From Lambeau to Lombardi, Holmgren, McCarthy and LaFleur and from Starr to Favre, Rodgers and now Jordan Love we’re talking Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers football. This Packers Forum is the place to talk NFL football and everything Packers. So, pull up a keyboard, make yourself at home and let’s talk some Packers football.
This game reminded me of the Favre days where he looked like he couldn't hit the broad side of the barn for whatever reason. Rodgers had some bad games in his career but they were different from Brett's bad days. This was more like a bad day from Brett than Aaron.
I thought Love looked scared from the very first pass play, and the O gameplan itself reflected fear of Martindale's blitz-happy defense. Love is outwardly calm but you can tell when he's internally flustered: it affects his throws. He was floating/lofting balls all night. That pass to Doubs in the end-zone is a TD if he rips that. Instead, it takes forever to get there and Doubs is too close to the sideline, can't get both feet in.
Defense, don't get me started. I'll save it for the D Expectations thread.
That said, this team is set up to go as the O goes, and since we can't run the ball well and Jones has been out most of the year, it all falls on Love, the OL's pass-pro, and skill players' receiving production. When that's off, we're toast.
We also really suffered from a lack of playmaking firepower. Jones and Watson are your biggest playmakers. Both out, but we still have some juice from guys like Musgrave, Reed, and Wicks. Okay, Musgrave also out, then Wicks left with injury at some point. We are literally just left with Reed. When there's no one else to worry about, it's not difficult for a defense to take away your slot receiver, even a really good one.
ST also looked poor and patience has worn thin for Rich "I want to be HC" Bisaccia. It is quite plausible that MLF does not commit enough time to ST practice for the unit to clean that stuff up; I could totally see that. Still, there are cases of guys seeming not to know the rules of stuff they need to know, questionable personnel moves like going back-and-forth between Nixon and Reed on punt returns (Reed should be PR, he catches it way more cleanly/reliably).
I would love to ask MLF why Dillon disappeared for most of the second half. I thought for a while he was hurt or something. This is what was so confounding. Hey Matt! Your QB is having an off-night so why not try to run the damn ball with your best back?
This is what made me more frustrating than anything. I just don't get what Barry (and I know he's not the only one) is thinking in that scenario. Rookie QB. Press him.
A lot of ugliness in the game but ultimately we had it won until Barry willingly decided to let the Giants march down the field.
it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. His famous mantras are basically give the other offense enough opportunities to make a mistake and survive the down. Weak, passive, baloney is all that philosophy is. It's pathetic, which is why we play pathetic defense most times the chips are down. it starts from the top.
I can't imagine playing under such a philosophy where we are just playing enough downs hoping for a mistake, rather than just forcing the damn mistakes. Perfect opportunity against an extremely limited offense and they crawl into their shell and $%@# wait to lose, again.
The key to success according to MLF and every other coach in the league is you have to be able to run the ball and stop the run. We will never know if we can run the ball because MLF gives up on it too fast. And Joe Barry's scheme to stop the run is to play 15 yards off the LOS and hope they pass instead of run!
Yikes. What is scary is you are right on target with this take. They both need to be at.
Another thing we have seen from LaFleur is he just doesn’t make adjustments in games where his plan fails. He clearly had plans for all these end arounds and it worked early but the Giants adjusted and &%$@ it down completely.
They kept running it and getting not much success and for that to be your 2 Pt play was beyond stupid. Just an atrocious decision by LaFleur to make that the play. Idk if he ran something else it would have worked but that specific play when it had been shown to the defense already so many times and hadn’t gotten much success was stupid.
He needs to start finding ways to make adjustments in game. He sticks to his game plan way too much and sometimes the other team just has a counter. You’ve gotta counter back.
Yes he should ditch these end arounds for good. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Perhaps this inability to make in game adjustments is MLF's Achilles' Heel?
In hindsight, I think this was a good loss. Playing like dog &%$@ and sneaking out of there with a win probably wasn’t the lesson this young team needed. You play like &%$@, you lose. That is how the NFL works.
I disagree. I think this team needed to learn that even when they play had they can battle back and win. They played like &%$@ start to finish in all three phases.
This team presently isn't good enough to overcome playing like garbage if they want to win. In any sport or game it is the team that makes the fewest mistakes is the one that wins. Last night NYG flat out played better than we did. I hope the guys learn from this.
I think MLF has been good but I didn't see the benefit of using timeouts at the end how he did.
I thought it would have been better to let the clock run which maybe took away one more run and use the timeout to play with the Giants kicker at the end.
Yeah, I didn't see what the rush was either. We should have taken our time and ate as much clock as possible forcing the Gmen to use their timeouts so they almost no time to march down the field for the winning FG.
Play decisively? What a concept. Shouldn't that be his default??
agreed, that should be something Lafleur demand from every player on the team, I'am starting to lose respect for Matt Lafleur, simply because I think some of the players have, when he turned around and chewed out Taylor for his bone headedness with not getting out of bounds Taylor gave him a scowl, that should have been the last play Taylor ever had in G&G, to me that guy has B o s t i ck written all over him
The amount of end arounds is an indictment on Dillon.
Lafleur still trying to run the ball but Dillon has been poor. If jones was up and healthy we probably have 1 or 2 of the end arounds.
I know MLF likes them as he even had lazard do them before.
The only negative play that I can remember from this game was that screen pass where he fell down then got up and caught it for a huge loss. Running he was gaining yards, had Love given him the ball on the 3rd down option where he fumbled it would have been a first down. Now that the options are a threat, they need to go back to Dillon on the first part of the option a bit more.
Dillon was performing fine in this game and he was up for the task of moving the chainst (albeit slowly and not turning the ball over)
the guys a second round pick. We should be fine without Jones from the pure RB perspective. Now, I know we will always miss Jones playmaking ability. But dillon should be, and is...plenty good to carry the load for a game.
Dillon was performing fine in this game and he was up for the task of moving the chainst (albeit slowly and not turning the ball over)
the guys a second round pick. We should be fine without Jones from the pure RB perspective. Now, I know we will always miss Jones playmaking ability. But dillon should be, and is...plenty good to carry the load for a game.
at.
