I have a pet peeve that goes to this comment under "45. Perillo":
"His blocking remains marginal, but the Packers don’t ask tight ends to do a lot of heavy lifting in the run game."
Two years running McCarthy has had to drag Kuhn off the bench to block in short yardage. And still the short yardage run game performance was pretty bad over the course of last season, and worse without Kuhn. McCarthy prefers single-back, that is evident, but given the failed attempts to implement the H-back concept makes it look like a concession rather than a core preference.
Getting that one or two yards keeps the offense on the field. You get maybe 12 possessions per game. Failing to get 3rd. and 1 in your own territory is a forfeiture of one of those precious opportunities; failing in the opponents territory forfeits the opportunity for 7 vs. 3 points; or a missed FG after getting stuffed is very costly in points and field position. Goal line...not running it in and taking the FG is a serious failure. This is all obvious.
I think McGinn has the chicken and egg in the wrong order. If the Packers don't expect much in the way of their TE run blocking, it's because they've not developed the skill and are poor at it, so they try to work around it. Maybe Cook will prove adequate...Quarless was better than Rodgers or Perillo, and that's not saying much.
Sorry, Bob, but if you put a 7 man line out there to get 1 or 2 yards, with 2 TEs who are sub-standard blockers, you limit yourself to the 1-4 holes. The defense knows this and loads up from OG-to-OG. Things get predictable. The Packers rarely run on 3rd. and 2. Defenses know that as well.
Further, McCarthy has tried a variety of TEs at H-back over the last few years and largely abandoned it. The concept is that these guys are multi-tool players who can at least catch and block, which keeps the defense guessing, as opposed to using a slow footed fullback who doesn't have TE skills. Of course the best of the H-backs, such as Hernandez before he became a murderer, can run the ball as well, really keeping the defense guessing, but that's too much to ask (the performance, not the murder part). McCarthy doesn't use it much, despite some considerable effort, because these guys have not been good run blockers and he's had to turn to Plan B (single back, with conventional in-line TEs or Plan C with his FB.
At least a poor blocking TE is less likely to whiff on his guy than an H-back who has to read the hole and find the right guy to hit which is what an accomplished FB can do, but the FB's presence makes things more predictable.
I don't think we can assess the Packers O-Line as ordinary or less in the run game without attributing some part of that to lousy TE blocking and some of the aforementioned predictability that comes with it.