cara murphy
Cheesehead
The Packers have a good mix of youth and experience on the defensive line.
http://pack.rs/1emsr
http://pack.rs/1emsr
you are right.Youth and experience don't mean much if you can't control the LOS.
What people don't understand about Peppers is he doesn't have to play at a Peppers level to be an improvement.
What people don't understand about Peppers is he doesn't have to play at a Peppers level to be an improvement. Occasionally he will show massive upside, but his age will show as well. It's more about general consistent play and the potential to threaten the qb.
I think a couple of things portend well for our defensive front this year.
1) The addition of Peppers gives us a dimension of size and ability we haven't had since Reggie White. Granted he is 34, and isn't what he once was, but Peppers is a stud football player. He needs to have his snaps measured out, but if he is handled correctly both in terms of snap count and how he is used - he could be a huge boost for our defense.
2) The subtraction of both Pickett and Jolly. I love both of those guys as players in a 3-4, but we haven't played a 3-4 for at least the last 3 years - we've been playing the 2-4 predominantly, and have only been playing base 3-4 about 20% of the time.
This, combined with the fact that Capers used Pickett and Raji in a "jumbo nickel" was a disaster for our defense - not b/c of the players themselves, but b/c of how they were used. With Pickett and Jolly gone, Capers really can't play that idiotic "jumbo nickel", and will necessarily have to go to a more mobile, diverse, multiple look front in nickel situations - that can only help.
It will necessitate that the young DL talent that TT has brought in will be on the field in those situations - either in a 3-3 look, or if Capers can't tear himself away from the 2-4, at least it will have Peppers at OLB which would be close to matching how the Niners run it with Aldon Smith.
The downside to running the 2-4 that way would be that Hawk and Brad Jones would still be on the field full time, but at least we'd be much more athletic and mobile in front of them.
What people don't understand about Peppers is he doesn't have to play at a Peppers level to be an improvement. Occasionally he will show massive upside, but his age will show as well. It's more about general consistent play and the potential to threaten the qb.
Couple of things:
1) It won't really be that hard to improve on last year's dline
2) While everyone is focused on how well Peppers performs or if Jones can make a jump in his second season, I think the real key to this year's dline will be the performance of Raji at NT. If Raji can, contrary to his career thus far, play well at NT then this dline should be pretty good. If he continues to get shoved around one-on-one, then it won't matter how much pressure the team brings in the pass rush, team's will just run up the middle all day because we don't have the inside linebackers to compensate for a weak NT.
It's weird, but for me the two biggest question marks on the team this year are the two guys playing the center of the line on either side of the ball.
I really think the biggest question is if Clinton-Dix can come in and kill it at safety position.
If our NT stinks the safeties won't matter. If teams can get 5 yards per carry on the ground, the safety play isn't really going to mean much. Also, people seem to expect HaHa to come in and know the defense inside-and-out, that's not really too realistic. It may well happen, but it wouldn't be surprising to see Hyde as the starter at the beginning of the year.
We only played a 3-4 about 20% of the time over the past few years - so we didn't have anybody playing NT most of the time anyway.
In Capers "jumbo nickel", he had Pickett and Raji lined up as DT's, not on the nose.
If we are going to play nickel 75-80% of the time, then stopping the run isn't going to be determined by how Raji performs at NT, it will be more dependent upon how Capers uses the DL in the nickel. Playing the "jumbo nickel" was a disaster the way Capers has played it.
Given that we no longer have Pickett, I would expect that Capers will necessarily have to play more 3-3. If all Capers does is substitute Boyd for Pickett in continuing to play the "jumbo nickel", then I would expect our pathetic run defense to remain pathetic.
We simply don't have the talent at ILB to get away with playing the "jumbo nickel" the way Capers plays it.
I still like Raji as a player; granted, he underperformed last year, but that was a much Capers fault as anything else.
If Raji can, contrary to his career thus far, play well at NT then this dline should be pretty good.
I am curious if that 20% was played primarily on first down or short yardage situations such as 2 and 4. If so, I think the nose tackle situation is very important. If you can hold teams on first down it really increases your chances of getting off the field.
I don't know. I've heard so many different things from 1-3-7 psycho package this year to running less scheme's. I suppose we will just have to wait and see. Bottom line is Capers has the pieces on the D-line and with Peppers added he needs to figure it out.
Where we usually got gashed in the run game was when we were in the nickel. If we were in the 3-4, we were pretty good against the run - witness the Forty-Niner games where we played the 3-4 more often.
Geez, stop blaming not playing more base defense for the poor run defense. Take a look at the Eagles last drive vs. the Packers in which they killed 9:32 minutes off the clock running the ball vs. our base defense.
The scheme wasn't the problem, it was the talent level on defense.
Geez, stop blaming not playing more base defense for the poor run defense. Take a look at the Eagles last drive vs. the Packers in which they killed 9:32 minutes off the clock running the ball vs. our base defense.
The scheme wasn't the problem, it was the talent level on defense.