Packer blocking problems

[Randall]

Packers: Problems with the back side

JASON WILDE

608-252-6176

jwilde@madison.com

GREEN BAY - To understand what's wrong with the Green Bay Packers' zone-blocking running game during the season's first two games, you could spend hours breaking down the game film from their 26-0 season-opening loss to Chicago and Sunday's 34-27 loss to New Orleans.

Or, you could just let center Scott Wells explain it. For you football aficionados out there, this will be boringly elementary. For the rest of the population, Wells' explanation was so well-put that the guy could probably write "Zone Blocking For Dummies."

 

"There's two sides to a run play, you have the front side and the back side. Where the ball is going, say it's going to the right, that's the front side. The opposite side, that's the back side," Wells told a group of rapt reporters in the locker room Monday afternoon.

 

"(In the zone scheme), you need to get the defensive guys on the back side down on the ground. Which means, cut their legs out. That way, they can't pursue, and when our running back is running to the right and he sees a cutback lane (to the left), he can cut back and everybody on the backside is on the ground, so nobody's there to tackle him."

 

And that, so far, has been the Packers' main problem - failing to execute cut blocks on the backside defenders.

 

"We're not doing a very good job of cutting off the backside," coach Mike McCarthy said. "It's more technique. It's the technique of how we're cutting. We're not using proper footwork and hand placement. We just need to do a better job of it. It's not good enough."

 

The challenge with cut blocking - in which linemen launch their bodies at the defender's legs, aiming just above "the play-side knee," according to right guard Tony Moll - is that you can't work on technique in practice against live players. While they do drills using bags, McCarthy said the linemen are having trouble transferring that technique from practice to games.

 

Moll also said that the Saints' linemen were well-prepared for the cut-blocking and fended it off effectively.

 

"They were looking for it, and they had their hands out pushing you away," Moll said.

 

But the problem hasn't just been young guards Daryn Colledge, Jason Spitz and Moll, but veteran tackles Mark Tauscher and Chad Clifton, too, since neither one had to do much cutting in the previous man-blocking, or "gap," scheme.

 

"The whole theory (of the zone-blocking scheme) is stretch-and-cut - stretch the front side and cut the back," said offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski, who brought the scheme with him from Atlanta. "We just need to do the technique better. It's not so much getting on the right guy, because we're targeting the right people, we're just not getting it done on the back side. And until we get that going, the run game will be stalled."

 

While McCarthy admitted 57 passes (55 attempts, plus two sacks) were too many and that "I don't believe you can win that way week in and week out," he also said throwing the ball was the No. 1 priority in his game plan. Part of his decision to throw the ball more had to be because of the struggling run game, which managed just 63 yards on 20 attempts - and 16 of those yards came on a Donald Driver end-around.

 

Halfback Ahman Green had just 42 yards on 16 carries against the Saints, and while he had 110 yards on 20 attempts against the Bears, that number was inflated by five carries for 48 yards out of the shotgun formation late in the game after the outcome had been decided. Throw out those five attempts, and Green has rushed 31 times for 104 yards (3.4-yard average).

 

When the backside defenders aren't cut down, two things happen: Those players are then able to come from the back side and make tackles, and there are no cutback lanes available to the running back. Jagodzinski said the latter has been the greater problem.

 

"You've got to get those guys on the ground," Jagodzinski said. "That's the whole key."

 

The Packers aren't the first team to struggle when switching to the zone scheme.

 

In 1995, the Denver Broncos averaged 124.7 yards rushing per game in coach Mike Shanahan's first year, when zone-blocking guru Alex Gibbs installed the scheme. Since then, the Broncos have had eight of their top-10 rushing seasons with the scheme, as they averaged 147.6 yards per game in 1996, 148.6 in 1997, 154.3 in 1998 and a franchise-record 164.3 in 2003.

 

In Atlanta, the Falcons have led the league in rushing the past two years - 167 yards per game in 2004 and 159.1 last year - since Gibbs installed the scheme there, but quarterback Michael Vick has boosted that number tremendously. Vick ran for 902 yards in '04 and 597 last year, and his mobility also helps reduce backside pursuit, as defenders have to stay home in case he scrambles.

 

So, Jagodzinski said Monday, be patient. It will come. He promises.

 

"I know everybody's a little anxious about it, but I've done this before. It's nothing I haven't had to go through before," Jagodzinski said. "Once it happens, you'll all go, 'Oh, OK.' And so will I. It'll happen."

[Swiss Cheezhead]

Awesome read. Kinda summarizes my feelings on our running game.

 

I knew going into the season that our running game would start VERY slow. Like the article mentioned, the only "practice" the O-linemen get cut-blocking is during games. So, I think it'll take until midseason to get the technique done right.

 

Hopefully, Brett can win a handful of games on his own before that happens.