wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member Topic Starter
10 years ago

GREEN BAY — Bristling for the second consecutive day at repeated questions about his team's second-half defensive collapse against the Atlanta Falcons, you almost got the feeling that Mike McCarthy just wanted to scream We won the game! at those in the Lambeau Field media auditorium on Wednesday.

The Green Bay Packers coach held back, but he did acknowledge that there are lessons to be learned from what happened in the team's 43-37 victory, which began with a 31-7 halftime lead.

"I thought we started the game just the you'd like. I think anytime you come off of a big win, you concern yourself with a potential letdown. I thought the preparation really showed up in the beginning of the game," McCarthy said Wednesday, as the team turned its attention to Sunday's game at Buffalo. "We didn't sustain it the second half. We've had a chance to look at it and learn from it. And we'll apply it to the future."

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, speaking on his weekly radio show on 540 ESPN and ESPNWisconsin.com on Tuesday, posited that there were a few factors that conspired to get the Falcons back into the game — starting with Julio Jones' 79-yard catch on the opening play of the third quarter, which set up a quick touchdown.

"We've had some big leads at half — [such as] 31-0, 42-0 — so we've had some leads where they weren't coming back. This was 31-7," Rodgers explained. "It's like in basketball. My old coach used to say, '[There's] one stat you can probably tell how the game went, and that was often the score differential in the first half of the third quarter. Because a lot of times, after you make the adjustments at halftime, the team that starts fast in the third quarter is the one that gets momentum back and actually can carry that throughout the game. And that actually plays out in the NFL as well.

"We've had a number of games where we've doubled up and score at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half. I remember a specific game in 2010 against Minnesota where we scored at the end of the first half to go up 17-3 and then we scored the first drive of the second half and it's 24-3, the next thing you know it's a three-score game. Against Atlanta in the playoffs, we scored at the end of the first half to go up 21-14, Tramon [Williams] then picks off a pass and goes back for a touchdown and it's 28-14, [and then] we score on the first possession of the third quarter, and it goes from a one-score game or a tie game to a three-score game. That's when you can really break a team's will.

"[On Monday night], they actually came out and they had the big 80-yard play, and the next thing you know, they're down 17, it's three scores, you got 28 minutes on the clock, and they've got to be feeling, 'We're back in this game, we just need a couple of stops.' And that's kind of where the game tightened, and you could feel it tighten a little bit there."

It was clear Wednesday that the most irritating thing about how the defense played in the second half for McCarthy was the poor communication between the players on the field and the coaches on the sideline. McCarthy had to burn two second-half timeouts when the defense couldn't align properly.

"We don't evaluate the game based on the final score, we don't evaluate the game based on what our statistics are. There's always things to learn from," McCarthy said. "[But] at the end of the day, good teams find ways to win and the offense pick up for the defense."

Jason Wilde  wrote:



I guess it is not just spoiled fans around here that were wondering about the defensive effort in the second half. Professional journalists wondered what happened too.

I love the Rodgers insight/quote.

Mike's final comment was a good one. Things happen. Sometimes it will be the defense that earns the win. Sometimes it will be the offense. In either case I don't think it is wrong for people to ask why or what happened.
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sschind
10 years ago

I guess it is not just spoiled fans around here that were wondering about the defensive effort in the second half. Professional journalists wondered what happened too.

I love the Rodgers insight/quote.

Mike's final comment was a good one. Things happen. Sometimes it will be the defense that earns the win. Sometimes it will be the offense. In either case I don't think it is wrong for people to ask why or what happened.

Originally Posted by: wpr 



Wondering about it and worrying your ass off over it are two very different things.

wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member Topic Starter
10 years ago

Wondering about it and worrying your ass off over it are two very different things.

Originally Posted by: sschind 



True. And fans who talk about are automatically dumped it the later category even if it is not so.

If 10 people discuss it and each makes a post or two others assume they are worried, fixated on it and going crazy because of the 15-20 comments that have been made when it is only a conversation that is looking at the issue.
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IronMan
10 years ago
This has nothing to do with being spoiled. The Packers gave up 30 points in the second half. Poor play/execution needs to be addressed win or lose. I've never understood the "We won. It doean't matter" attitude.
DakotaT
10 years ago
Does anybody else around here make the correlation between the Packers defense looking good against the teams not having a good quarterback versus our defense looking incompetent against teams with good quarterbacks? But most teams do not have a combination of Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, so that's a good thing.

Until this defense can consistently shut down all teams regardless of the quarterback's ability, they have work to do. I don't think the '96 Packers get enough credit for how good they were in all three phases of the game.


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steveishere
10 years ago

Does anybody else around here make the correlation between the Packers defense looking good against the teams not having a good quarterback versus our defense looking incompetent against teams with good quarterbacks? But most teams do not have a combination of Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, so that's a good thing.

Until this defense can consistently shut down all teams regardless of the quarterback's ability, they have work to do. I don't think the '96 Packers get enough credit for how good they were in all three phases of the game.

Originally Posted by: DakotaT 



I don't really think any team can do that though. Even Seattles defense had rough games against Rivers, Romo, and Austin freakin Davis. It would be nice if the D would be more consistent but they had looked good ever since NO and especially against NE whose offense has been as good as ours. Atlanta game looked like crap but I will say the 2nd half was also some of the most vanilla D i've seen them play all season. Who knows why they did that or why they stuck with it even when Atlanta started getting closer. The biggest thing that irks me is not that they sometimes look bad it's that when they do look bad they look REALLY REALLY BAD. It's hard to know what they are when they can make crucial stops against Tom Brady and keep Gronkowski from being a factor in 1 game then the next give up a record breaking performance.
QCHuskerFan
10 years ago

True. And fans who talk about are automatically dumped it the later category even if it is not so.

If 10 people discuss it and each makes a post or two others assume they are worried, fixated on it and going crazy because of the 15-20 comments that have been made when it is only a conversation that is looking at the issue.

Originally Posted by: wpr 



I would enjoy discussing the challenges of our defense. But anytime the defense comes up, there is a steady stream of "Capers sucks, Hawk sucks, DL sucks, Jones sucks, Capers sucks, MM sucks, Capers sucks, Ted Thompson sucks, Burnett sucks, ad infinitum".

The first play out of half was a big play and not just because it led to a TD. Williams was beat, Burnett took a terrible angle on the play. Then there was a flash in green and gold. Shields made the rest of the players look like they were 48 yr old white men. He could have quit on the play. But he didn't. He chased down Jones and made the Falcons earn the lst yard for the TD. How many times have we all watched a big play and the D is jogging behind the play? Not Shields and not this D. I was impressed with the effort shown by Shields on a play when the Packers were clearly way out in front.

There is a reason that Hawk and Jones started this year. There is a reason Barrington wasn't. There is a reason Clay was an OLB. Those reasons are not because Capers sucks, Ted Thompson sucks, MM sucks, etc. It's because the men that run practices, that are coaching professionals, etc saw them as the best choice to start the year. Now we are 75% of the way through the season. A lot has changed. But with those positive changes are some negatives. Hawk has always been known as a good communicator and assignment sure. Barrington, with almost no game experience in his first 1.5 yrs is not going to be as good in those areas. Jones and Hawk were benched for a reason and it wasn't due to their excellent level of play. Matthews is playing multiple positions. So is it any wonder that there were issues in the second half when things started downhill and all 4 were playing LB on Defense? I would be interested in the breakdown of playing time comparing the 2 halves on Defense.

It looked to me like there were a lot of deep crossing routes that were wide open? Is that because the LB's were supposed to get a deeper drop? We'll probably never know.

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QCHuskerFan
10 years ago

Does anybody else around here make the correlation between the Packers defense looking good against the teams not having a good quarterback versus our defense looking incompetent against teams with good quarterbacks? But most teams do not have a combination of Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, so that's a good thing.

Until this defense can consistently shut down all teams regardless of the quarterback's ability, they have work to do. I don't think the '96 Packers get enough credit for how good they were in all three phases of the game.

Originally Posted by: DakotaT 



Not to split hairs, but isn't that the definition of good QB's? The ones that make other teams look bad consistently? One could argue that every team has difficulty against the good QB's.

What defense has consistently shut down AR or Manning or Brady in the last 10 years? Those QB's have all had bad games here and there, but consistently shut down? Now Ryan isn't in that category, but he's pretty decent.
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