Packers Huddle

I don't know if this has been posted probably was in January, but it gets into our defensive problems. And it primarily relates to our secondary weaknesses and Pettine being predictable.

Thanks for posting this.

Yes, this is great to have here. The big plays were a nightmare last season, and to be honest, for a long time now. We all know pass rush helps this, which is why they made that a focal point in recent years. Are our DB's ready to step up if we don't get to the QB quickly, or if they create space and time? Hoping that Jaire will continue to emerge, and Savage takes a big step forward. One of the knocks from my Bear fan buddies on Amos was about this kind of thing.

We will see what Pettine comes up with to change this in 2020, hopefully we can limit the big plays.

There is a LOT to unpack here. But there are few things I wanted to bring out quickly as I do need to work today.

1. We play a lot less man to man coverage than I think this board states we do. It seems we always talked about the importance of playing man to man when evaluating corners in the draft process.

2. When we do play man to man, we get destroyed in it. Most of our big plays we allow were because the opponents caught us playing man to man.

3. We don't necessarily get destroyed in man to man due to a lack of talent, but rather a lack of creativity and predictability from Mike Pettine. This is no longer a young defense with limited experience. The vast majority of this defense is in its 2nd if not 3rd year in the system.

4. If the Packers gets to the opposing quarterback...we win. If we don't....we lose.

no mention of the reality's, basically this defense was bran new last year minus Clark, Marty and the corners, thats huge, minus cohesion it's bound to look dis jointed, it takes a couple season for players to develop trust with team mates, and it takes that trust to fully focus in on just your own responsibility's on any given play, so when you see a player slow to react often it's due to that.

2 new safety's, and limitations at lber, ya don't have to be a rocket scientist to know what that will lead to, I thought, given these limitations that this secondary did pretty well, the next addition (this season) should show vast improvement as the group will have another off season for it to soak in, and will be better prepared to support our pass rush, that first 3 sec. is critical.

for years now we have lacked a rover at ILB, and have tried to supplement that with a variety of safety's, Burnett being the most successful, but the rest play more like a SS then a actual lber, imho thats been a real problem, we should not expect our FS to not only defend the boundry corners and also mid level center field, it amounts to asking Martinez to cover a box 3 zones wide and two zones deep, when you lump all that responsibility on one player most tend to do poorly covering any of it, I think thats what we've seen to often.

The video is probably right that Pettine needs to switch thing up and disguise coverages better. Would love to bait 'em for a pick or few. Even with a virtual offseason program, we should have enough continuity to do that, especially since Kirksey is a vet.

That said, I think one major key to avoiding big plays is Darnell Savage. We fans were very, very forgiving of his rookie mistakes due to his obvious potential (served with some Nick Collins nostalgia sauce). But he did make a lot of mistakes, in reading, reacting and taking angles. And the mistakes of safeties get magnified since they're supposed to be the plugs vs big gains. If Savage makes a leap, it could solve a lot.

I think one thing I do want to point out is the video essentially was exclusively talking about our corners and to a lesser degree our safeties.

The video hardly touched on the front 7 at all (unless that front 7 includes a nickle corner or 3rd safety). This video did not get much into our ILB for the exception of a few times of the challenges the ILB would be based on our coverage calls and how opposing OC's who figured out Pettine attacked it.

It also did not get into our lack of talent, but again the type of defense killers opponents used that were most successful against us.

go pak go wrote: ↑

03 Jun 2020 12:09

It also did not get into our lack of talent, but again the type of defense killers opponents used that were most successful against us.

Lack of talent? On Defense? I think that this is a very talented group overall.

Packfntk wrote: ↑

03 Jun 2020 14:06

go pak go wrote: ↑

03 Jun 2020 12:09

It also did not get into our lack of talent, but again the type of defense killers opponents used that were most successful against us.

Lack of talent? On Defense? I think that this is a very talented group overall.

I know. That's what I said. The video did not get into our defense lack of talent. Instead it was opponents taking advantage of defensive calls. Sorry if my grammer made this confusing.

I don't know how much of an indictment this is on Pettine either. I mean we only got roasted in what....4 games? PHI, DAL, SF and LA.

The NFC Championship game was a whole new bag of weeds that is not affiliated with the problems in this video.

Is the sky falling again?

I know this video is in the old forum. Don't feel like going back and getting the responses though.

go pak go wrote: ↑

03 Jun 2020 12:09

I think one thing I do want to point out is the video essentially was exclusively talking about our corners and to a lesser degree our safeties.

The video hardly touched on the front 7 at all (unless that front 7 includes a nickle corner or 3rd safety). This video did not get much into our ILB for the exception of a few times of the challenges the ILB would be based on our coverage calls and how opposing OC's who figured out Pettine attacked it.

It also did not get into our lack of talent, but again the type of defense killers opponents used that were most successful against us.

sorry to disagree, but this video exposed our youth, zone coverage is all about knowing what your responsibility's are on a variation of certain plays, while I agree that our corners are exposed in press coverage for not disrupting the WR's (which is a half truth at best depending on the receivers) zone reads aren't simple either, also it's not as though Pettine calls cover 1, 2, 3 or 4 prior to the offense lining up and exposing there plans, his call comes after that and we often can practically see the gears grinding to a halt in our DB's heads as they try to figure out what there suppose to do, thats the reality this guy is leaving out, and imo it's mostly do to so many new people last year on this defense.

we've always played a bunch of interior zone and man on the edge with Capers so I don't understand his point there either, heck neither ILB or safety are predominate man up positions anyway, unless we put a guy on a TE or RB (which we do some) they mostly play zone.

that play with Witton scoring was a breakdown of zone coverage, both those brand new safety's charged up to cover one receiver, and Witton torched King who was also concentrating on that mid level receiver, lis, imo it was a youth impediment you know, a left side, right side, thingie, and I believe Pettine can easily correct with a 6' bull whip

Pan fried noodles.

lupedafiasco wrote: ↑

04 Jun 2020 18:27

Pan fried noodles.

pan fried noodles???? wth does that even mean?

I like how the video says "The Packers Defense Has a Problem" and has a picture of Blake Martinez right next to that (even if that's not what the video was about).

Meh, we're better than we were under Dom (minus 2010).

I'm not going to say Pettine has shown himself to be the answer but he has certainly done well enough to coach this defense next year.

Yoop wrote: ↑

05 Jun 2020 13:16

lupedafiasco wrote: ↑

04 Jun 2020 18:27

Pan fried noodles.

pan fried noodles???? wth does that even mean?

Kevin King because hes always out there getting cooked.

texas wrote: ↑

06 Jun 2020 00:41

Meh, we're better than we were under Dom (minus 2010).

I'm not going to say Pettine has shown himself to be the answer but he has certainly done well enough to coach this defense next year.

better talent, this defense as of last year is damn near stocked like 2010, and last year had 4 new starters, 5 counting Gary, and we use more zone now then man, more complication, so in that respect imo the future is rosy provided Kirksly earns his contract

here you go again with these comparisons, Capers got max output from that 2014 squad, had to move his #1 pass rusher inside to ILB, and had a top 10 secondary with one starter level safety, thats pretty damn good coaching I think, imo for most of Capers tenure he had a lot of trash or injured players

lupedafiasco wrote: ↑

06 Jun 2020 03:13

Yoop wrote: ↑

05 Jun 2020 13:16

lupedafiasco wrote: ↑

04 Jun 2020 18:27

Pan fried noodles.

pan fried noodles???? wth does that even mean?

Kevin King because hes always out there getting cooked.

Gotta agree with yoop here, tbh. Pettine's hiring has not turned this defense around such that, in retrospect, one can really be like "Wow, Dom sure held back this unit." To the extent the D was an issue (and the unit really wasn't all that bad in the past couple season), it was always more of a talent thing, and that falls on TT, not coaching.