Mitch
Crawled Through 5 FB Fields
1. First of all, have we seen a more bizarre last two weeks to an NFL season than these two? Last week, the Colts yank their starters and concede an undeafeated season. The Giants, playing at home with the playoffs on the line in front of past legends like LT who have come to honor the last regular season game at the old Meadowlands, get completely embarrassed and shellacked by a team already out of playoff contention, albeit a darned good team. The Vikings go into Chicago and play the hapless Bears and the Bears light up the scoreboard like a Christmas tree. The Saints (13-1) lose at home to the Bucs.
Yesterday, the Colts get blasted again in Buffalo this time. The Saints get pasted by the Panthers, who finish their last three games ripping through the Vikings, Giants and Saints in rapid succession. The Eagles, with everything to play for, the #2 seed and the NFC East Championship, lay a total egg in Dallas and plummet to the #6 seed, and get shout out in the process. The Patriots, play their starters for almost the entire game trying to beat the Texans, and risk further injury to Tom Brady who apparently is playing with a plethora of injuries including 3 broken ribs and a badly bruised finger. In addition, they lose Wes Welker who blows out his knee making a cut in the open field. Baltimore wins a sqeaker in Oakland to become the #6 AFC seed, And the opportunistic Jets, happy victors in Indianapolis the previous week thanks to Peyton and company's exile, hammer Cincinnati the #4 seed to become the #5 seed when two weeks ago even their head coach was sure they had lost all hopes after losing a close one to the Falcons. Wow.
2. The more I reflect on Whiz's decisions yesterday, the more baffled I feel. I do get playing Kurt Warner for two series, so that he can get a behind the center picture of the defense he is going to face this week. I get the objective of having Anquan Boldin make a couple of catches to surpass the 1,000 yard mark for the 5th time. I also get keeping the starting o-line in the game to get accustomed to the Green Bay defense and their own individual matchups.
What I do not understand at all, is once Warner was pulled, every key starter should have been standing right next to him on the sidelines...especially in light of Wes Welker's devastating injury several hours earlier...or if that didn't register in Whiz's mind earlier, the injury to DRC should have.
Curious too...and I wonder how many of you thought the same thing...I was relieved to see Jason Banks in for Campbell in the second half, but then I saw Whiz had Campbell back in the game late in that second half and when I saw that I was mystified. I just don't get it. Play Robinson there if you have to. Hopefully Campbell will be able to play. If not the Cardinals will need a monster game from Alan Branch..and as we have seen he is capable.
From a psychological standpoint, if Whiz pulls all the key starters after the first quarter, it's clear he is resting his starters on the eve of the playoffs. If the Packers keep their starters in and win big, so what? But, the fact that Whiz kept so many of his starters in the game well into the second half to endure the kind of beating they took is absolutely mind-boggling.
Another thing I do not understand at all, is with the Packers keeping their starters in, why didn't Whiz turn to Bill Davis and instruct him to run the entire front seven (use the backups to do this---it's easy and fun) up the gaps after Aaron Rodgers and Ryan Grant with the one thought of laying a licking on both of them. Even if Rodgers was completing quick passes against the full house blitzes, so what? He would have taken a beating doing so.
What Whiz allowed was a three hour pounding of his team. To me it was kind of like watching your younger brother get the snot knocked out of him by three thugs and being chained to a chair and not being able to do one darned thing about it.
That's why you tell your front seven of subs, line up in the gaps and get after Rodgers and Grant and punish them.
It wouldn't have been giving away a game plan, for virtually no one goes into a gap 7 or 8 play after play.
As for Matt Leinart, he got away once again from the fundamentals...which he seemed to correct in his last game. This is why his passes sailed on him. If Leinart is going to make it in the NFL, he is going to have to make it with smarts and fundamentals....and quite frankly with more grit and fire than what he has shown. He lacks the big arm, but we saw at times how accurate he can be when he sets his feet properly and drives the ball toward the target on a line, with the nose of the football straight, not up. No one will really know what Leinart is truly capable of until he starts a long string of games and is able to develop his confidence. But, his poor peformances this year have not accelerated anyone's wishes for him getting a string of games to work with. It would be surprising at this point if any team would want to trade for him. And, even though Whiz has been supportive of Leinart, we will know exactly how high Whiz really is on him in the upcoming draft...that is, if a QB is taken high, as in the first two or three picks. As I have been saying, I think the probablilty of that happening is about as likely as 100 plus degree temps in Arizona during the month of July.
With regard to the Cardinals' game plan this week, a few thoughts come to mind:
1. The "G Power" off-tackle play will be there if Levi Brown and Jeremy Bridges can seal off the inside on their downblocks on Jolly and Raji. However, the Packers' OLBers will be reading the downblock, so, IMO, the off-side pulling guard is not going to be able to get to the OLB on time this week, so what the Cardinals need to do is assign the FB to the OLB. If the FB kicks the OLB out, the G and the RB turn it up inside. If the OLB sits in the hole, as I saw him do yesterday, the FB takes him out there, and the G and RB bounce the play wide.
2. What the Cardinals need to do is play action off the "G Power" because when the OLB reads the downblock and fires up to the off-tackle hole, if the WR to that side goes deep taking theCB with him, the flat will be wide open (notice how open Stephen Spach was in the flat yesterday). While I am not especially enamored with Kreider as a a reciever, it might behoove Whiz to keep playing Jason Wright at FB on occasion, because Wright would be outstanding catching the ball in the flat and turning the ball upfield. And as we saw yesterday, screen passes won't work versus the Packers...they sniff them out big time.
3. I expect the Cardinals to throw quite a bit to the backs, and I expect almost all short yardage situations to be play action passes. A key forgotten guy could be TE Ben Patrick because the TE up the seam is a play the Packers have had repeated trouble defending.
4. On defense, this time the front three need to pentrate the interior of the Packers' o-line to not only disrupt the timing of the running game (Ryan Grant is a downhill runner whom the Cardinals cannot allow to to hit the line quickly, he's not an especially great improvisor) and just as much to get as quickly as possible to Aaron Rodgers.
If the front three are disruptive it's imperative for Hayes and Dansby to clean up the trash...not only on running plays but in making good hard tackles on Rodgers when he scrambles.
In the secondary, the matchups are as follows: DRC (Driver), BMF (Jennings), AW (Finley)...and because Driver and Jennings are physical WRs, the Cardinal CBs need to play close enough to take away the bread and butter slant passes, but, IMO should only press occasionally. The CBs should line up about five yards from the WRs, and as I say shade the slant and then mirror their moves.
A blitz I like a lot is Rolle covering for Wilson when he's lined up on Finley. Wilson needs to put a Trent Edwards-like licking on Rodgers. This is a must in this game. I also like McFadden blitzing from the weak side with Rolle covering for McFadden. Rolle has to be able to handle Finley and Jennings when the Cardinals come after Rodgers from the perimeter.
One last personnel point: what in the world was Steve Breaston doing returning a punt form the one yard line? Breaston has got to get his head out of his you know what and start playing good smart football (in addition to getting upfield on punt returns and not running backwards or sideways...STs could be huge in this game...as they were versus the Vikings when he broke one)...and he's got to stop committing formation errors on offense. Right now, Early Doucet, IMO, is looking like the third most skilled WR on the team.
Yesterday, the Colts get blasted again in Buffalo this time. The Saints get pasted by the Panthers, who finish their last three games ripping through the Vikings, Giants and Saints in rapid succession. The Eagles, with everything to play for, the #2 seed and the NFC East Championship, lay a total egg in Dallas and plummet to the #6 seed, and get shout out in the process. The Patriots, play their starters for almost the entire game trying to beat the Texans, and risk further injury to Tom Brady who apparently is playing with a plethora of injuries including 3 broken ribs and a badly bruised finger. In addition, they lose Wes Welker who blows out his knee making a cut in the open field. Baltimore wins a sqeaker in Oakland to become the #6 AFC seed, And the opportunistic Jets, happy victors in Indianapolis the previous week thanks to Peyton and company's exile, hammer Cincinnati the #4 seed to become the #5 seed when two weeks ago even their head coach was sure they had lost all hopes after losing a close one to the Falcons. Wow.
2. The more I reflect on Whiz's decisions yesterday, the more baffled I feel. I do get playing Kurt Warner for two series, so that he can get a behind the center picture of the defense he is going to face this week. I get the objective of having Anquan Boldin make a couple of catches to surpass the 1,000 yard mark for the 5th time. I also get keeping the starting o-line in the game to get accustomed to the Green Bay defense and their own individual matchups.
What I do not understand at all, is once Warner was pulled, every key starter should have been standing right next to him on the sidelines...especially in light of Wes Welker's devastating injury several hours earlier...or if that didn't register in Whiz's mind earlier, the injury to DRC should have.
Curious too...and I wonder how many of you thought the same thing...I was relieved to see Jason Banks in for Campbell in the second half, but then I saw Whiz had Campbell back in the game late in that second half and when I saw that I was mystified. I just don't get it. Play Robinson there if you have to. Hopefully Campbell will be able to play. If not the Cardinals will need a monster game from Alan Branch..and as we have seen he is capable.
From a psychological standpoint, if Whiz pulls all the key starters after the first quarter, it's clear he is resting his starters on the eve of the playoffs. If the Packers keep their starters in and win big, so what? But, the fact that Whiz kept so many of his starters in the game well into the second half to endure the kind of beating they took is absolutely mind-boggling.
Another thing I do not understand at all, is with the Packers keeping their starters in, why didn't Whiz turn to Bill Davis and instruct him to run the entire front seven (use the backups to do this---it's easy and fun) up the gaps after Aaron Rodgers and Ryan Grant with the one thought of laying a licking on both of them. Even if Rodgers was completing quick passes against the full house blitzes, so what? He would have taken a beating doing so.
What Whiz allowed was a three hour pounding of his team. To me it was kind of like watching your younger brother get the snot knocked out of him by three thugs and being chained to a chair and not being able to do one darned thing about it.
That's why you tell your front seven of subs, line up in the gaps and get after Rodgers and Grant and punish them.
It wouldn't have been giving away a game plan, for virtually no one goes into a gap 7 or 8 play after play.
As for Matt Leinart, he got away once again from the fundamentals...which he seemed to correct in his last game. This is why his passes sailed on him. If Leinart is going to make it in the NFL, he is going to have to make it with smarts and fundamentals....and quite frankly with more grit and fire than what he has shown. He lacks the big arm, but we saw at times how accurate he can be when he sets his feet properly and drives the ball toward the target on a line, with the nose of the football straight, not up. No one will really know what Leinart is truly capable of until he starts a long string of games and is able to develop his confidence. But, his poor peformances this year have not accelerated anyone's wishes for him getting a string of games to work with. It would be surprising at this point if any team would want to trade for him. And, even though Whiz has been supportive of Leinart, we will know exactly how high Whiz really is on him in the upcoming draft...that is, if a QB is taken high, as in the first two or three picks. As I have been saying, I think the probablilty of that happening is about as likely as 100 plus degree temps in Arizona during the month of July.
With regard to the Cardinals' game plan this week, a few thoughts come to mind:
1. The "G Power" off-tackle play will be there if Levi Brown and Jeremy Bridges can seal off the inside on their downblocks on Jolly and Raji. However, the Packers' OLBers will be reading the downblock, so, IMO, the off-side pulling guard is not going to be able to get to the OLB on time this week, so what the Cardinals need to do is assign the FB to the OLB. If the FB kicks the OLB out, the G and the RB turn it up inside. If the OLB sits in the hole, as I saw him do yesterday, the FB takes him out there, and the G and RB bounce the play wide.
2. What the Cardinals need to do is play action off the "G Power" because when the OLB reads the downblock and fires up to the off-tackle hole, if the WR to that side goes deep taking theCB with him, the flat will be wide open (notice how open Stephen Spach was in the flat yesterday). While I am not especially enamored with Kreider as a a reciever, it might behoove Whiz to keep playing Jason Wright at FB on occasion, because Wright would be outstanding catching the ball in the flat and turning the ball upfield. And as we saw yesterday, screen passes won't work versus the Packers...they sniff them out big time.
3. I expect the Cardinals to throw quite a bit to the backs, and I expect almost all short yardage situations to be play action passes. A key forgotten guy could be TE Ben Patrick because the TE up the seam is a play the Packers have had repeated trouble defending.
4. On defense, this time the front three need to pentrate the interior of the Packers' o-line to not only disrupt the timing of the running game (Ryan Grant is a downhill runner whom the Cardinals cannot allow to to hit the line quickly, he's not an especially great improvisor) and just as much to get as quickly as possible to Aaron Rodgers.
If the front three are disruptive it's imperative for Hayes and Dansby to clean up the trash...not only on running plays but in making good hard tackles on Rodgers when he scrambles.
In the secondary, the matchups are as follows: DRC (Driver), BMF (Jennings), AW (Finley)...and because Driver and Jennings are physical WRs, the Cardinal CBs need to play close enough to take away the bread and butter slant passes, but, IMO should only press occasionally. The CBs should line up about five yards from the WRs, and as I say shade the slant and then mirror their moves.
A blitz I like a lot is Rolle covering for Wilson when he's lined up on Finley. Wilson needs to put a Trent Edwards-like licking on Rodgers. This is a must in this game. I also like McFadden blitzing from the weak side with Rolle covering for McFadden. Rolle has to be able to handle Finley and Jennings when the Cardinals come after Rodgers from the perimeter.
One last personnel point: what in the world was Steve Breaston doing returning a punt form the one yard line? Breaston has got to get his head out of his you know what and start playing good smart football (in addition to getting upfield on punt returns and not running backwards or sideways...STs could be huge in this game...as they were versus the Vikings when he broke one)...and he's got to stop committing formation errors on offense. Right now, Early Doucet, IMO, is looking like the third most skilled WR on the team.
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Nothing low class about him getting hurt when our starters are doing their jobs in a game that matters.
