I don't think the doom or gloom is coming from any pre-season game. I think it's coming from how the team played last year.
"Greg C." wrote:
You mean when they were second in the league in total defense, first in run defense, and fifth in pass defense, including a respectable 11th in sacks? Yes, they beat up on some bad teams and played poorly in four games against elite QB's, but no matter how you slice it, this was a darn good defense last year and there are reasons to believe they could be even better this year (hopefully more health in the secondary, stability at the safety position, and improvement of the young OLBs, to name a few).
I remember in 1995/1996, it would be late in the game. And it was like Reggie White would look at Sean Jones and say, "First one to the quarterback wins." And sure enough, a sack or two at the perfect time. It was like you knew the D was going to come through.
"Zero2Cool" wrote:
Maybe that's the way it seems when we look back on it, but that's not the way it was. What happened when the 1995 Packers ran into the elite offense of the Dallas Cowboys in the '95 playoffs? They got their asses kicked, that's what. They collapsed in the fourth quarter and gave up a total of 38 points. The next year they had the best defense in the league, with only a couple of lineup changes, and they won the Super Bowl.
As for Matthews and Jones, I don't care HOW they get to the QB as long as they get to the QB. A sack is a sack, whether it's a speed rush or a bull rush, and typically OLB's, being much smaller than OT's, rely mostly on speed to get to the QB.
"Wade" wrote: