OFFICIAL DEFENSIVE ISSUES THREAD

GreenBlood

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Bottom line is the league is entirely different than it was 10 years ago. The main thing to remember is that we are 15-1 and 12th in scoring defense. Yards alone are a poor measure of a defense anyway. Scoring, sacks and takeaways are much more important.
 

RustyShackleford

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The fact that the defense is so much worse than last years is really shocking to me. True, they lost Jenkins and Collins early, but in addition to changes in personnel a large factor is the progress or regression of the other players. With all the young talent on the team last year, I expected overall improvement. However, other than Bishop I don't think any of the young players on defense have gotten any better, and many have gotten worse. Just baffling to me.
 

Fazeman

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2009: 7th in points surrendered at 18.6/game; First in INTs at 30; 10 fumbles recovered for a total of 40 TOs. OQBR: 6th at 74.9.

2010: 2nd in points surrendered at 15.0/game; Second in INTs at 25; 8 fumbles recovered for a total of 33 TOs. OQBR: 2nd at 67.3.

2011: 19th in points surrendered at 22.4/game; First in INTs at 31; 7 fumbles recovered for a total of 38 TOs. OQBR: 9th at 80.5.

All the stats came from nfl.com except for opponent's QB rating (OQBR) came from teamrankings.com. LINK

All the numbers except INTs are worse this season than in the two previous ones. In 3 seasons Capers' defenses have forced 111 turnovers in 48 regular season games. That's over 2 TOs per game and his Ds have met that mark each season. No matter how many yards they surrender, if they can take the ball away twice in each playoff game I don't think any team can beat them. (Yes, I know it's a big IF.) One last thought on this: I think we all agree the pass rush this year is the worst it's been under Capers. I am of the opinion that Shields and Williams haven't played this year as well as they did last year. Obviously Collins is/was their most talented safety and they miss him a lot. If all of that is true, why are the INTs up this season from the previous two? After careful scrutiny and a lot of thought I've come to this conclusion: I don't know.

Our offense has really stepped up the average points per game this year with 35 Pts/G as compared to 2009 (28.8) and 2010 (24.2). So, while the defense has increased points surrendered with 22.4 Pts/G, it's comforting to know that opponents have to score in the 30s to make it a game. And when it becomes a game like it was against Detroit, the Packers' defense caused two fumbles and two interceptions. This negated any yards gained by Detroit and ultimately gave our offense four more chances to score. Based on the Int/Fum stats you provided, I also take comfort in the defense because they have a proven track record of success in this catagory.
 

longtimefan

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Since two new D threads or more have happened in last 12 hours, this is being bumped and and made into a sticky
 

Croak

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There are a lot of posts on this defense. There are a lot of different things mentioned that contribute to the ranking of the defense. Yet I think it is pretty much agreed that it's a mystery how this defense slipped so far so fast. If I was a sports writer that would be the angle I would take. "The Packers Mystery D". Many of you folks make good observations, losing one or two guys shouldn't make a D drop like a rock. Something's happenin' here, but what it is ain't exactly clear....
 

brett2520

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The solution cannot be fixed this year, plain and simple. I think there is one issue only. NO PASS RUSH (opposite Clay). We are blitzing all kinds of players (even DBs) and still getting nothing. Until we get a real bonified pass rush, from an OLB and DEs, the secondary will have to take their lumps. Plus I truly think we miss Nick Collins more than we realize. He was a beast and hopefully he can recover.
 

TJV

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IMO until the NFL uses total yards to decide which team wins the game, the Packers are not 32nd in defense. They've been bad enough, no reason to exaggerate how poorly they've played at times.
The secondary of this defense is what any defensive coordinator would dream of having, if they had a missing link..
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this but here are a couple of quotes from a story I linked to earlier in this thread after game 12, the win at the NY Giants: LINK
The most frustrating part for Capers is that many of them are coming on the same routes, which means that opponents are seeing what other teams are doing to the Packers and repeating it over and over again. For some reason, Capers can't get the entire unit to both react to it and defend it. Which is exactly why Capers can't understand why his secondary can't defend a post route it keeps seeing over and over again. Most of the time, the defender has been cornerback Tramon Williams, who a year ago almost never gave up big plays. But the opposition has seen a disconnect between him and safeties Morgan Burnett and Charlie Peprah with that route and Williams keeps getting beat on it. It happened on the 51-yarder to Hakeem Nicks and the 42-yarder to Victor Cruz on Sunday.
If the issue is that Williams and the safeties aren't communicating as well as Williams did with injured Nick Collins, then it's probably not going to get much better, because Collins has been out for two months. If they haven't solved the problem by now, it seems unlikely they'll solve it anytime soon.
No team gets a even a good rush on the QB every passing play so while a better pass rush would lessen the number of times opponents hit a long post route, it wouldn't eliminate it: IOW the secondary isn't playing consistently well either. Like every Packers fan I would have loved to see a secondary of Woodson, Collins, Burnett, Williams, and Shields. Burnett hasn't improved as much as I had hoped but with Collins healthy and Burnett substituting for Peprah would have been a lot of fun to watch - even with this season's pass rush.


BTW, kudos to Croak for sneaking in the Buffalo Springfield lyric!
 
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I remember watching the Raiders vs Packers game on CBS and Phil Simms made an observation that the Packers D likes to take chances and sometimes when you gamble, you lose which could account for why they have been giving up big plays of 20 yards or more. However, against the Lions on Thanksgiving and against the Falcons, they were very good. I don't really want to comment too much until I know for sure which team the Pack will be playing next Sunday.
 

ivo610

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I blame ESPN. I blame sound bites. I blame fans for not thinking for themselves.

The past few weeks I have seen many posters on here refer to our defense as the worst in the league. Its not. Not even close. I understand the simpletons on the Saints forum calling it the worst defense but Packer fans? Come on guys.

We are 9th in opponent passer rating. Not outstanding but not terrible. In fact we are way ahead of the Saints and the Giants. For some reason (ESPN) we have been driven to focus on yardage this season without giving or taking away its value. Teams are racking up garbage yards. We lead the league in INTs. Does anyone have a serious argument for why the Packers are the worst defense in the league? BC they are not. We have issues, we have holes, we have gaps in our defense. But we arent the worst. Far from it.

I can promise you the rankings and numbers would look even better if you exclude the last game of the season when we sat 2 of 3 best defensive players.
 

Brandon

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I agree with you 100%. The fact that we give up so many passing yards is completely meaningless for the most part, because in most of these games that I've watched the Packers will have a substantial lead and then play a soft coverage that allows for a ton of underneath yards. I think there's only been maybe 5 games this whole year where the defense actually played bad, last week including.. although we didn't have woodson and matthews out there who by themselves can be game changers.

Like you pointed out we lead the league in interceptions (I think turnovers too? Maybe the 49ers have that right now, not sure) and when you have a defense that can take the ball away and give it back to Rodgers on average of 2x per game, then THAT is why we are where we are right now. Garbage yards and garbage points don't matter in this league. I mean hell, we just let a guy throw for 500+ yards and 5 TD's and we STILL won the damn game.. why should our defense scare us?

What I will say about out defense is that I sincerely hope we find a pass rush in the playoffs, I've been extremely disappointed in our d-line and have not seen very much pressure like we constantly got last year. I attribute out front 4 more to the passing yards given up than I do our secondary who have more interceptions than any team.
 

Bogart

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32nd ranked defense overall, I don't think numbers lie one bit.

Even if 3 guys on defense weren't sitting out against Detroit, Stafford still throws 500 yards if Newton, Brees, Rivers, and the others could put 400 up easily on this defense.
 

Brandon

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I'm still hoping for Packers and Patriots super bowl. If Stafford and Flynn put up those types of numbers last week, imagine what Brady and Rodgers will do to each others' defense!
 

Jordyruns

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If by worst D you mean worst pass rushing d (especially without matthews) I could not agree more. It has been pathetic to put it lightly. Our pass rush could be the worst in the league. The run D is respectable imo. Not the worst out there but by no means is it a strength.

As was stated though the strength of this D is the takeaways. Who cares if your QB leads you on a 80 yard drive if in teh end you end up with 0 points because your QB throws an INT. Even if he doesn't throw and INT the Packers are pretty good at coming through when you need them to, so like a 1st and goal for instance. You drove 80 yards to get 3 points, now the packers drive 85 yards and get a TD. The yards are similar but the score is not. Yards can be very misleading in terms of who wins. The best indicator is red zone efficiency and turnovers which is the strength of the Packers D.

Don't get me wrong I am still scared of this D, it is not good, but is it a D that could be on a SB winning team, yes. To the Saints fans, the saints D when they won was known for their turnover margin. It was not a very good Defense by the traditional stance but they could force the turnover which as has been stated is a winning model for any D.
 

Powarun

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our defense is so bad that we lost 1 game.

OMG you mean we lost one whole game out of 16, like isn't that bad? I think our defense brought the bend but not break policy a little too far but they are pretty darn good at creating turnovers. The whole let our offense create a lead then make the opposing offense throw with a lesser QB and a D that thrives off turnovers was an experiment that worked out pretty well this year in the wins department.
 

TJV

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32nd ranked defense overall, I don't think numbers lie one bit.

Two points:
1. Bogart, when you look at the scoreboard are points or yards displayed?
2. Doesn't this thread belong in the Defensive Issues thread?
 

98Redbird

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Here’s the deal with why people are losing their minds over our defense. Yes, it’s ranked dead last in passing yards. We are 19th in scoring defense. Listen people, all that matters is scoring defense. You don’t win a game because you put up 6,000 yards like you can against this defense. What frustrates people and I’ll admit it frustrates me too, is that teams (ALL TEAMS) seem to move the ball down the field on us with ease. Every 20, 30 and 40+ yard completion makes me want to kill someone, and that angers us as fans. But what we overlook is that teams don’t always score against us. They do quite a bit as evidenced by our 19 ranking in scoring defense. But we aren’t the worst defense in the league. We’re not good, but we aren’t the worst. Regardless, every team in the playoffs has the ability to torch our defense, for yards AND points. If we go back to the superbowl, we are going to do it on the right arm of Aaron Rodgers and the hope of winning the turnover differential. We aren’t going to do it because we shut a team down defensively. We haven’t done it all year, we aren’t going to start now.
 

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The worst defense in the league? No I don't think so. But there are some things the defense must do better. yes, they are great at getting INTs, but when you are going against playoff-caliber teams they tend to make less mistakes and you can't count on getting the TO. Packer defense has not been good at stopping opposing teams on 3rd downs. That means the other team's offense is on the field longer and they get into scoring position more. Less chances for Rodgers and co. to win the game. You just can't ignore that.
 

Unomee

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If you look at stats then yes, this D is the worst, but those are yards. If you look at points allowed that is not the case and the Pack is comparable in that category with the other playoff teams in the NFC except SF.
 

GreenBlood

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32nd ranked defense overall, I don't think numbers lie one bit.

So tell me Bogey. Why is it that yards seems to be the only defensive statistic that matters to you? You probably actually think the Saints have a better pass defense because they have given up 30 fewer yards per game, don't you?
 

GreenBlood

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Which makes you wonder about the argument "Defense wins Championships!"

Not anymore. The NFL has crippled the ability to play pass defense. If you look around, the teams with good passing defense tend to be the teams who primarily have rushing offenses that chew up the clock.
 

ivo610

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32nd ranked defense overall, I don't think numbers lie one bit.

Even if 3 guys on defense weren't sitting out against Detroit, Stafford still throws 500 yards if Newton, Brees, Rivers, and the others could put 400 up easily on this defense.
espn brainwashing tells you that defenses are ranked by yards. I'd rather see people rank teams by more of a legit indicator
 

TJV

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It looks to me like the 2005 Packers D was 7th in yards surrendered but tied for 19th in points surrendered during that regular season, so longtimefan's point still stands. BTW, the Packers were tied for 26th in INTs with 10. They recovered 11 fumbles for a total of 21 TOs.
 

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