I think he has played average at best, and often very below average. Playing well at times and really bad at others = average, imo. Rodgers has covered up a lot of his mistakes. If the Packers didn't have such a shifty mobile quarterback, Newhouse would be in everyone's dog house. Fortunately, the Packers DO have a mobile quarterback, but that still doesn't excuse giving up so many pressures. To be fair, I would like to see more chips to give him some help, but that doesn't seem to happen too often.
I understand we can't have elite players at every position, but Newhouse needs to step up. Bulaga played a good game, but Newhouse didn't. I expect Bulaga to play well. At this point, I expect Newhouse to be serviceable at best, which is unfortunate.
Originally Posted by: doddpower
Pretty interesting observations by Bob McGinn on our OL play Sunday:
"This might have been Bryan Bulaga's best performance of the season. Matched against a fine end in Chris Long, Bulaga didn't have any of the 11 "bad" runs and allowed just one-half of a pressure. "Bryan played a good game," Long said Sunday. "I just never got in a rhythm." Credit Bulaga for taking away Long's bull rush, his up-field charges and his inside move. Bulaga was penalized for pancaking Long inside, but that was a lousy call. The other tackle, Marshall Newhouse, actually was fairly solid in the run game. However, he had major problems in pass protection, giving up 1½ sacks, 2½ knockdowns and one hurry to Quinn. On the Packers' second snap, Newhouse took a poor set, turned his body, had to cross over and Quinn blew around him. Jeff Saturday did a good job as a pass blocker and sorted out traffic. He also had the presence of mind to make the shotgun snap when Rodgers' cadence caught the Rams offside three times. However, Saturday was unable to make reach blocks on rookie DT Michael Brockers two or three times and was displaced by DT Kendall Langford on another "bad" run. At least Saturday was efficient in protection, but neither T.J. Lang nor Josh Sitton fared well in either phase. Lang was bull-rushed by Brockers for a sack in 2.9 seconds and bull-rushed by 339-backup Kellen Heard for one hurry and beat by Quinn for another. Like Saturday, Lang was responsible for 2½ "bad" runs. He was shoved by Brockers on a run for minus-2 and didn't get the job done pulling on two carries. Sitton, who yielded two half pressures and 1½ "bad" runs, pulled ineffectively on one stutter play and was late getting off to MLB James Laurinaitis on a zone run. In general, aggressiveness and downfield hustle was in short supply."
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/packers-passing-game-overwhelms-rams-q17ae6g-175347861.html I will say this, Quinn (#14 overall 2011), Brockers (#14 overall 2012), and Long (#2 overall 2008), are all 1st Round picks who are pretty much beasts. Kendall Langford is no slouch either at 6-6 300. I think this STL DL is up and coming, and I thought we did OK against them in pass blocking. I was most disappointed in our run blocking, which I thought sucked. I think McCarthy was pointing to that in his post game presser, without calling those boys out.
All the more reason IMO to run more, and more, and more. Get this group used to pounding the ball on the ground.