Packers Daily Briefing 06.10.10 OTA practice
By Lori Nickel of the Journal Sentinel
Jun. 10, 2009
Good afternoon. This is your Packers Daily Briefing for Wednesday, June 10
THE UPDATE (3:15 p.m.):
Green Bay -- Hi everyone! Not too bad for an OTA practice in June. The two hours featured plays on both sides of the ball, with the offense clearly trying to take shots downfield and the defense making what would seem to be improvement with each day that passes.
In 11-on-11 play against the first team defense against the first team offense, quarterback Aaron Rodgers took a shot deep quite often. He completed 3-3 passes on the first drive including a home run shot of 30 yards in the air and more on the ground for a sure touchdown to James Jones. On the next drive, however, Rodgers was sacked and then drew a flag for a false start. Rodgers made up for it with a missile to Donald Driver over Charles Woodson who smartly didnt lay out for that play.
On another drive, once again Rodgers found a wide open Jones on the right sideline.
That hookup wasnt always there, though, as on the next drive Jones tumbled with safety Anthony Smith and corner Tramon Williams as the ball fell incomplete.
On another team drive, Jermichael Finley hauled in a relatively weak pass from Rodgers to make an impressive gain. But pass but two plays later, linebacker Brandon Chillar stepped right up in the passing lane and batted down Rodgers throw, all while holding on for the interception.
In this 3-4 defense it seems like there are linebackers everywhere. Driver found a cluttered middle a couple of times on his crossing routes.
In the secondary, Woodson also stepped in to shadow Ruvell Martin on a deep play that fell apart.
Overall Rodgers was 12 for 17 but he also seemed to face a lot more pressure than last week. If this would have been real pads tackle football, Rodgers would have been sacked three times.
Running back Ryan Grant got a few handoffs and there werent many for the backs today and looked OK. Its really hard to tell in these hands-off kind of practices. The best runs might have come from second and third teamers like Kregg Lumpkin who skipped upfield decisively. I mean he was just, pick it up, read, go and gone. Another was from Tyrell Sutton, who is back after missing the OTAs because Northwestern was still in session. When he met the defensive wall on one run he did a complete 360 to cut the other way and pick up a few more yards.
For the non starters, again receiver Brett Swain made some nice catches. Aaron Kampman looked a lot better than the one practice reporters got to see last week, giving tackle Allen Barbre a good push and driving him back a few steps this time. If youre one of those pure football fans who doesnt just watch the skill positions and who likes to watch the game unfold in the trenches, that might be the most interesting matchup to watch this summer, the battle between Kampman at left outside linebacker and Barbre in the spot Mark Tauscher held down solidly for eight years.
As for attendance, safety Nick Collins was not here. Neither was Jake Allen, Lorne Sam, Brandon Underwood or Travis Dekker.
Many thanks to Rick Braun, who helped with JS coverage of practice today. He kept tabs on the defense and has many other tidbits:
Week 3 of the Green Bay Packers organized team activities, and the installation of the new 3-4 defense is rolling along.
Well, at times its rolling along.
I like what I see, Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. I like what I see in the meeting environment, from the players. That feels very important.
Ive always felt that way as a position coach and even as a coordinator, that the communication cant just be the one coach at the front of the room. So theres a lot of communication and a lot of interaction.
At other times things hit a snag or two.
I talked to the team about this today, McCarthy said. When we talk about mental errors, I think you can put them into two types of categories: We break mental errors down as far as I view them as missed assignments or focus errors.
Its very normal at this time of year for any NFL team particularly if you go through a change, that your mental errors are very high going through your offseason program. Thats normal, because you have new players and you may have some veteran players that have not been there as much in March, April and May. So you have different players on different levels as far as their comfort zone of what theyre being asked to do.
With that being said, missed assignments are really the responsibility of the coach and the player. The coach has to get the players on the same page. We dont take the attitude that if a player makes an error out there on the field, then, Heck, I showed him that two times. He should have that. It doesnt work that way.
Good coaches make sure that their players know exactly what they need to do, and thats the phase were in right now.
In other words, its still very much a work in progress.
Its a scheme that is definitely challenging our defensive players because its more volume schematically, McCarthy said. Theres more communication involved.
Wednesday marked the ninth Organized Team Activity practice and the third one that was open to reporter, along with fans gathered outside the fences at Clark Hinkle Field.
With linebackers Nick Barnett and first-round pick Clay Mathews and safeties Atari Bigby sidelined recovering from injuries and safety Nick Collins not in attendance because hes unhappy with his contract, the No. 1 defense generally was as follows:
Johnny Jolly and rookie B.J. Raji at ends; Ryan Pickett at nose tackle; A.J. Hawk and Brandon Chillar as inside linebackers, Aaron Kampman and Jeremy Thompson as outside linebackers; Al Harris and Charles Woodson at the corners; and Aaron Rouse and Anthony Smith at the safeties.
One trait of the new defense that became apparent is that nearly every nickel or dime package involves just two down linemen who put their hand on the ground.
In most cases with the No. 1 defense, those two were rookie B.J. Raji and veteran Johnny Jolly, with nose tackle Ryan Pickett coming off the field and being replaced by a defensive back.
In effect, it becomes a 2-4-5 defense, with two of the four linebackers and maybe a third linebacker or a defensive back also likely to rush. The question the offense has to answer is Which two?
What it gives you is more flexibility, McCarthy said. When you identify that, (it becomes) Is the guy rushing or is he dropping. So its the uncertainty of that position as far as the alignment. It gives that particular individual the defensive end if its a four-man line, or the outside linebacker the opportunity to play with more vision as far as what the offense is giving you with formations and motions and things like that.
So it basically plays into the base concept of the defense youre not really sure who the fourth rusher is.
Two cut: While meeting with reporters, McCarthy acknowledged that the Packers had cut rookie punter Adam Graessle and first-year nose tackle Brian Soi.
Graessle was the third punter in camp. Incumbent Jeremy Kapinos and Durant Brooks are the two remaining in camp.
Ill tell you what, he was clearly the strongest leg of the three, Ill say that about him, McCarthy said of Graessle. Hes a young man that needs to keep chasing the dream. He did a nice job when he was here, but were getting to the point I think all the teams are in the NFL where the numbers are evident what youre going to do with certain players, and it was hard to go forward with three punters.