Post game: GB 35 DAL 31

[vegas492]

Best offense I've seen from Mac is a lot of games.  

I LOVED seeing a few plays, running, off of the motion set.  He didn't even get into the counters and bootlegs off of that look, but other teams will now have to study and be ready for them.

I thought that his first drive was a thing of beauty.  Plays looked to be on time...precision.  Still had to throw in a scramble drill, but those were the exceptions and not the rules.

I thought that Capers had a nice day...halftime adjustments worked, even though he was out his best corner and then the glue in the secondary.  Matthews was effective in coverage.  Good there, actually.

I thought I saw the interior of the Cowboy line do A LOT of holding.  I constantly saw Daniels being held.

I thought I saw Marty B put his hands in the air while blocking for Rodgers on his ever so important 18 yard scramble.  He wasn't getting called for holding.  I thought this was Marty B's best football game in a Packer uniform.  

I think Aaron Jones has a future in this offense.  More than just backing up Monty.  Kid looked quick and made sharp cuts with great acceleration.

Absolutely loved that Rodgers went back to Adams on back to back plays.  We did a little of that back in the day.  See if the corner slows down a little after dodging a bullet.

[packfanfb]

1 hour ago, Packerraymond said:

It was a tale of two halves for the defense. The first half was awful, the 2nd half was a net -3 points they gave up, and technically if the NFL made the right call, they could say a net +4 points.

Besides the Bears game, we've been outscored 66-26 in the first half. Something anyone can agree on, both the offense and defense need to start out games better. With the adjustments we've been able to make and Aaron's streak leading at half, we need to start better.

Defense was definitely "better" in second half, but fact is...our offense played better in the 2nd half and was our best defense. 

First half, defense gave up 3 of the easiest TD drives you will see in the NFL. Yea, the penalty helped Dallas but Bryant was wide open and dropped the ball. Not sure why we just get to ignore that and point to the penalty...On the fourth drive of the half, Perry makes a play but Dallas recovered the fumble. Had there been more than 15 seconds left, do we think Dallas would not have overcame the fumble and still scored? So the defense was on the field for 3 real drives in the 1st half and gave up 21 points. Someone explain to me how you can do worse than that...

Second half, third quarter, our offense dominated the clock. Dallas had one drive and our defense forced Dallas' only punt of the game. Fourth quarter, Dallas gets the FG, and then the Randall play happened when the ball bounced off the open receiver's hands and landed in Randall's lap. Not knocking the play, but let's call it what it is....90% luck, 10% skill on that play. If that play never happens, maybe we get off the field, maybe we give up another TD, we'll never know. Then when the game was back on the line, our defense gave up a 9 minute TD drive that would have ended the game had Dallas managed the clock better. So 2nd half obviously better than the first with the Randall play certainly being the "break" of the game our struggling defense needed.  

Those are the objective facts. Not sure how anyone in their right mind could call this a "good" performance. The bar shouldn't be set that low. 

[packfanfb]

23 minutes ago, deltarich87 said:

Somebody pls check on Randall's mental state

 

 

Not surprised. The guy has an O'Dell/Josh Norman type of personality without the skills to back it up. Glad to see him make that play because maybe it'll give him some additional confidence and we need him to play well, but he's a child. Even though the penalty did not end up hurting us, it was a terrible penalty and he couldn't care less about it. 

[eyecatcher]

1 minute ago, PackFan4Life said:

I do not like Randall very much. That said, I need to watch it again. I am not sure he knew Prescott was there when he flipped it honestly. Benefit of the doubt for now but otherwise, yeah, he needs to get a clue.

He looked right at him and flipped the ball.  More of a dismissive flip than a taunting flip.   With that said, who cares.  In the heat of the moment he just made a huge play for the team.  He could have cost the team but it didn't.  Perry's 2 offsides were worse in my book.  

[KFP7]

3 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

Defense was definitely "better" in second half, but fact is...our offense played better in the 2nd half and was our best defense. 

First half, defense gave up 3 of the easiest TD drives you will see in the NFL. Yea, the penalty helped Dallas but Bryant was wide open and dropped the ball. Not sure why we just get to ignore that and point to the penalty...On the fourth drive of the half, Perry makes a play but Dallas recovered the fumble. Had there been more than 15 seconds left, do we think Dallas would not have overcame the fumble and still scored? So the defense was on the field for 3 real drives in the 1st half and gave up 21 points. Someone explain to me how you can do worse than that...

Second half, third quarter, our offense dominated the clock. Dallas had one drive and our defense forced Dallas' only punt of the game. Fourth quarter, Dallas gets the FG, and then the Randall play happened when the ball bounced off the open receiver's hands and landed in Randall's lap. Not knocking the play, but let's call it what it is....90% luck, 10% skill on that play. If that play never happens, maybe we get off the field, maybe we give up another TD, we'll never know. Then when the game was back on the line, our defense gave up a 9 minute TD drive that would have ended the game had Dallas managed the clock better. So 2nd half obviously better than the first with the Randall play certainly being the "break" of the game our struggling defense needed.  

Those are the objective facts. Not sure how anyone in their right mind could call this a "good" performance. The bar shouldn't be set that low. 

Forcing a fumble at the end of the first half is also a fact though.  How many times have we seen teams march right down the field in less than a minute to score at the end of the half?  I don't think they had a good game yesterday, but it could technically have been worse.  Also agreed that the 9 minute drive was brutal, but we still won the second half 23-10.  Against a Dallas offense that I think most would still consider to be very good, it was a good half.  First half though.....yeah very ugly- bad calls or no.

[Packerraymond]

18 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

Defense was definitely "better" in second half, but fact is...our offense played better in the 2nd half and was our best defense. 

First half, defense gave up 3 of the easiest TD drives you will see in the NFL. Yea, the penalty helped Dallas but Bryant was wide open and dropped the ball. Not sure why we just get to ignore that and point to the penalty...On the fourth drive of the half, Perry makes a play but Dallas recovered the fumble. Had there been more than 15 seconds left, do we think Dallas would not have overcame the fumble and still scored? So the defense was on the field for 3 real drives in the 1st half and gave up 21 points. Someone explain to me how you can do worse than that...

Second half, third quarter, our offense dominated the clock. Dallas had one drive and our defense forced Dallas' only punt of the game. Fourth quarter, Dallas gets the FG, and then the Randall play happened when the ball bounced off the open receiver's hands and landed in Randall's lap. Not knocking the play, but let's call it what it is....90% luck, 10% skill on that play. If that play never happens, maybe we get off the field, maybe we give up another TD, we'll never know. Then when the game was back on the line, our defense gave up a 9 minute TD drive that would have ended the game had Dallas managed the clock better. So 2nd half obviously better than the first with the Randall play certainly being the "break" of the game our struggling defense needed.  

Those are the objective facts. Not sure how anyone in their right mind could call this a "good" performance. The bar shouldn't be set that low. 

Calling Dez wide open is ridiculous. He was covered, that's why the throw was low.

The first half defense was bad, no doubt. 2nd half, they played much better. Got a pick 6 (tip drill happens literally dozens of times a week, the fact that it hadn't happened at all for us in 1/4 of the season, I look at it as we were due) and technically stopped Dallas on 4th and inches if the rule was properly applied by the refs. We've allowed 39pts in the 2nd half in 5 games this year, an average of about 7pts a game. No doubt we need to start better on both sides of the ball, but I have to admire the turn-arounds we've been able to make on the defensive side of the ball.

 

[LargeFarva]

21 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

Defense was definitely "better" in second half, but fact is...our offense played better in the 2nd half and was our best defense. 

First half, defense gave up 3 of the easiest TD drives you will see in the NFL. Yea, the penalty helped Dallas but Bryant was wide open and dropped the ball. Not sure why we just get to ignore that and point to the penalty...On the fourth drive of the half, Perry makes a play but Dallas recovered the fumble. Had there been more than 15 seconds left, do we think Dallas would not have overcame the fumble and still scored? So the defense was on the field for 3 real drives in the 1st half and gave up 21 points. Someone explain to me how you can do worse than that...

Second half, third quarter, our offense dominated the clock. Dallas had one drive and our defense forced Dallas' only punt of the game. Fourth quarter, Dallas gets the FG, and then the Randall play happened when the ball bounced off the open receiver's hands and landed in Randall's lap. Not knocking the play, but let's call it what it is....90% luck, 10% skill on that play. If that play never happens, maybe we get off the field, maybe we give up another TD, we'll never know. Then when the game was back on the line, our defense gave up a 9 minute TD drive that would have ended the game had Dallas managed the clock better. So 2nd half obviously better than the first with the Randall play certainly being the "break" of the game our struggling defense needed.  

Those are the objective facts. Not sure how anyone in their right mind could call this a "good" performance. The bar shouldn't be set that low. 

IF Bryant hadn't dropped the ball.
IF there had been more than 15 seconds left.
IF Randall didn't get a pick 6.
IF Dallas had managed the clock better.

Those aren't objective facts, those are hypotheticals meant to make the defense look worse than it was.

[packfanfb]

 

This was great. 

[skibrett15]

Short version: This was a worse defensive performance than Seattle and Chicago, better than Atlanta, and a bit worse than Cincy but facing a much better offense.

Dallas is also not the 2016 offense.  This is a 10-15th ranked offense which was struggling to run the ball coming into the game and was very reliant on Dak making plays on improvisation.

Long version:

Following the game, what you can say about the Dallas offense still holds true, except that Dallas started to get the ground game cooking.  7 carries for 35 yards on the last drive by Elliott, Dak had some nice runs, and things appeared to click.

Yes, we only allowed 10 points in the 2nd half, but much of that was due to pace of play. 

• Dallas went 3/4 on drives in the first half (3 TDs, one "punt/clock expired on purpose") 
• they went 2/4 in the 2nd half (one FG, one TD, one pick 6, one punt). 
• Rodgers himself referred to this as an "artificially shortened game" because of the few number of drives due to the long possessions and drives by both teams.

Let's dig a little deeper there:

8 Drives is SUPER LOW for the NFL.  For reference, the average # of drives per game was 11.4 in 2016.  Dallas Averaged 10.8 in 2016.

https://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/team-drives-per-game/2016/

• If this were a normal paced game for an NFL team, Dallas would have scored 44 points. 
  • Even if you want to dock them 4 points, that works out to 38.5 points in a "normal" game. 
• If this were a normal 2016 game for Dallas, they would have scored 42
  • If you dock 4 for the weird penalty, 36.5 points

All of those figures are well above average for Dallas, the 15th ranked offense by Football Outsiders coming into the game, and facing the 15th ranked defense of green bay.

It's useful to look at the efficiency from Dallas here and view this as a very strong offensive performance from Dallas with one huge mistake, and an amazing flawless offensive performance by Green Bay.  Whether or not you think that reflects well or poorly on the green bay defense has a little more wiggle room depending on how you weight the pick 6 and the suspect calls.

I expect that the advanced efficiency metrics for GB Def will not look favorably on this performance  AT ALL.

[Spartacus]

1 hour ago, PackFan4Life said:

I do not like Randall very much. That said, I need to watch it again. I am not sure he knew Prescott was there when he flipped it honestly. Benefit of the doubt for now but otherwise, yeah, he needs to get a clue.

I think this whole penalty is getting blown way out of proportion anyways. If it wasn't Randall no one would even be talking about it. Nick Collins did it in the fricken super bowl and no one said a word about it. Dumb penalty, absolutely, but a much bigger play that we needed to stay in that game. 

[Slinky]

Is there a better view of that Beasley overthrow on Dallas' last drive? It's inexplicable that he got that open.

[wgbeethree]

The annoucers stated Dallas had been perfect on converting 3rd and 4th and one on the year coming into this game. We stopped them from getting the first multiple times in that situation. Has to be at least a small plus for the defense. 

[jleisher]

Maybe I am wrong, but we need to cut Randall some slack.  Yeah, he needs to mature some.  Yeah, maybe he's not as good a player as the round he was drafted warrants, so what that he flipped the ball towards DAK after looking at him.  Unsportsmen like conduct?  Isn't that more like hitting a player in the face area and clapping about it as the player is on the ground?  It's not like he got in someone's face and or did something to hurt someone.  So, DAK's feelings got hurt, who cares, Randall could have done something worse.  The play was no big deal and shouldn't have called.  Ever time a player makes a big hit on another, they jump all around and do stupid stuff.  Do they call that?  No harm, no foul.  Bad call.

[Packerraymond]

Beyond the first series broken play 50/50 ball, we allowed one explosive play on defense. Dallas will always be our toughest matchup as long as they have Zeke and that OL. They philosophically want to do exactly what our defense wants to do. We look to give up the short yardage play in hopes to get a big play on 3rd down. They look to take the short yardage play in order to keep moving the chains because they have the OL to be successful on 3rd and 2 where most teams look at that as a passing down. I dont see us ever not having a back and forth higher scoring game with them unless turnovers are a plenty.

Whereas ATL is pretty much the opposite. They are beating us at what we are trying to stop, the explosive play, and they do it easily. They also have a defense made to stop our O, whereas Dallas has a defense that runs exactly what AR wants them to run. The ATL performance is still far more worrisome to me. Yes we had injuries, but we didn't on that first drive and they still went through us like a warm knife through butter. I don't think we can beat them on the road, whereas Dallas I feel good about as long as AR and the offense are on their game.

[Cakeshoppe]

2 hours ago, skibrett15 said:

Short version: This was a worse defensive performance than Seattle and Chicago, better than Atlanta, and a bit worse than Cincy but facing a much better offense.

Dallas is also not the 2016 offense.  This is a 10-15th ranked offense which was struggling to run the ball coming into the game and was very reliant on Dak making plays on improvisation.

Long version:

Following the game, what you can say about the Dallas offense still holds true, except that Dallas started to get the ground game cooking.  7 carries for 35 yards on the last drive by Elliott, Dak had some nice runs, and things appeared to click.

Yes, we only allowed 10 points in the 2nd half, but much of that was due to pace of play. 

• Dallas went 3/4 on drives in the first half (3 TDs, one "punt/clock expired on purpose") 
• they went 2/4 in the 2nd half (one FG, one TD, one pick 6, one punt). 
• Rodgers himself referred to this as an "artificially shortened game" because of the few number of drives due to the long possessions and drives by both teams.

Let's dig a little deeper there:

8 Drives is SUPER LOW for the NFL.  For reference, the average # of drives per game was 11.4 in 2016.  Dallas Averaged 10.8 in 2016.

https://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/team-drives-per-game/2016/

• If this were a normal paced game for an NFL team, Dallas would have scored 44 points. 
  • Even if you want to dock them 4 points, that works out to 38.5 points in a "normal" game. 
• If this were a normal 2016 game for Dallas, they would have scored 42
  • If you dock 4 for the weird penalty, 36.5 points

All of those figures are well above average for Dallas, the 15th ranked offense by Football Outsiders coming into the game, and facing the 15th ranked defense of green bay.

It's useful to look at the efficiency from Dallas here and view this as a very strong offensive performance from Dallas with one huge mistake, and an amazing flawless offensive performance by Green Bay.  Whether or not you think that reflects well or poorly on the green bay defense has a little more wiggle room depending on how you weight the pick 6 and the suspect calls.

I expect that the advanced efficiency metrics for GB Def will not look favorably on this performance  AT ALL.

Not buying this approach. Dallas got so few drives because of the offense they ran. They don't get to be awarded points for successfully running a TOP control offense against us and then get awarded again because they didn't have as many drives as other teams get. I'm not going to argue with anyone who wasn't satisfied with the defensive performance because I wasn't either, but this approach doesn't do it for me. If they had played a game to get more drives in, there would have been added incompletions, sack opportunities, etc. that all allow for changes of posession. You get the time you're alotted in football. They don't get to be awarded a 44-point performance for playing a 31-point game.