Fire Dom #$%& Capers

[BadgerDodger]

Every defense has a bad day now and again. While he hasn't made it flawless if it isn't obvious to anyone how much better our defense is this year then, and no offense intended, I really have to wonder about how well they know the game.

[Fantasy Ninja]

I agree. Our offense isn't much different than last season. I think our defense went from being a bottom dweller to "good" in 1 year. Now I hope they can build on that and bring in some secondary help for next season to make them elite, which I don't think they are just yet.

[NYPACKER]

Originally Posted by Fantasy Ninja

I agree. Our offense isn't much different than last season. I think our defense went from being a bottom dweller to "good" in 1 year. Now I hope they can build on that and bring in some secondary help for next season to make them elite, which I don't think they are just yet.

...I agree, DB's & OT's look to be the need in this years draft.

[Kakunga]

Originally Posted by NYPACKER

...I agree, DB's & OT's look to be the need in this years draft.

Yeah, the need for OT's and DBs in the next draft are very apparent. Hopefully we can get a pair of each in the upcoming draft. Maybe even a decent free agent at either position.

[retiredgrampa]

It's obvious, to me anyway, that our multiple needs in the OL and secondary CANNOT be filled by one draft, especially in the OL. By the time we pick it'll be garbage time there. Thus we absolutely MUST get help via FA. I know that's been said thousands of times but it still bears repeating. I have hopes that Tauscher can play another year though. That would help but would mean that Lang would have to go to LT, whereas RT is probably better for him.

[think]

Originally Posted by Fantasy Ninja

I agree. Our offense isn't much different than last season. I think our defense went from being a bottom dweller to "good" in 1 year. Now I hope they can build on that and bring in some secondary help for next season to make them elite, which I don't think they are just yet.

The defense sure looked like a bottom dweller against the Steelers.

[Fantasy Ninja]

Originally Posted by Kakunga

Yeah, the need for OT's and DBs in the next draft are very apparent. Hopefully we can get a pair of each in the upcoming draft. Maybe even a decent free agent at either position.

I'd like to see him attack the Offensive Line and Defensive Backfield like he did the deficiencies we had at Linebacker and Wideout.

[reck]

Consider the fact that Dom Capers is in his first year as DC of the Packers and that he was given the task of transforming the D from a (I'm going to be kind and just call it) "novel" 4-3 scheme to a 3-4 scheme with the number one task being doing a better job vs. the run. Also consider that until last off season Thompson and staff were drafting and otherwise acquiring players to fit that 4-3 scheme.

Now consider the final 2009 regular season statistics from the NFL website.

Yards allowed per game:
#2. Green Bay Packers 284.4 - they were #1 in the NFC

Points allowed per game:
#7 Green Bay Packers 18.6 - they finished #3 in the NFC

Turnovers:
#1 overall in the league with 30 INTs. Saints were next in the NFC with 26.
#16 overall in the league with 10 fumbles recovered. Tied for 11th in the NFC.

Oh, and as for doing a better job vs. the run the Packers finished first overall vs. the run allowing 83.3 yards per game. That's an improvement from last year by about one yard less per run and almost 30 fewer yards per game. They went from 26th vs. the run to number one. There were not as good vs. the pass, allowing 201.1 yards per game, finishing 5th overall and 2nd in the NFC.

So they allowed fewer than 20 points on average finishing in the top 10 overall and #3 in the NFC. They finished second overall and first in the NFC in yards allowed per game. And they took the ball away 40 times - an average of 2.5 times per game for the math challenged. So by all means fire Dom Capers.

Now I certainly understand an emotional response after a loss. Yes, calling Capers a "retard" and "moron" was over the top but that was posted in the heat of the moment. But for this post, written the next day:

Originally Posted by Cblatz

While I am a lot calmer now then when I started the thread, I still stand by the premise.

I suggest a self-imposed timeout from posting. It's well deserved. The idea of firing Dom Capers after what he's done this season is one of the most ludicrous ever posted on this board. And that's saying A LOT. Yes, the Packers' D disappointed in games against the Bengals, two games against the queens, the Bucs and against the Steelers. But this is Capers' FIRST season as Defensive Coordinator in Green Bay.

But if you don't want to call a timeout on yourself, at the very least, as I posted earlier on this thread, "… if after you've calmed down you still think Capers should be fired, IMO you need to be very careful about calling anyone else a moron." Because guess what? The Packers' D may be even better next season.

[Wilbur]

I want to point out that, IMO, Bell is going to be a pretty good, solid DB by next season. Bigby is back in his old form lately, too. All good stuff heading into the playoffs -- Capers has transformed this defense into a squad with swagger and confidence in less than one season.

[Bavarian]

Capers nods off in the 3rd quarter? Judge for yourself in this You Tube video:

Packers Capers sleeping in the press box

[Galileo]

Apparently, Sporting News named Capers the DC of the Year. I don't have a link.

I cannot argue that the defense improved from a statistical standpoint but because it clearly did. My concern is that 6 times in 17 games our opponent went over 30 points on us and that's worse than Donatell, Slowik, or Sanders in the years they got fired.

I don't think it's a concidence that those were games against teams with pretty good passing attacks. I've rewatched the Cardinal game several times now and unbelievably, we had confusion in our back eight on numerous occasions which resulted in open receivers.

I'm willing to concede that some of it is because we had backups in there but, just as an example, Bush played several games and when him and Barnett both cover the same guy and leave another guy to run free that's clearly a mistake by somebody who should know better.

I'm also slowly coming around to the opinion that Capers simply wasn't able to camoflage our weakness with the personnel we had. We don't get a very good pass rush from our front seven and that's going to put you in a bad spot when you're playing so many second-teamers in the secondary (Bush, Giordano, and Bell were all on the field at the same time).

Although he had a pretty good year, I think that Barnett played very poorly in pass coverage against the Cardinals and I'd invite anybody who has the game recorded to focus on him. It's no coincidence that so many of those completions were over the middle about 15 yards downfield.

As regards Capers, I think that we give him another offseason and get him some more talent and we'll probably have a very good defense next year. There is always the possibility that some of these guys like Bell and Raji are even better next year. M3 alluded to the fact that we've got some good secondary players on our IR (Harris, Blackmon, and Lee). Certainly, another linebacker like Clay Matthews would improve our defense but I don't know if we can get that lucky two years in a row (put me down for Brandon Spikes at #23).

We've shown we can stop the run and create turnovers, but we're going to have to improve our pressure in order to be the kind of defense that we need in the playoffs.

[reck]

Packer Update says that neither Bigby nor Hawk left a favorable impression on the staff. I don't know how good their source is but it does make the point that Capers took personnel that had been acquired to play a significantly different scheme. If Capers D struggled in games against good/great passing teams in year three of his tenure, I'd be advocating his firing. But this was year one.

[Galileo]

Hawk I can understand. But the Bigby thing confused me when I read it because over the last three years the Packers have a phenomenal winning percentage when he's in the starting lineup and they're way below .500 when he's not.

Maybe that's coincidence, I don't know. Or maybe the staff just thinks he could do a better job of playing through these injuries. I mean, he can't play in a playoff game so we have to put Giordano....who already had a bad knee...in his place? Dude.....take a shot and get your ass back in there.

[espnpack]

Originally Posted by Galileo

...Although he had a pretty good year, I think that Barnett played very poorly in pass coverage against the Cardinals and I'd invite anybody who has the game recorded to focus on him. It's no coincidence that so many of those completions were over the middle about 15 yards downfield...

I agree with this...and I would extend that to the entire LB crew (except for maybe Matthews - All signs point to good things from him). I think our overall LB crew is extremely overrated...I am not confident in Hawk, Chillar, Jones, Kampman, Popp, or Bishop to be difference makers...So, if that is the case and then Barnett is struggling too, then what many think is a real strength of TT's moves and of this team, may actually be a fairly significant weak spot...I'm a little perplexed with what is going on at the LB spot...or what can be done about it...In some respects, I think we need two new nasty MF's that flat out put the hurt on people - not sure where you find them, but I'm really afraid that the current crop will continue to leave us disappointed.

[kainen]

Originally Posted by Galileo

Hawk I can understand. But the Bigby thing confused me when I read it because over the last three years the Packers have a phenomenal winning percentage when he's in the starting lineup and they're way below .500 when he's not.

Maybe that's coincidence, I don't know. Or maybe the staff just thinks he could do a better job of playing through these injuries. I mean, he can't play in a playoff game so we have to put Giordano....who already had a bad knee...in his place? Dude.....take a shot and get your ass back in there.

He had a hamstring injury and couldn't run. Can't do what you can't do.

[pkrbkr]

Originally Posted by Bavarian

Capers nods off in the 3rd quarter? Judge for yourself in this You Tube video:

Packers Capers sleeping in the press box

Well,,,,at least the offense was on the field

[espnpack]

Originally Posted by reck

Packer Update says that neither Bigby nor Hawk left a favorable impression on the staff. I don't know how good their source is but it does make the point that Capers took personnel that had been acquired to play a significantly different scheme. If Capers D struggled in games against good/great passing teams in year three of his tenure, I'd be advocating his firing. But this was year one.

Just watched the game for the last time...deleted from the DVR!

I sure would like to hear more about this as it relates to Hawk.

Hawk played most of the way in the 7-1 stretch...Chillar did not.

Chillar played a significant majority of the snaps in the Cards playoff game, Hawk was hardly on the field. (If anyone can find the stas for # of snaps taken by the players on D, I would like to see it.)

Hawk had an overrun on one 9 yard running play, and he seemed to be a little late getting outside on Wells long run late in the game, altoough OLB Jones got engulfed at the LOS which enabled the play to get outside in the first place..

If Hawk was a grade D, Chillar, Barnett were F's. And if Hawk was a grade F, Chillar and Barnett were 0's!

[TBailz]

Interesting quote during today's games that Warner said he felt really comfortable with facing the Packers defense two weeks in a row. Also said last week in every critical situation the defense he thought we would be in is what we were in. From watching the game I would have to agree.

[Kakunga]

Originally Posted by espnpack

I agree with this...and I would extend that to the entire LB crew (except for maybe Matthews - All signs point to good things from him). I think our overall LB crew is extremely overrated...I am not confident in Hawk, Chillar, Jones, Kampman, Popp, or Bishop to be difference makers...So, if that is the case and then Barnett is struggling too, then what many think is a real strength of TT's moves and of this team, may actually be a fairly significant weak spot...I'm a little perplexed with what is going on at the LB spot...or what can be done about it...In some respects, I think we need two new nasty MF's that flat out put the hurt on people - not sure where you find them, but I'm really afraid that the current crop will continue to leave us disappointed.

I know McGinn gave the Packer LB's a low score of a half a star on their performance against the Cards in the playoffs. It was a very disappointing performance by this group. Yes, Barnett played poorly as did Hawk and Chillar. Mathews was ask to rush the passer most of the time and he didn't put quite enough pressure on Warner as we would of all liked. Hawk is usefully poor in pass defense, but I was surprised Barnett and Chillar did not do very well. Warner pretty much had his way with the Packer D last week. When your offense scores 45 points and you still lose... that is just not good.

[wes]

not saying most of the things said on here are wrong,but the D is taking a lot of heat for the loss. a article in today paper said they gave up 51 pt, I didn't see one Def player on the field when the last TD was scored, also when there are two early TO that turn into TD's off a short field it looks bad for the D when 14 pt are partly on the O, plus an early lead put the "big mo " on there side just as the onside kick fired our team up late in the game

[NYPACKER]

Originally Posted by kainen

He had a hamstring injury and couldn't run. Can't do what you can't do.

....did not get a good "feel" for Bibgy's body langauge on the sideline...almost looked as if he wanted out. LeRoy butler was also questioning this.