Green Bay’s defense has picked up where it left off last season, and that’s unacceptable to Charles Woodson. Despite being one of the stingiest defenses in the league by the numbers last year, the unit allowed 45 points in a 51-45 loss in the postseason to Arizona after falling behind 17-0. The same thing happened Saturday night in the exhibition opener when Cleveland scored on its first drive and again immediately after the Packers lost a fumble to take a 14-0 lead in a game the Browns won 27-24. Woodson says those type of slow starts and mistakes in a regular season game will cost a team already shouldering high expectations. "We had those type of games last year, and we can't allow that to happen again this year," Woodson said. "There's some things we're going to have to fix. Defensively, we're not at all happy with how we played." Source: Associated Press
I didn't expect anything other than that. Our secondary suck for years now and Capers turn a mediocre 4-3 into a awful 3-4
Dude..relax...i was at the game...it wasnt that bad. Our 1st team def didnt even play that long...and it was our first preseason game...of course our secondary sucks with harris out, woodsen barely playing..and we had a brand new safety who never played an nfl snap in his life. Not to mention our best pass rusher had to sit out with his hamstring tweak. A few unlucky freak things happened - we muffed what, 3 kicks by new guys and Grant somehow fumbled on the first play. Relax...theres plenty of time..we will be fine.
It was like our 4th and 5th string CB's that cost us..harris, lee, blackmon, even underwood...were all out/injured for length stretches of the season. You cant expect to win against top-tier QB's (rothlesberger, warner, favre) etc.. with rookie backups. Actually, if you go back and you look what actually cost us a lot of big plays...was our safety spot...bigby was hurt lot and hasnt been the same since 2007...we got derrick martin from the ravens but he had never played a snap in the packers defense. We have more than enough talent on defense..and it all starts up front. If we can vamp up the pass rush up front that will fix alot of inconsistencies that may be in our secondary.
Harris is 35 and Woodson 33 and both had been shaken up plenty of times during their careers, Bigby isn't more than mediorce and I don't see how the 3-4 is helping us, w/o the fitting personal. Defense is winning championships - this one is hardly winning games, w/o a highscoring Offense
i agree with olly on this one. this defense needs to take a huge step forward if all of these pre-season SB predictions are going to come true.
They need to get younger. Like someone pointed out above, Woodson and Harris are both getting older. Nick Barnett isn't exactly old. They started getting younger last year by drafting Clay Matthews, who could become the top 3-4 OLB in the league here in a couple years. They need to find some secondary and defensive line help in the draft here in the next couple years. They have the pass rush. I love the potential of this defense.
I whole heartedly agree with what you guys are saying....BUT our secondary is not the only problem from last year. In the games we lost...steelers...both vikings games, cards playoff game..even the game agains the bucs....our so called "pass rush" was non existent. There was NO pressure on favre, freeman, warner...there was some on rothlesberger but hes really hard to take down...but they all had TONS of time in the pocket.. Of course a receiver is eventually gonna get open for a big gain. Yes our secondary is still old..we will address that next off season.. but it was more important this draft that we got o-line help, dline help with jolly out, and a safety cuz bigbys a little snitch :) That being said...i think the pass rush will be better in those clutch situations this year. If this mike neal guy can really push the pocket like they say..matthews is gonna have a field day.
Well Clay Matthews is your best pass rusher, and it was his first year in the league. Let him learn the league and get better, get some better defensive lineman through the draft, and the pressure will be there. As a Vikings fan, I'm very scared of the Packers for the next 5-10 years if they can build on what they have. A franchise QB and a franchise pass rusher. Build around that.
