Different break down of the defense, nothing too in depth or surprising, but did remind me of one extremely important thing.

In 2021 when Barry first got here, the emphasis was proper tackling, and I laughed as I feel like I've heard that 1,000s of times and it doesn't improve... but in 2021 it did! And I believe that reason (and better team rallying to the ball) was a very strong reason for team defensive improvement in 2021.

In 2022, it was not an emphasis, and it seemed to go back to some of their old ways....

And according to PFF the Packers worst graded aspect of their game was run defense at 7th worst in the NFL. (PS: So was Packers STs).

Among the Packers top 11 worst in run defense, which includes some players already gone and some 4th string players also includes Eric Stokes, Quay Walker, Kenny Clark, Kingsley Enagbare, Darnell Savage and Rudy Ford...

Looking at Clarks breakdown of snaps and grades, he sucked most when he had the play NT the most.

And as for the reverse of that, the top 11, though there were some decent gaps between tiers but Keisean Nixon,Eric Wilson, Rasul Douglas, Jaire Alexander were in the top tier, Rashan Gary, Justin Hollins, Preston Smith, Tedarrell Slaton, Devonte Wyatt also made the top 11 (ILB Campbell at #12).



But this also doesn't include missed tackles rate... we're Stokes missed over 27% of his tackle attempts, and Preston, Ford, Alexander and Savage all missed between 15-18% of their tackle attempts. Gary and Slaton were also worst than 13.5%.

Compare that with 2021, only Savage, Alexander and Stokes were higher than 13.5% in missed tackles ratings.


So fix that run defense and tackle rating and the defensive potential could be a heck of a lot better, make tackling an emphasis each and every year!

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Lot of running QBs last year too. Take those out and see what our stats are like. 

Loy more running QBs in the league right now tho. Gonna be something for which we will need to account. Especially if Chitcago ever decides to develop Fields. 

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Cant reallly take out a stat that is part of  the game (mobile QBs). Even so, teams still ran easily on us last year.

Despite braincramps late in the year, I think Walker run defense fundamentals were much better in the second half of the year than the first.  I also think Reed did a crappy job of keeping linemen off of both Walker and Campbell.

I think there can be significant improvement from the second half of last year.  Walker is young, and I think he is still learning an we will see a nice jump this year.

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I'm not totally sure the coaches were asking Reed to protect the ILBers, and considering whom they're bringing in a ton of pass rusher types, I think the scheme might be for the DL to penetrate and for the ILBers to fend for themselves...

Looking up some more PFF stats, Walkers run grades are inconsistent and all over the map during the season, though interesting to note two of his worst games came against the Lions. But with that inconsistency was some really good grades sprinkled it, so not all bad.

But Walkers pass coverage absolutely did improve, consistently good grades in 7 of the last 10 games... though 2 of the last 3 were bad games.

Wyatt looked like he was certainly improved in grades towards the end. 

Enagbare was doing very good until the Eagles game and grades took a nose dive... I wonder if he got banged up or his the rookie wall suddenly playing a lot more snaps 3 or 4 weeks after Gary injury.


 

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