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The NY Giants roll into Green Bay today, brimming with confidence they have what it takes to beat the Packers. If you listen to the NY media, Giants fans and even some players, it’s practically a done deal. The Packers, however, have other plans for New York.

Still reeling a bit from the tragic death of Offensive Coordinator Joe Philbin’s son, Green Bay will be an emotional bunch today. Philbin will be back in the coaches’ box, assuming his usual game day responsibilities. On the other side of the ball, Dom Capers had some no-holds-barred film sessions with the Packers defense this week, and reportedly, nobody escaped unscathed. Let’s hope they rise to the occasion today.

Packers’ inactives:

QB Harrell, CB House, OLB Francois, T Taylor, TE Williams, NT Green, LB So’oto

Francois is the only one scratched due to injury. Some surprises at the bottom of that list. most people on Twitter are shocked at Green being inactive, with the vaunted Giants running game coming to town. Green, however, has done very little of impact over the last half of the season. He is a huge body, but hasn’t been productive. He was handled faitly easily by the Giants OL in their last meeting. This must also mean Capers is planning on running plenty of nickel today or possibly even psycho.

So’ oto is the big disappointment to me. If the Giants are in an obvious passing situation and you’re planning to bring pressure from ROLB, So ‘oto would be the guy I want in that situation (over Walden, Jones or Zombo).  Read more... (1235 words + 3 images, estimated 4:56 mins reading time)

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The Green Bay Packers could have had an easy game against the New York Giants when they played in week 13. But their own mishaps turned what should have been a comfy win in enemy territory into a nail-biter requiring Aaron Rodgers to come to their rescue.

I happened to be at that game in person. There were three things that struck me about the Packers’ play that day. Ater watching the replay on NFL Network last night for the first time, It just reinforced what I had seen in the stadium.

The Packers hurt themselves in three main ways in that game. I’m confident that if they can “clean it up”, the Packers will be hosting the Saints or the 49ers in the NFC Championship game at Lambeau. Here are my THREE DONT’S:

1) Don’t give up the big play.

Officially, “big plays” are defined as plays of 25 yards or more.  The Packers secondary went the extra mile against the Giants, giving up 3 pass plays of over 40 yards in their first meeting. All three led to scores, a total of 17 points handed to the Giants.  This falls very nicely into something I read today in the Wall Street Journal’s sports pages (yes they cover sports – from a purely analytical view).  Read more... (670 words + 3 images, estimated 2:41 mins reading time)

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While doing some film study of the Packers – Patriots game, one thing became painfully clear. The Green Bay Packers’ offensive line has a devil of a time picking up blitzes. Even simple, straight on, undisguised blitzes seem to confuse them and result in missed assignments.

This does not bode well for Aaron Rodgers. Coming off of his second concussion of this year, you would like for him to go through this game as hit-free as possible . But here come the New York Giants, a team that likes to punish quarterbacks. Even if they don’t get the sack, they will hit you and hit you hard. The last thing the Packers can afford is for Aaron Rodgers to be subjected to such abuse.

Going back to the Patriots game, the most obvious example of poor pass protection was the last-minute missed assignment by Bryan Bulaga that resulted in a heartbreaking sack of Matt Flynn, just as was attempting to lead the Packers on a game-winning drive.

What you may not realize, is that the Patriots used the same basic blitz six times in that game. It was correctly picked up only once.  And I’m not even going to discuss other blitzes by the Patriots that gave the Packers fits. Let’s just take a look at these six examples of a very basic blitz that I am referring to.:

Patriots Blitz vs. Clifton – Colledge; Exhibit A:

 Read more... (1113 words + 3 images, estimated 4:27 mins reading time)

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