Positives - 24-14 win over bears

+++

With the caveat that the Bears offense is about as imaginative and exciting as watching paint dry, the plusses must start out on the defensive side of the ball this week.

Campbell continues to be a Godsend and the FRONT OFFICE/Gute deserve a lot of credit for finding this diamond in the rough.

Garvin is not a liability on the field and, especially for a 7^th round pick, shows some real promise.

Stokes had another positive performance.

The Bears OL is bad and injured. Nonetheless, Kenny Clark getting down a young, fairly athletic Fields twice in a row was huge.

As one of Dean Lowry’s staunchest critics, I’d say this was his second straight productive game. Getting occasional pressure and actually plugging the run is what should be expected out of a DT2 and that is what Lowry has done the last 2 weeks.

Finally, how refreshing to see Barry? MLF? Whomever pull Yiadom after that disastrous first drive and for there to be a competent CB5 in Rasul Douglas to come in and actually play well. More credit to the FRONT OFFICE for adding Douglas instead of just relying upon young, untested

We play another offensively challenged team in Washington next Sunday, is back to back games of giving up <20 points doable?

As for the O, ARod, Aaron Jones, Davante Adams were their usual stellar selves.

Dillon, Lazard, and an Amari Rodgers all showed up in a good way. Also got to give credit to Patrick who, while limited as a starter, is a valuable contributor as a backup interior lineman.

- - -

Does Tonyan look slower this year? Is he nursing an injury? Weird that he only has 92 yards receiving on the year and Lewis has 77.

Would be nice to get Degaura and Tonyan involved in the passing game.

The kickoff return coverage continues to be a concern, would love to see Crosby kick the ball out of the end zone.

Another good win.

+It was a team win today, most everybody played a part in the win.

+2 games up on Bares and Vikes

-Injuries continue, OL leaks, zebras.

+

An offensive line that was completely overrun in the first quarter held up very well after that.

Kenny Clark almost single-handedly snuffed out any chance for the Bears to make it close in the last 4 minutes

-

Running out of defensive backs.

If they can get by Washington next week, they'll be 6-1 but will have to play at Arizona 4 days later. Given the injury situation, if you were an NBA team you'd probably sit a bunch of guys and concede a loss. You get the 10-day mini-bye after that game and maybe they can get Bakh back and get some other key guys healthy (Savage in particular). I'm not holding out much hope for Alexander or Z. SMith coming back, but you never know on Alexander.

Speaking of Bahk, when he comes back I think it has to be Newman that gets demoted.   Runyon has been the more consistent performer at guard and has earned it.

Question is do you move Runyon to RG or do you move Jenkins?   Jenkins has proven he can shuffle but it’s really nice to have a dominant side with Bahk and Jenks next to each other.

Runyon played RG last year.  That would make the most sense.

+

Win against the Bears and thought the reserves stepped up.

_

Packers benefitted from playing a garbage offense with a rookie QB.

@Henry posted:

Runyon played RG last year.  That would make the most sense.

Starting to worry about Newman's "football IQ". On both of the sack plays he doubles the defender to his inside leaving Turner with two rushers ....

Saw Runyon "clean the pile" more than once yesterday.

@Grave Digger posted:

Fields isn’t bad, he’s better than I expected for a rookie. Nagy seems to be the problem, he just won’t do his rookie QB any favors. No rhythm, no easy completions, no creativity. Fields reminds me a lot of Dak.

I think if Fields is given the weapons around him and better coaching I really feel he could be a Russell Wilson type of QB.  It might take a little bit since he is coming from the OSU spread offense and he needs time to learn.

@RoyalWulff posted:

- Yiadom. He’s a liability. Rasul Douglas is at least near the ball.

That ESB catch looked like a TD to me! I could be wrong; I was wrong once in 1974.                          

Giants would've never traded him to us if he was any good.

EQSB was fucking ripped off. That was definitely a TD and no penalty. NFL

@FLPACKER posted:

Starting to worry about Newman's "football IQ". On both of the sack plays he doubles the defender to his inside leaving Turner with two rushers ....

Kinda like what Turner would do to Linsley. When he played guard, Turner would move over to give Bulaga help and leave Linsley alone to cover both A Gaps.

@BrainDed posted:

Speaking of Bahk, when he comes back I think it has to be Newman that gets demoted.   Runyon has been the more consistent performer at guard and has earned it.

Question is do you move Runyon to RG or do you move Jenkins?   Jenkins has proven he can shuffle but it’s really nice to have a dominant side with Bahk and Jenks next to each other.

Newman is definitely the odd man out when we get Bahk back, assuming Meyers returns by then. I think it might do him good to sit and watch the other guards for 6 or 7 games. The guy can clearly play but he's gotta work on the mental part of the game.

@Boris posted:

Giants would've never traded him to us if he was any good.

EQSB was fucking ripped off. That was definitely a TD and no penalty. NFL

The refs did get the TD part right, that's why the Bears had to take the 10 yard penalty. But that OPI call was straight up bullshit. I've given ESB as much crap as anyone else here but that was a hell of a catch he made.

Illegal contact on the Bear defender on the play that also wasn't called.

Is illegal contact even called anymore...I rarely ever see that anymore.

@mrtundra posted:

Kinda like what Turner would do to Linsley. When he played guard, Turner would move over to give Bulaga help and leave Linsley alone to cover both A Gaps.

At least when Turner did that there was a chance the Linsley could get the LG to cover one gap ... on the two plays yesterday I kept wondering "who did Newman think was going to block one of these guys?" I'm thinking that he wasn't a math major?

@"We"-Ka-Bong posted:

Did Cobb and Gary play?  Apparently they can pick up some stranger named Garvin off the homeless pile and he can impact the game.

Gary had five pressures, second to Clark's six.

I’m not sure what to think of this.  I admit that I didn’t see it yesterday, but I’m just a dumbass watching on my tv.  It’s also a lot like saying “I almost got he pregnant” when all I did was some heavy petting.

Packers OLB Rashan Gary had 5 more pressures vs. Bears. He's up to 23 in 6 games. Also has a QB hit in all 6 games. Sacks aren't coming in bunches yet, but he's affecting the QB consistently.

— Zach Kruse (@zachkruse2) October 18, 2021

Those pressures take the QB off his initial read and allow a better chance for others to get sacks. I think at least one of Clark's sacks was a result of another players pressure.

So does Gary Rashan suck?  Or is he good?   I can't tell from reading X4.

He doesn't suck but he needs another move to go with the bull rush.

He's AJ Hawk/Nick Perry at this point.  He does some good things but his whole schtick in college was he did a lot of dirty work.  Well, OLBs in the NFL don't do dirty work, they make plays.

It seriously laugh watching Gary just try to literally run through a guy or arms flailing.  I will say this, I think his pursuit sucks.  Male Prostitute has shown more hustle if a play breaks down.

He truly is the Kool Aid Man

Doesn't look like Myers injury is that serious.

https://packerswire.usatoday.c...da51cbb61b721acb21b7

@"We"-Ka-Bong posted:

I’m not sure what to think of this.  I admit that I didn’t see it yesterday, but I’m just a dumbass watching on my tv.  It’s also a lot like saying “I almost got he pregnant” when all I did was some heavy petting.

Packers OLB Rashan Gary had 5 more pressures vs. Bears. He's up to 23 in 6 games. Also has a QB hit in all 6 games. Sacks aren't coming in bunches yet, but he's affecting the QB consistently.

— Zach Kruse (@zachkruse2) October 18, 2021

I guess I’m glad he’s having an impact in some way. I guess it’s all about expectations. Reggie White didn’t get a sack every game (.85 sacks/game), so when you look at it though that lens maybe we should expect Gary to get like 1 sack per year.

Red zone defense is historically wretched

https://packerswire.usatoday.c...nse-to-start-season/

Gary consistently just misses as he runs by the QB.   Yes, he impacts the play as the QB has to take 1 or 2 steps up, but it's not a huge impact. 

It's better than just getting stoned, but I wouldn't call him an impact player, that's for sure.

When you consider the game scores they've been giving up the last 5 weeks they gotta be near the top of the league in defense between the 20's.  It's kind of nuts to have their points they're averaging giving up per game when the opponent scores a TD 100% of the time they reach the red zone.  They're just not letting them get to the red zone very often.   

We're in the soft part of the schedule.   After Washington, it's gonna be hard sledding all the way to Dec 12 until we get the Bears again.   

We've done a good job winning the one we should win, save for NOLA.   Now we need to steal a couple that we should be dogs in.   AZ, LA, KC, BAL at MN.

If we can take 2 of those, I'll be happy.

@BrainDed posted:

We're in the soft part of the schedule.   After Washington, it's gonna be hard sledding all the way to Dec 12 until we get the Bears again.   

We've done a good job winning the one we should win, save for NOLA.   Now we need to steal a couple that we should be dogs in.   AZ, LA, KC, BAL at MN.

If we can take 2 of those, I'll be happy.

Their best shots are going to be at Minnesota and versus the Rams. If Bakh is back for those two games, the offense should be even that much better and give them a shot against anyone. The short week against Arizona was going to be tough even full strength and playing in Kansas City is never easy (see 2011).

Predictions?

vs. Washington WIN (6-1)

at Arizona LOSS (6-2)

at Kansas City LOSS (6-3)

Seattle w/o Wilson WIN (7-3)

at Minnesota LOSS (7-4)

vs. LA Rams LOSS (7-5)

vs. Chicago WIN (8-5)

at Baltimore LOSS (8-6)

vs. Cleveland WIN (9-6)

vs. Minnesota WIN (10-6)

at Detroit WIN (11-6)

Same prediction..  Looking at MN and CHI schedules, I'm predicting MN at 10-7 and CHI at 9-8.

The key will be at least splitting with MN and sweeping CHI.  Gotta beat CLE and SEA or steal one from LA, AZ or KC if we lose a should win.

@BrainDed posted:

Gary consistently just misses as he runs by the QB.   Yes, he impacts the play as the QB has to take 1 or 2 steps up, but it's not a huge impact.

It's better than just getting stoned, but I wouldn't call him an impact player, that's for sure.

Tell him to put on 10 to 15 pounds and put him on line.  Maybe you get Aaron Donald lite.  I really think he'd have more success just muscling through the oline.

Many mental errors in Red Zone which we saw again yesterday. ILBer (I think Barnes) passed the receiver off to no one for an easy catch. Do they need to "George Costanza it" down there and do the complete opposite of what they have been doing? "From the 4 yard line we"ve been rushing 4 and dropping 7 into zone coverage, so now we are going to rush 6 and play man coverage behind them."

@FLPACKER posted:

Many mental errors in Red Zone which we saw again yesterday. ILBer (I think Barnes) passed the receiver off to no one for an easy catch. Do they need to "George Costanza it" down there and do the complete opposite of what they have been doing? "From the 4 yard line we"ve been rushing 4 and dropping 7 into zone coverage, so now we are going to rush 6 and play man coverage behind them."

I agree with the Constanza approach. Two things are happening. The first is the assignment errors that seem to be happening too often. The other problems is that the QB drops back and sets up in the pocket and scans the field forever. Even if every DB you had was as good as Alexander in coverage if the QB can go through his entire progression twice, eventually someone is going to get open. At least a blitz makes the QB make a quick decision and increases the chances of a mistake.

This team doesn’t stack losses and based on how we’ve seen them play the last couple weeks I think KC and MIN are extremely vulnerable. Mahomes making tons of mistakes. AZ is bound to have a let down game at some point, but they’re a bad match up for GB right now. The deep familiarity we have with LAR will either be a huge advantage or disadvantage, need Jaire back for those games.

@Grave Digger posted:

This team doesn’t stack losses and based on how we’ve seen them play the last couple weeks I think KC and MIN are extremely vulnerable. Mahomes making tons of mistakes. AZ is bound to have a let down game at some point, but they’re a bad match up for GB right now. The deep familiarity we have with LAR will either be a huge advantage or disadvantage, need Jaire back for those games.

I agree. I'm more optimistic and think we end up with four losses.

@Henry posted:

Tell him to put on 10 to 15 pounds and put him on line.  Maybe you get Aaron Donald lite.  I really think he'd have more success just muscling through the oline.

Yeah, if we had someone else to play OLB.    If we do it this offseason and he plays well in year 4, then you have to decide if you pay him or not.   I guess that holds true at OLB too though.   

Looking back at his time at MU, chances are he is just a guy at DE too.   

Really hard to project wins and losses a few weeks down the road with the status of injuries. If Meyers isn't out long, if Jaire is back sooner rather than later, if Bahk is ready after a couple weeks of practice this is a much better team.

That's not even taking into account Savage, King and others.

@YATittle posted:

Doesn't look like Myers injury is that serious.

https://packerswire.usatoday.c...da51cbb61b721acb21b7

"Not season ending" doesn't give me the warmest of fuzzies.

MLF is 31-7 in the regular season

surely we wont drop 5 out of 7

at Arizona LOSS (6-2)

at Kansas City LOSS (6-3)

Seattle w/o Wilson WIN (7-3)

at Minnesota LOSS (7-4)

vs. LA Rams LOSS (7-5)

vs. Chicago WIN (8-5)

at Baltimore LOSS (8-6)

KC, Min and Baltimore are all winnable road games