Putting Up Points
By Aaron Nagler on May 28, 2009 with 7 Comments
Let’s straighten out something that I keep seeing thrown around a lot. In this piece from the USA Today (hat tip: Pelissero’s Twitter) authors Jeff Zillgitt and Nate Davis posit the following:
The offense, led by Favre’s successor, Aaron Rodgers, put up points — 26.2 a game, fifth best in the league.
Averaging just under four touchdowns a game does sound good. But it does not take into account the six touchdowns that Nick Collins, Charles Woodson and Aaron Rouse scored, or the two touchdowns that Will Blackmon scored or the one touchdown that Jason Hunter scored.
I keep saying this. Yes, the offense was good last year. Yes, it moved the ball and piled up a lot of yards. But it was not great. It bogged down at the worst possible times, McCarthy was mind-numbingly conservative at times and, of course, there were the soul-crushing pre-snap penalties that remained a problem all season long, no matter how many times McCarthy stated that they needed to ‘get that fixed”.
There is much, much room for improvement.
Filed Under: National Media • Packer Offense
I think the penalties, more than anything else, are the cause of the offense struggling in many situations. If the Packers can cut down on the penalties, people will be talking about Aaron Rodgers as a possible elite QB at the end of this season. Unless, of course, he gets hurt, then all of the naysayers will come back with a vengeance and he’ll be run out of town.
This all goes back to the need to implement a score early/score often approach in GB. MM was so determined to manage any possibility of mistakes, he forgot about the inability of the defense to protect leads in the late 3rd and 4th quater.
His goal this year should be:
1. Score on every first drive of the game.
2. Coordinate the running game with the passing game more effectively.
3. Don’t go into an offensive shell if GB has the lead in the 3rd or 4th quarter.
4. Decide on an offensive line and stick with it.
All this is true, and yet, we were very very close to so many of those games. Two missed FGs as time expired. A totally decimated defensive line.
There’s alot of room for improvement, but that just shows how good this team really is.
I also think that MM was being pretty conservative with Rodgers, because it was his first season as a starter. I think he’ll open it up more this year.
I’m hoping that the year that Rodgers put together last year will instill some confidence in McCarthy that will show itself in more aggressive playcalling when necessary. The penalties definitely hurt us last year (when don’t they?) but I can live with aggressive penalties, its the mental ones before the snap that kill me.
Ron, MM had consistently focused on starting games strong last season. He mentioned it several times in press conferences and made more bold play calls in the beginning. I place the blame more on the players than MM in that case.
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I agree he became conservative in the end which you could criticize him for, but the players struggled on their first drive of the game. I’m pretty sure someone has a catchy stat about the offense’s (lack of) success on their first drive.
I don’t really care about the defensive and special teams TDs as most teams have a few of them each year. What I think is impressive is the distance that the offense had to drive for their scores. The defense did not set up many ‘easy’ scoring drives. McCarthy mentioned it as much due to the bad field position (think horrific punting here) the Pack had in many games that they would have to put together much longer drives than the other team. Look at the top scoring teams and see what their drive charts were. Any team that has to cover soo much field to score will have issues. Add to the drive distance the multiple penalties per drive. Cutting down on the mistakes is one of the biggest improvements the offense can make.
You are so dead on right with this one. Especially the bogging down part due to ultra-conservative play calling. If I see one more line-of-scrimmage pass on third and five, I will puke.