Sunday, August 18, 2013

Packers-Rams Review

It was a preseason game, but it was nice to see the Packers go out and win 19-7 on the road.  We probably could have scored a lot more, but we wanted to give the kickers some field goal attempts after not having any last week against Arizona.  Lets look through the positions and see who stood out.

Quarterback

Rodgers looked sharp like always, he missed a 20 yard pass to Finley that would have put them deep into the red zone, ended up going 10-12, 134 yards.  The other incompletion for Rodgers was a Jones drop.  The next best passer was Harrell, he ran an efficient no huddle, stepped into some throws and tried to get the ball moving downfield.  Rams still played first team defense against him quite a bit.  Young and Coleman both looked pretty bad.  Young was staring down receivers, mainly Myles White, and Coleman's passes were just not the most accurate, even though he had a pretty touchdown through to Jake Stoneburner, a young UDFA TE from Ohio State.

Running Back

Lacy again was clearly the most impressive.  Had a few where it seemed like he didn't know which cut to go through, but that could have just been bad blocking.  When he gets going down field and those legs are churning, it is tough to get him down.  Had several touches where we needed 10 yards and he got another first down, both running and receiving.  No one else really looked that good.  Green had a good 13 yard run, but the other 4 carries were for 2 yards.  Franklin struggled in pass protection, which means he could struggle to get playing time this year.  Starks had a fumble that probably should have gone the other way, but the defender was out of bounds before he grabbed it, and it was against the 3rd string of the other team.  Pease had 2 carries for -8.  Ouch.

Receiver and Tight End

The person who caught the ball the best was Jermichael Finley.  4 for 78.  He was running well with the football and Rodgers had him as the main go to guy.  Boykin also impressed me with some good route running and no drops, I think he is likely to make the team again after making it last season.  Jones had a couple catches, and 1 drop.  Not a lot of consistency after that.  Bostick looked good with a few catches from Harrell.  If we let Finley go after the season, it is because Bostick is probably that good to be our second tight end right now.  Williams, mainly a blocker, had a few good catches, but I just wasn't that impressed by White, Hines, Walker, or Gillett.  I liked our tight ends much more than our receivers in this game.

Offensive line

Bak was the victim to give up the only sack of the night, a statistic you never want to be known for.  He was beat on the inside by Robert Quinn.  In general, the line did a good job of giving pass protection to anyone who was playing quarterback.  EDS was healthy enough to play, so we didn't get to see Van Roten with the starters like we thought could happen.  One player that I was disappointed in was Lane Taylor, he had a peel back block that was completely unnecessary and was a 15 yard personal foul.  Also, he had another holding penalty, and both of those would have been drive killers.

Defense

If you would have told me the two players that were going to get INT in this game were Johnny Jolly and Jarrett Bush, I probably would have given you a dumb look.  But Jolly was instrumental in both of them, getting his arm in front of a Clemens pass and Bush came under the ball.  In the red zone, Jolly backed up in zone coverage, #35 Loyce Means deflected a pass, and Jolly caught it!  The other player that looked great tonight was Micah Hyde.  He had his ups and downs throughout the game, but he looked like he was playing a role similar to Charles Woodson during our championship season.  He would cover the primary, cover the nickel, blitz, and basically do a little bit of everything.  His low point would have been the long 57 yard completion to Chris Givens, but he still tackled him right in front of the end zone.  Thought we were aggressive in coming after the quarterback.  Brandon Smith had an awful game though.  In punt return team, he had the ball bounce off of him so that it was Rams possession.  He got called for defensive holding in the red zone on a fourth down.  He also gave up the only touchdown of the game to Nick Johnson, and he got beat on a double move, and just stood at the ten yard line like, oh well.

Special Teams

Crosby looked better than Tavecchio in the game.  Crosby made all of his field goals, while Tavecchio missed a 50 yarder wide left, when it started on the right hash.  Also, Tavecchio couldn't kickoff out of the end zone, which left us open for returns.  Crosby had a field goal blocked that went through the uprights from 30 yards out, which was very odd to see.  If you had to pick a winner from this game, it would be Crosby.  No kick returns, and the longest punt return was by Micah Hyde.

I am glad there are 4 preseason games, if the only reason is that the Packers don't look like they would be ready to play next week in the regular season.  We still have a lot to improve on from what we are trying to do.  Felt good not to get shutout, and we have the Seahawks in our preseason game next week.  It is on CBS at 7 PM on Friday the 23rd.  And the 3rd preseason game is always the most important one, because we see more of the starters in that one than in any others.

No comments:

Post a Comment