Brett had legendary pocket presence, so sack totals really never told how good the O-line was at pass blocking. I don't think our team has exceptional pass blockers, but we're at least above average.
A lot of those sacks have to be on Aaron because he's a young QB. Look at NE....Brady barely got touched in 2007 and Cassell got sacked a bunch. Of course, some blame has to go on the O-line as they were not as good and there were some injuries, but I think most of the blame has to go to the QB.
Almost all young QBs have this issue. Aaron no doubt will become better at getting the ball out faster, finding the hot read, and escaping the pocket.
I really don't consider our team a bad pass blocking unit. That is definitely our strength.
"wils0646" wrote:
Well, if you count the seconds Aaron Rodgers has in the pocket and compare it to our opponents, Aaron Rodgers definitely gets a lot less.
In the beginning of the season, one of my big complaints on Aaron was he didn't get rid of the ball fast enough. By around mid-season, he fixed that. By then, the majority of sacks (the blame) went to our OL, no longer Aaron.
As for Brett in '07, he was best in the league at breaking sacks. You'd see a 300 lb DL guy hit him then go flying and Brett releases the football.
I don't know what happened, but in '08, Brett would go down no matter how soft he got hit. Injury? Being safe? I don't know, but Brett lost that ability.
Aaron on the other hand is a scrambler. He'd try to take off when the pocket collapsed, but often had nowhere to go.
So if we'd compare '07 Brett to '08 Aaron when it comes to not getting sacked, Brett smokes Aaron. But '08 Brett to '08 Aaron, Aaron wins. The Jets OL looked better than ours when it came to pass protection, at least in my opinion and I watched almost all the games. The Jets became my 2nd fave team because Brett is my favorite player ever. (Now I could care less what the Jets do because Brett is gone from them).
Now the Brady vs Cassell comparison should get an asterisk. I got a chance to see a little bit of NE and from the little I saw, I think the '07 OL for NE was way better than the '08 OL. Just my opinion, but that's what it looked like to me. I think the '07 NE OL was top tier but the '08 NE OL was just "good." I couldn't name the players so can't blame anyone, but if you count the seconds Cassell got vs what Brady got...
By the way, +1 to Rockmolder for all the research he did. This thread is very good. Good job everyone.
My man Donald Driver
(thanks to Pack93z for the pic)
2010 will be seen as the beginning of the new Packers dynasty. 🇹🇹 🇲🇲 🇦🇷