A week after New Orleans top-ranked passing game punctured their highly-rated pass defense, the Green Bay Packers will be back to relying on their run defense their Achilles heel much of this season to hold up in a crucial game.
The Packers, who at 5-6 are a game out of first place in the NFC North Division, on Sunday host a Carolina Panthers team thats built around one of the NFLs best running back duos: 2006 first-round draft pick DeAngelo Williams and rookie first-round pick Jonathan Stewart.
The 8-3 Panthers rely on their run game to eat clock, wear down defenses and set up the occasional big play by receiver Steve Smith, and then count on one of the NFLs better defenses to keep down the score.
The Packers, after allowing Saints quarterback Drew Brees to throw for 323 yards and attain an astronomical passer rating of 157.5 points Monday night, have to switch gears and build a game plan around slowing Williams and Stewart, who have combined for 1,411 rushing yards this season.
They definitely want to come in here and pound us with the run, defensive tackle Colin Cole said. They want to establish that early and often, try to bloody our noses.
The Packers this season have had their problems stopping the run they rank No. 26 in the NFL in rushing yards allowed and No. 28 in yards allowed per carry but in their last game at Lambeau held the Chicago Bears to 83 yards rushing in a blowout win.
Sundays game against Carolina will give a better sense of whether that performance against the Bears was the sign of a run defense improving as the weather turns bad or just an up week in an up-and-down season.
Both Williams (5-foot-9, 217 pounds) and Stewart (5-10, 235) are power-oriented backs who gain much of their yardage after contact. Williams (883 yards, 5.1-yard average) is the more natural and instinctive halfback, but Stewart (528 yards, 4.3-yard average) also looks like a franchise-type back in his first season.
If you chart their explosive gains, runs of 12 (yards) or more, a high percentage of them have come off broken tackles, Packers defensive end Aaron Kampman said. So that says a lot. Tough runners. Not so much that guys arent getting in position, but guys arent bringing them down, arm tackling, things like that. So obviously tackling will be a critical factor.
The Packers defense is rebounding from a disastrous performance at New Orleans in which it gave up 51 points and 416 yards in total offense, at linebacker as much as any position.
That was the second game for A.J. Hawk at middle linebacker after Nick Barnetts season-ending knee injury. A week earlier, against the Bears, Hawk had played well enough to suggest the middle could be his best position long term. Last week, though, against the best pass offense in the NFL, Hawk looked a beat slow making reads and like many of his teammates had problems in pass coverage.
(Hawk) is still settling in, probably not as impactful or effective as he was that first game, said Winston Moss, the Packers assistant head coach and linebackers coach. But those are some of the things you go through when you make that transition. Hes settling in and is still doing some good things in there. Missed a couple things the other night, but you have to expect that and take that and coach him as well as possible.
Among the decisions the Packers must make based on this final stretch is whether to keep Hawk in the middle permanently and move Barnett to the weak side, or return them as they were next season. Middle linebacker could be the best position for both players. That would leave General Manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy to determine whether the defense is better with Hawk in the middle and Barnett on the weak side, or vice versa.
Moss gave no indication of his early read on Hawks best position.
I like him on the field, and I like him playing linebacker a lot, Moss said.
The Packers again must decide this week whether to deploy two linebackers or three when Carolina plays two tight ends, which could be a key decision for the defense.
Two weeks ago against Chicago, defensive coordinator Bob Sanders went with the two-linebacker (and five defensive backs) nickel defense against the Bears two tight-end grouping because he viewed one of the tight ends, Greg Olsen, as a receiver. The Bears had only 234 yards in total offense, and Olsen was a nonfactor.
But last week, Sanders switched up and went with the three linebackers against the Saints two-tight end, two-receiver personnel group, even though New Orleans is far more pass-oriented than the Bears. Brees threw for 323 yards, and tight ends Jeremy Shockey and Billy Miller combined for nine receptions for 93 yards. Generally speaking, defenses play the three-linebacker base personnel when they consider the offense in a run-oriented package, but Sanders stuck with that group against the Saints two tight ends.
The way that game was developing (in New Orleans) we wanted to settle down, Moss said, get some guys in comfortable positions and doing things theyre comfortable doing in our base vs. that personnel grouping. We made a decision as a group to go with that and see if it could settle us down, but it was tough regardless.
Because Carolina is far more run-oriented, Sanders might be inclined to go with the three linebackers against two tight ends this week also. That would keep strong-side linebacker Brady Poppinga, whose strength is playing the run, on the field for more snaps than hed play if Sanders went nickel. But after the Packers linebackers struggles in pass coverage last week, Carolina might try to exploit that by throwing more to tight ends Dante Rosario and Jeff King, who have combined for 36 receptions this season.
Brandon Chillar, the Packers best pass-coverage linebacker, had by far his worst game against the Saints. For most of the season hes covered well enough to usually be in position to tackle tight ends and even receivers immediately after the catch, but against New Orleans, he lost contact on several plays.
He struggled a little bit, it took him a while to get more settled than anybody, Moss said. Once he got settled he was OK, but in that first half there were some things that got away from him. Weve addressed that, and Im sure with the preparation that goes into this week, well make sure those things get taken care of.