This game against the Vikings was very telling. Being basically half way through the season it can now be said with confidence that the Queens are an elite team in the NFL, sadly the Pack are not. Personally I believe the Pack are still a top 12 team, however that is not much to get excited about.

With sports business or life it is usually good to assess where you are at, where you want to be, and your currents assets and liabilities that you have. Looking at GB there is actaully a lot this team does very well.

• The WR's and QB situation are very good, depsite some injuries this group has put up big numbers. This should continue as long as AR stays upright. Granted that may not happen.
• The defense still is ranked very higly statistically, and they have been worlds better at stopping the run this year.
• This years crop of rookies is already having a significan impact. Matthews is starting completely on merit. Raji has shown well this past few games, and IMO is not in the starting line up because Jolly, Pickett, and Jenkins have been playing great. Lang has been doing well, despite being a 4th rounder thrown in at LT. Now Quinn Johnson is contributing as well. Looks like a pretty good crop.
• GB has lost ot tough teams that many of us(including myself) thought they were ready to beat. Still they have beaten the teams they were supposed to beat, something they did not do last year.
• Guys on this team are passionate about winning. There have been issues taken with coaches, not because of selfish I need my stats reasons, but philosophical approaches beacuse this teams has true competitors on it.
• I was not a fan of the switch to the 3-4, but I do have admit it is coming along nicely. Still far from done, but most people predicted GB would be bad this year because of the switch.

The problems though are many, and while there is still hope some of them do not seem likely to be fixed this season.

• The o line is bad. Maybe having Tuasch and Clifton back will help some. I have been hoping for some coaching help. Still it seems like it will be tough expect anything significany improvement. Further GB's greatest weakness plays right into the strengths of the teams like the Vikings and Giants.
• Special teams was supposed to be a strength with all the extra players the 3-4 supposedly provides. Returns have been average, but even worse the coverage units have been getting burned. Thought a new coach would help here, not nearly good enough.
• Kind of a head scratcher, but GB is doing much better against the run, but can not get to the QB. I have a little more hope for this gettings better than the O line, since players getting to know the scheme better should help. Futher I think Dom Capers has done a decent job coaching the system, his play calling though needs work.
• Speaking of play calling MM is far too predictable. He needs to let go and find someone on his staff to shake it up.

This team is not a terrible team, but sadly I do not have a lot of confidence that they can address their issues significantly enough to be a threat late in the season. That said I do think they have a good shot at making the playoffs, and will get better through the season. Look for a few wins against teams most think are better than GB.

You missed one major problem - penalties

Yes realized that after I pushed post. Have to get that cleaned up...

Come on man, gotta clean up the posting. Work on it next time, get better next thread. Got to be technically sound writing and clean up the mental errors - MM

You forgot maintaining my mouse pad level... Fundamentals...

Take any laughs I can get today...

hehe

Me, too. I told myself I would refrain from visiting the packers news websites this week to avoid mental rehash of the loss. That and the posters on packersnews.com might be some of the dumbest people to touch a keyboard.

Packfan Euro trash, very well put. After the Vikings game I came to the conclusion that the Packers are average. They could well post a winning season, but, in reality, they cannot compete with the better teams. This makes me very sad, and I'll be looking for reasons why this is happening. I'm not going to jump off a bridge, or the bandwagon, I'll just have lower expectations for the rest of this season, and, until the Packers show they are capable of competing with the best, for next season as well.

Yeah there is enough data now to draw accurate conclusions. There is hope, look at teams like the Giants or Arizona that got hot in the playoffs after just making it into the playoffs. You can pray GB is this years come from nowhere team, but right now this team is just 'kinda good'....

I think it's valuable to go a little more in-depth than just calling the Packers 'average' and leaving it at that.

There are (by definition) a lot of average teams, but they're average for different reasons: One might be an overachieving bad team, another might be a good team hampered with new coaching, one might have excellent coaching and sub-par talent -- there are a lot of ways to 'average'.

I think the Packers as they exist right now are an excellent team with two key weaknesses that degrade their level of play:

1. The offensive line. This discussed to death elsewhere, so I won't get into it.
2. The changing defensive scheme, which is clearly still causing issues both in terms of pick-up and in terms of not having the right players for the scheme.

All things considered, there are worse ways to be an average team.

The second item will take care of itself -- players will get used to the 3-4 and the Packers will continue to acquire players appropriate to the scheme. Historically, the 3-4 is a sound approach and Capers has proven he can implement it. The danger here is that if MM gets fired, a new coordinator could come in and change it again. Changing schemes or even coaching two years in a row is clearly undesirable.

That first item... Well, it's clearly the big story this year. It's clearly our biggest point of needed improvement. Overall, however, I'm no longer convinced this is simply an issue of having the wrong players -- you should be able to stitch together a decent line with average players instead of requiring superstars.

Campen probably has to go and we probably need at least one serious playmaker at this position. The trouble here is with the 'playmaker' part; it's going to cost us the ability to shore up other parts of the team (the same way that drafting so heavily towards our D did this year). Free agent o-linemen are very, very expensive. Very good o-linemen go very early in the draft. As such, this is not an easy fix, especially going into an uncapped year.

Good points Sky...

GB does some things at an elite level : Passing, stopping the run, creating turnovers, protecting the ball.
It unfortunately is insanely awful at: The O line, and rushing the passer...

Most times you do not see such contrasts in a team...

At least we have one of the best young QBs in the game... I guess thats something.