Bye Week - Wednesday - Defensive Problems

Jenkins was a good pass rusher before Clay Matthews came on the scene. Jenkins main problem before that was staying healthy. Otherwise he was a pretty good pass rusher from the three technique and even played some DE in our 4-3 base set. Now, I’m sure that Matthews, and most especially Raji, benefited from having Jenkins there. Once Jenkins left it allowed teams to basically double Raji and Matthews to slow them down and no one else has been able to win one on one in order to get the pressure needed.

I am also skeptical of Collins being the missing ingredient for the third down stops. The defense was having plenty of troubles this year with Collins in the line up making those stops. I don’t see how the change to Peprah alone is causing a major melt down in that area.

Really the whole thing is the lack of consistent pressure from both sides of the defense. Matthews is doing his job pretty darn well, but no one else has stepped up to help in out. As a result a defense can scheme for Matthews and then be able to have all day to pass. This allows for a greater percentage of passes getting through because even the best secondaries can only cover for so long before some holes start to open up.

Jenkins has 5 sacks so far this season (from the DT position). He benefits from playing in the Eagles’ system and playing next to Trent Cole – and from the supposedly superior coverage of their DBs. We can’t really know for sure, but I think his absence is making it more difficult for CM3 to get a single blocker. Hopefully Raji will get spelled more as the season goes on and will have more energy for rushing the QB. I also hope Mike Neal comes back and provides some added push.

As far as Collins – I think we miss him more than many think. Yes, the defense gave up lots of yards in the first two games with him, but we played the New Orleans Saints who rack up yards on just about everyone. In the second game, we played Cam Newton 1) before there was much film on him, and 2) before it was believed that he was for real (this changes up game plans – we probably thought that stopping DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart was the defensive key, and Steve Smith was still believed to be on the decline, which also changes the way we practiced all week beforehand). And yes, Charlie Peprah is a very good backup S and serviceable starter, but he doesn’t make a QB think twice about going deep like Collins does. I know lots of people around here say he would be a starter on half the teams – cough, Houston, cough – in the league, but if that’s the case someone out there could have offered way more than the (relatively) paltry $1 million he got as a Packer (and he must have known he wouldn’t come back a starter with Burnett back). Basically, Collins changed the way most teams (Saints being a rare exception) could attack us, and Burnett isn’t up to his level. I know Peprah played well enough last year, but replacing a rookie safety isn’t the same as replacing Nick Collins. Burnett can’t match Collins experience-wise, and Peprah can’t match him talent-wise. When you have two safeties that force you to alter – even slighlty – your defensive game plan it does limit your options somewhat.

Other factors in our defensive numbers: teams play hard against the defending champs; Capers may be holding back on the schemes/playcalls (why give the opponents your best early in the season? Especially when your offense is scoring at a rate that doesn’t necessitate it); Hawk seemed to improve last year as the season went on – maybe he’ll do it again this year (same with Williams and Shields).

Glancing through Drive Charts of the 7 games I counted 25 drives of less than 3 minutes during the 2nd half of each game. Some were TDs, some FGs so they weren’t all INTs and punts, but that might explain all of the yards given up.