Packers Beer Mug Perspective: Looking For A Claymaker

The Green Bay Packers’ last-second win against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday had more than its fair share of ups and downs. Fans started the game with some bravado when they watched Aaron Rodgers and the offense march down the field on the opening drive to score a touchdown. From there, however, they witnessed some frustrating stalls, a few head-scratching penalties, and the defense lose its ground in the second half.

One of the concerns to come out of this game was the performance of outside linebacker Clay Matthews. A number of read-option plays from the Dolphins offense successfully targeted him and gained significant ground. But this has only punctuated the lack of impact plays across the season.

Matthews, who is one of the highest paid linebackers in the league, only has one sack in six games. This projects to just under three sacks for a season, which would be his lowest total of his career. (That includes last season, when he missed five complete games.) For some perspective, the following players each have two sacks to their name so far: Nick Perry, Mike Neal, Julius Peppers, Mike Daniels, and . . . wait for it . . . Letroy Guion.

My question this week, then, is this:

Is Clay Matthews still “tilting the field” for the Packers defense?

In this installment of the Packers Beer Mug Perspective, we’ll take a look at the issue from both angles, and then determine whether our mug is really “half empty” or “half full.”

THE MUG IS HALF FULL

According to TeamRankings.com, the Green Bay Packers defense is 15th in Sack Percentage and 16th in Sacks Per Game, which sits right in the middle of the league. And when you look at the past three games, they actually bump up a few spots in the ranking. Furthermore, the Packers defense is 7th – yes, top ten material here – among all teams in Opponent Yards per Pass Attempt.

Where the Packers rank at the bottom of the heap is their rushing defense, but that’s not anything new. The point here is that Clay Matthews is primarily a pass rushing specialist. That doesn’t absolve him of his duties to set the edge in the running game, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. We’re not worried about his run stopping numbers; we’re worried about his sack numbers.

If Matthews had already racked up more sacks this year, we wouldn’t be so worried that he couldn’t contain a few read-option plays. We’d be satisfied with his overall numbers.

Where’s the silver lining then? Well, the Packers don’t play defense with just one player. It takes eleven guys per play to make things happen. Furthermore, Clay Matthew’s performance might be tilting the field towards other players more than it’s been tilting his own stat sheet. And when you really look at the numbers, you’ll notice he has significantly more quarterback hits, hurries, and batted passes than just about every other guy at the front of the defense. (Julius Peppers is his only equal in that array of categories.)

Sure, we’d like to see him go Predator more often, but can we be upset when the defense as a whole is top ten against the pass?

THE MUG IS HALF EMPTY

Okay, so our big beef might be with his sack numbers, but the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back this week was Clay Matthews’ inability to stop the read-option running plays. How can you consider a player “great” when they can be run right at for big chunks of yardage?

Matthews is part of an excellent passing defense, but he is also part of a horrendous rushing defense. Yes, the linemen and inside linebackers are mostly to blame for opposing offenses running them through the guy; however, we’ve also seen a number of outside running plays break contain around the edge. And that’s where Matthews takes responsibility.

His Achilles’ heel has always been his over-pursuit of the sack. Teams have found ways to take Matthews out of the play by using this aggressive drive against him. They simply run through the holes he creates by getting into the backfield too quickly.

We also have to consider the fact that Clay Matthews has been dubbed the “China doll” lately. He seems to have a yearly battle with hamstring pulls, and on top of that, he missed about a third of last season with a broken thumb. This year, it’s been a groin problem that seems to be lingering. Can we have a “field tilter” who is never at 100%?

GETTING THROUGH THE FOAM

This is a tough issue to tackle. On the one hand, Matthews isn’t posting his big sack numbers. On the other hand, the defense is doing very well against the pass, and his performance could be the impetus behind others getting pressure and the secondary finally getting some interception opportunities. It’s really hard to tell without going through each game and dissecting everything.

So I’m going to hold off on my judgment of whether or not Matthews’ mug is half full or half empty at this point in the season. You can feel free to debate that among yourselves in the comments section.

However, I do want to say this: think twice before holding the Dolphins’ game against him.

Rather, go back and watch the game tape. I had the misfortune of missing the game on Sunday; though, I did follow the action on Twitter and a couple phone apps. I also watched some highlights, tuned into the weekly radio shows, and read numerous blog posts about the game to get an idea of what happened. So when I finally got to sit down and watch the NFL Game Rewind footage on Wednesday, I approached it expecting the worst from Matthews.

What I saw, though, did not match the criticism. I focused on the line play for each side of the ball, always keeping my eyes tuned in to Matthews when the defense was on the field. For probably the majority of his snaps, Clay Matthews revived his role of quarterback spy, which we’ve seen him be tasked with a number of times in the past. This meant that he was more concerned with keeping the quarterback contained (or mirroring him) than actually ripping through for the sack.

This seemed to be a very reasonable design by Dom Capers when attacking a guy like Ryan Tannehill, and I’m certain we’ll see more of it next game against Cam Newton.

Also, on the running plays, I never really saw Matthews get pushed off the line unless he was being double-teamed. He held his ground and kept contain on the edges. In fact, there were a couple plays where this forced the running back inside for a stop.

Finally, we have to address the read-option plays. On Tannehill’s big gain to start the second half, I will concede that Clay Matthews whiffed. He was reading the running back when he probably should have been reading the quarterback, especially given his role during the first half. That said, the secondary didn’t help matters with some pretty poor tackling. Matthews let him through, but a chunk of that yardage could have still been prevented.

On the Miami Dolphins’ second touchdown drive, they ran a couple read-option plays to get them near the goal line. These were successful, but I would argue that Clay Matthews did his job. Tannehill ended up handing the ball off to the running back, who did the damage, because Matthews kept his contain on the quarterback. He actually did what he was supposed to do.

See, the read-option play is designed to take away impact players like Clay Matthews. The whole point is that the quarterback reads a certain player and either hands off or keeps the ball based on what that player does. No matter how good a guy is, he is going to be hard pressed to stop two guys at once. The best Matthews can do in these situations is stay on his man and trust his teammates to clean up the rest.

Is Matthews tilting the field this season? Probably not as much as we’d like him to, but I still see him making a significant impact for the defense. Either way, be careful about your gut reactions to his performance against the Miami offense. Things are not always what they seem at first glance.

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Chad Toporski, a Wisconsin native and current Pittsburgh resident, is a writer for AllGreenBayPackers.com. You can follow Chad on twitter at @ChadToporski

Follow @ChadToporski

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