Sports Illustrated writer Peter King set expectations for the Packers sky-high when he predicted that the Packers would be the number 1 team in football.  Now Peter King is not a football fortune teller by any means; in fact he is probably no better or worse than most people who are fans of the NFL.  However, it does say something when a respected sports journalist can make a an educated guess that the Packers will be very good and maintain the respect of his peers.  This raises the question of what should we expect from this Packers season.

The Packers schedule is much harder than it was last year.  I think the schedule can be divided into three tiers:

1. Games they should win easily
2. Games they should win
3. Games they need to play their best to win

The games that should be easily winnable are the Bills and the Lions twice.  I expect the Packers to win all three of these. There are 6 games that the Packers should win: the Bears twice, the Redskins, the Dolphins, the Giants and the 49ers.  These games that the Packers can lose if they don’t play well.  I think they will win four of these and lose two.  Finally, the games the Packers need to play their best to win.  I do not think that there is any team on the schedule the Packers cannot beat if they play their best.  These 7 games are the Eagles, Vikings twice, Jets, Cowboys, Falcons and Patriots.  I think they will win four of these and lose three.  This would leave them with a record of 11-5, a repeat of the record from last year.

An 11-5 record and one playoff win is what I expect out of the Packers this season.  The Packers lost a close playoff game last year to lose the season, I expect them to improve on this by at least one win.  An 11-5 record should be enough to win the NFC North in a close race with the Vikings.  A record of 11-5 this year against a tough schedule  is an improvement over last year’s 11-5 when they had a much easier schedule.  The Bears have not addressed their offensive line, their shaky wide receivers, running game (Chester Taylor is not the solution,) or their secondary.  The Vikings don’t look as dominant.  Benedict Favre seems less determined, Rice is out for half the season, Harvin’s health problems are worse, the offensive line is having issues and the defense does not seem as scary.  Any result less than 11-5, winning the NFC North and at least a playoff win will be a disappointment of a season.  However, the Lombardi trophy is realistically within reach, if the Packers can find answers to some nagging questions…

Go Pack Go

- e

In the movie Mr. Baseball, an old pro baseball player (Tom Selleck) moves to Japan for his final couple years of professional ball.  When he gets there, he does well until his opponents discovers a hole in his swing.  Selleck cannot hit the Japanese Shuuto pitch and strikes out every time.  He eventually learns to adapt his swing and curb his crude racist attitudes and winds up hiting the pennant-winning RBI.  Dom Capers’s 3-4 defense seems to be similar to Tom Selleck’s swing:  it has a major hole that can be exploited at will.

Fortunately for the Packers, many teams in the NFL do not have the personnel to exploit this weakness.  There are three keys to exploiting the weakness in the Capers defense.

(more…)

Somewhere in the desert, Arizona head Coach, Ken Whisenhunt, Defensive Coordinator and Dom Capers disciple, Bill Davis, along with the rest of the defensive staff are scratching their heads trying to answer the question, “How do we cover Tight End Jermichael Finley?”  Finley has become a go-to guy for the Green Bay Packers.  In the last five games, he’s had 28 receptions for 337 yards and four touchdowns.  Finley has an incredible combination of size (6’5″ 250lbs), speed, hands and exceptional athletic ability.

Lately, he has specialized in the goal line corner fade route.  This route has caused defenses fits.  Finley is taller than most linebackers and defensive backs and to add to that, he has an incredible jump.  When QB Aaron Rodgers throws the ball high into the corner of the endzone, there are few in the league who have a shot at defending Finley.

The two defensive backs on the Cardinals who are not six foot or shorter are CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (6-1½) and SS Adrian Wilson (6-2½.)  DRC is good at coverage and a ball hawk, but is not great to match against Finley because he hates to tackle and gives up 60 pounds in bulk.  He needs to be covering WR Greg Jennings or Donald Driver.  Wilson is a hard hitting, blitzing safety and not really a coverage safety.  He mainly tries to intimidate receivers and tight ends off of their routes.  This probably won’t work as Finley hasn’t been intimidated by hard hitting safeties in the past, such as SS Louis Delmas.

The Cardinals are for sure trying to figure out a solution to the Finely mismatch.  There just doesn’t seem to be much hope.  Look for Finley to have a big game in what should be a Packer’s victory.  Go Pack Go.

The upcoming playoff game in Arizona should be a milestone for the Green Bay Packers; the first playoff victory without Brett Favre since the 1982 strike shortened season Super Bowl Tournament.

1. The Preseason Preview

As noted in our article “The Road to 12-4,” the Packers dominated the Cardinals in the third game of the preseason.  During the first half of that game, when all the starters were playing for both teams, the Packers completely dominated all phases of the game.  The Packers racked up 38 points in the first half while only allowing 10. Week 17 was no different.  If you think that preseason doesn’t matter, we will refer you once more to former Cardinals coach Dennis Green’s quote from his famous rant:  ”We played them in preaseason. Who the hell takes a third game of the preseason like it’s bullshit?”  Dennis Green was right.

2. The Crushing Week 17 Victory

The Packers came in to Phoenix on Sunday to win.  The Cardinals came in to prevent injuries to their starters.  The Packers accomplished the teams’ goals.  The Cardinals failed miserably.  From the opening drive of the game, it was Packer domination.  The Packer offense played the first series against all the Arizona defensive starters.  They moved the ball 69 yards on 10 plays for a touchdown.  Kurt Warner took a total of 9 snaps and could barely move the ball against the Packers defense.  Another frightening aspect of the game for the Cardinals is that Charles Woodson completely shut down their biggest playmaker, 4 x Pro Bowl WR Larry Fitzgerald.  The Packers were clearly physically dominating the Cardinals in this game as well as playing at a higher level of finesse. The game also caused injuries to Arizona Pro-Bowl CB Dominique Rodger-Cromartie (knee), 3 x Pro-Bowler WR Anquan Boldin (ankle, knee), and DE Calais Campbell (thumb), all who are questionable for this weeks game.

Beyond the domination and the injuries inflicted in this game, the psychological impact of being completely dominated in a game, regardless if it is a “meaningless” game, has to be negative.  When the cameras showed the Cardinals sideline, you could see the hangdog and defeated expressions on the Cardinals players faces, starters and backups alike.  The Cardinals can tell themselves that this game was meaningless, but by their expressions, it clearly had meaning.  While across the field, you could see the Packers fired up and reveling in their victory.  It will take an exceptionally strong team to bounce back from this defeat and a great coach to galvanize the hangdog Cardinals.

For the Packers, it will be next to impossible for them to forget their crushing of the Cardinals.  The high level of swagger that the Pack will have coming out of the tunnel at University of Phoenix Stadium  will be visible from the nose bleed seats on Sunday.  The Packers have not let up one iota and are entering the playoffs at a full gallop.  Winning 7 out of their last 8 games gives them the momentum going into the playoffs.  As long as the Packers don’t let off the gas, they should be able to dispatch the Cardinals. (more…)

Two coaches come into Sunday’s playoff game between the Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers in very different positions.  Ken Whisenhunt and Mike McCarthy are almost the same age (47 and 46 respectively) and, though both have been head coaches for a relatively short time, both have had surprising successes only to fall short in big games.  Two years ago, McCarthy’s 13-3 Packers lost to the Wild Card New York Giants in the NFC Championship.  Last year, Whisenhunt lost Super Bowl XLIII to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The two coaches had different approaches coming into Sunday’s game:

Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt took a cautious approach, Green Bay’s Mike McCarthy kept the Packers at full bore most of the day.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Coach McCarthy made the right decision.  (I recommended such an approach, not that he cares what I think).  However, I’m not totally sure that Whisenhunt made the wrong decision either.  Had he also played “full bore” and lost, it could have been even worse for the morale of his team.  Both coaches have important tasks ahead of them:

(more…)

The Packers’ road to the Super Bowl starts at University of Phoenix Stadium.  Here at Lombardi Sweep, we are going to be overly optimistic and get way ahead of ourselves.  Assuming the Packers win out in the playoffs, these are their possible paths to the big show.  All depend upon the outcome of the Cowboys-Eagles Wild Card game.

1. Cowboys win the Wild Card game – The Packers will travel to New Orleans to take on the Saints and the Cowboys will play the Vikings in the Minnesota.  Assuming the Packers beat the Saints, they will will either travel to Dallas or Minnesota for the NFC Championship game.

2. Eagles win the Wild Card game – The Packers will travel to Minnesota and the Eagles will play in New Orleans.  Assuming the Packers beat the Vikings, the Packers will either play the NFC championship in New Orleans against the Saints or host the Eagles in Lambeau for the NFC championship.

Now back to the present moment, beating the Cardinals again.  Go Pack Go!

The opening play of the game Packers Steelers game was a 60 yard pass touchdown pass From Ben Roethlisberger to Rookie WR Mike Wallace .  Bush’s inexplicable blown coverage would alter this game in more ways than the 7 points to the Steelers.  This would be the first crack in defensive coordinator Dom Capers faith in himself. For most of the game, Dom Capers stuck with his original game plan.  He would blitz Roethlisberther often and try to contain him in the Pocket.  We never got to see the what Caper’s plan for the run as neither team ran the ball or even attempted to run the ball.  Roethlisberger spent the first half terrorizing the Packer’s secondary, engineering 3 touchdown drives against the Packers.   Roethlisberger largely would target the receivers covered by freshly promoted defensive backs Jarrett Bush and Josh Bell along with ILB A.J. Hawk, who had problems covering TE Heath Miller.

In the second half, the Packers defense contained the Steelers to three field goals.  The Packers offense  scored 22 points in the fourth quarter to put the Packers up 36-30 with 2:06 left on the clock, Pittsburgh’s ball on their own 14.  This is where we saw Capers lose his faith in himself.  After playing the Steelers the aggressively the whole game, Dom Capers would change his defensive strategy on this last drive.  The Packers started playing exclusively nickel and dime coverages during this final drive, usually in a soft zone.  Capers never rushed more than 4 this drive and often only 3.  Roethlisberger had plenty of time to pick apart the Packer’s secondary in this bend, don’t break defense.  Against this defensive scheme, the Steelers went 86 yards in 15 plays.  This drive culminated with a 19 yard touchdown pass to Mike Wallace at the end of regulation.  After Josh Reed trotted on the field for a chip shot extra point, the Steelers won 37-36.

After the game, Dom Capers said “Obviously, you get influenced when on the first play of the game they threw the ball over the top of us for a touchdown. That was a four-man rush with straight man coverage.”  It sounds like Capers lost some faith in his defense and his scheme for Pittsburgh after the first play.  Capers defended his switch to Nickel and Dime defense by saying ”You don’t want to let them go the distance in one play.  You want to make them have to work and make a play. We had our chances to make plays. We just didn’t get them made.”

I will concede to Capers that the Packers had their chances to make plays to win the game in the soft zones, but they just didn’t make them.  CB Tramon Williams dropped what should have been an interception early in the drive.  Jarrett Bush picked off Roethlisberger only to have his interception negated by an illegal contact penalty.  Then worst of all, DE Cullen Jenkins missed a game ending sack on Roethlisberger.  If any of these play had been made, the game would have been a Packer victory.

However, I hate the fact that he switched to this soft zone, which I believe exacerbated our weakness on defense.  The season ending injury of CB Al Harris promoted the inconstant Jarrett Bush to nickel and midseason pick up Josh Bell to dime back.  By giving Roethlisberger all day to throw the ball, the Packers gave Pittsburgh’s talented receiving corps, which includes two Super Bowl MVPs, time to get separation from our inconsistent and untested nickel and dime backs.

The aggressive blitzing defense Capers schemed for the Steelers, which did not allow a touchdown in the second half, was scrapped in the last two minutes.  I believe that is was because Capers lost faith in his own scheme.  Instead of sticking with his scheme that had held the Steelers to 9 points in the second half, he lost confidence in his players and himself.  I believe Capers then threw the defense out in a formation they have not played often this year because he got scared.  Saying whether or not the Packers would have won with that defense is impossible, but I think it gives the Packers the best chance.  I still believe that Capers is the answer to the Packers defense and has done an admirable job.  I just would have liked to have seen a Dom Capers defense on the field for the last two minutes of the game.

It was a productive week for the Packers in their quest to play 17 games this year.  The Packers defeated the Bears.  The Eagles beat the Giants pretty solidly on Sunday Night Football and pushed the Eagles into top spot in the division.  Dallas continued its ‘December slip’ as the Chargers beat the Cowboys.   This combination set up the Packers for a possible week 15 clinch.  The Packers’ Magic Number is two, they need to win two games or have the Giants or Cowboys lose two.  The Packers hold the tie breaker over Dallas due to their head-to-head victory and are two games ahead of the Giants.  If the Packers win and either Dallas or the Giants lose, the Packers clinch a playoff berth in week 15.

Let’s look team-by-team:

(more…)

The Packers are in a great position to go 12-4 and win 8 games straight.   I thought the Packers would be content to get to 8-8 after the Tamp Bay disaster, but it is wonderful how wrong you can be.  The Packers are poised to turned their 4-4 season to a stunning 12-4 wild card team.  All the Packers remaining games are winnable.  The remaining opponents, the Bears, Steelers, Seahawks and Cardinals are a combined 24-25 with three teams out of the playoff hunt and a divisional winner.  These are the games the Packers have to win to finish 12-4.

(more…)

One of the joys of being a Packers fan located in Chicago this year has been watching the Bears struggle.  They are downright terrible.  They just came off a four game losing streak, thanks to eeking out a victory against the hapless Rams.  Through the course of the season, the media in Chicago has gone from hyping the Bears to being disgusted with their crybaby quarterback to debating which person in management to fire.  The choices now include head coach Lovie Smith, offensive coordinator Ron Turner, and general manager Jerry Angelo.  Many Bears’ fans are suggesting all three. The Bears’ confidence is shattered and the coaching staff is exhausted.  The defects are glaring on both sides of the ball.  The team is dispirited and heartless. (more…)