There are certain losses that stick with you forever. You can have good times happen after them, but the hurt doesn’t ever really go away. Winning Super Bowl XLV doesn’t take away the sting of 4th & 26 or the loss to the Giants in the 2007 NFC Championship Game or Terrell Owens’ catch in the 1998 Wild Card Game (Jerry Rice definitely fumbled before that pass). That’s not to say those losses hurt as deeply as they did at the time, but that sting is still there.
Those are the losses that make the big wins that much sweeter. More than the regular season, the highs are higher and the lows are lower in the playoffs. Only one team can hoist the Lombardi at the end of the season. More often than not, that team will not be the Packers. It’s a fact. A painful fact. We know these chances don’t come along every season, so we need to take advantage of them when we can.
This game definitely falls into the category of heartbreaking, to say the least. It’s one of the toughest losses I can remember. It ranks right up there with those listed above. I don’t have a ranked list of how much each of them hurt, mainly because I don’t want to spend that much time counting my heartaches by the number. It’s a bad loss and it’s going to hurt for a very long time. I don’t need to stick it in a list to know that.
I’m not here to write anything about keeping perspective. I’ve seen a lot of “it’s just a game” and “if everyone in your life is healthy, just focus on that.” I don’t need to hear that, and I don’t think you all do, either. We put a lot of ourselves into this team. We spend a lot of time reading and analyzing. It is just a game, but it’s something that is very important to all of us. I don’t need anyone telling me how to feel. Everyone deals with a loss in their own way. This was heartbreaking and it’s going to take time for me to get over. I don’t need anyone belittling the thing I love, or trying to brush away the pain by saying, “It’s just football.” Let me react to a painful loss in my own way without attempting to convince me it’s really not that important. This is painful. Let me deal with that pain in my own way.
Winning helps to ease that pain. The Packers made a lot of mistakes in this game (I’ll get to some of those in a bit), and I hope they learn from those mistakes for next season. If they come out next year and scorch the league on their way to a Super Bowl victory, it will help reduce the pain a little. They will have gone through the fire and emerged victorious.
I’m not calling for massive firings, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a change in some philosophies. Take this pain. Use it to make yourself better. It worked for The Whistler’s Daughter, and it can work for the Packers.
This post will be a little different. Even though I watched the film, I couldn’t bring myself to do a full breakdown. I didn’t have the strength. So I’ll look at a few plays, then move on.
Deep breath. You ready? I think I’m ready. Let’s do this.
This seems like a good place to start. You recognize this play? It’s the Richard Sherman interception. I don’t want to look at the whole play, but I do want to look at this one image. See the defensive player lined up across from Bryan Bulaga [75] at the bottom? This is before the snap. There’s not a camera angle right down the line, but, from here, he certainly seems to be offside. When we were watching it live, the entire group I was with thought the same thing. “Rodgers took a shot because he knew it was offside. He always does that. That interception is coming back, right?” And we waited for a flag that would never come.
I’ve long held the belief that close games are harder to recover from than blow-outs. (I know this is a widely-held belief, but I just wanted to make sure it was stated here.) In a blow-out, a lot of things have to go wrong to get to that point. Sure, Brett Favre’s six interception game against the Rams in the 2001 playoffs was rough to watch, but I don’t remember it being particularly heartbreaking because they were already out of the game by the time the 4th quarter rolled around. You can’t point to just one or two plays that could have swung the tide.
But, in close losses, you can point to a play here or there that could have changed the outcome. In this game, there were a dozen. If any one of those dozen plays goes the Packers way, they win this game. This is but one of those plays.
Let’s look at a fun play. Keep your eye on Julius Peppers [56] on the right side.
Isn’t that glorious? That’s Peppers completely outsmarting Alvin Bailey [78]. Peppers looks like he’s going with a speed rush. He stops to come back in, completely taking Bailey off-balance. And then, with one hand, Peppers throws Bailey 5 yards and picks up an easy sack. That’s beautiful.
Let’s look at the fake field goal.
At this point, the ball has been snapped and the fake has been declared. Look at A.J. Hawk [50]. What are you doing, Hawk? Seriously. What? See the blue streak going past him? That’s the receiver.
This is All-22 film. This shows all 22 men on the field. It doesn’t show anything deeper than Hawk because there is no one deeper than Hawk. The people in the stands are back there, I guess. But that’s it. Just to show you a further frame…
Look at all that wide open space. Buffalo could be grazing back there in all that space. In fact, there’s so much space that Jon Ryan – a punter who had thrown 2 passes in his entire career – could be rolling to his left, throw back across his body and STILL complete the pass for a touchdown.
And look at Hawk. Again I ask: what are you doing? You see Davon House [31] and Peppers [56] in pursuit. The man is a punter. There is no way he would be able to outrun both of them to the 9. Even if he did, Hawk would still be able to close the gap (presumably) even if he fell back in coverage.
And, just in case you’re thinking that he didn’t see Garry Gilliam [79] – he of the diminutive stature of 6’6” 303 pounds – I present to you these next images.
Hawk sees him. He’s looking right at Gilliam. I assume they made eye contact. Then Hawk broke hard for the punter, leaving Gilliam free to romp and play and score touchdowns on awkwardly thrown balls. After Hawk broke, I assume Gilliam laughed maniacally all the way down the field.
I know Brad Jones [59] got a lot of hate for this play, and can understand that. After the game, the Seahawks said they ran that play because of where Jones lined up. When he lines up there, he goes hard for the block, opening up the edge. The Seahawks saw it on tape and made a note to use this play. If Jones had lined up anywhere else, the Seahawks claimed they were going to call a timeout and kick the field goal.
You know who else should have noticed this on film? Shawn Slocum. He should have noticed that Jones sold out for the block and corrected this. It was a hole begging to be exploited, and it was. Part of that is on Jones, but I put more of that on Slocum.
Obviously, I also put part of this on Hawk. He knows there’s no one behind him. He can see the receiver running straight down field. He can also see that, with House in pursuit, there’s no way Ryan will be able to run for the first down. Hawk needs to fall back in coverage on the only receiver with a chance at the ball. This is terrible awareness. A shocker, I know.
Here’s another missed opportunity:
That’s Ha Ha Clinton-Dix [21]. He’s running full speed at the line, so this is a tougher play than it looks like. Still, the ball hit him in the hands. This could have been a three interception game for him. Oh, what could have been.
I wasn’t going to do this, but I guess I will: a screenshot of the field after the Morgan Burnett [42] interception:
There is no one on the left side of the field. No one. Is that a touchdown? Impossible to say for sure, but he would have been able to pick up a pretty big chunk of yards. At the very least, he could have gotten them close to field goal range.
Here are my thoughts on this: I didn’t have a huge problem with Burnett taking a knee at the time, and I don’t have a huge problem with it now. If I were to rank the plays that broke the Packers in this game (which, again, I won’t do, because I have a heart), this would rank near the bottom. Should he have run? Yes. Absolutely. But, given the situation at the time (Packers up 19-7, a little over 5 minutes left in the game), a fumble is way more damaging than taking a knee. It wasn’t the best decision, but it was far from the worst.
Do you want to see one of the worst?
Third and 19. Third and 19. The Packers had been getting pressure with 4 all game and the corners had been sticking to the receivers. And then, on third and 19, Dom Capers dials up a three man “rush” with zone on the back end. Look at that time. Look at the rushers. They’re barely doing anything. The call must have been to make sure Russell Wilson [3] doesn’t break loose, but who really cares if he does? Rush 4 and put a spy on him. If he gets loose, it’s highly unlikely that he runs for 19 yards. Instead, they decide not to rush the passer (which, again, they had been doing well all game without compromising the back of their defense) and Wilson has all day to sit back and wait for a receiver to find a hole in the zone. This is maddening. Absolutely maddening.
If you’re unfamiliar with Breaking Madden, let me give you a quick rundown: every week over at sbnation.com, Jon Bois plays around with settings in Madden to try to achieve a certain goal. It’s one of my favorite articles. A few weeks ago, he attempted to see if he could kill an entire quarter with Johnny Manziel. To do this, he made Manziel’s offensive line into huge, extremely talented men, while he did the exact opposite to the defense (you can read the article here).
Just take a look at the first GIF he provides. That’s pretty much what the Packers did here. How much time could Wilson have killed? All the time he wanted, presumably. The defensive line was never going to come harder than it did, and no one was going to be coming up from the secondary to try to bring him down. Wilson could have stood back there with a cup of coffee and watched an entire episode of Friends. “Could I have any more time in the pocket?”
Matt Rontti (@mn_packman_12) asked me to take a look at the throw to Andrew Quarless [81] on 3rd and 4 in the 4th quarter. Specifically what the coverage was on the other receivers.
Quarless is at the bottom, matched up against K.J. Wright [50]. Wright is giving Quarless a bit of a cushion. I think Rodgers had already pegged this as his go-to receiver before the ball was even snapped.
Jordy Nelson [87], Randall Cobb [18] and Davante Adams [17] are in trips at the top of the screen.
Quarless gets Wright moving to the outside, then spins back to the inside and boxes out. It’s a decent move and a good throw, but Wright doesn’t bite. Is there contact before the ball gets there? Yeah, but it’s nothing major. The ball hit Quarless in the hands. He should have hauled this in.
On the other side, Nelson and Cobb are basically running short clear-out routes for Adams in the middle. Adams starts out the outside, so the outside corner takes him. With Nelson and Cobb running a little deeper and Adams coming underneath, it gives him a little space to work with. The corner plays it well, so there’s not a ton of space, but a good throw would allow Adams to pick up the first down, if not much more.
You could certainly make the case that Rodgers should have thrown to Adams, but I find no fault in him throwing to Quarless.
To finish off the film portion, I’d like to show screenshots of the three plays the Packers ran after the Burnett interception. I’m not going to show the plays themselves (they ran at the line 3 times, losing 4 yards), but I wanted to just show the defensive formations they ran into.
The safety is playing close to the line on every one of those. He’s a little deeper in that third shot, but not by much. A first down here all but seals the game. The Packers could run another couple minutes off the clock. With a first down here, the Seahawks wouldn’t get the ball back until around 3 minutes left, down 19-7.
Against the Cowboys, the Packers were up 5 with 2 minutes left. On third down, they opted to put the ball in Rodgers hands and see if he could pick up the first down. (I covered that play in my last post.) They converted, and the Packers went to the victory formation.
If this were a similar situation, I think they would have done the same thing. The pass up the seam (or to the post) was open all game. If the Packers were only up one score, I think they would have gone for that. But they weren’t. They were up 19-7 against an offense that hadn’t done much of anything all game. “We don’t need the first down. We don’t need to ice this. We’ve already won.” And that’s what did them in. They didn’t feel the need to put the game away, because they felt the game had already been put away. They didn’t go for the kill shot here, because they didn’t think they needed one. They didn’t see this as a do-or-die series. So they ran into the line three straight times, and the next time Rodgers saw the ball he was down 3.
Do you remember a couple years ago when Ron Rivera was a laughing stock? When he constantly punted on 4th and inches from the 40? Or kicked short field goals? Or ran three straight times into the line late in the game up one score, only to see the other team come back? What happened after that? He learned from those mistakes. He went the opposite direction. He nabbed the nickname Riverboat Ron because he no longer did things like that. He took chances. Now imagine that, but with a much better offense.
That’s what I want to see happen. No more kicking field goals on 4th and goal from the one inch line in the NFC Championship Game in the opponent’s house. Get aggressive. Get nasty. Kick the other team in the teeth and don’t let up. I know Mike McCarthy has it in him. I think this is what wakes him up. If he needs an Aggressiveness Coach, I’m up for the job. I’ll spend my time on the sidelines doing some combination of crunching numbers in a spreadsheet and screaming, “GO FOR IT! MAKE ‘EM BLEEEEEEED!” I’ll be perfect. Feel free to contact me for the opening. I’ll be waiting by the phone. I’ve already got my business cards made up, so don’t worry about that.
I would like to talk about a few things I’ve seen kicking around after the game. People at fault and what should happen with them in regards to next year. I’d like to point out that none of these are strawmen. These are things I’ve seen online, either in articles or on Twitter.
“Peppers isn’t paid $9 million a year to tell people to get down after an interception.”
A person said that. A real live person with actual thoughts and feelings. Do you remember that sack we looked at? Peppers was terrific this year, and that carried over into the playoffs. He was even better than I expected he would be. And this is what he gets? To have his entire season boiled down to one play where he didn’t actually do anything? Peppers is set to make $8.5 million next year (with a cap hit of $12 million). With the way he played this year, he’s worth it.
“Randall Cobb has played his last game in a Packers uniform.”
This person cited the Packers WR depth as back-up for this. Jarrett Boykin, Kevin Dorsey, Jeff Janis, Myles White and Jared Abbrederis. I love Abbrederis. I had high hopes for him this year, and I hope he’s able to come back next year and do great things. I’m also a big fan of Janis, although he was apparently less-than-impressive in practice. I still like Boykin, even though he didn’t do much this year. Dorsey and White are both fine, but I’ve never been blown away by either of them. The major point is this: none of those guys can do with Cobb does for this team. None of them give the Packers the kind of flexibility that he does. He can play the slot. He can play outside. He can play in the backfield. I’ve talked about this before, but their no-huddle offense is lethal with Cobb, because he can line up in the backfield as a legit running threat, or he could line up as a receiver. He’s great anywhere. They wanted to see how he was going to recover from his knee injury, and the answer has been “extremely well”. He gives them so many options and adds so much to this offense.
Do I know that he’ll be resigned? No, I don’t. I hope he is. Both because of his ties to Kentucky (go Big Blue) and because of what he allows this offense to do. And because I won’t know what to do with my Cobb jersey. I’ll end with this: if Cobb leaves, it won’t have anything to do with any of those other receivers.
“If McCarthy doesn’t win a Super Bowl next year, he’ll be fired.”
I don’t believe this one bit. The Packers could go 7-9 next year and he wouldn’t be fired. Like I said above, I would like to see him be more aggressive at times, but to be calling for his head like this seems ridiculous, and completely out of character for the Packers organization. Not happening.
Now, for some names and thoughts. (This column went off the rails a while ago, so I’m just going to keep running with it.)
A.J. Hawk. Finally, the Packers seem to recognize that Hawk just isn’t a very good player. I wouldn’t be shocked to see them cut ties with him after this season.
Brad Jones. He didn’t play a single defensive snap in this game. On special teams, he forced a fumble, but he also bit too hard trying to block a field goal. He’s not a good player, but I don’t hold the same disdain for him that others seem to. The Packers recognize that he’s not very good and they treat him as such. They know what Jones is like they never seem to know what Hawk is. My best guess is that he’ll be back next year, but with his playing time even more reduced than it was this year. Sam Barrington had a good year, and I would be shocked if the Packers don’t draft a linebacker fairly high in the draft (I would also be on board with them resigning Jamari Lattimore).
Shawn Slocum – He’ll be gone. I’m a little surprised he isn’t already.
Mike Daniels – Extention coming in the offseason. He was a monster this year.
Brian Bulaga – He’ll be back. Hopefully. The offensive line was great all season, and Bulaga at RT was a big reason why. If he’s not back, it’ll only be because some other team overpaid for him. The Packers are going to work hard to make sure he’s back next year.
Ha Ha Clinton-Dix – His coverage on the two-point conversion was painful, but, aside from that, he played a really good game. He was far from perfect this year, but I loved him and thought he showed a lot of promise. His coverage skills and recognition are great (he’s already better in that role than Burnett), and he’s a willing tackler, if not always a solid one (as I’ve stated numerous times, I believe he’ll improve on that). For a rookie safety, you couldn’t ask much more from him. I’m a huge fan of his, and am really looking forward to watching him improve in the coming years.
Brandon Bostick. Terrible play. Awful play. Make the block and let Jordy Nelson take care of catching the ball. Still, I respect him for not backing down from questions about this. That was impressive. He certainly didn’t deserve all the threats he had hurled at him. That was uncalled for, and doesn’t reflect well on the fan base. As far as his future? I think he’ll be back next year, although I doubt he’ll see any more playing time, barring an injury from Quarless or Richard Rodgers.
Dom Capers. Tough ending to a game. He had a good scheme coming in and it was executed well. They fell apart in the last 5 minutes, and a lot of that falls on him (why play Cover 0 in overtime when Wilson just started burning you deep?). There is a ton of talent on the defensive side of the ball, and I feel like they’re finally starting to realize some of that. Overall, I think Capers did a pretty good job this season, but there are quite a few times where the defense just looks underprepared and lost. That was the story of the end of this game. My gut feeling? He comes back next year.
I’d like to end by saying this:
It wasn’t the ending we were hoping for. This loss isn’t going away anytime soon, but that doesn’t take away from the season as a whole. After a slow start and some frustrating times, this was a really fun season. I’d like to thank you all for sticking with me and reading all year. It has been a lot of work, but I had a lot of fun in my first full season here. You all have been a huge part of that. I’ve loved interacting with you all throughout the season. I’ve had some great conversations and have received some great feedback. And I only really only had one negative interaction, which is pretty impressive.
I doubt I’ll be writing much here during the offseason. I’m kicking around an idea about how to grade Ted Thompson against other GMs, but it’s a sizeable project so I’m not sure when it’ll be done. If I get around to doing that, I’ll post it. I’ll probably spend my time preparing for the arrival of the munchkin and getting caught up on horror movies. If you have any random questions for me, you can always hit me up on Twitter.
Thanks again. It was a really fun season. Can’t wait for the next one.
Albums listened to while watching film: Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II; Lupe Fiasco – Tetsuo & Youth; Marilyn Manson – The Pale Emperor; Belle & Sebastian – Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance; John Carpenter – Lost Themes; John Coltrane – A Love Supreme; Amy Stroup – Tunnel; MGMT – MGMT
Green And Gold Forever 