Baranczyk Misses
By PackerAaron
I am a big fan of Eric Baranczyk's "Inside Football" analysis over at JSOnline. (sorry, sub required) He usually breaks things down in very football-specific terms and gives you the whys and hows of what went on on the field each Sunday.
But I have to say, I am a bit disappointed with this from his latest dispatch:
Rodgers doesn’t take any chances. What happened to the skinny post? He doesn’t throw down the middle late and you hear coaches preach that: Don’t throw down the middle late. But you’ve got to do it sometimes or you’re going to see the crap that you saw in this game, especially if you can’t run the ball. You’re going to get sacks. No rhythm. I thought with Jermichael Finley this year, you’d see more wheel routes. Granted, that’s a play that takes more time to develop. But, right now, they have no vertical passing game. It’s all short stuff.
I mean, what game was he watching? Seriously.
Did he miss Rodgers throwing deep into the middle of three defenders when he had Jordy Nelson open on the comeback? And how can he say "It's all short stuff" like it's a BAD thing? Please, they need to throw MORE short stuff. Or did he miss the whole 'Rodgers can't take a 5 step drop without getting killed'-thing they had going on Sunday afternoon.
I'm sorry, but as a quarterback coach, Baranczyk makes a great offensive lineman.
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Comments (6)
September 22, 2009 at 08:30 am
Agree Aaron, I saw at least two passes complete in the middle on that last drive. It cost them a fair bit of time. I'm holding my breath until a poll of anonyumous NFL execs verifys his position.
September 22, 2009 at 08:58 am
I agree. I think he's referring to the plays he got sacked. In which case it would have been infinitely better to just throw it out of bounds.
September 22, 2009 at 09:14 am
I dont think Eric watched the same game...the way you deal with the protection problems is short passes, let the recievers make plays, pass to set up the run.
September 22, 2009 at 09:42 am
agreed ryan. You put the ball into the hands of your playmakers. Early on, they went deep and the ball was dropped. Its a different game complexion when the WRs and TEs catch the ball. Later they started catching them, middle, side, all over but the Bengals knew it was coming and had sold out on the pass rush (hence the long scrambles). Personally, I cant see much fault with Rodgers' game, and picking on his play is missing the real problems...like catching the damn ball.
Its also hard to say they "cant run the ball" because no running plays were called. The rushes were successful when MM called them.
September 22, 2009 at 10:58 am
Agree, Aaron. In fact, maybe you can tweet JMike and ask if HE knows who removed the slant pass from the playbook.
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Still, two days later, I cannot believe we ran 3 running plays in the 2nd half, and Greg Jennings didn't catch a ball. If you're going to criticize McCarthy, how about his refusal to run the ball even though our pass protection was brutal? See New England's draw plays out of the shotgun.
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And if you're going to criticize Rodgers, fair enough, but I won't go too far to that end because I happen to think he did a damn good job of not getting rattled any WORSE than he has. Dude's running for his life.
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There's a lot to harp on after a game like this, but it's NOT going to get fixed by throwing down the middle of the field, LATE.
September 23, 2009 at 09:03 pm
Disagree Aaron. Just wanted to start different than everyone else, I agree.
CHECK THIS OUT - Saturday night I went out for the 1st time in like a year (F'ing OBLITERATED) don't remember getting home, woke up @ 8:00am to my Cell phones alarm going off, realized SHIT I gotta crawl outta bed and make it to the couch for pregame and FF injury updates.
Get to the couch Press power on my remote (to my new 55" LED Samsung they keep showing on TV, got it on Friday OK, gonna be my first "GAMEDAY" with it)... NOTHING! My F'ing power was out. Called the power Co. on my Cell, they said they expected the power to be on by Noon, kickoff's @ 10:00 here... WTF and SOOO hung over.
The wife had to go to work, I was home with the kids (so couldn't go watch it at a bar), I had to call my buddy in Illinois (die hard bear fan) to give me a play by play. You can't imagine how bad that sucked, he was rubbing in every play, I wanted to puke from the game AND the night before AND I was missing out on my beautiful new HD masterpiece. 12:15 my lights came on, I told my buddy to F' off and I hope the bears get destroyed and hung up on him. There was like 1 minute left in the 3rd quarter, BRUTAL way to start a football Sunday!
In summation, the day never got started right for me or the Pack (I DO NOT miss a play of a Packers game let alone 3 quarters), Sunday was an aberration, a full blown shit fest fluke. People, things look bleak right now with the O-line and Safety depth, BUT I would rather go through this now than in week 9, I'm hopeful we can get through this... be 2-2 (or better) going into the bye, and get this rough patch behind us.
IT IS ALWAYS DARKEST JUST BEFORE DAWN
GBP 4 LIFE