“We wanted to operate at a lower volume of scheme,” McCarthy said of scheme evaluation his staff did following last season. “We went after scheme evaluation with the focus of doing less. We’ve learned the harsh lesson (in recent years) about playing players that weren’t ready in terms of scheme.”
- Packers.com

When I heard this during the interview today I let out a huge sigh of relief. Better late than never right?

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Yeah, they now have the players to pull off what they want, and simplifying should make this defense a lot better. Dom finally has what he needs, and he's bringing it back in. Good. Let these players do the talking instead of the scheme.

He's been saying the same thing for a few months now. What that really means may be hard for most of us to figure.

That tells me they believe they have the right players doing the wrong things.

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Yet for some reason, we still have that same defensive staff who failed to have them ready.

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Well a lot of coach's talk over this past off-season could have been seen as him putting the defensive staff on notice. There were a few articles online that mentioned that assumption.

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I am kind of reading this as The Packers are simplifying the defense in case the injury bug hits the D, if it does, they will be able to plug guys in who won't be lost because of a complicated scheme.

Could be completely wrong, but that's my take on the statement.

K.I.S.S. method, anybody ever heard of it?

I have a feeling McCarthy had a very direct and pointed conversation with Capers that probably covered every aspect of defense. Personnel, player utilization, concepts, schemes, I mean all of it.

I think he looked at players running around in La La land and guys like Hyde spending far to much time on the sidelines.

I believe he saw enough of players like Raji floundering around at positions where they are just not very good.

I also think he saw enough of young players without a lot of experience filling in for injured regulars that were in just way to over their heads scheme wise to be successful.

"Dom, guys get hurt. Young guys will have to come in and do a job. Don't give them 5 different possible responsibilities depending on what happens when the ball is snapped."

I think the D can be a lot more aggressive if it maybe has a little less on it's plate to think about and am guessing McCarthy made this clear to the Dom.







I

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I don't think they did what they did last season just to be cute. They played a lot of complex schemes out of necessity based on personnel. I also like the fact that McCarthy talks about keeping things simpler, but the reason I like it is because it tends to confirm what most of us are expecting: greatly upgraded personnel on D. I'm sure we will still see Capers being Capers if/when it is needed to make a play.

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I think the opposite might be true. They probably had a lot of packages that would use the skill sets of the personnel they had and the injuries took that away.

Leaving them with nothing but a base D that was predictable.

I could see them going with some more packages this year just because they are healthy. The key might be getting every body up to speed on the packages and not having them tailored to just a couple players' skills. Because if you lose that player, your whole package is shot.

Even losing another player and having to fill in a hole in a different position. Taking him out of the role you designed for him. Like when Neal was forced to fill in at linebacker instead of being a hybrid DL/OLB player like Tony Brackens that was unpredictable. Also giving them the ability to go in and out of the Psycho without substitution.

With the addition of Peppers, I can see them going to more packages instead of less. I don't see them lining up in a basic 4-3 and have the clearly defined roles that everyone lines up in every time.

But I could be wrong. I have been wrong before.

Just ask my wife.

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yeah a system where you have to possibly leave better players on the bench because it takes 2 years for them to learn it all doesn't really mesh well with a draft and replace philosophy.