Came across this Twitter post by Zero today. I guess I fell into the "they're too reliant on turnovers" crowd. More specifically, it felt like to get a stop the defense either had to get a turnover or bring extra guys on a blitz on 3rd down. As Zero points out, you can't count on creating turnovers for stops vs good teams and good QBs don't mind a little blitzing because if protection holds, there's usually a man open somewhere.

Well they didn't create a single turnover yesterday and still held the Texans to 22 points with 16 of them coming off of advantageous field positions cased by turnovers. The first Love INT gave the Texans the ball at the Packers 11 with a chance for the Texans to take control and set the tempo. Defense was stout and held the Texans to a FG. Offense comes back on the field and goes 3 and out. Texans drive into Packers territory before a 3rd down sack put a halt to the drive. The game could have very easily gotten away from them but it didn't. Defense made life miserable for Stroud the entire game and did it with blitzing the bare minimum.


After using heavy blitz on 3rd downs the past few weeks, Hafley dialed it back and used the threat of blitz to confuse Stroud.

Moved Gary around to get him going



The only blemish was the run defense by allowing Joe Mixon 125 yards rushing on the day. But only 37 of them came in the 2nd half of a tight game. The past 5 weeks have seen only 22 points surrendered in the 2nd half. Hafley seems to be adept at making changes on the fly (Second Hafley?).

There's still work to be done like getting more consistent on the run defense and a number of recent teams played have been short handed at WR (Collins, Nacua+Kupp, Harrison Jr leaving the game after a concussion). All in all, perhaps I and others need to see the defense as a work in progress and not miss the forest by looking for a tree.

PS:

The Ghost of Joe Barry lives on! (okay I know Barry is still alive but work with me here)

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I really fail to understand the pissing and moaning and hand wringing about Mixon's running. It's not just you Mucky. I have heard people talk about it for the past 24 hours. For the record, he had 115 yards on the ground and 9 receiving yards. It took 25 carries to get them. A decent but not great 4.6 average. He's played in 4 games. Mixon had a 7.8 avg against New England and 5.3 average against the Colts. He had only a 2.8 average against the bares but he was injured.

Because of his injury I will use his yards per game average. It's 100.3. That's is third best in the NFL. Take out the bares game with only 25 yards and he has a 3 game total of 376 yards for a 125.33 average. The Packers held one of the best running backs below his season average. Nothing to be ashamed about. Would I have liked to see him get only 86 yards rushing like Stroud had passing? Well, yeah but in reality it didn't effect the outcome of the game. Packers still won.

Would you rather totally shut down Stroud or Mixon? You can only choose one. This is the NFL. Teams will take what you give them. They focused on elite pass defense and let the Texas have an ordinary day running the ball.

Yes Mixon had 2 TDs. One was a 2 play drive of 11 yards. All by him. The other was a 55 yard drive. 5 plays. Mixon had 50 yards the other 5 was the Van Ness neutral zone penalty. Do you realize what this means? Half of Mixon's yards came in two series. Both the result of Love's ints. Houston had 11 drives outside of the kneel down to end the first half. On 9 series Mixon had only 49 yards the rest of the game. 27 of those yards were on the final drive. On that drive, he had 8 carries. 4 of them were for a loss.

If you don't think this was an all around elite game by the defense I can't help you.

I really don't mean to be chippy. The defense showed that they can win a game against one of the best offenses in the league. Do so without a turnover and give up 3 of their own.

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