All of the talk about the Green Bay Packers season was all about choosing Aaron Rodgers over Brett Favre, and just how much of what was Ted Thompson smoking when he made that choice. But now that the only thing that we've really got to play for is helping the Lions live the dream of 0-16, it's time to take a look back on the season and see what really went wrong.
PROBLEM: To me if you want to look back on the struggles of this season you need to look no further than our defense. Last year everyone talked about just how deep our defensive line was. This year, not so much. A lot of the depth issues were a result of a jaw droppingly large amount of injuries. At the start of the season Mike McCarthy made it very clear that he wanted one of the calling cards of this team was to be its defense. Well, to be completely honest that hasn't happened much.
SOLUTION: Fire Bob Sanders, and have a complete overhaul of the defense. Change the defense up to a 3-4. I know it would be a big shock to a lot of people. But it's apparent that defensive line depth is no longer a strength of this team. Also, it's pretty apparent, at least to me that linebacker is a strength of this team. Justin Harrell was a waste of a pick, and won't amount to much of anything. So, next year at line you can have Kampman and Jenkins at the ends and at tackle you use either Jolly or Pickett. At linebacker, Nick Barnett is way too athletic, hopefully he'll be just as athletic once he gets back from his ACL injury. So, what I suggest the Packers do next year is move Hawk(pretty poor in coverage on the outside..has shown improvement, at least to me on the inside) to interior linebacker a long with Desmond Bishop. And then on the outside you have Barnett and Brandon Chillar. I'm comfortable with the way the secondary is.
PROBLEM: Way too many mental errors.
SOLUTION: This could be a product of a young football team. In all of Ted Thompson's time in Green Bay, we've consistently been the youngest team in the league. With all of the press-man coverage that we run, you'd expect all of the pass intereference penalties, and hands to the face calls, but all of the holding and offsides calls are ridiculous. It seems like everyone we could get a solid late game drive going to either seal a game or win a game we conveniently get a penatly called against us.
These are only two of are major problems, so keep an eye open for the rest of this Packer teams big dilemmas, and how I propose we solve them.
Jessica Hart
Brooklyn Decker
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"Change the defense up to a 3-4."
This would first require a coach who can help the team run an effective hybrid defense to shift to 3-4, finding a great coordinator for a 4-3 is hard enough. Finding one who can run an effective 3-4 and seamlessly make the shift from the two defenses isn't easy.
Futhermore, it'd require a near complete change in personnel. The 3-4 isn't for teams with a weak D-line. You basically have to have a complete stud at NT for the 3-4, (we don't have anyone like that) if you don't the defense struggles a lot. And linebackers aren't our strength. We have more depth there than anywhere else, but none of them are too great. Poppinga is the only one that could really work in a 3-4, and he wouldn't even be that effective.
It'd require a few years of drafting and acquiring players made for that defense. Considering we already have one of the best offenses in the league and it only looks to get stronger, we could more easily fix our 4-3 defense then we could make a lengthy and costly switch to 3-4.
ShimSham
Total Comments (2)
Well, I actually don't mind the 3-4 for this squad. The fourth man is not helping the line right now, and because of that Kampman is getting double teamed constantly. Two, AJ is a better run defender than a pass protector, so that helps with losing the fourth lineman. I'd probably put him and Barnett in the middle, as Barnett's speed is great for a blitzing back and if the outside two can improve slightly and keep the TEs and SEs covered you could bring him and Hawk up or leave Hawk back to spy the QB.
skyraker
Green Bay, WI
Total Comments (17)
Well, we still need to fire Bob Sanders (the defensive coordinator). His play calling is basically this: Rush 4 to 5, put the safeties into free coverage, and put the others onto man coverage.
Mike McCarthy and TT should stay, but somebody should punch them in the stomach and tell them each to grow a pair because McCarthy is far too conservative in his offensive play calling and TT needs to actually use the wonders of free agency.
packfan0820
Louisville , CO
Total Comments (26)
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