Game 9: Packers @ Chargers - Sunday, November 3rd, 3:25PM

[nodakfan17]

I can't believe that anyone watching this actually fancies this team a Super Bowl contender. Just too many things that they are really bad at. This may be the worst run defense I've ever seen out of any Packer team, ever. Christian McCaffrey might go through 3 pairs of cleats next week.

 

I just thought they might win the division. Host a playoff game. Never went into this season thinking Super Bowl. Hopefully they can right the ship and still win the division. Not sure though.

That’s pretty much where I’m at too.

 

Anything can happen if you get into the playoffs healthy.

[homer]

Well if there was ever a team not ready to play it was that one. Burn the tape, move on.

[brewcrewdue80]

Since it worked for the Chargers today, Pettine should be fired before they board the plane home. New coordinator can spark something in the defense. Kenny Clark was beat something awful multiple times today. And maybe theres scheme going on causing that. It helps the Smiths but not him and his effort lacked. Amos. He was something to begin the year, now he looks played out. Another scheme problem. Blitz him more. I thought we may be getting a guy that would be like Leroy Butler, not a step closer HaHa as it looks right now.

I think its time to adjust to where this league has gone and draft Offense only. You can fill the defense with UDFa like Lancaster who has out performed Gary the higher 1st rd pick this year. Bulags has regressed these last two weeks. Back to being overrated. This team might not make the playoffs. Seriously. With the remaining schedule, making it to 10wins is asking a lot.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Winning three more games isn't asking a lot. It wouldn't TOTALLY surprise me if they did go 10-6 though, because I have felt they're a notch worse than their record all season. I'm seeing 11-5 though.

[adambr2]

Since it worked for the Chargers today, Pettine should be fired before they board the plane home. New coordinator can spark something in the defense. Kenny Clark was beat something awful multiple times today. And maybe theres scheme going on causing that. It helps the Smiths but not him and his effort lacked. Amos. He was something to begin the year, now he looks played out. Another scheme problem. Blitz him more. I thought we may be getting a guy that would be like Leroy Butler, not a step closer HaHa as it looks right now.

I think its time to adjust to where this league has gone and draft Offense only. You can fill the defense with UDFa like Lancaster who has out performed Gary the higher 1st rd pick this year. Bulags has regressed these last two weeks. Back to being overrated. This team might not make the playoffs. Seriously. With the remaining schedule, making it to 10wins is asking a lot.

 

I really thought coming into this year, this was a put up or shut up year for the Packer D. I felt like they needed to be a top 5 to 7 unit to justify everything they've done to overhaul it in the offseason, and the more I watch them the more it looks like nothing has changed.

 

Collectively, they're not getting the job done. Individually, I have to think there's talent. They went out and made a huge investment in the Smiths, a huge investment in Amos, a 1st rounder in Clark, traded up in the 1st for Savage, took Gary with a high 1st, spent 1st and 2nd rounders on King, Alexander, and Jackson. They have poured every bit of resources into fixing this defense usually at the expense of the offense. There is not much more that they can do to fix the D that they haven't been doing. At some point you've got to figure out why the hell this pattern has continued for the better part of the last decade with no improvement.

[lcbj68c]

You can fill the defense with UDFa like Lancaster who has out performed Gary the higher 1st rd pick this year.

 

This. x1000. It's been my stance for the last decade or so that interior defensive lineman are a dime a dozen. LS is about the only positions I would consider less important. It's unpopular, but the Kenny Clark's the world just aren't worth setting your team back an entire draft round so you can be set with Geronimo Allisons of the world struggling to get open against a terrible secondary. Not that I have a problem drafting Gary per say, just not at #12. I don't think you take Kenny Clark ahead of Myles Jack, Jaylon Smith, Hunter Henry, Michael Thomas, Deion Jones, etc.

 

What's Quinnen Williams doing this year? 19 tackles and 1.5 sacks?

What's Ed Oliver doing this year? 18 tackles and 1 sack?

What's Clelin Ferrel doing this year? 10 tackles and 1 sack?

Christian Wilkins? 23 tackles and 0 sacks?

 

The list goes on and on, year after year. Spend draft capital on edge rushers, ILB, OLB, secondary...and just throw "a guy" (Howard Green) out there. Rashan Gary had no business being draft at #12. None. More like #35.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I missed about 90% of today's game, but the defense is better. It's just not a top defense, which I've been saying all year, and yet again, it was picked apart by a top QB. It's a bend but not break defense, and I personally hate playing that way. It probably would have worked again had the offense done ANYTHING. I mean, they bent plenty and gave up 4 FGs. They were still in it.

 

Pettine's honeymoon is waning though. There was so much positive press on him early that it feels like people are still riding it, but really, what has he achieved in GB? Taking the defense from league embarrassment to mediocre? It's time to start playing a lot better. I'm sure he's safe for now, but that seat will be warming up if it's the same defense next year I'd think.

 

They just never seem to have those thoroughly dominant defenses like some recent 49ers or Seahawks they had so much trouble with just a few years ago. Fans also drastically overrate talent. I won't pretend to know how to thoroughly gauge the defensive talent, but there are usually like five guys on every team that nobody would describe as "good" other than the hometown fans. They're probably just not super good.

[homer]

The interior D is awful. Martinez hits a guy and gets dragged two yards (plus he can't cover), and the two Northwestern dudes get pushed laterally like they aren't even there. Not a recipe for success.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

And if you had said Blake Martinez sucked or was even mediocre last year, your head would be on a stick. That's what I mean. Certain players get revered by fans and to the rest of the league, they are just guys. Kevin King, Morgan Burnett, etc., it's kind of a weird phenomenon as to who gets anointed and who doesn't.

[PinaMadness]

You could actually argue that the defense is even worse than it was under Capers simply because there is more talent this year than there ever was under Capers since the Super Bowl. The Smiths are having fantastic seasons and Amos has played well, but that individual success is not translating to team success. That would tell me it's scheme. I'm pretty much at my wits end with Pettine now. I thought he'd be a significant improvement over Capers. That has not been the case over the past 24 games.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

There isn't more talent. The Smiths are fine players, ok. A healthy Sam Shields before concussion issues is better than either of our starting corners. And we had Woodson, we had Peppers, we had a still very good but lightning rod Clay Matthews. There's not more talent than Capers had after the Super Bowl; that's just not true. There's more talent than the past two seasons. There is a lot of youth and more question marks than most would admit.

 

I think it's really a matter of poor drafting having consequences. They have missed too often with early picks over the years. Guys that really need to be established or ascending players are not contributing anything significant.

[adambr2]

Gary doesn't really look like a great pick so far. I know it's hard to judge this early, but he was an unfinished project at UM and he's still an unfinished project here. Taking a raw guy that early was a really odd fit for our other offseason moves.

 

I really wanted to use both 1st round picks to move up and get Bosa, but I acknowledge that maybe wasn't a possibility, don't know if the 49ers were even willing to deal.

 

#12 is just awfully early to get a guy that you don't expect to have much impact as a rookie especially attempting to contend already. I hope he grows into what we hope but I think it's far more likely than not that he just ends up being a guy.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Welp, I'm not going to get too bent out of shape about one rotten game. It happens to almost every team.

 

How they respond next week will be key.

[adambr2]

You have to read between the lines, but Rodgers pretty much came out and said that some guys on the team spent too much time this weekend partying rather than preparing for the Chargers.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I caught that too, little strange.

[adambr2]

Welp, I'm not going to get too bent out of shape about one rotten game. It happens to almost every team.

 

How they respond next week will be key.

 

I'm willing to chalk it up to a bad day at the office for the offense.

 

The defensive problems are pretty concerning. Things haven't gotten better since they took a turn for the worse against Philly. They still can't stop the run and the big chunk plays have continued to be there. They were there for Matt Moore, they were there for Philip Rivers.

 

At this point I think the early season hope for many that this would be a dominant defense has come and gone. They are who they are, and some of the issues just can't be fixed in-season.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Welp, I'm not going to get too bent out of shape about one rotten game. It happens to almost every team.

 

How they respond next week will be key.

 

I'm willing to chalk it up to a bad day at the office for the offense.

 

The defensive problems are pretty concerning. Things haven't gotten better since they took a turn for the worse against Philly. They still can't stop the run and the big chunk plays have continued to be there. They were there for Matt Moore, they were there for Philip Rivers.

 

At this point I think the early season hope for many that this would be a dominant defense has come and gone. They are who they are, and some of the issues just can't be fixed in-season.

 

I think the defense is ok. Not great ... ok. Better than last year, but that isn't saying much. This team will go as far as the offense can take it.

[yourout]

Welp, I'm not going to get too bent out of shape about one rotten game. It happens to almost every team.

 

How they respond next week will be key.

 

I'm willing to chalk it up to a bad day at the office for the offense.

 

The defensive problems are pretty concerning. Things haven't gotten better since they took a turn for the worse against Philly. They still can't stop the run and the big chunk plays have continued to be there. They were there for Matt Moore, they were there for Philip Rivers.

 

At this point I think the early season hope for many that this would be a dominant defense has come and gone. They are who they are, and some of the issues just can't be fixed in-season.

 

Right now I would be happy with steady improvement.

But improvement is no where to be found.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

That defense is probably in the 16-20th range. The offense has not looked good enough to me to go toe-to-toe with the very best defenses, which it has not even faced. It has struggled with average ones. I think whoever called them an 8-8 team that willed itself to 11-5 is pretty accurate. I think most people saw an 8-10 win season in preseason. The line between 8 and 11 can be razor thin and they got a few breaks when they needed them. I just haven't been able to shake feeling like something is "off" with this team and that embarrassment today reinforced it. They really draw a lot of parallels to the '15 team that started 6-0.

[young guns]

Right. I’ve only taken the Packers against the Bears and the Broncos. I’d pick against them today too, but I realize how ridiculous that looks week-after-week as they constantly prove me wrong.

[sarcasm]I've found the culprit guys. Our reverse jinx charm failed to show up today.[/sarcasm]

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

This is a team that hasn't established any sort of identity yet. They've managed to win a bunch of games in different ways, and the two losses were very, very different. The Eagles loss was on the defense, while today's game, I believe, falls on the shoulders of the offense. The Chargers dared the Packers to beat them by settling for field goals time and time again, but the Packers just looked lethargic on offense until it was too late. They are just a tough team to get a read on. I think they are a tam that can stick with anyone when they are on, but they've had too many instances of being "off" this season to truly feel comfortable.

[PinaMadness]

You have to read between the lines, but Rodgers pretty much came out and said that some guys on the team spent too much time this weekend partying rather than preparing for the Chargers.

He's probably right, but I would take him more seriously if he hadn't played one of his worst games of his career, if not the worst.

[PeaveyFury]

The list goes on and on, year after year. Spend draft capital on edge rushers, ILB, OLB, secondary...and just throw "a guy" (Howard Green) out there. Rashan Gary had no business being draft at #12. None. More like #35.

 

But... Gary IS an Edge rusher. Your post suggests that you think he's an interior DL, but he's not, so I'm confused.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

The list goes on and on, year after year. Spend draft capital on edge rushers, ILB, OLB, secondary...and just throw "a guy" (Howard Green) out there. Rashan Gary had no business being draft at #12. None. More like #35.

 

But... Gary IS an Edge rusher. Your post suggests that you think he's an interior DL?

 

Was thinking the same thing reading that post. Gary is 100% an edge rusher. That's his future in this defense. Almost a carbon copy body type to ZaDarius. He's got the ability to rush from an inside spot in some packages, but he's going to be an outside rusher for the most part.

 

It is kind of a bummer that he hasn't produced more, but the kid is only 21 years old, and is relatively green as a stand-up rusher. We're going to have to be patient with him.

[FVBrewerFan]

This is a team that hasn't established any sort of identity yet. They've managed to win a bunch of games in different ways, and the two losses were very, very different. The Eagles loss was on the defense, while today's game, I believe, falls on the shoulders of the offense. The Chargers dared the Packers to beat them by settling for field goals time and time again, but the Packers just looked lethargic on offense until it was too late. They are just a tough team to get a read on. I think they are a tam that can stick with anyone when they are on, but they've had too many instances of being "off" this season to truly feel comfortable.

 

True. Early on, it was hey this defense is built for take-aways. Now that has fallen off. How about bend, don't break? Sort of, I guess. On offense, running game looks great, then non-existent. Pass protection is great or awful. I still really don't know what their offense is yet.

 

Most of this is due, I believe, to limited talent. And then some of that talent is very young. But in general, I see a defense that is reacting rather than imposing their will. They don't get enough pressure on the qb, and rarely blitz. Middle of the field is always open for business. I want early season Savage back.

 

On offense, yea, nobody's getting open. But is that, in part, because they're still predictable? I guess I was expecting more imagination this year. No matter what I hear, I'm still convinced this offense is a mish mosh of the game plan/ play called and what Rodgers wants to do.