It may be too soon to panic, but I was really disappointed by their performance last week, both the starters and 2+ stringers.

I understand that the starters held the Cardinals to 10 points, but we greatly benefited from turnovers... Turnovers are great, but I'm still quite wary when a team is able to run the ball and shred the secondary like they did. Without those turnovers I guarantee you they would have scored 24 in the first half.

I don't think there's much to be said about the second half... We all know how bad that went. All in all, I'm very hesitant to just let the first half go by without any serious questions and just say "Oh, we'll get a turnover every third drive". It's like your ace walking the first batter and saying that he'll just produce a double-play. Not unlikely, but not something to bank on.

Defensive Goals for Preseason Week 4:
1. Better coverage. Want to see more passes knocked down, more routes disrupted.
2. More consistent pressure on the quarterback. If you're sending 3 of your linebackers, maybe even a corner in on a blitz, you'd damn well better hurry the quarterback.

The Packers dominated the game. What the second stringers do is irrelevant because they don't play. As long as the defense is even average, the team will be pretty good this year.

Fitzgerald made some plays, but he also made some plays against the No. 1 defense in the league in the Super Bowl so that was to be expected.

Beyond that Green Bay controlled that game. They gave up two good runs, but they weren't gashed and they held the Cardinals in check in the redzone one time which was a key.

I don't know if this is just nitpicking or what, but you can't find much not to like about what GB has done this preseason. That doesn't mean much come the regular season, but everyone should be encouraged by what they saw. If not, then why bother watching games in August anyways.

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I'm going to break the first half down play by play. My source is the Game Stats from packers.com...
http://packers.com/images/gamebooks/090828gamebook.pdf 


My summary is up here. The starters had 3 very good series, and 3 terrible series where they couldn't seem to stop anything. That is my concern, the frequent long runs, 10-20 yard passes in droves, very few incompletions/sacks. Again, not saying that it's panic time, but I'm not going to give anybody but Woodson a pat on the back here.

1st Possession (starting at AZ20): 1 yard run. 8 yard run. 13 yard pass. 9 yard pass to GB49, Fumble recovered by green bay. Overall wasn't terrible but I wouldn't be surprised if at that pace the Cardinals could have at least gotten the yardage for a field goal.

2nd Possession (starting at AZ20): 18 yard pass. 5 yard run. 23 yard run to GB 34. Incomplete pass, first of the game. 1 yard run. 27 yard pass (believe that was a screen) to GB6. Run for no gain. Sack, fumble, GB recovers. Probably would have gotten a touchdown, at the very least a fieldgoal.

3rd Possession (starting at AZ16): 11 yard run. 13 yard pass. 5 yard run. Incomplete pass. Illegal formation. 7 yard pass to AZ47. Offensive pass interference. Sack, fumble, TD by Green Bay. Arizona was going to punt here.

4th Possession (starting at AZ30): 2 yard run. 15 yard pass. Incomplete pass. Incomplete pass. 27 yard pass to GB 26. False start. 11 yard pass. 20 yard run, touchdown.

5th Possession (starting at AZ20): 2 yard run. 4 yard pass. Incomplete pass. Punt.

6th Possession (starting at AZ20): Incomplete pass. Interception

They kicked a field goal. Williams was out of bounce before he had possession. They held them to a field goal which is very good especially going against that offense.

If you hold an offense like Arizona's to 20 points which GB's pace was, you're in good shape.

They aren't going to force three and outs every single time. They'll give up yards and they'll be gashed. All defenses are, but they played well. You can go through all the scenarios and say this could've happen, but it didn't happen. You can make the arguement that GB could've forced a turnover later on or forced a punt. That didn't happen, but what happened happened and it's encouraging. It really is.

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I'm about to go to bed for the night, before I do that I want to be sure I'm making myself clear... I don't want to come off as unduly critical and unappreciative of what our defense has accomplished. I really don't. The purpose of this thread was to play the devil's advocate.

My concern is that this season will be reminiscent of the Brewers... Out to a hot start, starting pitching performing exceptionally well... Ignoring some of the nagging problems, like these pitchers that are doing so well (Bush, Parra, Soup... McClung and Charlie V as well), people fawning over Looper over his wins and ignoring run support...

The fact of the matter is, people get injured and people go through periods of time where they're not playing 100%. At 100%, I'm sure our defense will be awesome. I just want to see some of the underperformers step up and some of the problems fixed, so that if someone goes down or starts underperforming, someone else can pick up the slack.

Goodnight, go Pack, see you guys tomorrow.

Look this defense is the most high reward defense system in the NFL. They comes with the the most high risk as well. Because of the risk of course the defense is gonna give up big plays once in a while when there is a smart QB in there.....


Also the Cards may have the deepest WR group in the NFL. I know I know Packers fans like to think they do.... but honestly look at the Cards WR... they're better... sorry... but they are the best group of WR in the NFL ( IMO ). With one of smartest QBs in the NFL who's seen it all including played there last 4 games against 3-4 Ds which two of them were against the Steelers which are the masters of this defense.


Yeah I'm worried a little bit because the wrong plays called at the wrong time by Capers could kill the defense but the right plays at the right time can kill the other teams office too....

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