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Packers rookie CB is leading a younger and more aggressive secondary.

I know your belly is still full of Thanksgiving turkey and you’re probably all excited that you managed to outlast the middled-aged lady next to you for that discounted Xbox at Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

If you can overcome your full stomach and pause your Xbox euphoria, take a minute and watch the video of the Packers allowing a Hail Mary touchdown to the Giants’ Hakeem Nicks before halftime in last season’s playoff loss.

Makes your full tummy feel more like the stomach flu, right?

Now, take another look at the play. Notice the four players around the ball when Nicks comes down with it? Not one of them will be on the field for this Sunday night’s rematch.

Charlie Peprah is off the team. Charles Woodson is injured. Sam Shields is injured. And Jarrett Bush mainly plays special teams (I suppose it’s conceiveable that Bush could end up out there, but hopefully not).

If Eli Manning launches another Hail Mary on Sunday, the players around the ball will likely be a combination of Tramon Williams, Casey Hayward, Davon House, Morgan Burnett, Jerron McMillian and M.D. Jennings.

That group is a lot more aggressive than the group that stood there with their thumbs up their butts while Nix caught the ball in the playoffs.

Hell, Jennings has already intercepted a Hail Mary pass this season, even though it counted as a touchdown for the other team.  Read more... (414 words + 1 image, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

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Packers DL Ryan Pickett made some stylish plays on Sunday against the Lions.

Kevin Seifert had the following headline on his ESPN NFC North Blog post following the Packers 24-20 win over the Lions on Sunday: “Packers: Substance of 2012 > Style of 2011.”

Kevin went on to write how the Packers grind-it-out victories over the last five weeks might be more impressive and have them better prepared for the postseason than the string of blowout wins they had en route to a 15-1 finish in 2011.

For the record, I agree with Kevin. His post was spot-on. I just didn’t care for the headline.

The Packers had plenty of substance in 2011. You don’t go 15-1 on style alone.

And the Packers have had plenty of style so far in 2012. It’s just a different style than what we saw last season.

To casual football fans, style means long passes, beautiful catches, ankle-breaking runs and exciting punt/kick returns. Those are the plays that make Sports Center and go viral on the Internet.

The more hardcore football fans appreciate those types of plays as well, but also find plenty of style in other areas of the game.

To me, this third-and-goal play from Sunday highlights the type of style that hardcore fans appreciate and the type of stylish play that the Packers have been coming up with over the last five games.

A touchdown there gives the Lions a 7-0 lead and the Packers young and beat-up defense probably hangs its head a bit. Who knows where the game goes from there.  Read more... (531 words + 1 image, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

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So I’m going to do something a little bit unusual from the usual Packers Playbook series; first off I’m going to breakdown a special teams play, namely Davon House’s blocked punt which turned into a special teams touchdown, but ru because I want to hear your rationale for running this play because frankly I don’t really understand it.

The Situation: The score is 7 to 3 in Green Bay’s favor and the Packers defense has just forced a 4th down.  The Jaguars have stayed in the game longer than most people had predicted but it’s probably more because the Packers seem to be off rather than any offensive firepower displayed by the Jaguars.

The Formation: To be honest I wasn’t able to find any of the position names for any of the positions, so I will be using my best approximations.  Naturally first off is KR Randall Cobb (18), who for obvious reasons is not in the picture and since this is a blocked punt play, is irrelevant to the play.  In the gunner/jammer positions are CB Davon House (31) aligning to the top of the screen and CB Jarrett Bush (24) and CB Casey Hayward (29) aligned to the bottom of the screen.  In terms of linemen (are they called linemen?), at RDE is ILB Jamari Lattimore (57) and at LDE is OLB Dezman Moses.  In the “middle” at DT is ILB Robert Francois (49) and TE Ryan Taylor (82).  In the “backfield” are SS Sean Richardson (28) and FS MD Jennings (43).  Read more... (941 words + 9 images, estimated 3:46 mins reading time)

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Jacksonville may be seeing a lot of Aaron Rodgers unloading the deep ball

The Green Bay Packers return home after a rare three game road trip where they managed a 2-1 mark.  They are dinged up and dealing with a plethora of injuries.  This seems like the perfect time for the schedule to ease up a bit and give the Pack a break.  Enter the Jacksonville Jaguars who are also limping into this game.  They will be without starting RB Maurice Jones-Drew, aka MJ-D and QB Blaine Gabbert is dealing with a sore left (non throwing) shoulder.  Let’s look at the key matchups in this week’s contest.

Packers QB Aaron Rodgers vs. Jaguars defense

There’s not a whole lot to say here other than it’s MVP Aaron Rodgers against the 31^st ranked defense in the league. . at Lambeau Field.  Barring an injury or a hurricane rolling through town, I expect Rodgers to continue the tear that he is currently on:  9 TD’s, 0 INT’s and a QB rating of 140.8 in his last two games.  Rodgers has found his swagger and he’s very likely to take it out on the Jags’ secondary on Sunday.

The Jaguars are giving up 264 passing yards/game.  Green Bay averages 266 through the air.  Don’t be surprised if Rodgers’ total is close to that mark or even a bit less.  The Pack are dinged up at wide receiver and will surely be without Greg Jennings (groin) and likely won’t have Jordy Nelson (hamstring) available.  I expect the Pack to try and establish the run early and work the clock.  If that is the plan of attack, Rodgers likely won’t have to throw more than 25 times.  Read more... (1370 words + 3 images, estimated 5:29 mins reading time)

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Is Packers CB regaining his 2010 form?

The cameras focused on Clay Matthews destroying Jay Cutler, the announcers raved about Tramon Williams shutting out Brandon Marshall, and fans cheered as the Packers took a 10-0 halftime lead on the Bears after a surprise field goal resulted in a touchdown.

Meanwhile, Sam Shields kept silently plugging away.

Shields spent most of his time tracking Alshon Jeffry, helping to limit the rookie to one catch for seven yards.  Shields never did anything flashy — the Packers had Matthews, Charles Woodson and Tramon Williams to make the big plays. The third-year CB just did what the Packers needed him to do: Be fundamentally sound in pass coverage and get physical if needed.

The physical part started against San Francisco, as documented by Rob Demovsky here and highlighted in the video below.

In case you don’t believe what you just saw, that was Shields going hard after the ballcarrier (Frank Gore, nonetheless) and stopping him short of a first down. We didn’t see Shields stick his nose in there like that last season, and it’s a major reason why Shields had to fight to get his job back this season.

Shields played 60 of 63 snaps against the Bears and was only targeted once (on a pass to Devin Hester). After catching three passes for 80 yards in the season opener, Jeffry never sniffed the ball with Shields on him.  Read more... (485 words + 1 image, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

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An unhappy handshake for Mike McCarthy…

I’m always interested in seeing if other Packers fans are thinking the same thing I’m thinking. And always amazed about how so many people can watch the same game and see things so differently.

In any case, after watching the disappointing loss to the 49ers, there was plenty for everyone to not like. But if I had to pick just ONE thing that bothered me the most, what would it be?

What is YOUR one thing?

(yes, you only get one…)

I posted this question on twitter this afternoon and got an incredibly varied array of responses. Here are some of the replies:

- WR’s lack of ability to get open quicker

- The continued trend of MM/Rodgers inability to win close ones in the 4th quarter.

- The refs. we can fix mistakes cant fix refs

- in that the last 2 losses we’ve seen against good teams, they’ve gotten dominated.

- Secondary. Settle on the starters, nickel safety, and dime corner, and clean up the communication issues.

- Jarrett Bush as starting corner

- just one?!? I’ll say being out-coached at home.

- - weeping. OH you meant in the game…

- That Finley still hasn’t matured. His reaction to his drop and walking over the defender in endzone which got him cleated.

- the fact they view bush and M.D. Jennings as starting players

- coaching! Lack of any gameplan or making adjustments! Wake up & react.  Read more... (569 words + 3 images, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)

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Packers S M.D. Jennings is one of the new characters in the Packers secondary.

We’ve all sat through a terrible movie before. I’m not talking about a movie where it’s so bad, it’s good. I’m talking about a movie that is just plain bad, even painful.

Watching the Green Bay Packers allow almost 5,000 passing yards last season was like watching a bad movie, for a whopping 17 weeks.

If a director makes a terrible movies, he’ll probably try and make some serious changes so his next movie isn’t as bad. Maybe he’ll bring on actors with more experience or a production staff that has a several good movies under their resume.

Not if the director is Ted Thompson.

The Packers GM looked at his flop of a defense and said, “I’m going to get some guys that have even less experience and are more unproven than they players we had last season.”

Nowhere is that more evident than in the secondary.

Who are these guys?

The Packers first regular season game is only a few days away, but we have little idea what the secondary will look like. We know Tramon Williams will be at corner and Charles Woodson will be at safety in base and slot corner in sub packages. We also know Morgan Burnett will be at safety.

But that’s about all we know. We don’t know who the No. 2 corner will be in base and we have little clue what the sub packages will look like.  Read more... (1569 words + 1 image, estimated 6:17 mins reading time)

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