Yep, the Pack got it handed to them by the vikes. Yep, Favre can gloat all he wants, he proved TT made a mistake. He got his revenge. Point, Favre. But it's not set and match yet. So what now? Where does this team go now that the bye week is here? I recall another poster earlier this week saying that maybe a Packer loss would serve some good because it would be a wakeup call. Losing to the vikes is NOT ok. So what are the points of emphasis during the bye?

No brainer is to fix the OL. Can it be done mid-season? I contend you cannot jettison struggling players at this point of the season and you can't bring in someone off the streets either. About all you can do is get Cliffy back practicing and run drill after drill to try to clean up the technique problems. Not the best outlook for the rest of this season.

Safety has to get shored up. Maybe getting Bigby back will help, maybe not. I have to think he's better than Martin, Bush and Giordano. Collins seems fine after his injury.

Pass rush? WHAT pass rush? I was a little concerned to see Woodson speaking out against Capers scheme for the vikes. Not a good sign when your best defensive player is calling out coaches. It kills me that we are wasting Woodsons final few good years, he is once in a lifetime player. Why Capers didn't call blitzes very much makes some sense if you think they tried to defend the run, but honestly in the NFL you cannot make your defense one dimensional. If you have to sacrifice in one area to be strong in another, you're toast in the NFL. Those blitz packages have to be unleashed.

Why do the special teams penalties continue? Why can't the Pack run a kickoff return without drawing a holding penalty? This is frustrating and infuriating. HAS to stop. It's not like this is a new problem, it has to get cleaned up this week.

I do not think MM's playcalling has been the real problem. Sure the series at the goal line was not pretty but overall some good stuff has been called, execution has been poor. Drops, bad O-line play, Rodgers taking sacks he doesn't need to. But the offensive playcalling is about 85% effective IMO.

Any other thoughts on where they go from here?

Maybe because during the Saturday Night Coaching Massacre, the Packers didn't also hire a real special teams coach, but only promoted a young asst. who didn't have experience or at least a period of time being mentored by a really good ST coach?

Maybe. But these guys KNOW that you can't hold. It's as basic as you get. Don't block a guy if you can see the numbers on the back of his jersey. Don't get your hands outside and grab on. They've been told this since they were 12 years old. I think Slocum runs better ST schemes than Stock did. I think he emphasizes 'fundamentals' more. For some reason these guys just aren't doing it right when the bullets fly. Slocum can't be next to them on the field telling them to not grab on. Frustrating.

I think the play calling at the goal line was fine. Grant and Kuhn both smelled the goal line and didn't get in. That's the difference between making a big play...and ...not.

We got killed in Special Teams last night, an area we needed to win if you're going to beat a better team on the road.

As far as blitzing goes, Capers is in a tough spot. Over and over again, when they HAVE blitzed the last 3 games they generally did not get to the QB. If you blitz, especially if you send 6 or more guys, you absolutely have to get to the QB or you're toast.

Watch other teams that run the 3-4 and you see them get to the QB almost every time when they send 6 or more. I'm not talking sack every time, but get to the QB and make him get rid of it before he wants to. Now, if the Packers can't do that, Capers doesn't have much choice.

Good points VOR - do you think secondary injuries / thinness have resulted in a more conservative (rather than attacking) defensive scheme? We seemed to be all over Cutler.....but havent had similar success since. Its my feeling that if we'd been able to knock BF around more he'd have been releasing early and/or off target....but we didnt touch him.

Why not? Was it the AP factor that held the D back?

I WOULD LIKE TAUSCHER TO COME BACK!

i would trade for Bob Sanders safety IN. i would actually trade pop or kampman for him, i know he is currently injured

but he would be awesome, if not very serious, i would trade for him anyway and waite for him to heal.

i would also try and trade for steven jackson (grant and a third). I know thats a lot of money being mentioned in these

trades but we do have it, I think tauscher and clifton and those two trades would make us an unbelievable teams, guys,

we are closer than it seems, we are just not as battle tested as we should be.

also if the money is gone by the end of the season the GM should just cut his loses, if these guys wanted to get paid to

begin with they would have performed up to par, it really is that simple.

i am aware this is not Madden NFL but the colts are winning without Sanders so it is possible and the rams are 0-4 with

steven jackson so that too could happen.

Really...? So your suggestion is to replace injured safetys with a notoriously injury prone safety, and replace a running back who has proven to be adequate when running behind a weak o-line with a running back who has proven to be adequate when running behind a weak o-line?

Right now Caper's defense is a mess, though I do think by the end of the season the defense will come together and play much better. The biggest problem is at safety and has been for a couple years (hello Ted).

I have never been a fan of Mr. McCarthy's play calling, I say be a HC and let your staff offensive coordinator take over the reins of game day play calling. This all doesn’t matter much because the offensive line is complete 100% disaster and at least a couple of years away from a possible fix, from the injuries and personal (hello Ted AGAIN!) to the coaching.

I say they will shore up the offensive line a tiny bit and because of their easy schedule and a great player named Rodgers manage to finish two games up from .500..

i think we can end up making the playoffs. the vikes are in first in the division right now, but our line played terribly against them and they had some big things break their way (phantom penalty, Lee's dropped TD), but we still managed to hang with them and keep it close in the dome.

on offense there's a few large issues that we all know need to be fixed:
- pass protection: this should improve if/when Cliffy plays. i doubt we ever see "great" line play this year, but we would improve markedly with "adequate," and Cliffy's return (plus subsequent shifts back to normal positions for College and Spitz) should provide that.
- drops: our WRs are too good to keep dropping passes. outside of Lee's 6 point drop, it wasn't much of a problem against the vikes but so far this season its been our second-biggest problem. hopefully it will self-correct.

defense:
- blitzing: we don't have a great pass-rusher. we sometimes get some pressure when we blitz, but more often the extra man just gets eaten up by a block, even by a RB's block. Kampy is still struggling to adjust, even when asked to rush standing up. i don't see why we can't let him put his hand down occasionally. so far he hasn't adapted to what Capers ideally wants his OLBs to do, so i think it might be time for Capers to adapt to his best front 7 player's strengths.
- safety play: it was pretty ugly the other night. who knows if Bigby will ever play like the guy he was, but he's got to be better on one ankle than any of the other train wrecks we've seen back there. we need someone to press the "reset" button on Atari (sorry ), or this will certainly be a big issue all season.

those, to me, are the biggest issues facing the team, and i think there's reasonable hope that we can straighten them out enough to make the playoffs, maybe even win the division. there's still a lot of football to play.

No sir, i am suggesting toughness for a very talented team, with bigby out again we are litterally playing with one safety, i am sorry but Martin is not a good safety to say the least.

as for Steven Jackson, he is running behind a crappy line but he is a way better runner with vision than Grant and he has very good hands.

This team needs some more attitude. even bigby, who i am routing for, did not look very good while he was in there.

I believe that this team can do it, we could win the big game, clifton and tauscher should make the line at the very least adequate that is all Rodgers need. we can really do it.

Bob Sanders (while tough and talented) is nearly always injured. No thank you. I think it would be a mistake to spend a lot to get him and have to rely on his ability to stay healthy. His backup Melvin Bullitt would definitely be worth going after. I think that he'd be a good player to grab. He's got good size and range and toughness. While he's done well for them, he might be expendable with two other Pro Bowl safeties on the roster.

I'd also prefer not to get Steven Jackson just because of the cost it would take to get him vs. the fact that he's got 6 seasons of wear and tear in the NFL. If we could get him cheap I'd be all for it, but I don't think he'll come cheap (in terms of trade not contract.) I think that we'd be better off drafting a player to become a feature runner. Running backs have a limited number of good NFL years in them and the Rams might have wasted most if not all of Steven Jackson's.

The main problem that needs to get solved is the offensive line. It's been a problem too long. Get that figured out and the whole offense will run better. Simple as that.

I'd love Tausch to come back.

You'd trade for Bob "Injured more often than not" Sanders?

i actually like bullitt better at this point but IN would not trade, thats why i think sanders would be expendable along with his injury history, he would come cheaper than most think. I am telling you guys, we have to still take certain calculated risks. Both sanders and Jackson could truly help.

In regards to the OL I think that chemistry would not allow for many trades right now, but familiarity(tauscher might help). When all of these guys get back into their rightful places the line will at least be adequate. Any major moves with the line should be next year.

Releasing the OL COACH and acquiring veteran studs, please no moredrafting OL.

I love the idea of doing something to shake up the team during the bye week.

Offensive line is what needs the most help. The first move should be signing Mark Tauscher to at least put some pressure on Allen Barbre. Tauscher likely isn't ready to go out there and play quite yet, but even the act of adding him would help that unit in terms of knowledge, toughness and veteran leadership.

The other move that I'd make is with the coaching staff. I think that firing James Campen would not be a good move because it forces the team to find his replacement and messes up the team's continuity both in players and staff. What I would do is hire Jeff Jagodzinski as an Assistant Head Coach / Offensive Line coach. He knows the offense backwards and forwards and is an excellent OL coach. I think that he'd certainly represent an immediate upgrade to James Campen and he didn't burn his bridges with the team or the staff when he left for Boston College. Then, instead of firing James Campen I'd let him keep his title but essentially demote him to Asst. Offensive Line coach. That should send a message to the coaching staff and the players that if you're not getting your job done they'll find someone better to do it instead. I'm not happy with the job Campmen has done, but I think that firing him outright would hurt the team more than help it. Demoting him IMO would be the best way to upgrade the staff, keep morale from going south and still send a message that there must be significant improvement in the offensive line play if guys want to keep their jobs. Such a move also allows Jags to get up to speed without setting back the play of the Line even further (if that's possible.)

Ellis:

I think the problem with the Jagz idea is that he is basically a zone-blocking specialist. he was originally brought to GB to spearhead the installation of the ZBS. MM basically functioned as the OC.

obviously Jagz isn't a complete one-trick pony, but Tampa Bay thought he was limited enough that they canned him as OC about a week before the season!

I know we still run some ZB plays, but we have been moving away from it this season, so i'm not sure bringing in a guy who specializes in ZBS really makes sense for the team right now.

I don't think its a terrible idea or anything, but that's probably the rationale against it.

Favre proved TT made a mistake? I don't get it. Rodgers played very well -- actually, if anything, proving TT DIDN"T make a mistake in keeping Rodgers. For cap reasons, GB would've suffered if they tried to keep both Favre and Rodgers; also stifling Rodgers' development. If Rodgers were the problem (and mistake), wouldn't there be material on this post about his poor play? Instead, rightly so...problem areas mentioned include the o-line, special teams, etc.
Rodgers played extremely well under constant pressure. I'm not so sure Favre would have done as well.

In his mind I'm sure he got some excellent satisfaction. I don't personally believe TT made a mistake choosing Rodgers over Favre.

Jagodzinski has extensive experience in both a power and zone scheme. He's a very good OL coach and he knows the Packers defense having assisted in the original installation of it in 2006. He was canned in TB because they have a defensive head coach and needed a good playcaller for an offensive coordinator. . . a good position coach might not make a good playcaller or coordinator, just like a good coordinator might not make a good head coach. Jagodzinski is a good position coach and would be an upgrade over Campen. That's why I'd make the move. Shake up the staff just enough to make a point.