Positives/Unfavorables of WK1: Bears game

Nothing to add.

If not for that easy garbage TD, I would have given the defense a decent grade for today (C+ or so). That drive pushed them down to a D+.

agreed, Pack-man. Was thinking to myself that as much as I bitched about them, the defense actually toughened up in the 2nd half. That last drive was ugly. Chalk it up to prevent, garbage time if you want but they need to learn to put people away on defense.

Positive is that the STs look better other than Masthay (and Shields brain dead offsides).

 

Another positive is that even without an outstanding WR in Jordy, ARod remains All-World and the offense is good enough to win a Super Bowl.

 

Negative is obvious as the D just looked nothing like it was championship caliber. Hope that changes as the season progresses.

 

+++++

James Jones

Eddie Lacy 

Clay Mathews

Offense and coaches didn't panic when they fell behind

Special teams not horrible but not spectacular either

 

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3rd down defense

missed a lot of tackles when they had the Bears essentially stopped 

 

 

Stars: Matthews, Peppers, Jones, Sitton, Lacy, Rodgers.

Impressive: Nate Palmer, Ty Montgomery, Davante Adams, Damarious Randall.

Duds: Shields, Perry, Barrington, Daniels (a lot of talk, no action), Dom Capers, Masthay.

 

I completely agree Ammo.

Missed tackles all around were the biggest negative IMO. They would have ended up with a much stronger defensive effort if they had finished tackles. We left half a dozen sacks on the field because of it.

ILB is still a major weakness even with Palmer and Clay in there. Clay missed a few tackles because of bad angles and not shedding blocks...it's a little more forgiveable because it's not his natural position though. I'd like to see Jake Ryan get eased in to the D, he seems like the most natural ILB.

In the end though the D allowed 1 TD and 1 garbage time TD. As always they struggled between the 20's but got the stops in the redzone. Even the 1 TD the Bears got should have only been a FG if it weren't for Shields. This team obviously has a lot of things to get worked out, but the offense still looks championship caliber even without Nelson.

+++++

Martellus Bennett helped my fantasy team

 

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Packers D blows

 

Maybe they'll get it fixed

Just got home from the bar and didn't get a chance to follow the x4 game thread. Shields was the biggest suck of the game. Skin that SB tat off his neck!

They'll be better when they get Guion, Jones and Burnett back. Shields also had an particularly bad game; he'll improve, he's too talented not to. Don't really know if Barrington's presence makes much of a difference, him and Palmer are about the same.

++

No such thing as a bad win

Easier to teach after a win

Lacy, A-aron and WRs in mid-season form

We'll be getting Burnett, Barrington, Guion and That One Jones back, so some help is on the way.

Held Smokin' Jay to 50% completion

No injuries except Barrington, who had a bum ankle coming in

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Defense needs that help, especially against run

Bears show how to beat us - run the ball, make us earn our points, shorten the game, which isn't really news to anyone.

 

       
       


Like your idea on Ryan getting more PT.

Would have been a different story had CHI chose to run 3 times from 1st and goal vs. pass 3 times. They would have scored on us easily. Our run D looked pathetic.

not good performance from Shields. Suspect he will play better next week. 

Randall Cobb deserves some props for some big drive saving plays.

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another negative, alluded to earlier...penalties. momentum killing penalties. offsides, holding and that penalty on Matthews INT. first game of the season, people make mistakes. gotta clean that stuff up.

The offense looked really good. Jones was a godsend

Montgomery is a real kick retro threat

The rookie DBs looked good

Rodgers may have taken the next step at TE

All that said, the defense really missed Barrington and Burnett. Neither Dix nor Palmer can really play the run (tho Palmer is much better than Barrington against the pass)

Mastay is still in recovery

Bahktieri cannot run block

Plus

• A win in week 1 is always good.  
• Yawn.  Aaron Rodgers threw only 23 passes.  Only threw for 189 yards.  But, 3 TDs, and scored when it was absolutely mandatory to score.  He is hands down the best in the NFL.  The TD pass to Cobb was unreal.  
• James Jones is the modern day Cris Carter.  That man has gone from having questionable hands to seriously among the best hands in the game.  
• Lacy is a monster.  
• Masthay did well on both punts.  ST as a whole was solid. 
• Nice to see Cobb in there making plays.  Hoping he continues to improve health wise, you can tell he was limited.  

 

M-I-N-E-S (I didn't even study)

• The defense couldn't get off the field.  11-17 3rd down conversions allowed.  Forced Chicago to punt once.  
• Where are the screen passes?  Between Lacy and Montgomery and Cobb we aren't maximizing the capabilities. 
• Sam Shields has had better days.  After that one pass he defended vs Jeffrey, it was a bad day.   Get your **** together Sam.  
• Lots of penalties that hurt.  

Positive

 

•  OL

 

•  AR

 

•  JJ

 

•  Clay

 

Negative

 

•  Defense overall. I shudder to think what may have been if not for the normal, and expected, Cutler generosity.

++

 *AR makes it easy to run the ball when he makes them play 6 in the box the whole game

 *Lacy's feet in the hole

 * Peppers & CM made plays

 * Pass defense was overall pretty good

 * Randall played well for a rookie

 * Pass protection was excellent

 * JJ 

 * Monty's kick returns

 

--

 - Obviously run defense. It looked like we were misaligned some by their formations, which made DBs forced to be contain guys on edge vs olineman blockers

 - Missed tackles

 - Penalties

Wow was that ugly on defense.  Capers actually called a pretty solid game because we saw players there to tackle Cutler, Forte or whichever receiver caught the ball but no one could tackle him.  D-line was invisible, ILBs were weak and Clinton-Dix was especially bad.  I was impressed by Randall - he some action late and had great coverage.  Very unimpressed by Shields - he's making too much money to playing like this.  

 

Penalties were bad too.  Bahktiari took 4 points off the board with his hold in the red zone.  Although anyone see that unnecessary roughness call on Richardson on that last drive?  Jeffrey caught the ball and Richardson hit him on the ground before anyone else touched him.  Is that a penalty now?  

 

Offense was very good, as usual.  Run blocking wasn't anything special but adequate enough because Lacy is so good.  Adams, Jones and Cobb look to be a formidable top 3 WRs - crazy when you realize they lost a top 5 WR in Jordy.  

 

Overall........this was the typical Packers team of the last 8 years.  Offense is clicking but was hindered by untimely penalties, while the defense can't stop anyone.  Really hope it gets cleaned up....

The last time that GB was only 1 game behind Chicago in the series was 9/24/39 when the series was 17-18-4.

 

If we win the 2nd game this year, this will be the first time we were .500 in the series overall since 9/24/33.  

 

FUKK THE BEARS.  YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER.  

Figure the penalties on Bulaga, Raji and Richardson were totally bogus man. Piss poor officiating. Our WRs were getting mauled with no calls.

Ha Ha had a poor 1st half tackling, then played far better 2nd half before the garbage time o-lé. Also, think it was his first game playing without Morgan Burnett.

My concern is sticking with players who fail to produce. Barrington played very poorly prior to injury. Perry can't make a tackle on a running play to save his life. At least Palmer got home and made plays. Why does it take injury for these guys to make a change?

Richardson got the call because he led with his helmet. Too many penalties overall and that was a big negative. The stat that jumps out at me is the 11-17 third down conversion rate. Completely unacceptable.

If we don't see Mike Daniels breaking through to make some plays in the backfield, please, let him walk. I mean, stop Forte, or get a sack, against an inferior OL. I expect more from him.

Totally agree on that 3rd down conversion rate. Our D was highly suspect. The only reason we "held" them at the goal line was they threw instead of handing off to Forte.

Trophies - I don't disagree with your assessment of our LBs.......but who's better on this roster?  This front seven has been devoid of talent for way too long (that or the talent is there and the coaches can't develop it - who knows).  You can't just bench guys because they suck because good chance the guys behind them suck even worse.  Is Elliot better than Neal or Perry?  I don't know but I doubt it.  I gotta go with the coaches on the depth chart - they see these guys in practice every single day.  And I know the Desmond Bishop comparison will come up but that's one time.  

Raji was clearly holding the olinesman so he could not get to a second level block (you can't do that). Richardson led with his helmet, did not see the Bulaga penalty but Bak's holding call was bogus

What season?

I think Elliott is better than Perry, and Palmer & Ryan better than Sam. Play the better players. Pretty simple.

If a guy is on the ground and not trying to get up, hitting him like that will always be a penalty.   We were on the receiving end of a similar call last year with Lacy.  We don't want other teams doing that to our players either.  

+ Rodgers didn't throw for a lot of yards, if he throws for 3 TDs and 0 INTs in every game, we'll win every game.

 

- I feel the defense has taken a step back this year. TT didn't do much to address the glaring weakness at ILB position during the off season (other than a mid-round draft pick) and I worry that it will be another glaring weakness this year.

 

Can the offense score over 30 points every game? That's probably what it will take. Either Capers' schemes are not Super Bowl caliber, or our defensive players are not capable of playing at that level. 

Let's not write the book on this defense quite yet. Remember how bad they were against the run in the first half of last year? The key guy in their turnaround (Letroy Guion) was suspended today. I want to see how they look with Burnett and Jones back next week, and Guion will be back for week 4. Sam Shields also had one of the worst games of his career today. The guy is a Pro Bowl talent, he'll get it turned on sooner, rather than later.

ftfy

Trophies, I agree!  Dear old Dad always said "great minds think alike."  We're proof of it!

:-)

I don't know what everyone was expecting from the D- they are a bend don't break D. They're not the Blitzburgh D that it's supposed to be. Don't have the LBs for that.

The only troubling drive was the last one. They quit playing, and almost paid for it. But the rest is what is expected from this team. The Bears actually resembled a football team today. But it's not how you play in September that matters most. I think we're going to be fine.

If great mimes think alike, nobody would notice.

Packman, I agree that our defense played better during the second half of last year, but you have to admit that our defense has been our Achilles heel lately. We lost our top receiver, but the offense played really well. The defense should be able to handle a few missing players and not look too bad. We weren't playing the '99 Rams today.

 

It's been a long time since our defense struck terror in the hearts of opposing teams.

I think we are going to be fine on D too. Just a weeding out period, I guess. Dom ers on the side of caution, to a fault. At some point they have to realize, the same guys that are blowing plays are the same ones who blew them the year before, and the year before that.

We have more and better players to play better D.

Kind of looking forward to seeing what Datone does next week. He seemed to have a decent preseason.

ILB is still a HUGE issue. Palmer, Barrington, Hawk, Jones, Lattimore, etc. is just 50 Shades of Suck.