Time to Dissect the Defense
Jan 14, 2010 ~ By Tom Silverstein, Journal-Sentinel
~Before the start of training camp, Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy will settle a debate that erupted during the last month about his defense.
Is it the scheme or the players that can’t deal with spread offenses?
Dom Capers improved the defense in 2009, but it is Capers who bears the responsiblity of devising a scheme to contain the QBs like Warner, Brees, Favre, and Roethlisberger. Those QB's were contained by less-talented defenses than the one Capers has in Green Bay.
There are many things on the off-season checklist for McCarthy following an 11-6 season that ended in an overtime playoff loss at University of Phoenix Stadium Sunday. Finding out why over the course of four weeks the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals were able to gash the defense to the tune of 58 first downs, 1,068 yards and 88 points is a priority.
“Trust me, we’ll take a long look at Arizona from a defensive standpoint, and Pittsburgh,” McCarthy said in his season-ending news conference Wednesday. “You’re talking about over 1,000 yards of offensive production in two days. We will take a long look at that, and particularly the quarterbacks.”
McCarthy dismissed the idea that because both of those teams know coordinator Dom Capers’ defense inside and out, they simply outwitted him with their game plans. Capers employs a Pittsburgh-style 3-4 defense, which the Steelers still run, and Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt knows it from his days as Steelers offensive coordinator.
Both the Steelers and Cardinals found a formula that featured multiple-receiver formations and lots of completions in the middle of the field. The Cardinals did a particularly good job of beating Capers’ pressures and exploiting matchups in the secondary in their 51-45 victory.
Capers called the Cardinals game disappointing because of the number of breakdowns in pass coverage.
“I mean, just base fundamentals, things we had worked in practice came up, and you don’t expect that when we’ve seen those same things in practice and seen us match them up pretty well in practice,” Capers said. “I don’t know if that comes from the heat of the battle of a playoff contest where the tempo picks up, but we didn’t execute with the same degree of efficiency that I had seen us (do) the second half of the season.”
Capers said the combination of the success the Cardinals had running the ball and the number of missed assignments in coverage made it difficult to counter Arizona’s passing game. He said he mixed up defensive calls throughout the game but couldn’t find the right buttons to push against veteran quarterback Kurt Warner.
Short-handed?
One of the issues McCarthy has to consider is whether Capers was left short-handed against a high-powered Cardinals offense. The loss of veteran cornerback Al Harris on Nov. 22 left him with two inexperienced cornerbacks in Jarrett Bush and rookie Brandon Underwood to cover Arizona’s third and fourth receivers.
Full story here
Woodson Is NFL Defensive Player of Year
Jan 13, 2010 ~ ESPN
In his own view, Charles Woodson put together his best pro season in 2009. How appropriate, then, that he is The Associated Press 2009 NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
The versatile Woodson tied for the league lead with nine interceptions, returning three for touchdowns, and was a key to the Packers’ turnaround on defense. His role in Green Bay’s performance — second in the league in overall defense, first in interceptions (30), takeaways (40) and turnover margin (plus-24) — earned Woodson 28 votes Tuesday from a nationwide panel of 50 sportswriters and broadcasters who cover the NFL.
Charles Woodson, the 1997 Heisman Trophy winner, is the first cornerback chosen as the top defensive player since Deion Sanders in 1994.
Full story here
Rookie Brad Jones making the most of his Opportunity
Jan 10, 2010 ~ By Lindsay H. Jones, Denver Post
~It was the news Brad Jones had always wanted to hear, but when his coaches with the Green Bay Packers told Jones in mid-November he would be starting at outside linebacker, Jones could only sit, stunned.
“It was a shock for about five minutes,” Jones said. “I was just like, ‘Wow. This is my shot. This is my chance to do it.’ ”
Jones said he was "ecstatic" to be joining a team like the Packers that played a 3-4 defensive scheme.
Jones made seven solo tackles in that first start against Dallas, and with veteran Aaron Kampman now on injured reserve, Jones, a rookie from the University of Colorado, has emerged as one of the Packers’ best pass rushers in the second half of the season. He has four sacks in Green Bay’s last five games and will start today for the Packers in their NFC wild-card game at Arizona.
“He’s making the most of the opportunity he has,” Colorado linebackers coach Brian Cabral said. “We always felt when he left here that his best ball was ahead of him.”
It wasn’t that Jones didn’t excel in Boulder. He was a starter for three seasons, with an increasingly diverse role over his last two years as a hybrid linebacker-defensive end.
Despite finishing his college career with 252 total tackles and 9 1/2 sacks — including seven in 2008 as a senior — Jones hadn’t come close to reaching his potential, in part because he never had substantial competition at his position in Boulder.
Jones was not among the college players invited to the NFL combine in Indianapolis last February, but he performed well enough at CU’s pro day last spring, with a time of 4.54 seconds in the 40-yard dash, to earn some draft buzz. Jones was told he was a likely second-day pick, possibly in the fourth or fifth rounds.
Instead, he lasted until the seventh round, when Packers coach Mike McCarthy called to tell Jones he would be drafted at No. 218 overall with Green Bay’s final selection.
Full story here
Aaron Rodgers’ next Mountain to Climb is the Playoff Mountain
Jan 10, 2010 ~ By Mike Vandermause, Press-Gazette
~Aaron Rodgers has spent much of his competitive life proving the skeptics, critics and naysayers wrong.
He wasn’t supposed to be good enough to earn a Division 1 college scholarship. He wasn’t deemed worthy enough by a majority of NFL teams to be taken in the first round of the 2005 draft. His form wasn’t sound enough, his body wasn’t durable enough, and his arm wasn’t strong enough.
Rodgers is 1-0 against Peyton Manning. Could they meet again next month?
Every time he showed up his doubters, they would find something else to criticize.
He passed for more than 4,000 yards in his first season as an NFL starter in 2008 and despite enduring a painful shoulder injury, started every game. The myth that he lacked toughness was debunked, so the knock on him shifted to his inability to win close games.
Full story here
Clay Matthews has Arizona Cardinals LT Jeremy Bridges’ respect
Jan 9, 2010 ~ By Tom Pelissero, Press-Gazette
~If there were any doubt in Jeremy Bridges’ mind that Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews was an impact player, Matthews erased them with his performance last week.
Cardinals left tackle Jeremy Bridges, left, had his hands full with Packers linebacker Clay Matthews, trying to keep him away from quarterback Matt Leinart during last Sunday's game in Glendale, Ariz.
Matthews drew two holding calls, one of which resulted in a safety, and had a career-high seven hits on the Arizona Cardinals’ quarterbacks. Three of those came on one drive against Bridges, a longtime rotational player at guard who took over at left tackle when the Cardinals put veteran Mike Gandy (sports hernia) on injured reserve on Dec. 23.
“He’s good,” Bridges said on Friday of Matthews, the first-round draft pick who has recorded 19 of his team-leading 35 QB hits in the past five games.
“He’s got a lot to learn, but as far as just ability, raw ability, the kid’s fast, quick, strong. He’s going to be one of the good ones.”
There’s a good argument to be made Matthews already falls into that category.
After missing most of the preseason with a hamstring injury, he took over as the starter at right outside linebacker in the Packers’ fourth game, ended up leading the team with 10 sacks, received a Pro Bowl invitation and only seems to be expanding his pass-rushing repertoire as the season goes on.
Look no further than the array of moves he used against the Cardinals in last week’s regular-season finale. He beat Bridges with speed moves off the edge, gave left guard Reggie Wells trouble on stunts and even displayed some uncommon power by flattening rookie running back Beanie Wells late. Full article here
Packers’ Woodson finally Reciprocating the Love
Jan 7, 2009 ~ By Charles Robinson, Yahoo Sports
~Charles Woodson sat alone in his car. He looked out the window, and two strangers were clamoring for his attention.
It was 2006. The Green Bay Packers were in the midst of a losing streak. His knee was hurting and his shoulder was in a harness. In the physical sense, he was all there – the prickly Wisconsin weather left little doubt about that. But mentally, he was alternating between pissed off defiance and wondering, “How the hell did I get here?” And now there were two people – true Wisconsin folks – sitting in another car, smiling at him. The look on Woodson’s face must have spoken volumes.
“Coming here, the way people have embraced me, the way they respect the way I play the game, community-wise, for me there’s a loyalty there,” Woodson says. “I wouldn’t want to leave these people. That’s coming from my heart. I would not want to leave them.”
“We don’t want anything from you,” a man behind the wheel said after rolling down his window. “We just want you to know that we really respect the way you play.”
With that, the window rolled back up, and the car pulled away.
There are a lot of moments that have delivered Woodson to where he is now – in Green Bay, back amongst the league’s elite cornerbacks, and likely on the verge of the NFL’s defensive player of the year award. But Woodson punctuates this one with a toothy, 100-watt grin.
“That,” Woodson said of the brief encounter, “meant everything to me.”
Looking back, the ego has healed and the darkness has lifted. Woodson is no longer locked into mortal combat with his surroundings. The city he once couldn’t fathom playing in has now come to define the next phase of his life – the one that has put his raucous days with the Oakland Raiders behind him, and made the sourest points of his reputation seem more relic than reality.
Four years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find an NFL executive outside of Green Bay who would have believed that was possible. Fresh into the first free agency of his career, Woodson was nothing less than radioactive. He spent two months as an NFL orphan, holding out for something, anything better than Green Bay. All the while, his agent would shrug, and Woodson would stare at the ticker at the bottom of his television, cursing when his name was never mentioned amongst the best available free agents. Eight seasons into his NFL career, his Heisman Trophy, All-Pro credentials and reputation as a lethal shutdown specialist had been cast into the abyss. And that’s precisely where Woodson thought he was going when Green Bay was his one and only option.
“It was tough to watch,” said Raiders cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, who remains one of Woodson’s closest friends in the game. “… I’m not gonna lie. Green Bay was a head-scratcher. The amount of money he signed for [$52 million over seven years], you thought ‘Oh good, at least he’s well-compensated.’ But then you thought ‘Green Bay? This doesn’t even fit Charles’ personality. It doesn’t seem like a place where he can be himself.’
“But you ask Charles now, and he’ll tell you it was the best thing that could have happened.”
FULL STORY HERE
Cardinals-Packers: Switch to 3-4 fueled Pack’s defense
Jan 7, 2010 ~ By Bob McManaman, Arizona Republic
~As good as quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been this season for the Green Bay Packers , one of the main reasons they have had so much success has been their transformation on the other side of ball by implementing the 3-4 defense.
In the off-season, the Packers hired Dom Capers as defensive coordinator and brought in several new assistant coaches to teach the new scheme, which has worked wonders.
Kurt Warner on the Packers defense: "Not only are they athletic, not only do they have a good scheme, not only are they smart. But when the ball is in the air, they're great at going and getting it."
The Packers finished the season as the second-ranked defense overall in the league. They are first in the NFL in rushing defense, fifth in pass defense and lead everyone with 40 takeaways.
It was a work in progress that head coach Mike McCarthy said his players probably didn’t fully reach their potential until the off week in mid-October.
“It was definitely something that you build,” he said Wednesday. “You come in, put a new staff together, meet with the players and then you go to training camp but you don’t have enough time to do everything.
“You try to do as much as you can in the preseason games, but there’s still nothing like regular-season games to get you ready.”
The Cardinals have been as impressed as anyone – especially quarterback Kurt Warner.
Full story here
Cardinals-Packers: Cards have injuries, questions
Jan 7, 2010 ~ By Kent Somers, Arizona Republic
~The last thing the Cardinals needed this postseason was to enter it with one starter wearing a cast, another sporting sweats, a third leaving practice early with back spasms and two more doing the Tour de Sideline on stationary bikes at practice.
And in case there is any confusion, Arizona is the team that tried to rest its starters this past Sunday, while the Packers played most of theirs through three quarters.
“You never want to go into games like this not 100 percent and not with your top players,” quarterback Kurt Warner said.
Boldin said an MRI revealed a high left ankle sprain and a sprained left MCL. Boldin missed a game earlier this year with a right ankle sprain.
Over the past two seasons, the Cardinals have been remarkably successful and/or lucky at staying healthy. Last month, left tackle Mike Gandy became the first starter in two seasons to be placed on injured reserve. Even a guy who suffered facial fractures, receiver Anquan Boldin, missed only two games because of it.
A fatalist would say the odds finally have caught up with the Cardinals. Rookie cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (knee contusion) and Boldin (ankle, knee sprain) spent part of Wednesday’s practice riding exercise bikes.
Right defensive end Calais Campbell is trying to play while wearing a cast to protect a fractured thumb. Free safety Antrel Rolle has been in sweats instead of pads the past two weeks because of a thigh bruise. And guard Deuce Lutui left practice Wednesday with back spasms.
All are regular starters. Full story from the AZ Republic here
Holmgren may Raid Green Bay again
December 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under News, Players, Uncategorized
Dec 23, 2009, By Peter Dougherty, Press-Gazette
~Mike Holmgren is running an NFL team again, so don’t be surprised if he raids the personnel department of the Green Bay Packers like he did when he went to the Seattle Seahawks in 1999.
Hired this week as president of the Cleveland Browns, Holmgren is looking for a general manager and almost surely a new coach. The Packers have two men whom Holmgren surely will consider for GM: John Schneider and Reggie McKenzie, their co-directors of football operations.
Look for Holmgren to steal away John Schneider, if John is willing to move to Cleveland.
Holmgren no doubt is thinking through other candidates as well. One excellent possibility is Lake Dawson, a former Seahawks scout who is the Tennessee Titans’ director of pro personnel. A fourth possibility is Will Lewis, Seattle’s director of player personnel.
Both Schneider and McKenzie make a lot of sense – they have histories with Holmgren, and Holmgren is known to think well of them. Once source who knows Holmgren considered Schneider and Dawson the top candidates; another thought it would be McKenzie.
Schneider’s history with Holmgren goes back to 1992, when he was a summer intern for former GM Ron Wolf in Holmgren’s first year as Packers coach. It also includes one season working for Holmgren in Seattle in 2000, when current Packers GM Ted Thompson hired him as the Seahawks’ director of player personnel, before Schneider took a promotion with Washington in 2001.
One of Schneider’s greatest assets is his deep involvement in both pro and college personnel starting in 2000. Since that time, he’s been heavily involved in the scouting and administrative duties that go with evaluating college players. Also, he’s headed up an NFL personnel department, as vice president of player personnel for Marty Schottenheimer in Washington, though that was only for the 2001 season because owner Dan Snyder fired Schottenheimer and his football staff after one year.
McKenzie has less history with Holmgren and never has worked for him but is as likely to receive serious consideration. He’s worked for the Packers since 1994 – Holmgren left in 1999 – and has moved up the Packers’ chain of command, to director of pro personnel in 1997 and to a director of football operations last year. His bosses have been Wolf and Thompson, both of whom know Holmgren well. Full article here
Don’t give up on Crosby Yet
December 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under News, Players, Uncategorized
Dec 23, 2009, by Mike Vandermause, Press-Gazette
~ He couldn’t buy a successful field goal, with cash or credit. His ranking plummeted to the depths among NFL kickers. His accuracy hit an all-time low.
The year was 2001, and the kicker was Ryan Longwell, the Green Bay Packers’ all-time career leader in field-goal accuracy and scoring.
Kicker Mason Crosby's problems are similar to Phil Mickelson's tee-shots trying to close out majors on Sundays. You never know which way they are going to go.
How soon we forget that Longwell, who turned out to be the greatest field-goal kicker in Packers history, endured a terrible season in which he made just 64.5 percent of his field-goal attempts.
The growing mob that is ready to run current Packers kicker Mason Crosby out of town on a rail needs to remember that and cut him some slack.
Crosby has missed a field goal in each of the Packers’ last four games, including a first-half 34-yarder at Pittsburgh Sunday that arguably was the difference in the Steelers’ 37-36 victory.
Crosby has converted just 72.7 percent of his field goals (24 of 33) and ranks a lowly 31st among NFL kickers this season. That’s not good enough, and Crosby will be the first to admit it.
But now isn’t the time for the Packers to hang their struggling kicker out to dry. To his credit, coach Mike McCarthy stood firmly behind Crosby on Monday and said he has “zero interest” in bringing another kicker to town.
It’s not likely that anyone available this late in the season would perform any better than Crosby. Full article here
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