The Packers and their fans are counting on their defensive unit to neutralize Mike Vick and the Eagles’ big-play offense on Sunday…this sample clip from Green Bay media celebrates the Pack’s huge 10-3 win over Chicago last week which was a big defensive effort under pressure conditions.
Packers coach Mike McCarthy is making no attempt to hide his belief that the key to making a Super Bowl run is his team’s defense. He’s burning up the media this week talking about how stopping Eagles quarterback Michael Vick will be critical to advancing beyond the first round. Maybe it’s because he’s seen how coordinator Dom Capers’ defense finished the season with a dominating six-sack, two-interception performance in Sunday’s 10-3 victory over the Chicago Bears… and had been keeping the Packers in game after game this season while the offense has been on the inconsistent side.
Whatever the reason, McCarthy, the former quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator who as a head coach has the Packers in the playoffs for the third time in the last four years, claimed that his team will need its defense to perform to make a title run.“I think it’s important for your team to be noted for great defense,” McCarthy said. “That’s always been the goal in my tenure here, and I think we definitely have reached that.”
The Packers (10-6) finished the regular season ranked second in the NFL in scoring defense, allowing 15.0 points per game. Only the Pittsburgh Steelers (14.5 ppg) were more stingy. Six times this season, the defense has held an opponent under 10 points, including the Oct. 31 road shutout of the New York Jets.
“I think that speaks volumes of the improvement we’ve made from last year to this year,” McCarthy said. “Because I think defenses do win championships. Your offense and your quarterback obviously play a big part in that, and you can carry it over to special teams. You have to have all three phases, but it starts with defense. I’ve always looked at defense as the thermostat. When you have a great defense, they keep you in games week in and week out.”
The 2010 edition of Capers’ defense appears to be more complete. The pass rush has been strong, led by LB Clay Matthews (13.5 sacks) on the outside and NT B.J. Raji (6.5 sacks) on the interior. If they get DE Cullen Jenkins (seven sacks) back after missing the last four games because of a calf injury, it should be that much better. But Capers also has found other rushers like fill-in OLB Erik Walden, who had two sacks against the Bears. “If you can learn anything from last year, I think we were the hottest team in the NFL and came out and gave up 51 points or something along those lines,” Matthews said. “That’s not indicative of our defense and of our team. So if we can learn anything, it’s to keep this rolling, we can’t back off. We earned the right to be in (the playoffs). Now it’s about taking it to the next step and winning the first game.”
Erik Walden was unleashed on the unsuspecting Chicago Bears on Sunday. With a playoff berth on the line for the Packers, Walden might have been the best player on the field. He led the Packers with 11 tackles, sacked Bears quarterback Jay Cutler twice and helped limit tight end Greg Olsen to 29 receiving yards in Green Bay’s 10-3 victory at Lambeau Field. “He did a fantastic job,” said Matthews. “He played a magnificent game. It’s hard for a guy to come in halfway through the season, pick up the defense and make an impact. That’s what he’s doing.”
Decimated by injuries and challenged by a revolving door at several positions, the Packers defense somehow got better as the season progressed.
“It’s a combination of the guys upstairs bringing in good players and just being a team,” said linebacker Desmond Bishop, who also got his chance because of injuries to players ahead of him. “Whoever gets plugged in there, they wear the same ‘G’ on their helmets as the rest of us. We approach the game as one.” CB Charles Woodson added, “That has had to happen with the amount of injuries we’ve had. Backups and practice squad guys who have been called up, they’ve had to play and play well in order for us to get into the playoffs.” The Packers finished the regular season with the No. 2 scoring defense in the NFL, behind only Pittsburgh.
Nothing has been easy for the Green Bay Packers this season. From their up-and-down play to an avalanche of injuries to some plain bad luck, in the end, the Packers overcame it all and earned the sixth and final spot in the NFC playoffs.
The Packers last saw Vick on opening day when, in relief of an injured Kevin Kolb, Vick nearly rallied the Eagles to a comeback victory. For a while this year, Vick looked nearly unbeatable and threw no interceptions in his first 211 passes. But defenses have caught up to him more recently — six interceptions in his last 161 throws — and in his last two games, against the New York Giants and Minnesota, Vick showed glimpses of the player he was earlier in his career. The Giants’ ultra-aggressive blitz package worked perfectly for the first 3½ quarters of that game. Under constant pressure and becoming indecisive on occasion, Vick was sacked three times, had only 121 yards passing and 36 yards rushing in the first 52 minutes. The Giants appeared to have the game locked when they scored to take a 31-10 lead with 8:17 to play. But in the final eight minutes, Vick went wild. He threw for 121 yards and rushed for 94 more, including scrambles of 35, 33 and 22 yards, in leading the Eagles to an improbable comeback win.
The next week, the Vikings made Vick look even more like his younger erratic self with a package of pressures that included extensive blitzing by cornerback Antoine Winfield, though it must be noted Vick sustained a bruised thigh on his first play that limited his mobility the rest of the game. Regardless, Vick and his line had trouble reading the blitzes, and he had a horrible performance (74.1 passer rating, 25-for-43 passing). Without his usual mobility, he was sacked six times, fumbled twice and threw an interception. In a game the Eagles needed to win for a shot at a first-round bye in the playoffs, Philadelphia suffered a stunning 24-14 home loss to a rookie quarterback, Joe Webb, who was drafted to play wide receiver.
Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers has looked hard at those game tapes and no doubt will try to confuse Vick and his offensive line with a mix of disguised blitzes and coverage-oriented calls. But keeping Vick in the pocket is imperative, blitz or not, so the Green Bay rushers can’t come at him with abandon. That’s what allowed Vick to break out on the three long runs in the final eight minutes against the Giants — the blitzes kept coming, but out-of-control rushers lost containment.
“If you blitz him and he gets through, there’s nobody left, nobody’s going to catch him,” Capers said. “So you have to be careful in how you blitz and make sure all the lanes are covered. But you want to be aggressive too. You want to be careful your guys aren’t so conscious of staying in their lanes it looks like slow motion. I’ve seen that happen to teams. There’s a fine line. And at the time Minnesota had nothing to lose, they’re out of (the playoffs), they just started blitzing. This will be a different circumstance this week.”
One way to try to keep Vick in the pocket is to mirror him with a linebacker or safety as a spy, but that removes a player from either coverage or the pass rush.
“If you can handle the receivers one-on-one, you have an extra guy for the quarterback,” Capers told Pete Dougherty of the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “If you can’t handle the receivers one on one, you have issues. You can’t have two guys on each receiver, a guy on the (running) back, and a guy on the quarterback, you just don’t have enough bodies. The biggest thing about them, the Eagles have great speed everywhere.”
Meanwhile Vick says he’s ready to go and should be physically “at 100 percent by Sunday.” He knows he has a bulls-eye on him. It’s interesting to me that the Green Bay defense is only in its second year of running the 3-4 defense (3 down linemen, 4 linebackers), and Capers has things running so smoothly with it. What the Packers were doing defensively before Don Capers and his 3-4 was installed was as different as night from day. Amazingly, the Pack’s personnel have made a quick and seamless transition. Drafting B.J. Raji at defensive tackle (6-2, 337, Boston College) a year ago as the best run-stopper in the 2009 draft turned out to be a terrific indicator that Capers’ 3-4 would have the key component it needed. Capers has added the edge rushers and the 3-4 prototype linebackers to complete the recipe.
We’ll look at some of the key individual matchups for the Eagles offense against Capers and his tough Pack defense in tomorrow’s playoff preview…This game is shaping up like a “Frazier vs. Ali” championship bout… the Packers defense (strong, tough-minded, aggressive like Frazier) vs. the faster, elusive and opportunistic Eagles offense (Ali)… Of course, Joe Frazier was a clever opponent in his own right, and Ali did not always win despite his apparently superior athletic skills… So there’s plenty of drama ahead in the Packers-Eagles tale of the tape.
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