The worst thing about the Green Bay Packers losing their season-opener on a Thursday is that it gives people like me 10 days to talk about everything that went wrong.
In fact, so much went wrong on Thursday that some of the obvious wrongs are overshadowing other, less obvious, wrongs that also merit discussion. One of those overshadowed wrongs is the lack of offensive creativity from Packers coach Mike McCarthy.
I know what you’re probably thinking: “Great. Here comes some blowhard on a blog whining about the coach’s playcalling after his favorite team lost a game. How very sports talk radio.”
I’m not going to pick apart individual play calls and opine about whether McCarthy should have called a run or a pass. I am going to opine that the Packers offense was far too predictable on Thursday and has felt predictable for a while now.
We’ve seen opposing offenses achieve tremendous success by attacking the Packers’ defense with a little creativity in both scheme and formations. Read-options, jet sweeps and misdirection counters baffle the Packers run defense. Pre-snap motion and different formation packages create mismatches against individual Packers’ defenders, causing the entire defense to panic and disintegrate over the course of a game.
Whenever I watch a team like the Seahawks or 49ers do unique things on offense to steamroll the Packers, I wonder why the Packers don’t seem as creative when they have the ball.
Maybe the Packers defense is so bad that it looks like other offenses are more creative than they actually are. Maybe all the injuries the Packers suffer each season make getting creative a challenge. Maybe McCarthy thinks Aaron Rodgers and his offense are so good, there’s no need to overthink things and get too crazy.
I don’t know what the answer is, but there has to be a few wrinkles McCarthy can come up with to get players like Randall Cobb free in space or create favorable matchups for other playmakers. Heck, even a screen pass here or there might have helped a little on Thursday.
Having Rodgers take a traditional drop, scan the field, then scamper around while his receivers try and get open is starting to get old.
I’m not calling for a dramatic overhaul of the entire offense. Rodgers, Cobb, Jordy Nelson and Eddie Lacy doing their thing should result in plenty of points. But a little creativity from the coach — a jet-sweep to Cobb, a uniquely drawn-up screen, designed movement from Rodgers — to provide an extra boost against the NFL’s elite is needed.
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Adam Czech is a a freelance sports reporter living in the Twin Cities and a proud supporter of American corn farmers. When not working, Adam is usually writing about, thinking about or worrying about the Packers. Follow Adam on Twitter. Twitter .
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Well put Adam.
The offense of the Packers was like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a can never go wrong thinking…until your bread goes stale……our bread has grown a tad stale..lets get a new loaf.
Its hard to be creative when you only play on half the field. I think teams need to attack Sherman all night to wear him down because avoiding him does not seem to work very well. He is not superman he can be beat down and just maybe if you run at him and put you best receiver on him and run him long for a quarter he may get tired. No one has ever tried this they avoid him like he is a God or something. It’s time to try something new and attack him!!!
Creative play design, especially in the running game, has little to do with who’s playing cornerback and where. We’ve been watching the same plays (with only a few slight wrinkles) for years now. I’ve written several post like this myself over the last few years. Usually I get killed over it. Perhaps fans are starting to see the light.
It doesn’t even need to be that creative. First you run a jet-sweep type of play to Cobb. Assuming it is successful, you run it again but this time Cobb pulls up and throws an option pass. Then when the defense thinks they have the play defended you run a counter with Starks or even Harris. Something to make the defense second guess themselves. Of course these plays must be executed effectively or it’s pointless. But making these plays work can make even the more basic plays more effective once the defense begins questioning itself. Maybe we’ll have a surprise for the Jets this week. At least we can dream before the game. Thanks, Since ’61
Can you or perhaps Jay diagram the jet sweep to help me see what packer personnel would have to execute what tasks to run this play effectively with Cobb? This would help me be sure that the packers have the personnel to run this play. It would be much appreciated!
Hear, hear
MM and creative should never be used in the same sentence. The guy is as creative as his mentor – Marty Schottenheimer and he had zero creativity. MM’s idea of creativity is to draft Alex Smith over AROD. MM, DC and TT and Winston Moss and Slowcum et. al. are all duds. After 10 years that should be obvious to all.
Completely agree, and well said. GB coaching staff is dried up.
Amen. I’ll add that MM seems to avoid doing much of anything that takes a risk. Sure, he’ll go for two when the stats tell him to or take a shot on 4th in that zone between FG range and punt range, but I wish there was a little more chutzpah in the scheme. If you’re going down, then make some noise. Thursday was a pathetic whimper carried out on only half a field.
I’m extremely disappointed with MM and more so with DC. When is the last time we where able to say that our Staff out coached the opposition?
In Miami with Joe Philbin.
i have heard comments from defensive players that they knew what play was coming…your right too predictable!!!!!
In fact i was just talking about how MM is getting stale with a couple of guys today…couldn’t of said it better myself…the year of the big playoff Super Bowl run the offense was wheeling and dealing, now its shot to Cobb, long to Jordy, long to Cobb, short to Jordy, run a few times…
jeez, is the honeymoon over?? haha, you bet it is..