Joe Barry'd again

[MrBobGray]

2 hours ago, Packerraymond said:

Certainly wasn't saying Bill doesn't understand ball, just don't think he's a guy today's player wants to play for. Nor is he a guy that has any sort of longevity. Not a candidate for our DC spot.

Agreed on all counts. Think Bill could be a terror of a DC if he wanted, but he would need a very specific situation. Not just in terms of coaching culture, but the right group of players culture-wise too.

Edited October 19, 2023 by MrBobGray

[MrBobGray]

As far as Joe Berry goes, I think my opinion is basically two seemingly contradictory statements:

1. I think he gets far too much hate despite being a decent enough DC, and his defenses have not really been the problem on balance during his time here.
2. I absolutely would replace Joe Berry tomorrow if I could and it would be a mistake to include him in any plan for the future.

The following is based on half-assed film watching, and frankly far too little of it at that - I think Berry's biggest problem is not understanding what an offense is doing to exploit little creases in his defense, because he doesn't really understand the game behind the game.  The issues with run defense are tactical, not strategic.  Most of the time.  Occasionally you do have things like teams being able to scheme open gaps through basic manipulation of the defensive alignment - you don't love to see that.  More often than not though the biggest issue is that the defenders are waiting for the play to come to them.  It's not that they're caught flatfooted or thrown by exotic play design, but that the called defense is asking them to play multiple responsibilities for way too long post-snap.  It's like they can't resolve the equation of where they need to be on a given play until the RB is actively in their gap.

Part of being a great DC is understanding your players, where your strengths and weaknesses are, and then calling plays that maximize the effectiveness of the actual human beings in the room.  Berry is not a great DC.  Berry is fighting hard to earn the title of 'good DC' at present.  Berry calls plays for the position, not the player; he's thinking of what 'the RCB should do' rather than 'what Jaire should do'.  But he also doesn't seem to have a great grasp on the things one step more subtle; reading that back, maybe not surprising.  But it's things like,

'is it realistic to ask my LBs to get to this coverage and still be able to maintain their run fit if the offense looks like they're threatening to attack horizontally?  What about vertically?  How many responsibilities/matches/decisions does each player have on this snap?  Do any of those seriously conflict?  What kind of route combinations could cause those conflicts to occur?  What about motion/condensed sets/bunched sets?  If half of my DL group is barely 300 lbs, will they be able to play with extension and read the back on a consistent basis?  If we want them to penetrate, are we aligning them for success there?  What happens to my second level guys in each of those cases?' 

Those are the things I feel like I'm always frustrated with.  It's not the big picture; his defenses have good bones.  But he's building a terrible meat puppet on those bones, if you follow me (you shouldn't).

Maybe a better way to put it, to condense it all down, is that he seems to consider football two separate games that you need to play, rather than as a single game with two considerations at all times.  He's planning for either X's and O's or his players' strengths and weaknesses; he seems unable to build his X's and O's from a place of understanding his players' strengths and weaknesses.

Edited October 20, 2023 by MrBobGray

[vegas492]

My biggest complaint about Barry is that his own players do not like playing his style of defense.  Seems like every year, we play okay, then we stink, then players complain and then our scheme changes and our defense gets better.

You would think he'd be smart enough to play to their strengths.  But he doesn't.  He reverts back to his old ways time and time again.

As far as his coaching history?  His defenses have always been poor, right?  Washington fans came here to give us condolences after we hired him.  They lived it first hand.

He was a poor choice when he was hired.  He's remained a poor choice.  And there is no way he should be here this week, let alone next year.  He is what he is and what he is, is simply not good enough.

[Spartacus]

I will say my biggest issue with Barry hasn't been his scheme but every single blue chip/rising player outside of Gary seems to have taken a step backwards and IMO even Gary has the talent that I think would translate to better play. He stinks, was one step away from being your classic nepo hire, and just didn't have a resume to even be considered. Just a complete failure by the front office. 

[minnypackerfan]

Barry's defense to me is a prevent the big play defense. Force teams to matriculate down the field and hope that one of the three plays goes awry and they cannot recover from it to force them to punt the ball. Unfortunately, once a team seems to get that first, 1st down against us they get into a rhythm and go down field and score against us. Whether it be by running the ball against us or passing the ball we are always getting dictated to instead of us doing the dictating. 

Today's NFL is set up for the offense to succeed and the defense to fail. Fans like scoring and big plays and the NFL wants that. But through it all one thing seems to remain constant....teams that are successful more times than not WIN the line of scrimmage. The few dominate defenses, DOMINATE the line of scrimmage, both against the run and the pass. They suffocate and chock the offense there. Good defensive schemes and good defense starts there. By winning at the line of scrimmage what the offense can do is being somewhat dictated to by the defense. This opens more opportunities for turnovers and mistakes and more times than not, they occur.

If I were Gute and LeFleur I would ask and answer this question:  Does our scheme do this?  Answer: No. 

Right now on defense I think personnel wise we are a miss mosh of pieces. There is individual talent, but collectively they do not play well together or they do not play this scheme well. I actually think they play pretty hard...I would go to war with many of these guys.

Unfortunately, this scheme is not set up for them to dictate, it is set up for them to prevent. They play back, they don't play forward.

• Our cornerbacks play soft and are not known as physical players that will come up and punish runners so opposing teams can attack our outside flanks.
• Our safeties play with poor technique and are usually lunging at players leading to missed tackles.
• We do not swarm to the ball on defense. We are left with a lot of one on one tackles. When the first guy misses their are too many times were they is not a second and third defender there to clean it up fast and for little gain.
• There is a lack of physicality as there have been too many times when I have seen an opposing player get an extra two or three yards when we are attempting to tackle them.
• When we play with two down lineman, the interior linebackers do not come up aggressively into the gaps to stop the run as they are thinking too much and not reacting. They are probably concerned with getting caught by a fake handoff and leaving a large open void in the center of the defense defended by our poor tackling safeties. 
• When teams need to get first downs against us in the 4th quarter, they are usually successful. Their is no killer instinct. We rarely clamp down and finish off an opponent. Again...that's because we prevent instead of dictate.  Scoring against us is ok as long as it takes a long time to get there.  Unfortunately that is usually not the case in the 4th quarter.  If they need to score quickly...they do.  If they need to close out a game against us by running it down our throat, they do that.

That is not a winning formula. But you see a lot of teams in the NFL play this way. Yes...the rules are set up for offensives to succeed. But I also think this may be due to having to many offensive minded coaches believes that their defense just needs to stop the opposition a couple of times a game so that their great offense can win it. However, you cannot outscore everyone in every game.  Eventually you need you defense to take over and put a kill shot into the other team. Defenses like San Fran and the New York Jets more times than not put the kill shot in...even the Chiefs are getting better at that...so are the Cleveland Browns. We like to make for thrilling fourth quarters...even a two touchdown lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter makes me really nervous.

[thrILL!]

Is there someone with Jim Schwartz’s defensive staff for the Browns that we could poach as a replacement?  Would love to see their physical style of play for our D. 

[ThatJerkDave]

16 hours ago, MrBobGray said:

Berry calls plays for the position, not the player; he's thinking of what 'the RCB should do' rather than 'what Jaire should do'.  But he also doesn't seem to have a great grasp on the things one step more subtle; reading that back, maybe not surprising.  But it's things like,

 

I feel like that is a fault of this entire coaching staff, not just Barry.

[mikebpackfan]

1 hour ago, minnypackerfan said:

Barry's defense to me is a prevent the big play defense. Force teams to matriculate down the field and hope that one of the three plays goes awry and they cannot recover from it to force them to punt the ball. Unfortunately, once a team seems to get that first, 1st down against us they get into a rhythm and go down field and score against us. Whether it be by running the ball against us or passing the ball we are always getting dictated to instead of us doing the dictating. 

Today's NFL is set up for the offense to succeed and the defense to fail. Fans like scoring and big plays and the NFL wants that. But through it all one thing seems to remain constant....teams that are successful more times than not WIN the line of scrimmage. The few dominate defenses, DOMINATE the line of scrimmage, both against the run and the pass. They suffocate and chock the offense there. Good defensive schemes and good defense starts there. By winning at the line of scrimmage what the offense can do is being somewhat dictated to by the defense. This opens more opportunities for turnovers and mistakes and more times than not, they occur.

If I were Gute and LeFleur I would ask and answer this question:  Does our scheme do this?  Answer: No. 

Right now on defense I think personnel wise we are a miss mosh of pieces. There is individual talent, but collectively they do not play well together or they do not play this scheme well. I actually think they play pretty hard...I would go to war with many of these guys.

Unfortunately, this scheme is not set up for them to dictate, it is set up for them to prevent. They play back, they don't play forward.

• Our cornerbacks play soft and are not known as physical players that will come up and punish runners so opposing teams can attack our outside flanks.
• Our safeties play with poor technique and are usually lunging at players leading to missed tackles.
• We do not swarm to the ball on defense. We are left with a lot of one on one tackles. When the first guy misses their are too many times were they is not a second and third defender there to clean it up fast and for little gain.
• There is a lack of physicality as there have been too many times when I have seen an opposing player get an extra two or three yards when we are attempting to tackle them.
• When we play with two down lineman, the interior linebackers do not come up aggressively into the gaps to stop the run as they are thinking too much and not reacting. They are probably concerned with getting caught by a fake handoff and leaving a large open void in the center of the defense defended by our poor tackling safeties. 
• When teams need to get first downs against us in the 4th quarter, they are usually successful. Their is no killer instinct. We rarely clamp down and finish off an opponent. Again...that's because we prevent instead of dictate.  Scoring against us is ok as long as it takes a long time to get there.  Unfortunately that is usually not the case in the 4th quarter.  If they need to score quickly...they do.  If they need to close out a game against us by running it down our throat, they do that.

That is not a winning formula. But you see a lot of teams in the NFL play this way. Yes...the rules are set up for offensives to succeed. But I also think this may be due to having to many offensive minded coaches believes that their defense just needs to stop the opposition a couple of times a game so that their great offense can win it. However, you cannot outscore everyone in every game.  Eventually you need you defense to take over and put a kill shot into the other team. Defenses like San Fran and the New York Jets more times than not put the kill shot in...even the Chiefs are getting better at that...so are the Cleveland Browns. We like to make for thrilling fourth quarters...even a two touchdown lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter makes me really nervous.

“Barry sucks” is like 2500 words shorter. 

[MrBobGray]

Big day for fans of rambling, nonsensical novellas explaining defensive coordinators through the magic of competitive Street Fighter, because I got another one.

Barry is a weird one for me.  Side note: how did no one give me **** for spelling it Berry through the entirety of my last post? I only just now realized I did that.  Anyway.

I think most fans dislike him for reasons that aren't accurate.  In his 3.3 years as DC, the Packers defense has ranked 9th, 9th, 17th, and 17th by yards and 13th, 13th, 17th and 22nd by points.  Now before even proceeding, I want to take a second to point out that those are not terrible numbers.  Period.  The NFL is the tip of the top, and doing better than half of the defenses in the league roughly speaking means doing better than half of the collective group of sociopaths that can survive the grind of being a pro coach.  Before you protest, obviously the sticking point is that every situation is different and frankly the talent on the field matters more than the talent in the box, as it were; we aren't really going to give the majority credit of a defense's ranking to a single coach.  I bring this up to point out that whatever else, Barry's performance has not led to statistically significant measures of success for opposing offenses.  Last year the Packers were ranked basically dead middle of the pack; 17th in yards and points.  But they only let up 30+ once.  They held teams to <20 6 times.  They held the Lions (5th in points, 4th in yards on offense) to 15 and 20 points; their 3rd and 4th worst games of the season.  The 20 point effort was across 10 drives in a defacto playoff game.  The less spoken of the 2021 playoffs the better, but the defense was incredible in the loss to the 49ers as well.

Barry's defenses have not been the reason the Packers have under-performed; while they rarely win games by themselves, they also rarely are the reason they become noncompetitive.  I think he's a capable defensive coordinator and fans overstate the case against him.  That being said, I ride fully with those who think he doesn't get nearly enough value out of his defensive talent.  I think the reason why is strange and esoteric, which probably puts me in a weird group off by myself, but big picture I think that's the overall problem.  Let's turn to Street Fighter to learn more:

There's a term real nerds of competitive fighting games will know called 'Yomi'.  It's not complicated; it's just the concept of knowing what your opponent is going to do next.  If you know what they're going to do next you can counter it, which you should probably recognize as the basic basis for all strategic action.  The second step to this concept is to think of Yomi in layers.  Basically, you know that I want to counter what you're going to do, so you go and be all sneaky like and do something else instead.  But I know that you know that I know, so I get real weird with it and instead counter your counter, etc. etc.  Here's the thing about Yomi though, and this IMO is to explain for a lot of the "it's harder for the best to defeat a complete amateur than the 2nd best" pseudo-myth; its effectiveness is directly tied to how well you can predict what your opponent is not only going to do, but to know.  This gets confusing without a concrete example, so I'll use two; the relevant Street Fightery for the sexier, more worldly, more sophisticated posters and football for the non-nerds.

• Yomi 0 - First plan of attack, the one that's not gonna survive first contact with the enemy.
  • Street Fighter - you just knocked the opposing Ryu down.  He's now invincible until his wake-up animation finishes; however, he can't take any action until then either.  Your best strategy is to throw out an attack that will still be in Active frames when he becomes vulnerable - what's called a 'meaty' attack. If he tries to press any attack button when his character can first act, he'll get hit by the meaty attack.  Basically, all attacks have a start-up time before they can hurt your opponent, but since he's stuck in the wake-up animation, your attack will be live before he can even press a button.  So you throw a meaty crouching medium punch, or 'cr. strong' in nerd.  '2MP' for those of you in Advanced Street Fighting and It's Merits As a Medium for Personal Growth.
  • NFL - In football terms, think of your meaty crouching medium punch as having an Aaron Donald on roster.  Throw that Aaron Donald out there and if your opponent tries to do anything but focus on blocking him, their QB gets hit!  It's great and very easy!
• Yomi 1 - Theory of Mind
  • Street Fighter - Ryu is very aware you're going to Aaron Donald him, to mix my metaphors.  He has an ace up his sleeve: EX Shoryuken is invincible from frame 1 on reversal, meaning as long as he uses it the very instant he has control again, it will absolutely plow through literally every attack you could throw, including crouching Aaron Donald. 
  • NFL - Instead of blocking Aaron Donald straight up, the guard gives a token effort and lets him through, where he barely notices a wham block from an undrafted rookie TE from an FCS school, whose actual job is merely to be a decoy by being savagely torn apart, screaming in visceral horror as field security proves both unable to and unwilling to try to stem the blood lust that roils in ecstasy through Donald's veins.  Then while everybody is busy watching that go down, the QB hits the RB for 29 yards on a screen right behind him.
• Yomi 2 - This is big braing time
  • Street Fighter -  Here's the thing about EX Shoryuken; it's invincible because it leaves you so vulnerable you legally become a ward of the state if it doesn't hit.  So instead of Aaron crouching punch, I simply block as you wake up.  You fire off your Shoryuken, it does nothing, and you fall flaccidly from the sky, withered and spent into the waiting hands of my vengeance. 
  • NFL - Your 'undrafted FCS TE' spotter up in the box sees the offense is subbing in one of their blood sacrifices and relays it.  Aaron Donald runs a DE/DT stunt instead of attacking straight ahead; instead of being tenderized into a fine mist by Donald, the TE bounces harmlessly off the much less murderous DE coming on the stunt.  The QB is not so lucky, as Donald is now single blocked by the T who doesn't know he's coming (so, killed instantly on impact).
• Yomi 3+ - This is already way too long
  • Street Fighter -  your opponent knows only a fool would trust the EX Shoryuken in front of him, so he can clearly not drink the wine in front of you or whatever.  So he doesn't throw the EX Shoryuken; since you're no longer throwing out a meaty attack but just blocking, he can kinda do whatever he wants, so he simply throws you out of your block.  But you know he's going to throw if you block, so to beat his throw attempt you throw... a meaty crouch medium punch, please refer back to Yomi 0.
  • NFL - The other team runs away from Donald, who is now stunting away from the play, dramatically lessening his impact without having to spend a bunch of additional resources blocking him.  But you correctly divine the poor FCS TE is a fake decoy, so you cancel the stunt and Donald beats the football to the QB.

So here's the thing about playing against beginners vs experts; the Yomi is totally different, because my calculations are all based on the expectation that my opponent knows what an Aaron Donald can do to a human being. But imagine now that the opposing offense never does anything but call seven step dropbacks and single block Donald.  In theory, I just play Donald at 4i and tell him to feast on their souls once their bones are naught but dust every play, coast to an easy victory.  But a shockingly easy exploit in the human condition is our need for validation; as a DC, simply playing my Aaron Donald every turn does nothing to prove my skill.  And frankly, I've spent too much time hand-crafting unnecessary game plans and if I don't use them then why did I put them together?  So despite the offense offering their QB up to me with heads bowed, I keep calling stunts and fire zones; I put Donald at safety and tell him to blitz if their slot receiver attacks middle of the field!  It's genius!

Eventually, I've become so focused on not being countered I forget to attack in the first place.  I use my Aaron Donald purely as a tactical feint, forgetting that the whole reason teams want to counter him is how disruptive and dangerous the combo of his fearsome lack of self control and superhuman athleticism truly is, forgetting first principles that you always start by making the other team beat your best move before you pivot.  If they can't beat your best shot you don't need a counter.  The trick in betting the beginner is never in the strategy: they don't know what they're doing.  The real hell of the thing is doing so over the roaring sound of your own ego.

Where's the Barry talk in all this?  He strikes me as a guy kinda always stuck in between Yomi 1 and 2.  He knows the other teams are going to try and neutralize his best players, so he beats that by neutralizing them first.  He's always trying not to get beat before the other team even proves they can.  No check to get Preston off of coverage on Davante? - forget smoking, that gun is still mid-shot.  Sure, Preston wasn't really in coverage on Tae, it was zone, but the real point is that formation tore his defensive call apart.  Why would you call a 5 man rush, 3-3 shell with so much field to work with in the first place?  How did that call really utilize his best pieces in a critical moment?  It was intended to be a counter to a play that never got called, because Barry got lost in the call sheet trying to out-guess a team with two real weapons and a QB that can't throw outside the numbers.

He needs to stop making it so hard.  Yes, NFL offenses are complex and myriad in their dangers, but this team actually has a lot of talent.  He just needs to make other teams beat that talent instead of rushing to it for them. 

 

[ThatJerkDave]

[turf toe]

13 hours ago, MrBobGray said:

Big day for fans of rambling, nonsensical novellas explaining defensive coordinators through the magic of competitive Street Fighter, because I got another one.

Barry is a weird one for me.  Side note: how did no one give me **** for spelling it Berry through the entirety of my last post? I only just now realized I did that.  Anyway.

I think most fans dislike him for reasons that aren't accurate.  In his 3.3 years as DC, the Packers defense has ranked 9th, 9th, 17th, and 17th by yards and 13th, 13th, 17th and 22nd by points.  Now before even proceeding, I want to take a second to point out that those are not terrible numbers.  Period.  The NFL is the tip of the top, and doing better than half of the defenses in the league roughly speaking means doing better than half of the collective group of sociopaths that can survive the grind of being a pro coach.  Before you protest, obviously the sticking point is that every situation is different and frankly the talent on the field matters more than the talent in the box, as it were; we aren't really going to give the majority credit of a defense's ranking to a single coach.  I bring this up to point out that whatever else, Barry's performance has not led to statistically significant measures of success for opposing offenses.  Last year the Packers were ranked basically dead middle of the pack; 17th in yards and points.  But they only let up 30+ once.  They held teams to <20 6 times.  They held the Lions (5th in points, 4th in yards on offense) to 15 and 20 points; their 3rd and 4th worst games of the season.  The 20 point effort was across 10 drives in a defacto playoff game.  The less spoken of the 2021 playoffs the better, but the defense was incredible in the loss to the 49ers as well.

Barry's defenses have not been the reason the Packers have under-performed; while they rarely win games by themselves, they also rarely are the reason they become noncompetitive.  I think he's a capable defensive coordinator and fans overstate the case against him.  That being said, I ride fully with those who think he doesn't get nearly enough value out of his defensive talent.  I think the reason why is strange and esoteric, which probably puts me in a weird group off by myself, but big picture I think that's the overall problem.  Let's turn to Street Fighter to learn more:

There's a term real nerds of competitive fighting games will know called 'Yomi'.  It's not complicated; it's just the concept of knowing what your opponent is going to do next.  If you know what they're going to do next you can counter it, which you should probably recognize as the basic basis for all strategic action.  The second step to this concept is to think of Yomi in layers.  Basically, you know that I want to counter what you're going to do, so you go and be all sneaky like and do something else instead.  But I know that you know that I know, so I get real weird with it and instead counter your counter, etc. etc.  Here's the thing about Yomi though, and this IMO is to explain for a lot of the "it's harder for the best to defeat a complete amateur than the 2nd best" pseudo-myth; its effectiveness is directly tied to how well you can predict what your opponent is not only going to do, but to know.  This gets confusing without a concrete example, so I'll use two; the relevant Street Fightery for the sexier, more worldly, more sophisticated posters and football for the non-nerds.

• Yomi 0 - First plan of attack, the one that's not gonna survive first contact with the enemy.
  • Street Fighter - you just knocked the opposing Ryu down.  He's now invincible until his wake-up animation finishes; however, he can't take any action until then either.  Your best strategy is to throw out an attack that will still be in Active frames when he becomes vulnerable - what's called a 'meaty' attack. If he tries to press any attack button when his character can first act, he'll get hit by the meaty attack.  Basically, all attacks have a start-up time before they can hurt your opponent, but since he's stuck in the wake-up animation, your attack will be live before he can even press a button.  So you throw a meaty crouching medium punch, or 'cr. strong' in nerd.  '2MP' for those of you in Advanced Street Fighting and It's Merits As a Medium for Personal Growth.
  • NFL - In football terms, think of your meaty crouching medium punch as having an Aaron Donald on roster.  Throw that Aaron Donald out there and if your opponent tries to do anything but focus on blocking him, their QB gets hit!  It's great and very easy!
• Yomi 1 - Theory of Mind
  • Street Fighter - Ryu is very aware you're going to Aaron Donald him, to mix my metaphors.  He has an ace up his sleeve: EX Shoryuken is invincible from frame 1 on reversal, meaning as long as he uses it the very instant he has control again, it will absolutely plow through literally every attack you could throw, including crouching Aaron Donald. 
  • NFL - Instead of blocking Aaron Donald straight up, the guard gives a token effort and lets him through, where he barely notices a wham block from an undrafted rookie TE from an FCS school, whose actual job is merely to be a decoy by being savagely torn apart, screaming in visceral horror as field security proves both unable to and unwilling to try to stem the blood lust that roils in ecstasy through Donald's veins.  Then while everybody is busy watching that go down, the QB hits the RB for 29 yards on a screen right behind him.
• Yomi 2 - This is big braing time
  • Street Fighter -  Here's the thing about EX Shoryuken; it's invincible because it leaves you so vulnerable you legally become a ward of the state if it doesn't hit.  So instead of Aaron crouching punch, I simply block as you wake up.  You fire off your Shoryuken, it does nothing, and you fall flaccidly from the sky, withered and spent into the waiting hands of my vengeance. 
  • NFL - Your 'undrafted FCS TE' spotter up in the box sees the offense is subbing in one of their blood sacrifices and relays it.  Aaron Donald runs a DE/DT stunt instead of attacking straight ahead; instead of being tenderized into a fine mist by Donald, the TE bounces harmlessly off the much less murderous DE coming on the stunt.  The QB is not so lucky, as Donald is now single blocked by the T who doesn't know he's coming (so, killed instantly on impact).
• Yomi 3+ - This is already way too long
  • Street Fighter -  your opponent knows only a fool would trust the EX Shoryuken in front of him, so he can clearly not drink the wine in front of you or whatever.  So he doesn't throw the EX Shoryuken; since you're no longer throwing out a meaty attack but just blocking, he can kinda do whatever he wants, so he simply throws you out of your block.  But you know he's going to throw if you block, so to beat his throw attempt you throw... a meaty crouch medium punch, please refer back to Yomi 0.
  • NFL - The other team runs away from Donald, who is now stunting away from the play, dramatically lessening his impact without having to spend a bunch of additional resources blocking him.  But you correctly divine the poor FCS TE is a fake decoy, so you cancel the stunt and Donald beats the football to the QB.

So here's the thing about playing against beginners vs experts; the Yomi is totally different, because my calculations are all based on the expectation that my opponent knows what an Aaron Donald can do to a human being. But imagine now that the opposing offense never does anything but call seven step dropbacks and single block Donald.  In theory, I just play Donald at 4i and tell him to feast on their souls once their bones are naught but dust every play, coast to an easy victory.  But a shockingly easy exploit in the human condition is our need for validation; as a DC, simply playing my Aaron Donald every turn does nothing to prove my skill.  And frankly, I've spent too much time hand-crafting unnecessary game plans and if I don't use them then why did I put them together?  So despite the offense offering their QB up to me with heads bowed, I keep calling stunts and fire zones; I put Donald at safety and tell him to blitz if their slot receiver attacks middle of the field!  It's genius!

Eventually, I've become so focused on not being countered I forget to attack in the first place.  I use my Aaron Donald purely as a tactical feint, forgetting that the whole reason teams want to counter him is how disruptive and dangerous the combo of his fearsome lack of self control and superhuman athleticism truly is, forgetting first principles that you always start by making the other team beat your best move before you pivot.  If they can't beat your best shot you don't need a counter.  The trick in betting the beginner is never in the strategy: they don't know what they're doing.  The real hell of the thing is doing so over the roaring sound of your own ego.

Where's the Barry talk in all this?  He strikes me as a guy kinda always stuck in between Yomi 1 and 2.  He knows the other teams are going to try and neutralize his best players, so he beats that by neutralizing them first.  He's always trying not to get beat before the other team even proves they can.  No check to get Preston off of coverage on Davante? - forget smoking, that gun is still mid-shot.  Sure, Preston wasn't really in coverage on Tae, it was zone, but the real point is that formation tore his defensive call apart.  Why would you call a 5 man rush, 3-3 shell with so much field to work with in the first place?  How did that call really utilize his best pieces in a critical moment?  It was intended to be a counter to a play that never got called, because Barry got lost in the call sheet trying to out-guess a team with two real weapons and a QB that can't throw outside the numbers.

He needs to stop making it so hard.  Yes, NFL offenses are complex and myriad in their dangers, but this team actually has a lot of talent.  He just needs to make other teams beat that talent instead of rushing to it for them. 

 

in his 2.3 years with us his defenses rank average for points against is about 20th, our defenses rank near last in the league against the run, we see some of the worst zone coverage in the league. even so we could live with that if we didn't bleed as many points, jmo

and this is the longest he's lasted of all 3 teams he's been a DC, to me there just not much a person can say any more to defend Joe Berry Barry,🙂 this isn't some OJT course for defensive Coordinator where running here lol. imo his trial period has run it's course.

Edited October 21, 2023 by turf toe

[Mazrimiv]

Maybe I'll get back to caring about Barry if he's still DC six months from now, but MLF is the coach I am paying attention to right now. The offense is where this team needs to get some things figured out.

[mikebpackfan]

14 hours ago, MrBobGray said:

Big day for fans of rambling, nonsensical novellas explaining defensive coordinators through the magic of competitive Street Fighter, because I got another one.

Barry is a weird one for me.  Side note: how did no one give me **** for spelling it Berry through the entirety of my last post? I only just now realized I did that.  Anyway.

I think most fans dislike him for reasons that aren't accurate.  In his 3.3 years as DC, the Packers defense has ranked 9th, 9th, 17th, and 17th by yards and 13th, 13th, 17th and 22nd by points.  Now before even proceeding, I want to take a second to point out that those are not terrible numbers.  Period.  The NFL is the tip of the top, and doing better than half of the defenses in the league roughly speaking means doing better than half of the collective group of sociopaths that can survive the grind of being a pro coach.  Before you protest, obviously the sticking point is that every situation is different and frankly the talent on the field matters more than the talent in the box, as it were; we aren't really going to give the majority credit of a defense's ranking to a single coach.  I bring this up to point out that whatever else, Barry's performance has not led to statistically significant measures of success for opposing offenses.  Last year the Packers were ranked basically dead middle of the pack; 17th in yards and points.  But they only let up 30+ once.  They held teams to <20 6 times.  They held the Lions (5th in points, 4th in yards on offense) to 15 and 20 points; their 3rd and 4th worst games of the season.  The 20 point effort was across 10 drives in a defacto playoff game.  The less spoken of the 2021 playoffs the better, but the defense was incredible in the loss to the 49ers as well.

Barry's defenses have not been the reason the Packers have under-performed; while they rarely win games by themselves, they also rarely are the reason they become noncompetitive.  I think he's a capable defensive coordinator and fans overstate the case against him.  That being said, I ride fully with those who think he doesn't get nearly enough value out of his defensive talent.  I think the reason why is strange and esoteric, which probably puts me in a weird group off by myself, but big picture I think that's the overall problem.  Let's turn to Street Fighter to learn more:

There's a term real nerds of competitive fighting games will know called 'Yomi'.  It's not complicated; it's just the concept of knowing what your opponent is going to do next.  If you know what they're going to do next you can counter it, which you should probably recognize as the basic basis for all strategic action.  The second step to this concept is to think of Yomi in layers.  Basically, you know that I want to counter what you're going to do, so you go and be all sneaky like and do something else instead.  But I know that you know that I know, so I get real weird with it and instead counter your counter, etc. etc.  Here's the thing about Yomi though, and this IMO is to explain for a lot of the "it's harder for the best to defeat a complete amateur than the 2nd best" pseudo-myth; its effectiveness is directly tied to how well you can predict what your opponent is not only going to do, but to know.  This gets confusing without a concrete example, so I'll use two; the relevant Street Fightery for the sexier, more worldly, more sophisticated posters and football for the non-nerds.

• Yomi 0 - First plan of attack, the one that's not gonna survive first contact with the enemy.
  • Street Fighter - you just knocked the opposing Ryu down.  He's now invincible until his wake-up animation finishes; however, he can't take any action until then either.  Your best strategy is to throw out an attack that will still be in Active frames when he becomes vulnerable - what's called a 'meaty' attack. If he tries to press any attack button when his character can first act, he'll get hit by the meaty attack.  Basically, all attacks have a start-up time before they can hurt your opponent, but since he's stuck in the wake-up animation, your attack will be live before he can even press a button.  So you throw a meaty crouching medium punch, or 'cr. strong' in nerd.  '2MP' for those of you in Advanced Street Fighting and It's Merits As a Medium for Personal Growth.
  • NFL - In football terms, think of your meaty crouching medium punch as having an Aaron Donald on roster.  Throw that Aaron Donald out there and if your opponent tries to do anything but focus on blocking him, their QB gets hit!  It's great and very easy!
• Yomi 1 - Theory of Mind
  • Street Fighter - Ryu is very aware you're going to Aaron Donald him, to mix my metaphors.  He has an ace up his sleeve: EX Shoryuken is invincible from frame 1 on reversal, meaning as long as he uses it the very instant he has control again, it will absolutely plow through literally every attack you could throw, including crouching Aaron Donald. 
  • NFL - Instead of blocking Aaron Donald straight up, the guard gives a token effort and lets him through, where he barely notices a wham block from an undrafted rookie TE from an FCS school, whose actual job is merely to be a decoy by being savagely torn apart, screaming in visceral horror as field security proves both unable to and unwilling to try to stem the blood lust that roils in ecstasy through Donald's veins.  Then while everybody is busy watching that go down, the QB hits the RB for 29 yards on a screen right behind him.
• Yomi 2 - This is big braing time
  • Street Fighter -  Here's the thing about EX Shoryuken; it's invincible because it leaves you so vulnerable you legally become a ward of the state if it doesn't hit.  So instead of Aaron crouching punch, I simply block as you wake up.  You fire off your Shoryuken, it does nothing, and you fall flaccidly from the sky, withered and spent into the waiting hands of my vengeance. 
  • NFL - Your 'undrafted FCS TE' spotter up in the box sees the offense is subbing in one of their blood sacrifices and relays it.  Aaron Donald runs a DE/DT stunt instead of attacking straight ahead; instead of being tenderized into a fine mist by Donald, the TE bounces harmlessly off the much less murderous DE coming on the stunt.  The QB is not so lucky, as Donald is now single blocked by the T who doesn't know he's coming (so, killed instantly on impact).
• Yomi 3+ - This is already way too long
  • Street Fighter -  your opponent knows only a fool would trust the EX Shoryuken in front of him, so he can clearly not drink the wine in front of you or whatever.  So he doesn't throw the EX Shoryuken; since you're no longer throwing out a meaty attack but just blocking, he can kinda do whatever he wants, so he simply throws you out of your block.  But you know he's going to throw if you block, so to beat his throw attempt you throw... a meaty crouch medium punch, please refer back to Yomi 0.
  • NFL - The other team runs away from Donald, who is now stunting away from the play, dramatically lessening his impact without having to spend a bunch of additional resources blocking him.  But you correctly divine the poor FCS TE is a fake decoy, so you cancel the stunt and Donald beats the football to the QB.

So here's the thing about playing against beginners vs experts; the Yomi is totally different, because my calculations are all based on the expectation that my opponent knows what an Aaron Donald can do to a human being. But imagine now that the opposing offense never does anything but call seven step dropbacks and single block Donald.  In theory, I just play Donald at 4i and tell him to feast on their souls once their bones are naught but dust every play, coast to an easy victory.  But a shockingly easy exploit in the human condition is our need for validation; as a DC, simply playing my Aaron Donald every turn does nothing to prove my skill.  And frankly, I've spent too much time hand-crafting unnecessary game plans and if I don't use them then why did I put them together?  So despite the offense offering their QB up to me with heads bowed, I keep calling stunts and fire zones; I put Donald at safety and tell him to blitz if their slot receiver attacks middle of the field!  It's genius!

Eventually, I've become so focused on not being countered I forget to attack in the first place.  I use my Aaron Donald purely as a tactical feint, forgetting that the whole reason teams want to counter him is how disruptive and dangerous the combo of his fearsome lack of self control and superhuman athleticism truly is, forgetting first principles that you always start by making the other team beat your best move before you pivot.  If they can't beat your best shot you don't need a counter.  The trick in betting the beginner is never in the strategy: they don't know what they're doing.  The real hell of the thing is doing so over the roaring sound of your own ego.

Where's the Barry talk in all this?  He strikes me as a guy kinda always stuck in between Yomi 1 and 2.  He knows the other teams are going to try and neutralize his best players, so he beats that by neutralizing them first.  He's always trying not to get beat before the other team even proves they can.  No check to get Preston off of coverage on Davante? - forget smoking, that gun is still mid-shot.  Sure, Preston wasn't really in coverage on Tae, it was zone, but the real point is that formation tore his defensive call apart.  Why would you call a 5 man rush, 3-3 shell with so much field to work with in the first place?  How did that call really utilize his best pieces in a critical moment?  It was intended to be a counter to a play that never got called, because Barry got lost in the call sheet trying to out-guess a team with two real weapons and a QB that can't throw outside the numbers.

He needs to stop making it so hard.  Yes, NFL offenses are complex and myriad in their dangers, but this team actually has a lot of talent.  He just needs to make other teams beat that talent instead of rushing to it for them. 

 

“Barry doesn’t suck” is like 10000 less words. 

[HighCalebR]

I just keep going back to Barry's a JAG coach. He's not a bum, but he's not flexible and doesn't do anything interesting.  He's got horses he doesn't use and can't make adjustments to save his ***. The hire worked when it was made and you had the offense to lean on and could play complimentary defense but his units not going to dominate a game when I think it's got the guys to if healthy. You send him to a frontrunner and he'll do the job.

If we're going to pump assets into it, it has to be the leader of the club.

[Mr Bad Example]

4 hours ago, HighCalebR said:

I just keep going back to Barry's a JAG coach. He's not a bum, but he's not flexible and doesn't do anything interesting.  He's got horses he doesn't use and can't make adjustments to save his ***. The hire worked when it was made and you had the offense to lean on and could play complimentary defense but his units not going to dominate a game when I think it's got the guys to if healthy. You send him to a frontrunner and he'll do the job.

If we're going to pump assets into it, it has to be the leader of the club.

Honestly, I think my idea of a good coach is what @MrBobGray says - you figure out what your guys do best and put them in position to do it. Ideally, you can win that way but one should also be ready with schematic wrinkles in case a team takes you out of that. 

Barry seems to be all about scheme in lieu of talent.