Packer Defense Drags Team Down

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

To say that it hasn’t been a good season in Green Bay is like saying that things haven’t been going well for Dan Rather this year. Last Monday night, the nation watched as the previously struggling Tennessee Titans ripped the Packers apart on national television, 48-27. Green Bay turned the ball over five times but could not force a single Tennessee turnover.


A number of analysts (including this one) expected the Packers to go all the way to the Super Bowl, and this certainly looked possible after their season-opening win against defending NFC champion Carolina. But since then they have lost four straight, and they shockingly find themselves going into Detroit this week as underdogs.


Green Bay fans seem to have emerged from the wreckage with two explanations for what has happened to their team. Some blame quarterback Brett Favre, saying that he has aged and become mediocre. Others blame coach and general manager Mike Sherman, both for his on-field calls and for his personnel decisions.


Do either of these men deserve the scorn being heaped upon them in Titletown? To answer this question, we’re going to look at this season and last using an advanced metric called Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average. DVOA breaks down an entire season or a specific selection of plays one-byone, compares each play to the league average of success based on situation and opponent, and gives a percentage that represents each team’s success. The ratings that result have proven to be a much better indicator of team ability and winning than the NFL’s ranking system of raw yardage. (You can read more about this at FootballOutsiders.com.)


DVOA shows that despite the five turnovers against Tennessee, the Packers’ performance on offense this year has not been horrible. Prior to Monday night, the Packers played well against poor defenses this season (Indianapolis) and played poorly against good defenses (the Giants).The result is a DVOA through five games of exactly 0.0% – the very definition of mediocrity, ranked 16th in the NFL.


The problem with the offense isn’t Favre as much as it is Ahman Green, who since Week 2 has struggled with both gaining yards and holding onto the ball. DVOA has the Packers’ rush offense ranked 27th in the league.


Defense is a different story. Packer fans spent the entire 2003 season griping about the defense, which they saw as a weak unit filled with average players holding the offense back from a championship. This year the defense has been even worse than anyone could have expected, ranked 32nd in the NFL with a DVOA of 32.7% (since positive numbers represent more yardage and longer drives, defensive DVOA is better when it is lower).The defensive problems also make Favre look like he’s playing worse than he really is, because he’s constantly in difficult field position. The average Green Bay drive this season has started at the Packers’ own 28.9-yard line, 24th in the league.


Contrary to popular belief, Green Bay’s defense in 2003 was one of the best in the league. They ranked ninth in defensive DVOA, higher than Tennessee, Carolina, or Philadelphia, and one mistake in the playoffs doesn’t erase that performance. But most of the people responsible for that defense will not be on the field for the Packers this Sunday.


First and foremost among them is former defensive coordinator Ed Donatell, who was scapegoated for the failure to stop the Eagles on 4th-and-26 in the Packers’ playoff loss to the Eagles, and fired after the season. Donatell was hired only 36 hours later by Atlanta, where he has improved their defense from one of the league’s worst in 2003 to one of the league’s best this season – the Falcons’ defense is actually carrying a feeble Michael Vick instead of the other way around. Back in Green Bay, new coordinator Bob Slowik has drawn criticism for his odd game plans, like the one against the Colts that had the Packers constantly blitzing and leaving the Colts’ fast receivers in single coverage against Green Bay’s third-string cornerbacks.


Oh yes, the third-string cornerbacks. It is no secret that the Green Bay defense has been decimated by injuries as well as the holdout (and subsequent trade) of cornerback Mike McKenzie. But while more ink has been spilled on the Packers’ decimated secondary than Britney Spears’s marriage, the player the Packers miss more than any other is injured nose tackle Grady Jackson.


Last year the Packer defense dramatically improved over the second half of the season, and the change can be directly traced to picking Jackson up off waivers from New Orleans and sticking him in the lineup to replace the injured Gilbert Brown. For the first eight games of 2003, Green Bay’s defense had a +6.3% DVOA. For the last seven games of the season, ignoring the final week when Denver played all scrubs, the Green Bay defense had a far superior -18.6% DVOA. In fact, Green Bay’s defense played better than its offense in seven of the eight regular season games after Jackson’s arrival.


Although Jackson is known primarily as a run-stopper, his arrival actually had a stronger impact on Green Bay’s pass defense. In 2002, the Packers had one of the league’s top pass defenses, but they had been struggling through the first half of 2003. Once Jackson entered the lineup, ends Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila and Aaron Kampman were free to play the pass more, with less worry about running backs scampering up the middle. Jackson is not a pass rusher, but his absence has impaired the pass rush.


Jackson’s backup, James Lee, is also out with a knee injury. McKenzie was injured before his trade, as was the other starting cornerback Al Harris, and both of their backups, Ahmad Carroll and Michael Hawthorne. A number of other defensive players have also been injured, often enough to impair performance but not keep them out of the game.


So it turns out that the fans were right about the defense, but for the wrong reasons. The problem was not the coordinator or the starters, but the depth. Injuries are a fact of life in the NFL; a mark of a good front office is the ability to build a deep team that can withstand them. Witness last year’s New England Patriots, who lost four different opening day starters for the season by the fifth week of 2003 and reeled off 15 straight wins without them.


The inability to recognize quality bench talent lies with the front office, as does the rash decision to fire Donatell. In Green Bay the buck stops not with Brett Favre, but Mike Sherman. Despite all his success in the past, the responsibility for this debacle ultimately lies with him.



Mr. Schatz is the editor in chief of FootballOutsiders.com.


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