Well, that could have gone better. Pretty tough game all around for the Packers tonight in front of a national audience, but I'm not too stressed out about it. The NFC North is pretty bad right now, and the Cowboys are a good team, so this loss doesn't hurt too bad. Plus, it's so early in the season, this was a good way for the Packers to find out what they are doing wrong and what can be fixed. Here's the five biggest things I took away from the game.1. A Tale of Two Halves
In each of the Packers three games, they have played much differently in the second half as they did in the first. I feel like they are more aggressive, they pass more, and they take more chances in the first half. Then in the second half, lead or no lead, they tend to slow things down and try to force the running game. I personally would have liked to see a little more aggressive play calling in the second half.
2. Nowhere to Run
The Packers' running game is a little suspect right now, and minus one run against the Vikings, I have not been impressed with Ryan Grant. Maybe the reason his agent wanted Grant to hold out so bad for more money is because he knew he'd be exposed this season. I still think Grant is a good back though, but he's got to start making a bigger impact, and holding on to the football. I know he's a little banged up, and he never really had a pre-season, but I think we need to see a big week from Grant next week.
3. Giving Up the Big Play
That was the problem on defense in this game. The Packers gave up 217 yards on the ground to the Cowboys on Sunday, 60 of those being on a scamper from Felix Jones. We also made Miles Austin look like a bona fide star, as he had 2 catches for 115 yards and a touchdown. The defense also had a hard time stopping Dallas on 3rd down, and that's ultimately how the Cowboys won this game, at least on that side of the ball.
4. Field Goals Aren't Going to Cut It
If the Packers score a touchdown on anyone of those drives they had to settle for a field goal on, this is a completely different game. The Packers were in the Red Zone on every one of those drives, but just couldn't punch it in.
5. Rodgers Struggles
Oh, Aaron. I still love you. Actually, Rodgers didn't even play that bad. He threw for almost 300 yards, and didn't turn the ball over. But not all of his passes were on target, and his only touchdown was on a one yard sneak that was for the most part uncontested. He didn't look like the same quarterback that he was in the previous two games, and he struggled when he had to rollout to his left.
I still think we made the right decision going forward with Rodgers, and that will never change. With Favre, I say we're 1-2 at this point. The best part about Rodgers is he doesn't make the dumb mistakes that Favre made because Favre thought he was invincible. Still, the one thing Rodgers hasn't been able to do so far is brought the Packers back from a tough deficit (I'm not counting the 1 point comeback against the Lions, that was courtesy of Chuck Woodson). But I'm confident he'll be able to do that, and that this loss won't throw this Packers team off track one bit.
4 comments:
Rodgers was only 56%, but he actually looked pretty decent, considering the team. Agreed that he didn't play quite as well as the first 2 games, but he did play well overall.
Um, did you you see the same game I did? Rodgers was consistently overthrowing receivers basically the entire 2nd half. That "almost 300 yards" came in at garbage time.
Did Favre not sign an autograph of yours or something? You do not know how Favre would look with the receivers on this team vs. who the Jets have. Oh, actually you do, career best year last year. You just want him to suck, so, bad. Every post is the same. Rodgers is great, Favre sucks...blah, blah, blah. Sixteen years he fought his a-- off for the team. Keep drinking the kool-aid, Winks, it will sustain you through the Neil O'Donnell era here.
haha antonio is clueless
Not really sure how winks is drinking the kool-aid.
Rodgers didn't have a great game, but he certainly didn't have a bad one either. Losing Jones hurt, that offensive line once again looked atrocious and the defense didn't sans the red zone pick didn't help a whole lot. Also penalties were in abundance again.
Whats funny is that this poster above seems to think Rodgers had a terrible game. You take two of those drives that stalled for field goals and the fumble on the first drive and its a radically different game.
Rodgers had no turnovers, ended up with a diluted 290 yards, a rushing TD and a qb rating of around 80. Not good but not bad either. Factor in that it was his 3rd start, against the NFC's best team and I'm not really sure how what Winks said can be described as drinking kool-aid. Sounds much more like this choad above is just a straight up hater.
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