NFC Championship Game: Tampa Bay Yucs at Green Bay Packers

[packfanfb]

14 minutes ago, Leader said:

Two hindsight comments. Fact MFL is taking ownership of the issues (when he actually doesnt need to....) is a positive. I dont fault him in either instance however.

In case of the former - I dont think he could have conveyed to AR they'd be kicking on 4th down. In the heat of battle, he probably hadn't reached that conclusion yet and the decision was affected by the third down result. Different outcome - possible different decision.

In the latter case - thats on the DC IMO. A "veteran" DC at that.  Belichik (a former DC) probably would have interceded.....but MLF isnt BB yet. He's learning and taking ownership along the way. Good for him   👍 

Ultimately, it falls on the coach. MLF needs to be better. These "communication" issues cannot happen in these big games, period. 

The decision to kick the FG doesn't even bother me. We were going to have to stop the Bucs again regardless of what we did. Had EQ not dropped the biggest reception of his life on the 2-point conversion, and GB was down 6 in that moment, it's an easy decision to go for it because you can take the lead. Down 8, I get what MLF was looking at, especially when we had just ran 3 straight miserable plays that didn't come close to scoring before 4th down. 

The TD at the end of the half falls on everyone involved. MLF cannot allow that to happen, period. Moreover, he could see the alignment coming out of the huddle, call timeout. Pettine is equally to blame. Finally, King is to blame for having no awareness of the situation whatsoever. I don't care what the defensive call is, you don't allow the WR to do the one thing King allowed him to do. Hell, literally tackle the WR as he's running past you if you have to. Take a penalty and give up the FG. 

[packfanfb]

3 minutes ago, Smidgeon said:

I agree with all this.  Nothing says M4 isn't learning.  I think he's growing too.  He's young, he's going to make mistakes, and he seems to be showing an ability to learn from them.

I mean that's a great story, but we can't have MLF "growing" and making mistakes when we're trying to get to the Super Bowl. We did a lot of things to beat ourselves in that game, but our coach didn't help in critical situations. 

[Chili]

10 minutes ago, {Family Ghost} said:

We will need better from LaFleur in the future .. this was not one of his better performances.  He could have easily called timeout when he saw the coverage before the half.

Nearly everyone out there thinks the decision to take the ball out of Rodgers hands, kick a field goal, and then give the ball back to Brady was a major gaffe.  Ultimately our odds of winning were pretty minimal, but hopefully he will be bolder next time.

I completely agree. What he called was absolutely fine if the opposing QB was someone like Trubisky.

In this case it was Tom MuthaDucking Mr Playoff Brady. He was never going to get the ball back.

He essentially took the ball out of Rodgers hands and placed it in Brady's. Rookie mistake.

The analytical stuff might've agreed it was the right thing to do but you also need to look at the context which LaFleur didn't do at the heat of the moment.

In LaFleur's defence when we went 3 and out twice after interceptions and went 3 and out at the goalline before the field goal all of those instances were passing plays. I don't think we ran the ball once. He essentially put the ball in Rodgers hands and nothing came of it.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Chili

[Arthur Penske]

18 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

Ultimately, it falls on the coach. MLF needs to be better. These "communication" issues cannot happen in these big games, period. 

 

It does, and MLF needs to improve. But I also get the vide MLF is falling on the sword for Pettine too.