Positives and Negatives to the Game

a big + for Walden

+
WE WON.

-
Tramon's injury.
Buffalo Wild Wings clearly trying to make a commercial again.

Frog and Toad are sad.

+
Rodgers...best QB in the league.
Nelson
Jennings
Cobb
Starks
Walden

-
The tackling

++++
Packers overcame the lack of fake workouts during the lockout
Cobb
Rodgers - MVP type numbers the first game
NFL is about matchups - N.O. is our achilles - nice to have a +1 advantage on them and know we can out score them
Jennings
Tito is back
Jordy is our #2
We won't face another offense like the Saints
Cobb!!! Way to make an impact rookie!
No Super Bowl hangover
Glad GB got to host a mini-Super Bowl environment today
Dom has some things to motivate our Defense
All around entertaining game - glad we got the lead early

-----
Cletus and his effing reffing crew at the end with the Hawk PI

quote:

Originally posted by mr21mr21:
a big + for Walden

Touche!

++ Driver ties Lofton yardage record

-- Driver didn't break the record.

Raji is really good

++++

Randall Cobb is the real deal. Nice TD catch, and the kick return for a TD was incredible. Great burst, and nice job keeping his feet after getting spun around.

Offensive line played well overall. Clifton getting the offsides was classic.

Aaron Rodgers is amazing. Driver, Jennings, Nelson and Cobb were all great. Driver huge on the onside kick.

Finley's mere presence is a nightmare for defensive coordinators. Made some catches where he just abused the secondary.

Starks and Grant looked good. Starks' TD run was a thing of beauty.

BJ Raji is a stud.

----

Special teams coverage again. How much longer is McCarthy going to allow Slowcum to keep giving up big plays? A TD return, and a 50+ yard return.

Pass coverage tonight was below average for the most part.
Defense needs to tighten up quite a bit, but against a great offense, and playing with a shortened preseason, I'm not worried. They made some stops, but were not good enough overall to warrant a +.

Charles Woodson. Gotta be smart, Woody. That uppercut should have gotten you ejected. Where are we then with Tramon Williams getting hurt a little while later? Keep your cool.

Mike McCarthy on a couple of play calls. The fake to the running back that ended up being a huge loss, leading to 3rd and 18 when we were driving to put the game away. Then, the 3rd and 4 pass to Kuhn. Guy wasn't even past the line of scrimmage. Poor choice. Otherwise, Coach did a good job.

Overall tacking was poor tonite. Again, that will improve more as we play more.

Overall grades from me:

Offense A. 35 points should be enough to beat anybody with our defense.
Defense C+. Some good, some bad. I'm concerned about Tramon's injury. Came off a missed tackle by Hawk.
Special teams D-. Only Cobb's return for a TD rescues this from being an F. Horrible coverage twice allowed Sproles some big returns. And the block in the back on what was a beautiful Cobb punt return negated great field position. I believe that was Kuhn.

Positives:
Generally the offense. Lang struggled a bit but came through.
The defensive line generally played well.
Walden and Matthews were relentless.

Minus:
SLOCUM !!!!!!!!
Hawk and Bishop were BRUTAL most of the night, missing tackles, bad angles, slow to the point, slow in their drops, etc.

Driver looked really good for the most part. The missed passes at the end of the game seemed to be Rodgers playing it safe, but maybe Driver just wasn't getting the separation. He sure made some nice catches. He is still The Man going over the middle.

Negatives:

Woodsen acting like a thug and getting away with it. He ass should have been shown the door.

quote:

Originally posted by Herschel:

Hawk and Bishop were BRUTAL most of the night, missing tackles, bad angles, slow to the point, slow in their drops, etc.

I agree. Hawk and Bishop did not have good games. They were exposed against the pass to RBs. They missed holes and did not tackle well, especially in the open. Other teams are going to see this and game-plan accordingly.

On the other hand, Hawk was jobbed big time on the PI call. That may have been the best pass defense Hawk has ever made. Just unreal. He never hit the receiver before batting the pass. The ref was out of position and just assumed that Hawk could not have done what he in fact did.

This is game 1. Very hard to tell a lot. We have looked great in game 1 before and stunk it up. Granted, that was under Sherman.

What I take from this is our offense is just going to get better...we will see tougher defense because now they have film, BUT MM's toolbox is full...lots of toys to play with. 88, 18, 87, 85, 80, 44 and 25. Not to mention #30. Oh and 89 aint to bad either.

Cobb is what we've been missing in terms of personnel. Slowcum's $hit coverage is frustrating because in many other areas he's excelled...developing Masthay mostly, and I think now that we have a capable body in there in Cobb, we see his return blocking isn't too bad...although that 108 yard return was largely because that little twerp mad a circus play. Gebins to him.

Defense will clamp down...the Aints are a nice offense...have been for years. No film on them (save last year) accounts for a lot of their success. Wins are all that matter...if by 1 or 100.

Time to lick the wounds, and get ready for Carolina. I think this was a pretty physical game. We'll need all 10 days to recover and get ready.

quote:

Originally posted by DeepChicago:
Negatives:

Woodsen acting like a thug and getting away with it. He ass should have been shown the door.

This is true. Really bad judgment by Woodsen and refs. Really good luck for GB.

quote:

Originally posted by DeepChicago:
Negatives:

Woodsen acting like a thug and getting away with it. He ass should have been shown the door.

A whore fan pointing out a dirty play...probably because you see them every week.

Begone troll.

You still won, and thats all that matters. I expected more out of Woodsen.

+++
Wells played a great game. He's always been undervalued IMO.
Rodgers was simply amazing. Again.
Cobb. HO LEE CRAP
Jennings had several great catches tonight.
Wynn played a really solid game.
Raji did as well

---
Tramon injury. Please be nothing.
Tackling was really poor all night.
Slocum

That being said.

This offense cannot and will not be stopped. With Cobb in the mix. With Finley back. With Starks looking great. We are going to flirt with the all time season points record. If we run no huddle even more than tonight, seriously, we'll be scoring 40+.

Good win vs a very very good team.

quote:

Originally posted by PackFoo:

quote:

Originally posted by DeepChicago:
Negatives:

Woodsen acting like a thug and getting away with it. He ass should have been shown the door.

A whore fan pointing out a dirty play...probably because you see them every week.

Begone troll.

Nice avatar.

quote:

Originally posted by DeepChicago:
Negatives:

Woodsen acting like a thug and getting away with it. He ass should have been shown the door.

Well, the guy was pushing his head back, but he shouldn't have punched him.

Piss off troll.

Packer D did not have a very good game, particularly Hawk and Shields. Hawk missed a number of tackles and was out of position a lot. Shields was burned a lot tonight.

Brees was hot, but that 4th quarter sequence where the Packers gave up another big punt return and then 3 plays later they scored to make it 42-34 was pretty disappointing.
The defense we saw tonight resembled the 2009 Packer D a little more than the 2010 Packer D. You give the Saints some credit, but there's some definite work to do for the Packer D. If Williams is lost for any significant time, that's a major concern.

But the O was incredible.

quote:

Originally posted by saguaro:

quote:

Originally posted by Herschel:

Hawk and Bishop were BRUTAL most of the night, missing tackles, bad angles, slow to the point, slow in their drops, etc.

I agree. Hawk and Bishop did not have good games. They were exposed against the pass to RBs. They missed holes and did not tackle well, especially in the open. Other teams are going to see this and game-plan accordingly.

On the other hand, Hawk was jobbed big time on the PI call. That may have been the best pass defense Hawk has ever made. Just unreal. He never hit the receiver before batting the pass. The ref was out of position and just assumed that Hawk could not have done what he in fact did.

Hawk and Bishop were 50/50. They made solid plays along with their mistakes.

A big plus to having the best offensive team the Packers will face on the schedule out of the way, with a W in the books. Defense will get better. Need Tramon back of course.

quote:

Originally posted by Music City:
Packer D did not have a very good game, particularly Hawk and Shields. Hawk missed a number of tackles and was out of position a lot. Shields was burned a lot tonight.

Complete hyperbole. Hawk had more good plays than bad. I don't even get the Shield comment.

A LB can't be expected to cover darren sproles. period.

With that said Bishopo and hawk had a lot of missed tackles tonight

Positives:

+Starks was excellent when carrying the ball.
+Grant was good and solid when carrying the ball.
+Rodgers. Won a shootout with possibly the only other QB in the NFC that's currently in his class.
+Offensive Line. After a rough pre-season, they were tremendous tonight.
+Cobb. On a team full of weapons, he may have been the biggest one tonight.

Negatives:

-Slocum and special teams other than the great individual play Cobb. I often like to cut the guy a break, but nights like tonight make you realize that the Pack wins DESPITE Slocum's coaching, not because of it. Even the Cobb TD was more a great indivdual effort than it was some great scheme that broke him open.

-Defense. Some of it was a great effort by the Saints who are darn good. The D-Line just didn't get enough inside pressure on Brees to make him uncomfortable. Pressure mostly came on outside blitzes which didn't usually get to Brees fast enough. Thank God we don't see many more QBs in his class this year.

Positives:

BJ Raji, Cobb, Nice balanced playcalling on offense, Walden, Jarius Wynn helped make the Packers inpenetratible on short yardage running plays. Those things really stood out to me. I expected our starting offensive line to perform well so they didn't stand out as much as the others but they were real effective.

Negatives: Masthay except for one punt couldn't place very well, tackling on defense, coverage units stuggle again a common occurance under Slocum, pass rush ability of D-line especially when Matthews getting double and triple teamed. Woodson- not too smart to throw the uppercut. Idiot refs


It is interesting that Rodgers threw for 3 touchdowns in 1st quarter and 0 after that. I feel that McCarthy at that point kept Finley in to help protect Rodgers as the Saints put several good licks on Rodgers in the first quarter. When Finley was no longer a passing threat the Packers became more methodical and the Saints hung around longer. Offensively the Packers could and should have scored 60+ points.

Oh yeh that Sproles guy is also AMAZING

quote:

Originally posted by BeerGuy:
A big plus to having the best offensive team the Packers will face on the schedule out of the way, with a W in the books. Defense will get better. Need Tramon back of course.

Yeah. This was against the Saints, and many pundits see them as one of the 3-4 best teams in the NFL. Good teams will make anybody look bad at times. That's why they are good.

I do expect the defense to keep getting better. So much of the pass defense depends on timing in the blitzes, and Brees is no slouch seeing what's coming.

Tramon's injury is a HUGE matter of concern.

+Packers making big plays at the right time to win the game.

-Packers not putting the Saints away early when they had the chance.

This game should not have been this close. I'm a little worried about this defense, especially if Tramon is out more than a few weeks (they can handle the Panthers, Bears and Broncos WR's without him). On the bright side, the Packers won't see a better offense than the Saints all season. Except in practice....

Credit to TJ Lang. Darren who?

He had a really nice game.

Yes he did PB. I'm excited to see how well he does once he gets a few games unde his belt.

quote:

Originally posted by Slippery_When_Wet:

It is interesting that Rodgers threw for 3 touchdowns in 1st quarter and 0 after that. I feel that McCarthy at that point kept Finley in to help protect Rodgers as the Saints put several good licks on Rodgers in the first quarter. When Finley was no longer a passing threat the Packers became more methodical and the Saints hung around longer.

Yeah. I think that might explain some. Even when the ball doesn't go to Finley, he opens it up for other receivers.

It would be nice to see Starks or Green bring back the screen pass. When they used it, it seemed promising. I'm not real sure how the running game gets juiced up. Grant and Starks both had their moments, but it has to be consistent for a more methodical approach to work.

Wells will be next in line for an extension if he plays like that all year.

Cobb brings some excitement to the Packers.

While the Defense did give up some points they had some serious stops when needed and won the game.

Pawsitives:

I thought the Packer OL played quite well. Lang had two penalties, but definitely brings a physical presence on the left side that was sorely missing.

Huge stands by the D deep in their own territory. Big time plays.

Offense in general was on fire.

Special teams TD!

Negatives:

I don't understand why Finley didn't see the ball in the second half. Who could cover him? Those two out routes in succession to Driver were puzzling to kill their lone drive in the 3Q.

Dom went with nickel D most of the time, and we got gashed a bit in the run game as a result.

Don't like rushing three, especially against a QB like Brees. He's too good and their receivers/TE too good for that to be super effective.

Although sproles was less of a factor in the second half, we really couldn't contain him much.

They were picking on Shields.

Expect other teams to notice and do the same. Especially if Tramon is not there.

Sophomore slump? Or is he injured?

quote:

Originally posted by Henry:

quote:

Originally posted by Music City:
Packer D did not have a very good game, particularly Hawk and Shields. Hawk missed a number of tackles and was out of position a lot. Shields was burned a lot tonight.

Complete hyperbole. Hawk had more good plays than bad. I don't even get the Shield comment.

Shields was in coverage on back-to-back plays when the Saints scored their 3rd TD. Colston runs a square in and Shields was beaten for 20 or so, and then the next play he blows his jam on the edge and gives up the TD. I think that deserves criticism.

Maybe the whole secondary deserves the criticism, not just Shields. I know the Saints O is really good, but man, they were shredded and damn near gave up the game at the end. It goes down as a win, but there's some definite concern.They looked overmatched, and that's not too encouraging from the unit people were proclaiming as the best in the NFL. They gave up 400 yards and 3 TDs and damn near another at the end that could have tied the game- and it wasn't all Sproles against LBs.

But there was a good stretch where the pass rush was non-existant, too. That certainly was a factor.

quote:

Originally posted by YATittle:
They were picking on Shields.

Expect other teams to notice and do the same. Especially if Tramon is not there.

Sophomore slump? Or is he injured?

Shields made some nice plays on the ball too. What made his performance worse is no pressure on Brees. Add to that the fact that Brees is a Great QB, so I am dnot too concerned about Sam Shields. Also don't forget the touchdown saving speed to tackle Sproles on what could have been a 2nd return for a touchdown.

Most other teams don't have WRs like the Saints, a QB like Brees, an offensive line as good as the Saints or an offensive scheme like New Orleans. Saints also picked up 140 of the passing yards on the last two drives when the Packers were not necessarily playing an attack D. I think Shields played fine.