Based on the number of emails in my in-box, there appears to be tremendous interest in the Packers. Heading into this season, the Packers had the look of a very talented defense. They had some young defensive linemen and some very talented coverage men, and they also had an offense that could complement their defense. They were coming off a tough loss to the Giants, but as I have written numerous times, they needed to expand their package and have the versatility to play some zone when the match-ups in man-to-man did not favor their personnel.

However, they made mistakes last off-season and none of them had to do with Brett Favre.


They refused to pay Corey Williams, who played so well in 07 that the Packers designated him their franchise player and then traded him for a second-round pick. They selected quarterback Brian Brohm with the pick and counted on Justin Harrell to step into Williams role.

Now, you must understand that to run the Packers defensive scheme, you have to dominate in the defensive line. This scheme is not based on creativity but rather on forcing the quarterback to feel pressure in every aspect of his play forcing him to make tight throws into tight windows and be very accurate.


It requires the team to have a middle linebacker who can play pass first, and it wants to utilize seven-man fronts and hold up against the run. To defeat this scheme, the opponent must be talented in the offensive line and at wide receiver.

So with that as a backdrop, the Packers lost one of their best defensive linemen in Cullen Jenkins, and after trading Williams, they could not get any production from Harrell, making their once-dominating defensive line very blockable.

Then they lost their starting Mike backer, Nick Barnett; their best coverage man, Al Harris, for an extended period; and their strong safety, Atari Bigby. The result: They could not compensate for all the injuries.

Injuries are never an excuse for a team, but in the case of the Packers, I really do not feel Bob Sanders would be in the unemployment line had these not occurred.

This is the same man who was part of a 13-win season in 07. The factors that cost them their jobs had more to do with injuries than Sanders lack of talent as a coach.

Where do the Packers go from here? Well, they have drafted and procured talent to fit this scheme. In addition, most of the players in their defensive backfield are only suited for this kind of defense.

If they change the scheme, they will have to change some of the players, and this may result in some tough transitional times. They can stay with the scheme and enhance it with new ideas built around their base defense expand and add more defensive lineman to help get their defense back to the 07 level.

If I were with the Packers, I would make sure we placed a higher importance on getting more defensive lineman and would never let a young one walk out of the building when it looked like he might be a great player in the league. No matter what direction the Packers choose, they must get some defensive linemen who can dominate.

My guess is that Winston Moss will be the new coordinator.

He can help in the transitional phase since he is remaining on the staff, and I doubt very strongly he is going to want to work with a new coach and new scheme.

Keeping Moss tells me the Packers may interview others, but they will end up hiring him. Why keep Moss if you are bringing in another coach?

Mike Nolan would help enhance the scheme, but his idea of how to play defense and the Moss idea are slightly different. Not that either is wrong; its just that both are different in their approaches.

Moss is a very good young coach who is interviewing for head coaching jobs and feels his time is now.

The problem with this defense as I see it is the difficulty in securing the number of players that you need depth wise to run it.

Look at last year. An unusual number of good quality DL.
Record: 13-3.

This year. One guy leaves, one goes down, two (Harrell and KGB) don't show up. 6-10.

When it's essential to rotate players in and out of the DL I just wonder if we can expect to get the quality of play from these guys that the defense has to have to be effective.

High quality DL are not easy to come by and even harder to hold onto. What happens with a guy like Williams goes on all the time. The guy improves greatly, his contract comes up, he wants big bucks.

So what we need, which is depth, becomes very hard to keep. You develope a good young DL in a backup role and all of a sudden his contract is up and he can get starters pay somewhere else. You can't pay eight or nine guys starter salaries but it looks like we would have to in order for the defense to function properly.

"warhawk" wrote:

If I were with the Packers, I would make sure we placed a higher importance on getting more defensive lineman and would never let a young one walk out of the building when it looked like he might be a great player in the league. No matter what direction the Packers choose, they must get some defensive linemen who can dominate.

Longtime - Nice find from Lombardi. Agreed with most of it, especially the big mistake to let go of Williams and expect Harrell to fill that role. Huge mistake.

"dd80forever" wrote:

Someone tell me how many more :500 season or below will you put up with until reality sets in and you realize changes are needed from the top down?

"buckeyepackfan" wrote:

Ted Thompson has had it easy, his first 2 years anything bad was still being blamed on Mike Sherman, his 3rd year, great year 14-4, then he decides to go in a diferent direction with the QB, cut other veterans to make the team younger, and it all came back to bite him in the a---.

"buckeyepackfan" wrote:

So IMHO and I think there are quite a few more who think this way...Ted you have 1 more year to get things back on track(and I don't mean 8-8), or you can get the hell out of Dodge and take Mike McCarthy with you.

"buckeyepackfan" wrote:

"dd80forever" wrote: