Positives and Negs of this game and of the season......

Positives: Team showed a lot of heart

Negatives: Not getting a late game turnover, dumb luck on AZ side, and officiating blunders

++++

they stepped up in the playoffs and fought like hell

Abby and Janis answered the bell

Rodgers can't do much more than he did 

Saw flashes of a running game that can be dominant 

Packers owned time of possession 

Excited to see what Randall and Rollins and Ryan and Monty can bring next year 

-------

Silly mistakes and breakdowns that plagued them all year cost them a chance to advance 

More injuries - hopefully Cobb is OK

AZ was not deserving of this win but luck prevailed 

Refs were maddening at times with calls and no calls 

Hard to fathom loss-  this team has made a habit of these type games in the playoffs.  Just another gut punch to absorb 

Saw flashes of a running game that can be dominant 

Except on most of the first downs....

Hungry5 posted:

According to Hayward, DBs blew the coverage.

It's comforting to know that it was not drawn up

+

if the packers were ever going to lose, I don't mind losing with a fight (well I do but...its better than getting whipped like the last 2 years)

12 balled tonight, those 6,7 wr's, playing like that?  

defense played quite well

secondary seems set for a little bit, got some ballers back there

-

conditioning (season) is a problem, the injuries and stuff, we have got to get that figured out...then I look at Lacy, he needs to shed some weight

need fresh defensive coach, time to get rid of dc (not for last night, but the season is painful to watch), need a new oc (need some creativity)

Overall:

in general, I don't think mm lost this team, but he needs to change things up, before he does.  We need to draft TE, ILB, T, WR - those are the biggest needs and in this order in my mind, even though the draft may show it different.

I want my team to have its gun chamber loaded with bullets, even though if we lost last night, I don't think we would have been close to taking this whole thing...that's what kills me about the last couple years, they had a healthier team then and lost...

The Packers really lucked into the end of game situation with extra time due to the decision of Ariens to pass the ball on second down saving at least 35 seconds.

I am thinking that there are times when 5 yard penalty for delay is preferable to taking the timeout. Packers need to work on the communication and getting to the line earlier at times. Figuring out what is happening in those situations, AR not being able to figure out the defense, call not getting in quickly enough, guys too far down field to get back to the huddle on time or ???. I see it happen to other teams on occasion, but this is a couple of times every game and think they need to make an effort to avoid it. The Bears had this exact problems with this for years before this one. It can be cured.

On the face of it, Ariens decision to pass looks stupid, but the way Fitzgerald was playing it wasn't a bad choice. Had the pass been completed it was game over, and he was open. Palmer just threw an inaccurate ball like he did most of the night. Ariens coaches like he's playing with house money.

I don't think they'll beat either of the teams they end up playing next week. Pack exposed some flaws.

It was a bad choice.  

Now, if he knew in advance it would be an incompletion, would he still have called the play?

Another thing, how improbable/unbelievable was that hail mary throw/catch? The way his body was moving and then being able to make such a great throw. Last time he had everything in perfect position to make that throw. This time it was exactly the opposite. Moving to the left, fading and bracing for a hit... Somehow he was able to place it perfectly to give Janis a chance (who he had no idea was in the area) with Pederson defending (who didn' give up anything else asll day). The pass was only about 5-6 yards shorter than the hail mary in Detroit, but the set-up was completely different. It is too bad that it did not have a win along with it to make it an even more special play.

Then came the overtime disaster. Palmer moved up in the pocket to get away from Matthews and almost was sacked by linebacker Mike Neal. As he dodged Neal, he ran into his right tackle. But Palmer alertly saw Fitzgerald totally uncovered across the field.

“We blew a call,” Hayward said. “We blew a coverage and he got open. I think everybody was kind of confused on it, but we shouldn’t be confused on the back end. It was a simple call for us. I think they were a little confused up front.”

The timing for a mental mistake was unfortunate to say the least.

+  Lost in all this is the fact that Mason Crosby now holds the record for consecutive FG's made in playoff history.  20 I believe

-  I hate it when announcers say "haven't missed an xp all year".  Wayne said it on the radio before the xp after the HM.  I thought for sure it'd be missed

+  It wasn't

+ Line protected AR like their lives depended on it.

If only Crosby would not have that record and the Pack could have converted a few of those 3rd downs and turned them into TD's.  

Grades for Arizona's wild overtime win over Green Bay are here: https://t.co/jrCDVDOZbK

— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) January 17, 2016

DBs should spend the entire off-season on the juggs machine. Probably 15-20 dropped INTs this year. Shields had 3 on his own when the team needed them most. 

I looked at yesterday's game a bit less positively than most.  This is the second season in a row our team faced an opponent in the playoffs that flat out tried to give us the game, and we still couldn't take it from them.  

Last year Seattle gave us 5 turnovers, we couldn't capitalize, we lost.  This year, Palmer's lack of accuracy kept us in the game.  We still only managed 13 points until the most improbable hail mary in Packers' playoff history.  Until McCarthy and the coaches can start figuring out how to have better red zone success, all seasons to come will end in disappointment.  And we will have wasted the talents of one of the best QBs to ever lace them up.

They had all last offseason to try to fix the red zone problems, not only did they never fix them, it was much much worse even when the Pack was at full strength (without Jordy of course).  Getting the WRs back healthy, I don't think that will be enough.  They really badly need an injection of talent at TE, and need a RB threat that can catch out of the backfield better than what they have.

All that balloon spit about how it doesn't matter who the Packers have at WR and TE because Aaron Rodgers can make the ordinary look exceptional died on the table this season. And that's a positive. It matters. The problems there made him look ordinary. Or pretty ordinary in comparison to the previous 6 years.

Negative: Its been replaced by a new myth that Green Bay is loaded at WR. The Packers have a lot of bodies there. The better pass plays (including the one Cobb got hurt on) were broken pocket heaves. 

That is a good point, which also points to how and why we lost.  If not for 2 answered prayers of a deep throw we would have lost by a TD anyway.  They played a helluva game, undermanned and still losing guys during the game.  But ARZ scored when it mattered, even before OT.  We did not.  Valiant effort but on Saturday night, ARZ was the better team...by just enough.

I'm a little more optimistic about our WR's.  Abbs as shown he can get open vs. man and Janis showed he can win in traffic, and beat a guy deep (if AR hadn't overthrown him).  But he needs to work on his play in and play out consistency.  Add those 2 to Montgomery, Nelson, Cobb and Adams (who I believe will re-emerge) and there is a lot to like.

I know we spent a significant amount of time joking about Lacy being fat, but man was he slow on what should have been a signature slam dunk of a long touchdown run. He seems to be much slower and dare I say thicker than earlier this season.

He had a similar run vs WAS.  I had to laugh at watching him continually look over his shoulder, and trying to wait for his blockers to catch up so he wouldn't get caught in the open field.  Just put you head down and truck em!!!

I don't know which is more painful to watch run in the open field; Lacy, R. Rodgers, or J. Jones...does any offense in the NFL have three skill guys on the field at the same time as slow as these three? 

R. Rodgers wins for me.  Once he catches the ball it takes 4 seconds for him to turn around and survey the field before being tackled where he stands. 

DickRod is a Clydesdale.

Rodgers and Finley had almost identical 40 times at the combine.

Hungry5 posted:

Rodgers and Finley had almost identical 40 times at the combine.

I had to look this up because I didn't think there was any way this was possibly true, but I'll be damned. 4.82 for Finley, 4.87 for Ultimate.

Google has Finley with a 4.62, though I have no idea where it comes from. Based on the eyeball test, that seems much more in line with the player we watched.

Some guys play faster than they train, practice, or are timed. I'm not saying Rodgers can be Finley, but confidence in his routes and assignments get him to 2nd nature playing and not thinking. R.Rodgers seems to be thinkin' what to do after he catches the pass instead of just doin'.

Rodgers looked a lot different running routes at Cal than he has with the Packers.

TE will be on the draft list with Quarless done in GB.

bvan posted:

DickRod is a Clydesdale.

Look at this, you are absolutely correct about Rodgers looking different at Cal

  http://www.patriots.com/video/...ard-rodgers-te-calif     ....where did this guy go?

Rodgers would make an excellent #2 TE.  With Jordy and Co. healthy, he can be fine taking a majority of snaps.  We'd all love a 6'6" beast who runs like a gazelle, but there just aren't that many out there.  

Wish the big lug could block. He's not an "excellent #2" in my book due to that.

DickRod is so slow, the replay of his catches start before the play is finished. 

DickRod is so slow, he runs like Karo syrup.

Any chance that they asked him to bulk up for this year and it sapped what speed that he had? He looked way huge especially compared to the Cal days.

Maybe he was hanging out with Lacy in the offseason and video games and eating funyuns.

His weight on Packers.com is same as his draft profile, 257.

Yeah they're not going to be truthful on the website. They simply copy/paste numbers they're given

FLPACKER posted:

Look at this, you are absolutely correct about Rodgers looking different at Cal

  http://www.patriots.com/video/...ard-rodgers-te-calif     ....where did this guy go?

Am I the only guy that remembers RR played WR his senior year at Cal?

Cal Bio

6'4" 245lb is a TE in college, even though they had him split out as a WR and listed him as such. Exactly why, coupled with his speed, he was projected, scouted, and drafted as a TE.

I doubt he got slow(er), could be sophomore slump and thinking too much. Recall McCarthy saying about half way through the season they were asking him to do too much.

Wait for the FireThompson comments when come May and he didn't draft a TE!  

LINK

I see no one has snapped up www.domcaperssucks.com yet either