Green Bay Packers Aim To Stuff the Run and Stop Losing Fourth-Quarter Leads

Capers has already announced he will switch the Packers to a 3-4 defense from a 4-3 alignment. In a sense that could be a gamble since the 3-4 features only three down lineman and four linebackers as opposed to the four down lineman used in the 4-3 that the Packers used last year.

Why would a team that needs to improve its run defense change to a system with one less big man up front?

It’s because the 3-4 can be effective in stopping the run, too. In the 3-4 linebackers play a big role in clogging up running lanes and tackling ball carriers before they rip off big gains. 

The Packers are planning on that plus Coach Mike McCarthy has said in his experience, the 3-4 is harder to game plan against. McCarthy has also said the team will still use four down lineman on occasion.

Capers comes to the Packers with a strong pedigree. He was a special assistant and secondary coach for New England last year, so he contributed to building a defense that ranked tenth in fewest yards allowed. 

Two years ago Capers was the defensive coordinator for Miami. That defense finished the 2007 season ranked 23rd.  Capers also was an NFL head coach with Carolina and Houston earlier in his career.

The Packers should improve on last year’s disappointing six win total, which came one year after a 13-3 season in which they reached the NFC championship game and went into overtime before missing their chance to advance to the Super Bowl.

Perhaps the best reason to expect more than six wins from the 2009 Packers is how close they came to it last year. Seven of their 10 losses came by four points or less. If they had won just three of those seven close games, they finish 9-7 instead of 6-10. 

That still wouldn’t have gotten them into the playoffs. That still would have been a big step back from the 13-3 success in 2007.  But it would have been a winning season.

Falling all the way down to 6-10 might have its benefits, though. It caused the house cleaning in the defensive coaching quarters and made the focus in the draft on defense as well.

The Packers will have a lot to prove. With a new, experienced defensive coordinator, a healthy veteran line to start the season and the No. 1 draft pick beefing up the Packer front, the defense should be a lot better.

On the offensive side, quarterback Aaron Rogers had a strong season in his first year as the starting QB. But his offensive line may have less experience this year and that could cause problems. 

As of mid-May, tackle Mark Tauscher was still a Green Bay Packer. But there has been speculation in the press that Tauscher won‘t be in a Packer uniform for the 2009 season. 

Even though he is the most experienced member and the leader of the offensive line, Tauscher is a free agent and he will be trying to make a comeback from an ACL injury that knocked him out in week 14 last year.

Coach McCarthy was quoted in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in late March as saying the Packers have interest in re-signing Tauscher but that his rebab from the ACL injury will not be complete until the regular season is already underway. 

That may cause the Packers not to re-sign the veteran tackle. When the Packers drafted two offensive lineman in the middle rounds in April, some saw that as a signal that Tauscher will not be re-signed.

The Packers running attack ranked 17th in the league last year while Rogers led the passing attack to a top 10 ranking (eighth). Halfback Ryan Grant will be back hoping to top his 1,200-yard season from last year and get back to the 5.1 YPC average from 2007.

Whether Rogers can again lead the Packers to a top 10 passing attack and whether Grant can have another strong season carrying the ball will depend a lot on whether the offensive line can get the job done. 

They have a good nucleus of veteran lineman returning. That includes Chad Clifton, Scott Wells, Tony Moll, Jason Spitz and Daryn Colledge. But if Tauscher does not return, the chemistry will be different.

Green Bay should definitely do better than 6-10 in 2009. They have addressed their defensive problems and injured players should be healthy. A very optimistic expectation might be that they could go 10-6 and make the playoffs this year. 

Even a less optimistic forecast probably does not see them having another season as bad as 2008 and might expect them to improve to 8-8.

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