The game against the Eagles revealed some things about the Pack that are seriously messed up. Some of which, we thought we had fixed. Some of which, we hoped we had fixed.
Despite the mounting question marks where we hoped we had answers, there are three things that we’re not worried about going into week one against the Bears.
#1 – The Offensive Line will be Solid
There wasn’t much room for Lacy to run in week three of the preseason, and Brett had to do a lot of escaping from a collapsing pocket. Most of that was due to the fact that the Packers were sitting so many starting offensive linemen. There will be little doubt that those linemen will be ready for week one of the 2015 season. They’ll continue to be solid. They’ll continue to give Lacy running lanes. And, they’ll continue to give Aaron plenty of time to find whatever wide receivers we put on the field.
I was incredibly impressed with Hundley’s poise when the pocket broke down, and I wonder just what he could have accomplished behind the entire #1 offensive line. I wish he had been given that chance, but it was the smart move to rest the starting line and give the little injuries time to recover going into the season.
#2 – The Wide Receivers will be Productive
Even if Cobb can’t go against the Bears, Aaron will continue to find open receivers. A quarterback the caliber of Aaron Rodgers can utilize his pin-point accuracy to make solid receivers look outstanding. Plus, I really think the Packers have a ton of talent in the wide receiver depth. Miles White showed he can catch just about anything thrown his way when he’s focusing hard enough. Ty Montgomery showed he can break away. Davante Adams was good early on in 2014 and just got better as the season went along.
The other thing that the Packers have going for them is that they have some solid tight ends. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Pack use a two tight end set regularly to offer additional blocking for Lacy with the threat of a short pass and rumble.
#3 – The Bears Still Suck
In this league (and especially this division) you never say never, but if you’ve watched any of the Bears preseason first quarters, you’ve seen the Bears starters look like no match for the Packers’ #3s.
but the one big thing that will hurt the packers, especially when it counts……come on, you know the answer…..same thing that has hurt them in each of the last 4 or 5 post seasons……I think you guessed it…..DEFENSE!!!!! It’s still horrible. Capers is still there and it’s like the Packers brass just turns a blind eye to the Swiss cheese that is our defense. D wins championships. Don’t care how good Rodgers is. When his time is done, we will be looking back at years and years of wasted seasons because the Pack never gave the team enough D to win it all in years where that offense was good enough to do it.
Twitter: GPN_JR
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The defense certainly was alarming. I don’t know what they’re going to do with the ILB position. None of those guys can handle pass coverage well. And, Hayward doesn’t look like the answer at corner. At least not early on.
The only thing that has stopped this team from being a dynasty is the defense. If they had a defense half as good as Seattle, we would not be having a conversation about Seattle at all…period. I know New England won it all, and had Green Bay played them in the Superbowl last year, I think they would have won in spite of their defense. That being said, I am more than alarmed about this years version of a defense. You cannot pretend that the debacle against the Eagles was a vanilla defense. It was the dress rehearsal for the regular season, and the defense fell flat on their face. I do not believe that Green Bay can simply outscore every team they play this year. I am not optimistic at all going in to the season. I am sure the offense will be amazing, even without Nelson, but we cannot expect to score 28-35 points a game to win. The schedule has some pretty stout defenses to play against, and I am not confident that those games can be won by outscoring those teams. We shall see, but this will be the Achilles heel of this team…….again.