Too early to be concerned?

It was only the first game of the preseason but the Packers’ defense and special teams did not show the expected improvement from within that has been preached all offseason. Both units opened with poor performances against the Browns last night. The Packers’ offense, with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback, looked unstoppable, but then again the Browns’ inexperienced secondary was easy pickens’ for the veteran QB.

With weapons like Greg Jennings, Donald Driver and Jermichael Finley, the Packers have the ability to score a lot of points, and if they are going to be getting into shootouts every week they might rewrite the NFL record book. While I’d like to see a lot of points scored, you do need to control the ball and the clock and give your defense a rest every now and then.

The special teams looked like the same poorly coached unit they have always been under Mike McCarthy. Even with all the extra emphasis placed on them in the first two weeks of practice they still couldn’t even get the right personal on the field. Penalties and turnovers are once again their trademark. Special teams might be the downfall of this team for yet another year.

I’m confident the defense will be alright, I still don’t see anybody running the ball on them with any great success. It is hard to be real confident in the secondary, however. Players like Brandon Underwood and Pat Lee have to come of age in a hurry and the sooner Al Harris gets back the better. The third preseason game is the one to watch – Peyton Manning and Co. come to town. If the Packers’ defense gets ripped that night we might be in trouble.

It’s off to Seattle this week for game two. Another veteran quarterback in Matt Hasselbeck, so it should be a good test. I would expect to see the Packers try to put a little more pressure on the QB this week. They never touched Jake Delhomme in the Browns’ opening 80-yard touchdown drive.

I’m not going to panic yet, but it wasn’t a very good start for two-out-of three phases.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Al Davis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Scot

    No, we should not panic. Plenty of time to work out problems. But McCarthy better start screaming at Slocum to get his butt in gear and get those guys ready. McCarthy needs more tenacity. Players and coaches need to fear him more.

  • Pete H

    Yeah Al, no need to neccessarily worry yet. Remember the defense didn’t even get to open up its bag of tricks last year. They’ll be fine, but the special are still possible trouble. I guess its just wait and see…….no other choice

  • PackerPete

    I am officially panicking.

    The season is a washout.

    I had such high hopes for this team.

    I thought there would be a shutout every week and that there would be a turnover for each play run against this defense.

    I do not see how I can continue.

  • Ratpack

    Your right Al it is to early to panic but this next game against Seattle I would like to see the D-line get a better push up the middle. I was a little dissappointed with the lack of rush from our interior linemen. I understand that we played a very basic defense last night but there isn’t a cornerback or safety in league that can cover a wr with the amount of time that jd had. You can blitz until your blue in the face but if your D-line doesn’t do its job then you might as well get the pistols out and flip a coin. Also did anyone else notice nick barrnett limping around out there? On one play that I saw he was dropping back in coverage and couldnt get deep enough to prevent a touchdown and then it looked like he was limping after the play.

  • oddball

    When we lose three or four real season games, I’ll start to worrying. For now, it’s nothin’ but a thing. Peyton-darling is a certain future HOF QB. I expect him to rip us up a bit in the preseason especially with our second corner out.

    Looking at the schedule, I’ll be surprised if we’re not 7-2 by the bye. If we can develop the pass rush a bit, I don’t think many teams will outscore us.

  • http://jlworden1suddenlink.net LarryTex

    After looking at the reviews (JS) it sems like this: Blackmon coming back from knee surgery a big ?. Williams fully occupied at DB. Nelson, so-so at best. So what do you do? Just what they’re doing. Experiment.
    You obviously try to find a replacement and they don’t come with guarantees. Shield, with all that speed has no hands. Porter is too timid. Lee, who knows? Point is it will take all pre to sort this out and we might have to go outside like Holmgren did – but who is available? I’m sure they’re looking. However, it is what it is and we just might have to live with it.

  • Doug R

    Same personnel, same coaches, why would we expect anything to change?

    • oddball

      My reasons for somewhat higher expectations than last year.

      Second year in 3-4
      Improvement on o-line with healthy Tauscher, maturing Sitton and 1st round pick
      BJ Raji here for camp and preseason beefing up the middle
      Another year under the belt for Williams/Lee/Jones/Matthews on D
      Ditto for Finley/Nelson at receiver
      Healthy Grant and Barnett
      Another year of experience for both Thompson and McCarthy
      Strong finish to last year gives hope that we might improve on 11-5 record and host a playoff game . . .

      Sure, I can think of things that worry me, but hell, man, at this point we’re undefeated.

  • Rick

    The Packers did not show a serious blitz in the whole game. We were just trying to get OLBs up to speed on coverage skills in a live game and see who could really do what. My gut says we may come out blitz heavy the next pre season game and see who has what when it comes to the blitz schemes.

    Offensive looked pretty good and the backups weren’t bad either. Special Teams killed us in this preseason game. Shields needs to be the killer headhunter gunner he was in college NOT be a returner. The punter situation drives my nuts. We will have to see if one of them is servicable for the season. As a returner I am not sure if we have one until Blackmon comes back healthy. Woodson is probably the best on the team currently and we won’t risk him.

    Anybody else wish we had taken Perrish Cox DB/KR instead of Denver? He was one tackle from a return to the house. Ugh I wish we had taken him with one of our three 5th round picks.

  • Rick

    I take that back no serious blitz comment somewhat. We ran about 7 really interesting blitzes now that I have gone through the game footage. Same idea that we did minimal heavy blitz calls, just correcting my generalized statement.

    i.e. Pat Lee came free from behind a 3 on 2 blitz from being over the slot receiver. Lee almost got a sack but they had a screen called and Neal sniffed it out and layed the RB out.

  • Rick

    Going through game footage on the offensive side has shown that Rodgers and Flynn really spread the wealth when throwing the ball. Jordy is looking really good as a number #3 receiver and probably could start as a #2 on any team in the league.

    We showed no real run threat during the game but we will keep defenses guessing to whom the ball is going with the ability to use short passing game in place of a run game.

    Porter did look good running in the second half but the quality of the defense was low. A big improvement in blitz pick up blocking by our RBs. Rodgers will not be knocked down as nearly as much as last year. That might mean B Jackson-RB and Q Johnson-FB might be on the outside of the cut bubble. I think Porter-RB will make the team.

  • Mel e Mel

    A matter of perspective. Mangini was nearly fired at the end of last year. The Packers embarrassed Cleveland twice. Delhomme was run out of Carolina after a horrible playoffs and 2009 season. Clearly Cleveland had something to prove. Hopefully the wake up call was heard.

  • Rick

    Lets face it, last year preseason we were the 6-10 team trying to feel better about ourselves with coaches and players trying harder to win in the preseason last year. This year we are protecting starters and trying out positional people in game situations without the Wins and Losses counting. It does change the way you look at things. The Browns are we were last year and barley squeeked a win, but they did win.

  • Rick

    barely

    I am thinking of beer all of a sudden :)

  • http://www.packernet.com admin

    Rick – you have a point – I would rather look like dung in the preseason, whether it is a set-up or not, than do what we did last year and look great in 4 meaningless games and come out flat in the regular season.

  • Scot

    Hey, if the “darling” Cowboys can lose to the Raiders, then I won’t sweat losing to the Browns.

  • Monty

    Al, I totally agree with you and you didnt even mention the lack of depth behind Grant. It is obvious that he suffered a concussion and will be out for a while. The backs behind him are sad at best. Jackson has had four years to prove he can do something else but pass block and he hasnt. Lumpkin cant stay healthy. They draft another back that is injured his senior year and has a history of injuries and now he is gonna be placed on IR. The UFA, Porter perhaps he has some juice, but they need to address this. ST is poor due to poor coaching, lack of finding good returners, and cutting Jon Ryan two years ago. Neither punter in camp is as good as Ryan was. McCarthy doesnt want a ST coach that thinks for himself like some of the ones that were available during the off season, if you notice its Yes men except for Capers. They need to trade for a companion LB with Mathews and stop trying think they can develop one now with three weeks before the season begins. Why they didnt draft one??? So again, Im glad we got beat, it helps to bring out the problems and see if they can fix them before the season. I am glad all the Super Bowl or bust talk was put to rest. As has been pointed out, we had all that hype last year went 4-0 in preseason and struggled in the first half. As was shown with the bears game and bengals game, just because your starters (Barbe) do well in preseason doesnt mean they are the answer when the games start to count. Ted, get us a better running back than Jackson, find a proven OLB to go with Mathews, otherwise its 8-8 at best.

  • Pete H

    that was a little overboard

  • Mel e Mel

    Here is a question, Why the hell is Nick Collins covering kicks?

  • PackerPete

    answer: because our ST coach is named SLOW-com.

    what a dolt.

    MM needs to get this cleaned up, the poor coaching staff that is!

  • Pierre

    The Browns may be a surprise upstart team this year (like the Bengals were last year). They won their last four games and with a veteran QB and Holmgren in charge, may be poised to challenge in their division. They also have good ST play.
    The Packers do have the talent to beat anyone; it’s the coaching skills and failure to implement a more disciplined approach that remain a hinderance to this team achieving its maximum potential.

  • Mel e Mel

    This really is beginning to stink. I thought Mike Sherman didnt coach here anymore, but apparently he does. From 1989-1993 Sherm was OLine coach at Texas A&M under R.C. Slocum. Shawn Slocum is his kid. Note to MM and TT Sherman was fired, so why give favors to his ex-boss? Typical example of nepotism. Bobby April of Buffalo one of the best ST coaches in football, was available. Nah take a pass we have Shawn Slocum. Sat. nite was a joke, and to those who say it doesnt matter, look at the Bears and Vikes ST, end of argument.

  • sammy

    i have been screaming how important special teams are for the past year and most on this board poo pooed it. it is a third of the game and i don’t care how good your offense/defense is, if you give the opponent the ball at the 40 or 50 each time and you can’t return the ball past the 20, then it is hard to stay in the game.

    last year, we could not return a kick or a punt without an illegal block in the back.

    and off of the subject, why is Bishop not starting…somewhere…he is too good to be on the bench or just on special teams…thanks for listening, i am frustrated with slocum and would hate to lose the year because of pathetic special teams play. hope y’all are doing well, Sammy is back and overall optimistic. Now let’s play some f’ing football.

  • Mel e Mel

    I wont post the the link because the article is full of rubbish. PFW is actually printing that (according to an unknown scout) the Vikes could beat us with Tavaris Jackson under center. WOW I guess Jared Allen and Steve Hutchinson just flew down to Mississippi for fun then right?

    The PFW article mentions the strengths and weaknesses from last year. We all know ST, OLine and Secondary. I think secondary and Oline have been fixed, Al Harris not withstanding.

    All we want is a ST unit that is up to snuff. Nothing spectacular, just an efficient unit

  • Monty

    Whats up with TT practice of drafting players who are injured their senior year in college (Starks, Harrell) and then when the player showed up for training camp, MM is surprised they cant practice or play because their injured? I wish TT would stop doing that. Its not just ST that are a mess, Mr. AJ Hawk, Mr. Brandon Jackson among others need to gooooooooo. We need new blood behind Grant!! And I concur with all, the blocking is terrible on ST.

  • http://Orlando Mark

    Hawk looked pretty bad. Bishop or Poppinga might be better. Underwood looks improved. And, the decisions on ST’s like putting Shields in as a return man screws up the ST’s and retards his progress as a DB. Flynn doesn’t have much of an arm but might get by on underneath stuff for one game.

  • http://jlworden1suddenlink.net LarryTex

    Some of you guys are so set in your bias y0ur not even taking into account the purpose of the pre-season. It definetly is not to run your starters up and down the field all night for 4 games that don’t count. These are tryouts for making the openning day roster, people. Think, come up with new analysis, and join the fun.