in their pants. Again.

lather
rinse
repeat

@ JJ: Absolutely. I would be shocked if the defense isn't at least middle of the pack and expect them to be in the top 10. They have the personnel and the coaching staff to get it done. The only position that causes me to pause a bit is S.

"On the Turning Away" makes last season go down better.

Turn away, folks. It truly was a hiccup.

quote:

Originally posted by Pakrz:
They have the personnel and the coaching staff to get it done.

They most certainly do and that's what gets many of us so stoked for the upcoming season

Woooooooooo !

quote:

Originally posted by Music City:
Are you saying that simply because they had a similar ranking that their defenses were similar? That's laughable.

What I'm saying is Ya Ya seems to think the Giants had this great defense whan it statisically was not much better than the Packers. Sure they had 48 sacks but 22 of those came against 4 weak teams. I know any teams pass rush, when it's there, covers up a horrible secondary. Tell us something we don't know.

Things that will change things:
Injuries
Players who surprise us by being unexpectedly good
Players who surprise us by being unexpectedly bad
The Packers may yet sign Goalline

Ammo Ammo

As in 2007, the Giants defense came through in the big games. As ours did against the Bears in the previous years NFCCG.

They made a point of forcing fumbles (at least with Rodgers and Grant). They kept the heat on our QB so he couldn't pick them apart.

Packers had receivers open all day against NY. Jennings was by himself on the opening drive and AR simply missed him. Dopped passes. And IIRC, on one of the Packers TD drives Jennings fumbled but GB caught a break after it as reviewed. It was just an all around craptastic performance by the offense that day.

AR12's fumble illutrates the importance of a pass rush. Jennings put a double move on his guy and was all alone for an easy TD. Pass rush got their first.

As has already been said a number of times. We've beaten this game into the ground. NY won for a lot of reasons. Plenty of those were self inflicted by GB.