ORRELSE
Cheesehead
This guy brings up some good points. The biggest I think is one I highlighted in bold. We do this and we win this week. Run it, control the clock and keep the defense off the field. We cannot abandon the run at all costs.
The view of Packer Insider's analyst Eric Baranczyk.
A former player at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and a former college and high school coach, has joined Packer Insider to offer a weekly analysis of the Green Bay Packers. Here is this week's installment. A more complete profile of Baranczyk was posted Sept. 9.
"The whole middle of their offense is 30 or older. Flanagan, Favre, Henderson. Green is 28, but that’s old for a running back. That’s like being 30 at any other position. That’s a lot of pounding that they’ve taken. I think that’s a big thing. They’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of those guys. The center of your offense, from your center through your tailback, that’s where you have to be strong. And if your center and two guards are weak that’s when you’re really in trouble. I’m beginning to think that’s going to be a problem all year. Age is catching up to those guys. They can’t do it forever."
"Flanagan is just not the same guy at the point of attack. When the corps of your offensive line, your center and two guards, is shaky that makes it really hard to run the ball. On Sunday, it looked at times as though Flanagan just got stoned coming off the ball. In the past, he was a guy who’d make a big blast at the end of the pile. He was always leading the way. When you’re not getting push, you’re wheels might be a little weak. Either that or that knee is still hurting him and he can’t push off. His pad level doesn’t seem bad. He just doesn’t seem to be able to drive those guys out of there."
"I think Ahman Green looked tentative. The Green of old hit those holes a little harder. I don’t know if he feels nervous about the blocking or if he’s starting to get up there in years. He has taken an awful lot of hits. He appears to be in tremendous shape. And when you look back at his big games, he always had 24, 25 carries, somewhere in there. He has had only 28 in two games. So he’s not getting the ball. But he doesn’t look like he’s hitting those holes like the Ahman Green of the past. He always exploded through those holes and got the positive yardage. I don’t know what it is, but something is not right."
"At times, Favre looks just disgusted. He looks like he’s jawing at people. But when those players are dropping balls and making drive-killing mistakes, he has all the reason in the world to be frustrated. With like three minutes left in the game before the Browns threw that long pass, he was on the sidelines pumping people up and waving that towel. So it looks like the fire to play is still there. But sometimes he looks so irritated. When you’re playing with guys for a long time, you develop a rapport and you know, ‘If I’m getting flushed in the pocket, this guy is going to do this.’ With the younger guys, when they read a blitz, they might not go where they’re supposed to go. I think that could be one of their problems. At this level, you have to make so many different reads. Then the Browns sat in coverage an awful lot. They didn’t walk that safety up in the box. That makes it doubly hard. Those receivers know that if they’re coming over the middle, the safety is going to be breathing fire. When you’ve got two safeties playing deep, they come up on that across-the-middle stuff and that’s when you see those big hits. Obviously, those teams don’t feel the Packers can run the ball. They’re sitting there in coverage. But the way to beat that is to get in that I-formation and just run the ball, run it down their throat."
"What’s really scary is they have Carnell Williams coming in this week. That front seven has to come off the ball. The defensive line is going to have to come off the ball better than they have. They have to shed blocks. Generally, teams that do what the Packers are doing with their defensive tackles have big, tough nuts. And the offense has to block them with three guys. Plus, shooting gaps is a lot easier than what the Packers are doing: Squeezing the hole. When those defensive tackles are squeezing, they have to read a little more and think a little more about how they’re going to react to the block. And Cadillac isn’t afraid to hit it in there. So if Tampa is going to run inside, those defensive tackles have to maintain the line of scrimmage. If they get pushed back, the linebackers can’t scrape and it creates a logjam. Then, the linebackers not only have to defeat their block, but they have to get around their own defensive linemen to get to the hole to make a play. But if the defensive tackles can maintain the line of scrimmage and stay home, now the linebackers can scrape. And that’s what those linebackers are assigned to do because they’re smaller, faster guys."
The view of Packer Insider's analyst Eric Baranczyk.
A former player at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and a former college and high school coach, has joined Packer Insider to offer a weekly analysis of the Green Bay Packers. Here is this week's installment. A more complete profile of Baranczyk was posted Sept. 9.
"The whole middle of their offense is 30 or older. Flanagan, Favre, Henderson. Green is 28, but that’s old for a running back. That’s like being 30 at any other position. That’s a lot of pounding that they’ve taken. I think that’s a big thing. They’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of those guys. The center of your offense, from your center through your tailback, that’s where you have to be strong. And if your center and two guards are weak that’s when you’re really in trouble. I’m beginning to think that’s going to be a problem all year. Age is catching up to those guys. They can’t do it forever."
"Flanagan is just not the same guy at the point of attack. When the corps of your offensive line, your center and two guards, is shaky that makes it really hard to run the ball. On Sunday, it looked at times as though Flanagan just got stoned coming off the ball. In the past, he was a guy who’d make a big blast at the end of the pile. He was always leading the way. When you’re not getting push, you’re wheels might be a little weak. Either that or that knee is still hurting him and he can’t push off. His pad level doesn’t seem bad. He just doesn’t seem to be able to drive those guys out of there."
"I think Ahman Green looked tentative. The Green of old hit those holes a little harder. I don’t know if he feels nervous about the blocking or if he’s starting to get up there in years. He has taken an awful lot of hits. He appears to be in tremendous shape. And when you look back at his big games, he always had 24, 25 carries, somewhere in there. He has had only 28 in two games. So he’s not getting the ball. But he doesn’t look like he’s hitting those holes like the Ahman Green of the past. He always exploded through those holes and got the positive yardage. I don’t know what it is, but something is not right."
"At times, Favre looks just disgusted. He looks like he’s jawing at people. But when those players are dropping balls and making drive-killing mistakes, he has all the reason in the world to be frustrated. With like three minutes left in the game before the Browns threw that long pass, he was on the sidelines pumping people up and waving that towel. So it looks like the fire to play is still there. But sometimes he looks so irritated. When you’re playing with guys for a long time, you develop a rapport and you know, ‘If I’m getting flushed in the pocket, this guy is going to do this.’ With the younger guys, when they read a blitz, they might not go where they’re supposed to go. I think that could be one of their problems. At this level, you have to make so many different reads. Then the Browns sat in coverage an awful lot. They didn’t walk that safety up in the box. That makes it doubly hard. Those receivers know that if they’re coming over the middle, the safety is going to be breathing fire. When you’ve got two safeties playing deep, they come up on that across-the-middle stuff and that’s when you see those big hits. Obviously, those teams don’t feel the Packers can run the ball. They’re sitting there in coverage. But the way to beat that is to get in that I-formation and just run the ball, run it down their throat."
"What’s really scary is they have Carnell Williams coming in this week. That front seven has to come off the ball. The defensive line is going to have to come off the ball better than they have. They have to shed blocks. Generally, teams that do what the Packers are doing with their defensive tackles have big, tough nuts. And the offense has to block them with three guys. Plus, shooting gaps is a lot easier than what the Packers are doing: Squeezing the hole. When those defensive tackles are squeezing, they have to read a little more and think a little more about how they’re going to react to the block. And Cadillac isn’t afraid to hit it in there. So if Tampa is going to run inside, those defensive tackles have to maintain the line of scrimmage. If they get pushed back, the linebackers can’t scrape and it creates a logjam. Then, the linebackers not only have to defeat their block, but they have to get around their own defensive linemen to get to the hole to make a play. But if the defensive tackles can maintain the line of scrimmage and stay home, now the linebackers can scrape. And that’s what those linebackers are assigned to do because they’re smaller, faster guys."
