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Week 8 (@ New York Jets):

Let me begin by saying THANK YOU ANTHONY SMITH. I don't know why I never bothered to take note of which player made the tackle on the fake punt the first time around, but it was Killswitch who oddly enough was released supposedly because of his lack of desire to play teams. His first down saving tackle changed the complexion of the game early on.

I loved watching every defensive snap again after they pitched a wonderful shutout. Key players made key plays at the right time and it was quite a treat seeing our defensive linemen fresh this week. Big props to Howard Green for really contributing big time. I'm excited to get Pickett back and bring in a front of Raji-Pickett-Green in our goal line package. Replacing Lang with Pickett may give us one of the more formidable fronts in the league and our linebackers already do a great job of shooting the gap. Anyways, onto the secondary.


My Coverage Player of the Week:
Week 1: Tramon Williams
Week 2: Sam Shields
Week 3: Nick Collins
Week 4: Charles Woodson
Week 5: Tramon Williams
Week 6: Nick Collins
Week 7: Nick Collins
Week 8: Charles Woodson

Hello reigning Defensive Player of the Year, welcome back to the team! Prior to this week, my favorite Packers play of the year was the wonderfully executed screen pass to Brandon Jackson with one helluva sustained block by Greg Jennings last week versus Minnesota. That one may have been surpassed by Woodson's pick this week. When you look at the coverage, it sure looks like straight man with Collins and Peprah splitting the field over the top. A typical Cover 2 Man coverage. On the defensive right side of the field, Shields has Edwards on the outside, Woodson lined up over Cotchery in the slot, and Bishop lined up over Keller. Hawk has LaDainian Tomlinson who has a blocking assignment in case of a blitz and a short route otherwise. Tramon is the lone corner the other side matched up with Santonio. It's a 1st and 20 following a hold and Woodson sees something, presumably from film study combined with Sanchez's eyes, that tells him to peel off of Cotchery running the short out right into Keller. From there it's vintage Charles and he comes up with the play wrestling the ball away from Keller who never appears to really have full possession going to the ground. The play leads to the short drive that culminates in a field goal that puts us up a touchdown. Earlier in the game, he jumped in front of Edwards running a dig and nearly picked off another pass. That time, it was his assignment though. In run support, I still come away impressed week after week even though I know it's the status quo with Charles. A real tone setter in the film room and on the field.

If it weren't for Woodson's outstanding game, it may have been Peprah who came away with the nod. He was active around the line of scrimmage today in run support, but more importantly made several crucial plays late in the game to keep the Jets from penetrating deep in Packers territory looking for the lead. Quite frankly, the two plays he made on Cotchery (the big hit and the deflection) are plays that Morgan may not have made. Pep is a physical safety and is definitely in command of his job. He's settled in nicely into the starting lineup.

Every time the broadcast brings us a nice wide angle to watch the safeties, I always come away impressed with the range of Collins. Without him, our corners may not looked quite as good as they have according to the numbers. You can tell they're not afraid to play lax coverage or take a gamble now and then because they have help over the top from Collins who is going to beat the ball to the receiver more often than not. One helluva coverage safety!! He did give up the big 40 yard play to Dustin Keller, his biggest mistake this season. Cotchery's 49 yard reception split the middle of the Cover 2 zone and was fit in right behind Hawk. Given the weakness of the defense, it was certainly a hole in the zone and scored as such ("Other" according to my table).

Tramon struggled out there today by his standards, but came up with a huge pick on our side of the field. He came up big closing in on the lone successful screen play which forced a 4th down. Though he didn't make initial contact, he stopped LT from falling forward and potentially bringing out the chain gang. He and Holmes are a terrific match-up to watch. Holmes is fast and a good route runner while Tramon is a terrific technician. Holmes got the better of him on a couple passes, but he also played some blanket coverage on other downs. All in all, it's his worst game of the season, but is still playing like a top 10 corner in 2010, giving us a pair.

Someone said something about Shields being the beneficiary of a couple of drops today. Like I said, it was just the one. In fact that was his only target again today. I really want to grab me some real film and see how this youngster's playing because I can't believe he's been targeted only 11 times this season.

Hawk and Bishop are beasting it out there!! That means against the run and versus the pass. I'm glad we have a pair of back-ups like them because believe it or not, they're definitely two of the bigger reasons this defense is holding together. The backend would be meaningless if teams could just pound it down our throat all day and attack the short zones through the air.

Cumulative Totals (Games 1 through 8):
Key Team Numbers (Rank):
YPG: 17th
Comp. %: 7th
YPA: 12th
TD: 5th(T)
INT: 3rd
Sack: 3rd
QB Rating: 1st

[url=Pro_News/aid=150.html]full article[/url].

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Woodson sucks! 🙂

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Glad to see Chuck playing well again.

+1 to the OP. Your efforts are truly appreciated!

For the record, Williams still had a dang good game. I'll take 1 INT vs 0 TDs any day of the week.

Great job Woodson!

Chrisbozzonerocks - Thanks for including the cumulative stats as well. Awesome as a team we've picked off 12 passes but only allowed 8 TDs.

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Wow, great article, and thanks for the stats! I love this stuff, and I would never take the time to figure it out on my own. Very impressive that our D is 1st in QB rating. I agree that Raji-Pickett-Howard could be an awesome combo for the goal-line defense.

One question, though: Why do you refer to A.J. Hawk as a back-up? He's been a starter ever since he's been there, except for a few odd games where they played nickel the whole time.

I wonder if maybe these articles could be linked to the Let's Talk Green Bay Packers page, maybe in the sticky section. When I visit the site, my computer takes me directly to that page so I often miss articles that are posted on the home page. Something to think about....

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Holy Cr@p...Raji has done well...let's start him at corner.

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I guess I referred to him as a back-up because we did play a ton of snaps in our nickel defense.. Barnett and Chillar were our virtual starter since we played a lot of it early on. Hawk really isn't a backup I suppose, but given most circumstances, I think our coaching staff would have preferred to have Barnett and Chillar see the most snaps of our inside guys. However, now that we've seen AJ string together a couple great games from the middle, I think that's changed, even if Chillar was 100% healthy. Hawk is definitely a starter for us now and the only one really capable of playing the position he does. If he goes down, our defense may struggle, namely Bishop, who will have to see more blockers directed his way. Hawk is the man whose been doing the dirty work keeping Bishop clean, while still making plenty of tackles himself.



Keep in mind one of the two targets is just a batted ball at the line of scrimmage. The other one he allowed the catch. Maybe safety though because he hasn't shown the natural man-to-man instincts. :icon_smile:

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Awesome read, as has become the standard. Great analysis! Just some random thoughts of my own:

Great to read Woodson looked solid, I did not pay much attention to him outside of the INT he made. So many of us have started to take his instincts and ability to read the offense for granted... once you step back a little bit you realize how phenomenal it is. What a player.

Statistically, as you stated, this was Tramon's worst game but a couple of times (particularly the play where he defended Holmes in the endzone) he displayed textbook coverage. I was thinking that maybe last year, those are plays that Tramon might reach out and touch the WR thus getting a penalty called. This year, however, he seems to have a new found confidence that is really showing in his play. Particularly the endzone play, he remained calm, turned around and clearly played the ball making sure there was no chance of a PI call on him. I do not think he would've done the same last year; it is exciting to see him grow!

And finally, Shields is impressing me more and more. I recently read in one of McGinn's articles that Brad Smith (4.4 40) gave props to Shields on tackling him as he came across and caught a pass with good space in front of him. I noticed that play during the game, Shields closed very quickly and stopped Smith short of a first-down. The play was impressive, but to have the opposing player especially point out Shields for praise is pretty noteworthy. I would love to see Shields sent as a blitzer, I think with his speed he could cause some pressure.

+1 for the work, chris.

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Good point on Tramon. His ball instincts have definitely improved. He's always had the ability to hang with receivers, but he was a bit more penalty-prone last year. I'm glad he's put it all together, improving each and every year. A very good find!

Great info on the Shields thing. I didn't know Smith made any comments of the sort, but he's definitely got some wheels, so it's good to hear it come from the opposition. He has to be the fastest player on our team. A true blazer. The sky is the limit for Shields. I'm looking forward to watching this young man mature and he has 3 different types of corners to learn from. The two things I loved about him in college were his willingness to get dirty and instincts. Those are two things you really can't teach unless you're born with it. In preseason I didn't see the former too much, but we have 3 corners now that are willing to hit and tackle, so some of that should and has rubbed off on Shields.

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