One of the bright spots to come out of last night's game was that the Packers committed no turnovers and no penalties in any phase of the game. The offensive line also gave up no sacks and only one quarterback hit. Incidentally, the Lions also committed no penalties this week.

Now if the Packers could just figure out how to tackle . . .

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this thread has gotten depressing

agreed.

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700 miles. Roughly 12 hours of driving. Night with my son watching the Packers beat the Bears and sutting up the loud mouth bearly fans around us priceless.

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There were a lot of bright spots.

1. 🇲🇲 made some pretty good half-time adjustments
2. Jordy Nelson looked like a #1 WR yesterday. His routes were beautiful.
3. Remember how we'd complain about JJ? Well, he looked like Driver yesterday.
4. Ryan Grant looked like Ryan Grant '09.
5. CM3 played a heck of a game. He was chasing down RBs all day and catching them.
6. And of course, 🇦🇷 was nearly perfect.
7. Most importantly, the OL held.
8. And no penalties and no turnovers? That's pretty amazing.
9. And a funny one, 🇦🇷 OWNED Brian Urlacher.

We are going to need our D to step up in the Playoffs. Let's not be in denial about that. We did get some takeaways but our lack of solid tackling does have me worried.

With this team, I'll guarantee a SB win IF we make it to the SB. No team in the AFC will be able to keep up with us. The Pats D cannot stop us and 🇦🇷 will kick Brady's ass. In the SB, it will be in a dome with PERFECT conditions for 🇦🇷.

But our shoddy tackling could cost us against the Saints. The Saints right now stand between us and our 2nd straight SB win.

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We can't seem to keep Zombo healthy, who did look very good at times last year. He's not played more than 1 game in a row this season if my memory is correct. At times it looks like Clay is getting pressure, and sometimes yesterday it even looked like we were pushing the pile back into the QB's face more than usual, but still were too many spots for the QB to step into and throw. No rush from the other side of the line so you consistently seen McCown sliding away from Clay, long enough to get a throw off.

The big thing is the blitz never got home. People complained a lot in the chat about the coverage but when you bring 6-8 guys in for a Blitz and it doesn't hit home within 4 seconds it's going to spell big play. If We Blitz a QB like Brees or Brady we HAVE to hit home with it, at least occasionally.

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Thing about Zombo is he's tough against the run. He's not much better in pass rush.
As for tackling, they're going for the strip too much.

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I agree, they play like I do in Madden 12 lol. I think their confidence is a bit low right now and they think they need to make a big strip or take away in order to get stops. Sometimes laying a good fundamental hit on a player will knock the ball out too (aka clay).

The pick Peprah had was good fundamental defense in the secondary. Woodson didn't bite on a good double move and took his man right up the field. Only a perfect throw would have fit that ball in. Peprah stayed in the zone he was told to play in and got the pick.

Sometimes we overplay in the secondary trying to get the picks instead of just playing good coverage.

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Zombo, as in Frank Zombo? Um, last year I could have agreed with this statement. This year, in the snaps Zombo has seen (dating back to pre-season) he's been terrible at containing the edge. And when I say terrible, I mean "Zombo has been worse than Walden was yesterday" type of terrible. If he is truly our best option, based on what we have seen this season we are so f'n screwed.

Tackling has to improve. But so does gap control. Most of the time yesterday, they were running away from BJ Raji / Clay's side, towards Walden / CJ Wilson. Even if you tackle better, the RBs are gonna pick up 5-6 yards easily when they have running lanes and space to work with. Walden couldn't contain the edge at times, and other times CJ Wilson was pushed out of his gap. And, of course AJ Hawk was his usual "I'll just stand 6 yards behind the LOS and then tackle the runner" self, meaning it wasn't that hard to get to the second level yesterday. Mark Ingram / Darren Sproles, Frank Gore, Ahmad Bradshaw, Michael Turner will have terrific games if that happens against capable offensive teams.

Believe me nerdman, I admire your optimism. We definitely have the talent to be much, much better than we are. For some reason, we cannot put it together from a week-to-week basis. And lately, we've been regressing in areas that we were decent in. Tackling can improve, but if that was the simple issue yesterday then I'd be far more optimistic than I am right now.

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I just want you to know I have on a lot more layers of clothes than my son. Just in case you are wondering. [grin1]

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