5th Down Depreciation Thread

[snackattack]

3 hours ago, Gopackgonerd said:

 

 "I had to gain my trust by running the right routes and knowing the plays, it's crazy"

 

Ground breaking stuff from Mr. Finley boys!

I seriously dont know why people are giving jmike the time of day. I had to gain his trust by running the right routes.... wow. I hate the media.

[Brit Pack]

I don't know what the big deal is with Finley is saying. What he says is not doggin' Rodgers. The media though are spinning it as Finley having a dig, what he says makes sense and is very reasonable. 

What I found interesting with the Undisputed clip, which we take it for what it is, a piece of entertainment, is that Shannon Sharp who is always been a big, big advocate of Rodgers gives his perspective of him as a player and that I find more interesting than anything Skip or Greg say.

[AlexGreen#20]

The problem with needing to gain trust in a player before you're willing to throw them the ball, is that at that point you're doing your own thing in your progessions. If you don't trust the second read, and you're not going to throw it to them, well don't blame your offensive line when you get hit. 

Professionals need to trust that other professionals are going to do the right thing. 

[coachbuns]

52 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

The problem with needing to gain trust in a player before you're willing to throw them the ball, is that at that point you're doing your own thing in your progessions. If you don't trust the second read, and you're not going to throw it to them, well don't blame your offensive line when you get hit. 

Professionals need to trust that other professionals are going to do the right thing. 

Rodgers definitely has to read his progressions better and it's a fact he didn't do that very well last year.   However, our 1st year receivers were far from being professionals last year.  They were lucky to run their routes correctly and get open as there was little offensive scheming.  Being professional means exactly that ... running the right routes, being where you are supposed to be on time and catching the ball.  I'm not demeaning our 1st year receivers by any means as I do believe the talent is there.  Just saying,  for Rodgers to trust "other professionals" you  better be a professional to begin with. 

Edited February 7, 2019 by coachbuns
spelling

[SSG]

13 hours ago, Gopackgonerd said:

Seriously though, what receiver on the Packers since Rodgers took the helm didn't earn his trust that was a good receiver? Name 1. One of the only guys whom has came out and cried about being chewed out is Jeff freaking Janis and he was cut by the the Brownies before the season. 

I agree.  The idea that Aaron Rodgers is this nasty villian because he wants to hold players accounable for their mistakes instead of coddling them for them is ridiculous.  Receivers sure are a fragile group when everyone but the person makeing the mistake is at fault.    

 

Jeff Janis blaming Aaron Rodgers for his career failing is just freaken ridiculous.  With an attitude like that, I completley understand why he's now washed out of the league at the age of 27.

I can't take guys like Jennings or Finley serious.  Finley hated Rodgers while he played here and Jennings was super bitter when he wasn't retained.  The only guy who's comments I take seriously are Drivers and I beleive him when he said that they were taken out of context.  He looked like he was trying to be the nice guy when he's got one friend running another friend's name through the mud.  

With all due respect to KGB, he played 7 games with Aaron Rodgers as a starter.  Not sure how quilified he is to be talking about him when it comes to his ability to lead.  

[AlexGreen#20]

1 hour ago, coachbuns said:

Rodgers definitely has to read his progressions better and it's a fact he didn't do that very well last year.   However, our 1st year receivers were far from being professionals last year.  They were lucky to run their routes correctly and get open as there was little offensive scheming.  Being professional means exactly that ... running the right routes, being where you are supposed to be on time and catching the ball.  I'm not demeaning our 1st year receivers by any means as I do believe the talent is there.  Just saying,  for Rodgers to trust "other professionals" you  better be a professional to begin with. 

To which I'll say, the mantra of the NFL is "do your job" as in "Do what you're supposed to do, and don't worry about what anybody else is doing. Don't try and be a hero."

If Rodgers throws an INT because a receiver broke 2 strides late, that's on the receiver. That's not on him. At least in the eyes of the team and coaching staff.

Now the fans might blame Rodgers at the end of the year when looking at his stat sheet, but he shouldn't care about what the fans think.

To what extent you believe Rodgers cares about his individual numbers, and how you feel about his level of interest in them, that's a personal read.

Personally, I felt Rodgers was WAY overly cautious this year. I'm not saying that throwing almost zero interceptions is a bad thing, but at some point if you're playing QB correctly, a DB is going to occasionally make an incredible play and pick you. That's just football. If that isn't happening, it means you're avoiding risks to extremes that are probably hurting the team. 

[Leader]

6 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

To which I'll say, the mantra of the NFL is "do your job" as in "Do what you're supposed to do, and don't worry about what anybody else is doing. Don't try and be a hero."

If Rodgers throws an INT because a receiver broke 2 strides late, that's on the receiver. That's not on him. At least in the eyes of the team and coaching staff.

Now the fans might blame Rodgers at the end of the year when looking at his stat sheet, but he shouldn't care about what the fans think.

To what extent you believe Rodgers cares about his individual numbers, and how you feel about his level of interest in them, that's a personal read.

Personally, I felt Rodgers was WAY overly cautious this year. I'm not saying that throwing almost zero interceptions is a bad thing, but at some point if you're playing QB correctly, a DB is going to occasionally make an incredible play and pick you. That's just football. If that isn't happening, it means you're avoiding risks to extremes that are probably hurting the team. 

Agree with this. Not ragging on the guy, but my thoughts were more often expressed in a less detailed way: "Throw the ball!" 
 

[vegas492]

51 minutes ago, Leader said:

Agree with this. Not ragging on the guy, but my thoughts were more often expressed in a less detailed way: "Throw the ball!" 
 

Throw the Ball!  Yah, that was me at first with him this year.  Then it became...Throw an ACCURATE ball!

His deep ball was terrible.  He threw poor balls to ESB and MVS for most of the year.  I don't care if MVS is supposed to run 2 yards then cut out and he runs 3 yards then cuts out.  If you are a QB and your guy is open, lead him correctly, despite him running the play a yard deeper than he was supposed to.

To me, he tried to be too precise instead of just letting it go.

And the dude didn't look to be having fun out there.  He needs to let go of everything and just play the game.  Things aren't perfect.  Deal with it.  Guy is open?  Hit him.  

[MrBobGray]

It seemed pretty clear to me that Rodgers's priority this year was avoiding interceptions at any cost.  It's not just the holding the ball too long, it was also the clearly systemic and intentional ignoring of the entire middle of the field.  They ran a ton of outside breaking routes, to the point where a lot of plays were just levels concepts that stayed outside the numbers.  The TEs and RBs lack of targets were a direct result of this.  And you can see it in Rodgers stats; here's his breakdown of targets to the middle of the field vs targets outside the numbers, for this year and his two MVP seasons:

• 2011 - 118 passes targeting the middle, 24.1% of his passes
• 2014 - 127 passes targeting the middle, 24.6% of his passes
• 2018 - 107 passes targeting the middle, 18.6% of his passes

And for comparison:

• Tom Brady 2018 - 145 passes targeting the middle,  26.1%
• Mahomes 2018 - 132 passes targeting the middle, 23.5%
• NFL as a whole in 2018 - 4105 passes targeting the middle, 23.9%

Source: Pro Football Reference play index.

Avoiding the middle of the field is not in and of itself a terrible thing.  Brees this year only targeted the middle of the field on 17.8% of his passes, just as an example.  The thing is, Brees avoided the middle because the Saints don't have much at TE and they like to target Kamara outside the numbers as well.  The Packers invested a ton in their TE position, and they rarely run their RBs out wide or downfield outside the numbers, and yet Rodgers still forced the ball outside nearly 6% more often than his two best seasons and 5% more often than the NFL as a whole.  He was clearly gun shy about throwing over the middle, and while that may be due to his lack of faith in the rookie receivers, I feel like the Packers offensive output speaks for itself.  It's hard to hit those sideline throws Rodgers adores when every corner in football knows that's where the ball is going.

Edited February 8, 2019 by MrBobGray

[Isherwood]

Really good stuff MrBob. 

I don’t know if LaFleur will be a better coach that McCarthy (the odds are against it) but if he can get Rodgers to throw at the middle of the field and to the running backs more, we’ll start winning again. 

[Hands]

It seems to me we are missing something. Where/who are all the people that are out there saying how great AR was as a team leader, friend, and someone they could go to when the chips are down? That is something I haven't read about. Maybe because I live outside WI and don't hear ex-players saying these things about him. I know he's pretty generous, and does a lot of charitable work, just nothing about his leadership, team bonding, and encouragement as a QB.

[Gopackgonerd]

9 hours ago, Hands said:

It seems to me we are missing something. Where/who are all the people that are out there saying how great AR was as a team leader, friend, and someone they could go to when the chips are down? That is something I haven't read about. Maybe because I live outside WI and don't hear ex-players saying these things about him. I know he's pretty generous, and does a lot of charitable work, just nothing about his leadership, team bonding, and encouragement as a QB.

Just recently Peppers did. From all Rodgers interviews though when he talks about his team and when you see him interact with his team on the field it leads me to believe  he's a fine leader, not the greatest in the game or Favre level, but I have no doubt its there. He leads by example mostly, but I think his teammates still respect him a hell of a lot. Cobb was literally crying with him because it could of been his last game with him at the end of the year lol.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Gopackgonerd

[AlexGreen#20]

14 hours ago, Gopackgonerd said:

Just recently Peppers did. From all Rodgers interviews though when he talks about his team and when you see him interact with his team on the field it leads me to believe  he's a fine leader, not the greatest in the game or Favre level, but I have no doubt its there. He leads by example mostly, but I think his teammates still respect him a hell of a lot. Cobb was literally crying with him because it could of been his last game with him at the end of the year lol.

Not sure that was true at all this year. Body language was awful and he was constantly ripping on the young guys publicly. 

[Gopackgonerd]

16 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

Not sure that was true at all this year. Body language was awful and he was constantly ripping on the young guys publicly. 

I only remember him criticizing the young receivers once  because they had a lackluster practice iirc. 

[Shanedorf]

1 hour ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

he was constantly ripping on the young guys publicly. 

I have a different take on that after some of the comments that came out at the end of the season
I think he was ripping on WR coach David Raih when AR griped about the fact that it was "the same stuff over and over" and it was " a lack of attention to details".
I've not gone back through all the pressers to confirm this, but I think that's where AR's ire was aimed more than the players.