With Aaron Rogers returning to earth a human it’s been time more than ever to consistently run the ball. Going man on man hat on hat isn’t going to win games. Street ball isn’t going to win games. It’s utilizing the playbook, and putting in the work. Something Aaron Rogers hasn’t been doing this off-season. Run the ball, and play defense. Maybe we are that bad. Maybe we aren’t. I’ve wondered a long while if Green Bay lacks the versatile depth on the field to be good. As in can our edge rushers actually help to stop the run? Is our team able to block, and or tackle? It’s going to get really interesting really quickly.

Heflin needs to be active for this game , he did great in pre season then inactive on game day , Why did Z Smith play having had back issues and limited practice time ?

"Hard to wake up the dead."--An excellent subtitle!

Our supposedly most talented players on defense didn't make any impactful plays. We were all expecting big things from Gary, a rejuvenated P. Smith...yet nothing really of note. We shouldn't be stunned at all to see the Packers DL pushed around or other defenders unable to get off blocks because we've seen it all before.

A couple of vocal, fired-up leaders would really be helpful on the defensive side of the ball, but they have to be on the field, not the sideline.

Still too much cushion being given up by the secondary, though--only one pass defended recorded in the box score. You have to at least be in the vicinity to make a play.

Improvements in the defense were always going to be a long-term proposition. You don't transistion from a passive "bend but don't break" to a more aggressive style in one game, though admittedly this was a very poor start. You just hope it isn't going to take too long, because the season depends on it.

Sorry, but I didn't see anything to Dream on. Lowrey needs to go.

Barry’s defense at Detroit & Washington finished dead last or close to it all 4 years!
That is no accident, he sucks and MLF will be on the hot seat because of it.

Promising start for the rookie O linemen, Gutey does a good job with getting good OL talent.

Jamal will get his yards, he’s such a fun dude and I wish him well, just not against the Pack 🤩

ND

Joe Barry better get his act together! The defense is already giving up an average of 38 points a game. He’s got 2 guys to work with and a bunch of other confused guys who haven’t done shit except for Amos. Why would anyone think this is going to be a top ten unit? Barry excites himself and no one else. If they only give up 37 points on Monday night it’ll be an improvement.

Wrong - Totally wrong. Joe Barry was the problem - as was Lafleur. I dont know how not getting a team ready to play is not the fault of the coach. We all know that we were lucky to have Z dressed. But come on. And this tackling issue. This has been a GB issue for some time now. In watching the Raiders/Ravens game - they all made tackles on the outside one on one. Us NO. Murphy better find out what is going on in the training and practicing that other teams are doing because we have been brutal. And maybe it is not only talent - ie coverage, speed , turn of the hips etc etc that GB is measuring at pro days and the combine. How about a willingness to stick ones nose in it? How about ranking the willingness to tackle up higher because obviously we CANNOT teach that at OTA's and training camp. That is Joe Barry's responsibility to fire up the guys even if it takes all of them to chase a guy down. Not panicking yet - but we cant play that way against anybody again.

Barry could have replaced King, but didn't. He could have played Heflin, he didn't. He could have called for his players to come to the sidelines and lit a fire under them, he didn't. He could have thrown the kitchen sink at the Saints, he didn't. It seems to me with the talent we have, our coaches didn't coach the players to their talent. We will see this Sunday if last week was some anomaly or is it a foreboding of things to come.

Unbelievable .

We score 3 points and say “Our defense has no talent” . That’s the problem. And if we’d replace Lowry and King it would make a difference, even though you lose 99% of the games where you score 3 points and have multiple turnovers.

Sheeesh.

We scored 3 points! We turned it over 3 times! Fix the offense and then tell me how the defense does. Ever since LaFleur came to town, the defense generally holds the opponents to UNDER their season averages unless multiple turnovers occur. In the 9 losses we’ve had, turnovers figured prominently in at least 7 of them.

Philly, Chargers, 49ers, 49ers, Bucs, Vikes, Colts, Bucs, Saints. Look it up and see for yourself.

Barry chose to start Lowry against Kamara and had King playing well off the receiver. That’s not anyone else’s fault but his.

LaFleur should get more blame than Barry. That said, Barry should get a lot of blame.

I'm wondering about Z. Smith, whether or not he is being a malcontent who is dragging down the team?
Is it true he only practiced two days during training camp, and maybe just one day in the week before the game against the Saints (maybe none)?
Was that all due to injury, or is it in large part Z. sending a message to the team that he's not happy?
Was there a controversy about Z. not being named a captain, or is that false?
Maybe Z. has been exemplary in doing all he can to get on the field and lead our defense.
If he hasn't, then Joe Barry has had a major hindrance in his new position as defensive coordinator.
***
Another quick question: Who made the call to not play our starting defense in the preseason? If Barry wanted to play his guys but wasn't able to, then that also would be a major hindrance to his efforts as a coach.

Hell no, Ken. He gets full blame. You coach technique then practice. Guess those 1 hour 40 minute training camp practices-for-whimps didn't suffice. If you can't win with the likes of Alexander, the Smiths, Gary and Clark, the safeties plus the average good cast around them....then ya ain't a good coach. And when Sean Payton can take jags and unknowns and whip the #4 ish best team, ya can coach. Big difference. Very plain logic.

This game resulted in a total circle jerk of pointing the blame finger by fans apparently. I hope every player and coach pointed to the mirror and seen his part in the failure and vowed to not repeat it.

I think the problem is the expectations are way to high for this packers defensive unit ..

Honestly what other team in the nfl has guys like lowery or Lancaster playing meaningful and starter snaps ?

I'm sure Campbell and Barnes are average which is fine if you have a stout d-line but really let's be honest the packers don't have this

They packers had their shot last year didn't work out

Buddy Ryan in his prime couldn't make a defensive line work with lowrey and lancaster

I agree that the players are ultimately responsible for their level of play. This is professional football. I am sure this will be corrected on both sides. However, this team has too much talent to lay a giant egg the way they did for 3+ quarters. Good coaches make the right in-game adjustments or find ways to get the players out of their own heads. This didn’t happen. One game doesn’t make a season or a coach’s legacy, but there have been enough games over the past few years to believe that Matt LaFleur is challenged when operating down a few scores. He would do well to task an assistant coach to implement a pre-determined plan (operation: back to basics) to counteract these tendencies.

My biggest criticism for Barry lies with the level of confusion demonstrated by the defense throughout the game. Players seemed out of position frequently or confused at their responsibilities. This happened pre-snap as well as during the play. There were more than a few times when the play clock was near zero and several players had their backs to the offense trying to communicate/clarify their assignments. The Saints if I recall were not doing crazy shifts or motion to warrant it. I believe this confusion, or perhaps, lack of confidence in the scheme, led to them to be out of position and a step or two behind. It will take time to be completely comfortable with a new defense, no doubt. However, the baseline is set a lot further back, honestly, than we all imagined it would be. This defense was supposed to be simpler. This rests squarely on Barry’s scorecard. We’ll see how this improves in the coming weeks, I am hoping it does.

It also seemed like the Saints were not especially worried about figuring out the defensive scheme from the start. It looked vanilla and passive to me, and maybe Payton saw that too and simply exploited it. Or, it could be a result of a lack of disrespect for Joe Barry as a DC on the part of the Saints. The latter, if true and shared by others in the league, might be a more interesting narrative to follow throughout the season.

The bitch meter has been buzxing on this site. Pretty impressive.
My take is simpler. We have no play makers on d.
Point, the d cant play good because they arent good no matter who the coach is.
Smth bros arent young anymore. ilb's are no bodys who lack speed and agility. Never should have been drafted. Corners are crap.
You got nothing to turn around.
How can the d pkay good when they arent good.

the article is pretty good.
But the drama queens with here neandertal thinking is the real shame for the PACKERS. Just bitching and blaming about everything. No matter what. Sensless and dumb like always. Dont know how they make it through life. A orange bunch of professional loooosers..in every way.

Packers D: sucks
Joe Barry: I will PT you all until you fucking die! I'll PT you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk!

That's what I want to hear, because only a Drill Sergeant can whip this sorry unit into shape. Joe Barry can't whip anything into shape as his track record shows, especially not a unit of soft-skinned, tackle missing sissies that can't even play evenly with the Saints backups.

I believe that with this defeat the light has finally been put on the real problem of the Packers of the last 10 years !!!!
AR (with all its problems !!) has always managed football almost always perfectly and our D almost always played fewer snaps than all the other teams and despite everything it was never decent !! This has strengthened in AR the idea of ​​being the savior of the team (how to blame him !!) and consequently many character distortions have been inculcated in his mind !!!!
I don't think Barry was the right choice (and MLF is responsible for this !!!), but I also believe that the talent at his disposal is really low !!!
We are always overestimating our players, especially the D players !! (a few days ago it was even said of how deep it was !!)
The only one who really can make a difference is Jaire !!! The others, including Clark (at least until now) are not at his level and are mostly sloppy (King no comment - thanks Gute !!). We talk a lot about AR gameplay issues with Cover 2 coverage (and it may be true), but the real problem is that the D of the elite teams manage to stop our running game with little staff and this allows them to apply this floor !!!
I believe that our expectations must go hand in hand with the value of our players.
Yes, last year we finished with the best attack, Q MVP, many pro Bowl ....., but the reality is that in the decisive games, where the value of the teams is generally equal, our D has ALWAYS failed by granting a average of over 31 points !!! and you cannot save yourself from this .....

The Thompson/Guteknust scouting department are very poor talent evaluators on defense. They have demonstrated this over and over. The team coaching staff and front office don't value the interior D Line and ILB positions. They are convinced they are right even if they have massive failures. They draft a couple of player (by dumb luck) that succeed and Gutey thinks he's good at what he does.

Joe Barry will fail for a couple of reasons. Number 1, he has no history of success as DC. Number 2, the Front office has are poor talent evaluators and number 3 the offense must functional at a very high level to compensate for the poor defense and it's unlikely it will function at the level of last year.

I would love to wrong.....so let's see what happens.

Let’s wait and see what the next game brings. And the next before we make projections for the season.

My God.

Nobody on Packers team deserves to play at NFL. Well, except Arrogant Diva and maybe Davante Adams. David Bakhtiari is overvalued, the rest of the team are just JAGs. OK, except Jaire A. But he is just OK.

What is interesting to me is that players cut by Packers always excels while playing for other teams. Last example - Ringo. Casey, always injured is very important piece for Chargers, Hyde, to slow for NFL, very important piece of Bills D. Mike Pennel, stupid beef, has SB ring with Chiefs and played as starter last SB. Characteristics I used to described them was mainstream opinion on them through their tenure with GBP.

What I learned on this page is that beloving players, like AR can never be wrong, but almost all others would be blamed for different reasons. We all knows how QBs and CBs has to have short memory. They can learn how to achieve that from this page, from fans.

I also found out how people who are running this page have, by my opinion, very healthy approach. They rarely brings their opinion on value of players, but when is need to criticism, they are talking about acts, not people.

Here, with fans, the problem is persons, not acts they are doing.

Through my time during I follows Packers, I have enough "proof" about one player to be comfortable to talk about him as person.

My life experience shows me that fish smells from head, not from tale, so I agree with some here for calling MLF for main reason why team laid egg in Jacksonville. Nobody else. If he believe he has no good talent on the team to be winning team, he should say that. Like Zimmer, who already had several public announcement about group of players or his team. He risked his position, but he had good arguments. He showed accountability for his work.

This is only mine humble opinion.

Dude, did you even read what you wrote? You let a team roll up 38 on you just where the hell is the defense? If it's everyone else's fault why do you even have a DC? Just yell at the players every time they fold. It is JB's fault.

For some unknown reason, GB is incapable of hiring a competent DC. The same can be said of ST. The problems on offense last week were AR could not throw the ball accurately down the field and refused to throw short, and in the face of that shit-show, MLF refused to switch to the ground game. I don't care what the score was, once the offense shows itself incapable of throwing the ball, or unwilling to throw it underneath, you switch up and run the ball. If you can't run the ball either, then you are pathetic and it probably does not matter what you do.

Sorry, but the premise of this article is incorrect. Barry and MLF and the entire coaching staff deserve all of the blame for this fiasco. The coaches job is to prepare the team to play and to win games. The packers could have lost this game even if they played well. That at least would have been a sign that they were prepared and something to build off of for the upcoming Lions game. But the Packers had nothing from the opening kickoff and even less as the game went on.

The team was totally listless and had less than zero sense of urgency. IMO this has been an organizational problem for years. The stadium is sold out forever and the team consistently reaches the playoffs. Management congratulates itself and tells itself another successful season. To me the lack of urgency starting with management is in the fact that position groups are allowed to go on for years without any actions taken to improve the group. ILB and DL, in particular have not been addressed for about a decade now. We have Kenny Clark and that's it on the DL and who??? at ILB? Before that it was safety left to languish for years or RB or TE. Why?

I'm not expecting great players at every position but can't we at least find competent players? Why do we keep and overpay players like Lowry and King?? It always seems like something is missing on the team. It's never just quite right. I agree with Croat, this starts from the top and reaches all the way down to our players on the field.

As for the loss to the Saints it is on the coaches. we have nearly 30 coaches on the staff. One of them must know how to coach tackling and another must know how to coach blocking and someone must know how to catch a football. I don't care who or what their role is on the staff just get the team ready to play.
Numerous Lombardi Packers commented that Lombardi was the best coach from Monday to Saturday in getting the team prepared to play on Sunday. But also that Lombardi was basically useless on Sunday because the team was so well prepared to play the game that there was literally nothing left for him to do during the game. Starr called the plays on offense and Bengston handled the defense so Lombardi was just a glorified cheerleader. Starr, Hornung, Willie Davis, Nitschke, Dave Robinson and others all made similar comments about Coach Lombardi over the years and in numerous Lombardi biographies. He very rarely made an in game decision and just expected his players to execute which they did better than any team that has ever taken the field in the history of the NFL. The results are there, end of story, case closed. Thanks, Since '61

I limit any " Blame Barry " solely to his Defense and their contributions to the overall game and not to the pitiful scoring by the Offense.

Barry's D gave up FIVE - 5 - touchdown passes to Jameis Winston in his starting debut for the Saints.

Barry's vaunted new D had how many " take-aways" - created how many turnovers - created how much disruption of the Saints running game - how many disruptions of the Saint's passing game - etc?

BY the way, did any Defensive free agents sign with the Packers this off - season, to replace existing players, because they wanted to play in Barry's D?

Did any fast rising, talented Defensive position coaches join the Packers to coach and learn under Barry?

Barry IS the Defensive co - ordinator and the defensive blame buck stops at his office door.

Can he or did he motivate any of his D players to play above their previous year's levels with tackling, pass rush, pass break-ups or anything?

What did the D show in the Saints game that shows his positive influence on the Defensive performance?

And one would think his players would want to play their best right out of the gate in their opening game under a new D co - ordinator.

I looked forward to his new " D " this past Sunday, believing it would be better than previous recent Ds'.

Barry deserves high praise when it is warranted and blame when it is warranted and the game I watched Sunday past was a praise-less, blameful pathetic Defensive performance.

Run, Run, RUN!!
Running the ball accomplishes 4 things GB desperately need.
1. It opens up play action.
2. It’s easier on the OL.
3. It wears down opposing D.
4. It keeps our D off the field. From what I can tell, that’s probably a really good place for them to be.

They must create that mentality now. Allowing our defense on the field only makes the other team’s offense excited and happy while causing grief everywhere else.

Winning shootouts come playoff time isn’t a sound or practical game plan.

RUN!!

Ken,

The New Orleans Saints had as much time to prepare for the game as the Green Bay Packers, correct?
So when a team with Super Bowl aspirations comes out and plays as poorly as it did on both sides of the ball, you give the coaches a free pass and blame the players? Yes, but the players need proper direction. The misalignments, blown coverages, lack of meaningful run defense is only partially applicable to the players.

The coaches obviously were unprepared for the Saints. Do you blame the players for that? Matt LF and Barry both were caught flat-footed, showing a real lack of reality. Most of the players are back from a good defense last year, but they gave up 38 points? Why is that? BECAUSE THE COACHES DIDN'T PREPARE THEM PROPERLY.
MLF called a poor game, giving the ball over to the Saints. The Packers defense was porous and wore out.

Sorry, Barry is to blame. All he had to do was go with a veteran defense and get some 3 and outs. They were run over like a turtle on the road in front of an 18-wheeler.

MLF and Barry have that debacle on their shoulders. Sorry to disagree with you.

Would you please just go away?

barry deserves it for his lack of adjustments, he pulled the insanity defense, trying the same thing expecting different response. u can count the blitzes on one hand,amongst other adjustments. where i dont blame him is team strategy failing. packs roster and identy is offense. score lots of points forcing the opponent to play into the defenses strength, covarage through "soft" bend but dont break scheme. the league is offense wins, not defense, though it helps. with ar making more than the whole dl and ilb how can it be any different

I would say crying about not being voted team captain kinda says it all as why you weren’t.