I'm not quite sure if this deserves its only topic, but bear with me.

Like the rest of you, I was so stoked for the season to start after watching our offense and defense destroy teams all preseason. I felt like we had no weak links. Our biggest problems throughout Ted Thompson and MM's tenure in GB- pass protection and run blocking on offense and getting pressure on the QB on defense- were cured.

So after the first two games, like most of you, I am utterly confused and disappointed with our teams performance. And I think I realized what led to our false hope for our team.

Teams typically don't blitz often during the preseason.

Our offense faced D's all preseason long that barely blitzed. This made our o-line appear much better than they actually were.

Caper's blitz frequently during the preseason. Teams didn't gameplan against our D, and as a result we got the QB a lot this preseason. This made our defense appear much better than it actually was.

Now teams have a full preseason of tape to watch on our defensive blitz packages, while we have to guess on most teams or use tape from last year.
Now we see what happens when teams blitz our offense and gameplan against our defense. We aren't used to it.

I also think our players felt a false sense of accomplishment for what they did during the preseason. It's been mentioned that the team did not take the Bengals seriously last weekend and they payed the price. The NFC North is up for grabs this year. The Vikes are beating the teams they're supposed to beat. Chicago is beating the teams they aren't supposed to beat. A loss to a team like the Bengals could really come back to bite us in the ass in December.

I have faith in our QB, our WRs, and our defense. I hope I am wrong on this one, but if we don't right the ship now, it is going to be another heartbreaking season.

Yes, I think the blitzing explains a lot of the difference we're seeing between the preseason and the regular season. But it still doesn't quite add up. Last year, our offense was pretty good in the regular season, and there was reason to believe they would be better this season, with Aaron Rodgers having a valuable year of experience under his belt and Jermichael Finley emerging as a threat. The only area where it looked like there could be regression was the offensive line, but heck, Scott Wells got beat out for his job, so Tauscher seemed to be the only real loss. I did not think that the loss of Mark Tauscher would more than cancel out the gains in other areas. Something else must have gone wrong. I'm not quite sure what it is.

As for the defense, I was not completely sold on it after the preseason because I knew they were blitzing way more than most other teams, but then when they looked so impressive against the Bears, I thought we were on our way to seeing a really good Packer defense this year. Then came the Cincinnati game. I don't know which of the two defenses we've seen is the "real" Packer defense. It's probably somewhere in between, but I do still have hope that it will improve and be closer to the defense we saw in week one.

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Capers was only using "about 1/3" of his blitzes. Basically he was just calling real basic stuff, just to make sure the guys could execute.
I'm disgusted with the OL, and that's been the past 3-4 years.
However, I think what cost us v the BeenGirls was that we had a ton of dropped passes.
Finley, Jennings, Driver, Grant's fumble. These were all drive killers. Then you add in the big special teams returns Cinci had.
That game was winnable. If we keep them off the field, they score less than 20 points, and the good guys win.
There's also Crosby. Maybe it's his "ab strain."

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We'll find out as the year goes on. I think preseason is meant to encourage or discourage fans based on how the 1s look. Beyond that it's meaningless.

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Ding Ding Ding ...we have a winner here...+1

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The pre season was exciting because we saw plays being made. Not just ANYONE can make a play, but the fact that we executed and executed well was nice to see for a change.

The problem? I think the Packers believed the hype and became content with their level of pre season success and failed to strive to be better.

As coach says, if you're not trying to get better, you've just gotten worse.

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I think at time we try to play better than we are instead of just playing the way we always do.

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I also think the preseason is meant to encourage, our defence just had a bad day, with collins out at halftime, and our OL is plagued by injuries. The next game we will be ready.

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I enjoyed the preseason hype immensely. It's not my job as a fan to either buy into or dismiss it. That's for coaches and players. I only have so much to work with, and I choose to be optimistic when I can be, especially coming off a 6-10 and one big load of fiasco bullshit season. I'm not giving up on anyone, either. I'm going to yell a lot, but that is ultimately different.


I think Mike has made some outstanding moves as a head football coach. He is batting way above average in developing skill position players, imo.

Bitch is, this friggin' o-line not only faked us out as fans, it faked him out too, and THAT is a very big problem to have. Of course I remained suspicious, and who wouldn't be, but I was hopeful. That o-line surprised me last year by at least becoming semi-functional , and maybe the same will happen again this year. I don't see for the life of me how that is going to happen, but would love to be pleasantly surprised.

...And if not, maybe I will get some some more fellow posters to jump on my "unf$ck the offensive line first" bandwagon. I knew I wasn't going to get my way in the last couple of years, because (I have used this before) these guys gotta play a constant game of personnel "whack-a-mole".

Our D needed some real help, and they got it. I do not fear for our d long-term for this year. I see us getting gashed, but I also see the potential to fix it, both in bodies and coaching. Damn if I can figure out how the hell we are going to fix that o-line though.

It's faked him out at least two years in a row. That's not a good trend.

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