I'm a bit confused. We outscored the Lions 31-3 over a period of 25 minutes. Then, magically, our offense and defense disappeared, and a "new team" appeared. A team that was beaten by the Lions 24-3, over a 35 minutes span of the game.
Yet, that 35 minute melt down doesn't matter, because the Packers have injuries, it don't matter how well you play, a W is a W, no matter how you get it. In other words, the fact that they slipped right back into the mode they'd been in for prior games, is not relevant.
I think it is relevant. I think what happened after we got the lead has to be visited and revisited, until we reach a point that what happened doesn't happen any more. A team that does a Jekyll & Hyde number like the Packers did has some serious problems.
No matter how you look at it, or want to look at it, the Packers have this way of letting teams off the hook. We've watched for a long time now, and we've even watched leads in playoff games disappear, and turn into losses.
We watched Rodgers work his magic. We saw the Aaron Rodgers that makes things happen. Then we saw an Aaron Rodgers who is edgy, and doesn't have a real grasp on what it takes to move a football team. I don't believe it was his fault. I believe it was due to the offensive changes that pretty much took the game out of his hands. It was the coach's decision.
I watched Capers' defense hitting on all 8-cylinders. They were in the face of the Lions, making plays, and making defensive plays all over the field. Then, like magic, the bull rushes, and the blitzes disappeared, and a vanilla defense that's prone to be burned in medium to short routes in the middle appeared. You know.... the defense that looks like it doesn't belong in the NFL? It was vanilla. Ain't nothing because there was absolutely no pressure to speak of.
Blame it on injuries? Not on your life. They played lights out football for 25 minutes, then someone threw a switch, and it all changed, just like on the offense. This is a coaching move, not some "unknown force" that suddenly turned our defense from a top 10 to a bottom 5 in the blink of an eye. And it started before halftime, when we gave up that long TD. Something, in the locker room, at halftime, caused it to get worse.
I'm not accepting this as a great win. I'm going to stick with what I've said before, and said, even before the game, that the Packers would get a big lead, and squander it. It wasn't a lucky guess, it was what I knew, in my heart, was going to happen. Just like I said the week before, that the Vikings would win. Not because I wanted them to win, but because McCarthy just doesn't answer the call the way a winning coach should. He has to quit backing off when we have leads. It's cost us before, and we didn't go into the bye with the knowledge we got better. We went into the bye with the knowledge that for the last 35 minutes of a football game, the Packers were humiliated 24-3 by a team that is a door mat in the league, and it happened in our house.
If you don't agree with me, I understand. But it's pretty hard to disagree with over 80,000 fans who were in the stands, booing what the Packers were doing in the 4th quarter. They knew the Packers were stinking up the field.
approach to this team fantastic but that's not how we roll here...never has been. There were positives and negatives of yesterday's game... of every game and we break those down and discuss them. No holds barred.
. Offensively, we still have a problem with scheming against what a defense is actually doing. We still didn't use all of our WR's (Davis, Montgomery, and Abby) although they played a few more snaps. AR is still looking downfield and not using the crossing routes and check downs. (Starks and Lacy were open at least three times and he held on to the ball or threw it down field)
