 |
| Allison, Wide Open, Photo by Jim Matthews, USA Today |
Meanwhile, the Lions beat the Patriots, pretty convincingly, to get their first win of the season, and the Bears beat the Cardinals, narrowly, to get their second win of the season. As a result, at the end of Sunday, the Bears led the division at 2-1, with all 4 teams being within a game of each other.
And then last night, the Vikings lost a shootout on the road to the Rams, 38-31, so they are on a two-game losing streak. But there is no shame in losing to the Rams, especially on the road, since the Rams are certainly a leading contender to win the NFC this year. So it is a little early to count the Vikings out. At the same time, if the Packers can beat the Bills at home on Sunday, they will be no worse off than a half game out of first place in the division. Sunday will be a good indicator of whether the Bills are for real, or if last week's game against the Vikings was a bit of a fluke. But it will also be a good test of the Packers and whether they can bounce back from a road loss and take care of business at home.
At the moment, it seems that nobody can play defense in the NFC North, other than the Chicago Bears. Certainly, the Packers are having their problems. My overall impression, just from watching the games, is that the defense is improved this year, as compared to last year, and yet the points allowed so far don't show any improvement at all. The Packers have been giving up over 27 points per game, and you can't win many games that way, especially when the offense is not exactly blowing the doors off. Sunday, against the Redskins, there were way too many drops by receivers (at least 4, by my count), and a shocking number of bad passes by Rodgers (I counted at least 6). Add in some injuries on both sides of the ball (Wilkerson, out for the season, Bulaga, knocked out of the game) and you have the recipe for an upset.
Alarmingly, it is almost as if the Packers don't learn anything from experience. The hurry-up offense was instrumental in the comeback over the Bears in Week One. Not only was the tempo itself helpful to the Packers' rhythm, it obviously wore the Bears' defense down. So why have we seen so little of the hurry-up offense in Weeks Two and especially in Week Three? I don't get it. The eternal optimist side of me thinks maybe we will see some this week. And with an injured QB, a nicked up offensive line, you would have thought we would at least see a lot of quick-release passes against the Redskins, rather than a lot of deep drop, slow developing plays, that have a tendency to lead to sacks. But that didn't happen against the Redskins, and I only counted a handful of quick-release passes in the entire game. This must be a joint decision of Rodgers and McCarthy, both of whom seem to prefer the big hitter plays.
Don't get me wrong, the long TD to Allison (pictured above) was a great example of the good that can come from deep drops and letting Rodgers scan the entire field. But at the same time, with Rodgers under siege for parts of the game, it is not a reach to suggest quick-release passes to loosen up the defense. Maybe then more big hitter plays will open up. And if you are averaging over 5 yards per carry, why do the Packers go with 3 times as many passing plays as running plays? Yes, I understand, the Packers were behind all game. But they were not so far behind as to rule out the running game. Wouldn't a better balance on offense force opposing defenses to take the run game more seriously? And wouldn't this, in turn, open up the passing game? Again, maybe we will see a better balance on Sunday against the Bills.
I think McCarthy's greatest failing as a coach is the inability to adapt in a sustained way to what the circumstances may dictate. He wants to do the dictating, but sometimes football doesn't allow that, even with #12. Rodger's injury last year temporarily masked the reality that the Packers offense has become extremely stale. It was too easy just to blame it on Hundley.
ReplyDeleteI've been wondering the same thing as it's been about the only thing that's worked the way it should this year. ( The hurry-up offense was instrumental in the comeback over the Bears in Week One. Not only was the tempo itself helpful to the Packers' rhythm, it obviously wore the Bears' defense down. So why have we seen so little of the hurry-up offense in Weeks Two and especially in Week Three?)
ReplyDeleteIn light of the "rift" in evidence this week between Rodgers and McCarthy, I now wonder how much of the problem is Rodgers, and how much McCarthy?
ReplyDelete