20101022

Knock grampa out of his rocking chair

The absence of Clay Matthews has been devastating to the Packers. During the time he missed at the end of the Washington game and the entire Dolphins game, the pass rush has been nothing short of pathetic. On the flip side, our offensive line has had plenty of issues holding a pocket, and even when they did, you can tell Rodgers is rattled by the way he is hopping around back there.

These are not good problems to have going into a must-win game against Old-What's-His-Name and the Vikings.

Last year, I'm sure you'll remember, we got embarrassed twice by Grampa, largely because he had hour-glasses of time to relax in his rocking chair, easily picking apart our secondary en route to a mind-boggling passer rating. The NFL is a complex game, dear readers, but if we don't sack #4, or at least put some pressure on him, we don't stand a chance. That rule applies for Rodgers, too. This is a passing league, and you can't give these guys all day. Last year, Grampa dropped back to pass 59 times and was never sacked, rarely pressured. He completed 41 passes for 515 yards and seven touch-downs. I nearly puked typing that stat-line, folks.

It's pretty simple: We've gotta knock Grampa out of his rocking chair on Sunday night. Repeatedly. Some fancy stat-man did a little research, and in 2010, Old-What's-His-Name has "completed only 46.7 percent of his passes against five or more pass rushers" resulting in a 30th-best passer rating of 57.3 in those situations.

I'm sure The Puppet-master is aware of this information, but I still worry he won't bring the heat. And maybe with Matthews back, he won't need to as much, but I still implore Dom Capers to deploy an un-ending stream of blitz packages. We've gotta make that old hill-billy piddle his purple trousers for crying out loud! Until next time, then,
FG