Looking Back At Marshall Newhouse Against The Vikings

Packers Talked About Pulling Newhouse | Cheesehead TV. Aaron Nagler pointed out this comment from Bob McGinn at the Packer Insider that there was talk on the sidelines about pulling LT Marshall Newhouse.

Newhouse has been inconsistent over the past two preseasons. He usually struggles in the first preseason game, and then improves as it goes on. Maybe the Vikings game was a mini-preseason: early game struggles, and he improved as the game went on. Pro Football Focus also noted his bad game, and pointed out that it didn't help that he was assigned to block their top rated defensive end: Jared Allen. He also missed practice on Friday for a personal matter, which may have been a distraction.

Pro Football Focus gave him a grade of minus 5 and noted that the first quarter was bad. The one play that really stood out was a sack by Allen with 1:44 left in the first quarter. The replay showed Newhouse drift off the line like he was going to block a linebacker on a screen towards the right sidelines. But in doing so, he didn't appear to block anyone and he left Allen unblocked as he ran down the line of scrimmage for the sack. Obviously it was more of a problem than I realized considering that the coaches considered benching him.

With LT Chad Clifton unlikely to return in time to play against the Chargers, they'll probably turn to Newhouse once again. The obvious alternative is Derek Sherrod. I didn't see anything when he played against the Falcons to claim he's clearly better than Newhouse. I expect this will be a topic the coaches will discuss this week. I don't expect they'll make a switch to Sherrod, but they do have a reason for why they would.