Packers @ Browns Preseason GDT: Saturday, August 10th, 3:25 PM CST

[go pak go]

Overall gotta feel great after this game.

Only player to really lay an egg is Melton. No real injuries except Lloyd. Lot of great plays from young players.

Defensive Line is dominate.
Our secondary depth is really young and really good.
Emmanuel Wilson looks to be a legit #2 back.
Grant DuBose backing up his practice highlights.

[APB]

[APB]

Really happy for Grant DuBose. He’s been having a great camp (reportedly) and he went out and had a really nice game tonight. He gets my game ball.

Speaking of game balls, what happened to our player of the game contest? Are you gonna handle that again this year, @salmar80?

[TheSkeptic]

Overall gotta feel great after this game.

Only player to really lay an egg is Melton. No real injuries except Lloyd. Lot of great plays from young players.

Defensive Line is dominate.
Our secondary depth is really young and really good.
Emmanuel Wilson looks to be a legit #2 back.
Grant DuBose backing up his practice highlights.

Yup. Tile will tell about LLoyd and his hammy but Wilson is a legit #2 RB

[APB]

Such a nice all around play by Love.

[APB]

This play had me up and out of my seat. How often does that happen in the second half of a pre-season game?

[mnkcarp]

Jones
6’9” 370lbs

Kind of a shame he looked lost/behind the action a few too many times. Would be nice to have that bulk directed correctly in our running game!

[RingoCStarrQB]

Jones
6’9” 370lbs

Kind of a shame he looked lost/behind the action a few too many times. Would be nice to have that bulk directed correctly in our running game!

The coaches should step up their games to help the big boy advance.

[Scott4Pack]

I am in awe of the TD toss by Love to Wicks. He was so relaxed at the release and the entire motion. The way he could easily lay that ball in the right place made it easy for Wicks. That play was actually easier for those guys than it looked and it looked easy. The young QB is reminding me of a AR12 about a dozen years ago with the way that he is passing the receivers open.

Guys, if we can keep Love clean, he is gonna be VERY good.

[BSA]

.
Asked Emanuel Wilson about this run in locker room. Smiling, Wilson said: “Pratt…he was like, ‘Outside! Outside!’
So I cut and I went outside and he was my lead blocker. That’s all I heard and that’s how I made it happen.”

[Backthepack4ever]

It's preseason but what a beating

These 2 teams weren't or aren't on the same level. GB bullied the browns

Likes

DL dominated at all depth levels
Off ball backers were flying around and bringing the wood.
Secondary is stacked and fast
Wrs are deep. Like bottom of the roster guys are playing meaningful snaps elsewhere

Worries
OL in run game. It needs to get better. Pass pro is solid
Dillon. He on the bottom of the depth chart and another week of this I would say he is gone.

[NCF]

Worries
OL in run game. It needs to get better. Pass pro is solid
Dillon. He on the bottom of the depth chart and another week of this I would say he is gone.

I only worry about this if it is short-yardage situations coupled with AJ Dillon. The run blocking in general is sufficient. The running is more than enough to get by with. I would like just to go with a higher percentage of passing in short yardage situations. There efficiency when running is so bad, I don't see the downside. More efficient passing and can mix in more kill shots.

[Yoop]

Worries
OL in run game. It needs to get better. Pass pro is solid
Dillon. He on the bottom of the depth chart and another week of this I would say he is gone.

I only worry about this if it is short-yardage situations coupled with AJ Dillon. The run blocking in general is sufficient. The running is more than enough to get by with. I would like just to go with a higher percentage of passing in short yardage situations. There efficiency when running is so bad, I don't see the downside. More efficient passing and can mix in more kill shots.

granted the ol was short Toms and Morgan, but imo the run blocking sucked till Cleveland started subbing in backup DL, then our run blocking improved, my point obviously is that we either need Toms and Morgan back or we need to play against backup O lineman, my hope is Toms and Morgan are back next week and Jacobs is at 100%

Wilson looks like our #2, good vision, minimal burst, but runs hard to the whistle.

Dillon looked bad because OL looked bad, I'am sure he would have done better against Clevelands back up O liners as did Wilson.

[Drj820]

if you look at Dillons usage rate for Boston College, it was insane. I wonder if that plus thinking he is a quad model instead of functional fitness has shot his legs.

[Yoop]

if you look at Dillons usage rate for Boston College, it was insane. I wonder if that plus thinking he is a quad model instead of functional fitness has shot his legs.

why make me look up what Dillon did at Boston, just tell me, that why we can have uninterrupted conversation

to me Dillon is not a good backup, imo the more touches Dillon gets the better he is, problem is his ability, even with more touches pales compared to Jacobs or Jones as was so plane to see, there fore as a backup his touches are more limited, where better off with Wilson or Llyod, if Dillon is kept it will be for his blocking

[go pak go]

if you look at Dillons usage rate for Boston College, it was insane. I wonder if that plus thinking he is a quad model instead of functional fitness has shot his legs.

why make me look up what Dillon did at Boston, just tell me, that why we can have uninterrupted conversation

to me Dillon is not a good backup, imo the more touches Dillon gets the better he is, problem is his ability, even with more touches pales compared to Jacobs or Jones as was so plane to see, there fore as a backup his touches are more limited, where better off with Wilson or Llyod, if Dillon is kept it will be for his blocking

I absolutely agree. Dillon does better when Dillon eats. The best Dillon ever looked was when he was the feature back. Think Tennesee in 2020 or the myriad of games where he had to be the man in 2021.

Another game he was cooking but MLF didn't get him the ball was the NFC Title game in 2020.

Anyways, Dillon is a poor number back if the number 1 back is healthy. The only value I see with AJ is to be the next primary back if Jacobs does down. Even still, I would rather go with Wilson and Lloyd as splitting carries if Jacbos is down. You want your backup backs to be opportuntists. I don't see that with Dillon.

To me the battle is very clear.

1. Jacobs
2. Wilson/Lloyd
3. Wilson Lloyd

The only wildcard is who fills in that 3rd down HB role.

[Drj820]

if you look at Dillons usage rate for Boston College, it was insane. I wonder if that plus thinking he is a quad model instead of functional fitness has shot his legs.

why make me look up what Dillon did at Boston, just tell me, that why we can have uninterrupted conversation

to me Dillon is not a good backup, imo the more touches Dillon gets the better he is, problem is his ability, even with more touches pales compared to Jacobs or Jones as was so plane to see, there fore as a backup his touches are more limited, where better off with Wilson or Llyod, if Dillon is kept it will be for his blocking

845 carries over three years. Feels like a ton to me.

[BSA]

The run blocking in general is sufficient.

Not sure I agree - and here's what Andy Herman wrote about it with regards to the CLE game:

"After being called an AJ Dillon hater all offseason (I’m not), it feels weird being called an AJ Dillon apologist today (I’m not that either).
If you’re not a Dillon believer, if you like Wilson better, if you’re done with the Dillon experience, go for it, my only point is don’t base it on the 4 carries from last night where he had no chance to do anything…


I also push back on GB run blocking in general terms too, this is just not a good run-blocking OL. Sufficient ? Maybe, but you need better than that to get where they wanna go. The Packers have drafted for pass pro over run blocking for years and that makes perfect sense.
But the dancing bears have a hard time moving DL when push comes to shove in those short yardage scenarios. I think you can run behind Jenkins, but the rest of the OL just isn't moving people when they need to move people. And you gotta be able to move people on occasion

MLF handles this with a lot of motion & shifts - and while some of that is to show man D vs zone D, a big part of motions & shifts is to get the DL and LBs to move a 1/2 gap over and give his OL better angles, easier cutoffs and more reachable reaches. When it was MLF plus Rodgers, AR took the play clock all the way down to the nub in trying to find a better solution given how the defense was aligned.
That's why GB with AR under Center had the one of the lowest stuff rates on run plays. ( ranked # 2 in stuffs per Football Outsiders)

It seems we need better run blocking and more freedom for Love at the LOS to help the Packers OL win their match-ups. Give any RB a hole and they'll hit it, but when there ain't nuthin there, pinning the poor outcome on the RBs is kinda missing the point in my view.
MLF wants/needs a run-capable offense to maximize his scheme. Playing a lot of 12 personnel helps too.
I'm hopeful that when we see the Best 5 together, they will begin to gel and the run blocking exceeds "sufficient" as we roll deeper into 2024
.

[NCF]

Not sure I agree - and here's what Andy Herman wrote about it with regards to the CLE game:

"After being called an AJ Dillon hater all offseason (I’m not), it feels weird being called an AJ Dillon apologist today (I’m not that either).
If you’re not a Dillon believer, if you like Wilson better, if you’re done with the Dillon experience, go for it, my only point is don’t base it on the 4 carries from last night where he had no chance to do anything…

I watched that, too. Here is why I don't buy it. The evidence is stacked against him. We have seen it. Over and over and over. 3 carries to get 1 yard. He couldn't do it. Why would we expect any different? He has never been able to do it. He runs too high and his vision is too poor to be a short yardage back. That is my complaint. 1st and 10 AJ Dillon is fine. Not good, but whatever. My main point is he isn't a short yardage back. Never was and never will be. That is why I am unwilling to throw those carries out against Cleveland. RB's have to be able to create on their own and when you need 1 yard, you have to get one yard. Aaron Jones was spectacular at it. Same OL. How do you account for that discrepancy?

[Labrev]

I am not some big Dillon proponent. I will feel a little bad for him if he gets cut because he's such a big Packers booster, but I would do it if I valued him less than the 53rd best player because there's really nothing special in his game.

But I need more than just a small handful of preseason snaps to judge where he's at. It took him a bit to get going last year, too, and while he didn't look like anything great at any point last year, this year he has cut some bulk. I am curious to see if there's really any noticeable difference in his RBing after having slimmed down a bit, but I need a lot more carries before rendering judgment on that.

One thing is for sure, though: the guy is useless in short yardage. It's the weirdest thing, one look at the guy and you would think he would excel at smashmouth running. No, he is in fact terrible at it, and only begins to give you any value as an O skill player when you play him as a finesse RB and receiver. If I need a yard, he is the absolute last resort. I would rather try Love's drunk sailor sneak or an Allen Lazard jet-sweep before I try Dillon up the middle!