With injuries starting to take their toll, the Packers need to get their best players on the field. And lining up Cullen Jenkins opposite Clay Matthews may be in their best interests.
The personnel at cornerback and inside linebacker remain largely unchanged from a year ago. Can they improve in an area that was exposed by veteran quarterbacks a year ago?
The Packers like to preach "improve from within" when talking about the younger players on their roster. It's starting to look like that mantra extends to the coaching staff as well.
With the NFL Draft only three days away, Packer fans everywhere have visions of new linebackers and defensive backs being added to the roster and making a not-inconsiderable difference right away, most hopefully in the area of pass defense, what with the much-publicized problems Dom Capers' unit had against "veteran quarterbacks" that spread the team out and threw all over the yard last year.
Some new players will help, it's true. But more importantly, Capers having a full offseaon to evaluate the talent on hand and match their talents to what he asks them to do will have just as much, if not more of an impact.
As indicated above, Packer fans can recite by rote the phrase that appears in almost every season recap of the 2009 Green Bay Packers - "they had trouble against teams with savvy veteran quarterbacks that spread the field". This is true of course, but going back and rewatching the season (as I am prone to do) something jumped out at me.
First of all, the problems to come were foreshadowed in the 49er game especially after Al Harris went down. And as far as I know, Alex Smith has never been confused with a "savvy veteran". Now, yes, it's hard to blame Capers for what guys like Jarrett Bush and Brandon Underwood do or don't do well when thrown into the middle of a game and where he is forced to gameplan on the fly knowing what he does about their capabilities. But watching that game again, I was reminded how Capers, at times, could really struggle to find a playcalling rhythm once Harris went out. And it may have affected his ability to recognize what the 49ers were doing.
Let it be known - I agree with Mike Vandermause. (I may as well give up now)
In light of the fact that I completely contradicted myself earlier this week, I went back and watched the three games that McCarthy and Capers are no doubt going to pay the most attention to when reviewing tape this offseason - the second Vikings game, the Steelers game, and the Cardinal playoff game.
And despite the secondary being torched repeatedly in those contests, especially in the playoff game, I'm pretty sure my first take was the correct one - an improved pass rush, namely a compliment to Matthews who can win a one-on-one at the line of scrimmage, will solve a lot of problems the Packers had against Favre, Roethlisberger and Warner.
In looking at the secondary, I fell victim to what I call looking through the "offseason-lens" - where you remember every big play, both good and bad, but forget that there are hundreds of other plays that happened inbetween. Going back and watching the three games in question, you can see the potential in Brandon Underwood. Josh Bell is not nearly the liability that that final pass against Pittsburgh makes you remember him as. Improvement from those two players alone will go a long way in shoring things up on the back end of the defense. And this is even before counting on anything from Al Harris, Will Blackmon or Pat Lee.
I'd like to respond to, if that's the right phrase, Tom Silverstein's assessment of Ted Thompson's approach, or lack thereof, to free agency this offseason. In this morning's Packers Daily Briefing, Silverstein states:
The problem I see with this philosophy is what happens when one of your draft classes isn't any good? There is so much pressure on you to be right in the draft that if you have an off year, it absolutely destroys you. There's no room for error. To me, that's exactly what happened with the 2007 draft class.
DT Justin Harrell, the guy who should have provided the most impact, has offered nothing for two years. RB Brandon Jackson came out of college too early and wasn't ready to be anything more than a spot player. WR James Jones was the bright spot of the draft, but an injury ruined his development last year. S Aaron Rouse and OT Allen Barbre have been disappointments. FB Korey Hall has been solid, LB Desmond Bishop flashed ability last year but clearly wasn't ready to start, K Mason Crosby has had his ups and downs and RB DeShawn Wynn is a developmental player.
If you want to know part of the reason why the Packers were 6-10 last year, there it is.
I would point out that Silverstein has some very conveniently colored (for his argument) assessments of the players in question. With Harrell, of course, he is spot on. With Jackson, however, he is way off. Sure, Jackson was not ready in 2007 - but last year he was the best back on the team. He should have at LEAST made a push for more carries after the Carolina game, if not been handed the starting job outright. But for whatever reason, McCarthy, Philbin and Bennett feel the need to stick with Grant as the featured back. That's not Jackson's or Thompson's fault - that's mishandling the personnel on hand - that's one of the many coaching decisions that produced a 6-10 record. Next he points to James Jones and how his injury 'ruined his development'. Um - so what? It's not like Thompson didn't have a deep stable of receivers at the ready in case of such a development. In fact, I would counter that Thompson's drafting of Jordy Nelson, in the face of a lot of criticism, offset whatever loss was felt from Jones' injury. And on and on...
On today's show, join Andy Herman & Perri Goldstein as they recap the Packers' offseason and hand out their superlatives from firing Joe Barry through finalizing their draft class. You won't want to miss it!
