McGinn Recalls McCarthy's Summer Cockiness

In his November 26 piece, "Unable to Pull Out the Stops" Bob McGinn pulls out some verbiage from Mike McCarthy's pretraining camp press conference. "The football team has moved forward with the emphasis on defense, because that's what I believe in, and that's what the philosophy as we move forward will be."

It was easy to see where MM was coming from. The defense had won some games early in the 2007 campaign and played well enough to make 13-3 possible. It was full of young talent that could easily project as "ascending". Subtract Cullen Jenkins and 2007 Nick Barnett and 2007 KGB and not even McCarthy would have uttered this hubris.

Of course take away the top 3 CBs on the Packers roster and you would expect ugliness. The Saints survived without their top 3 CBs just fine. So the Packers are left with talk of the need for defenders to "step up". That's NFL-speak for guys on defense getting beat and for young players failing to emerge.

One of my primary contentions in this blog is that TT & MM have overrated their young defense and their OL. There are no "Blue" - NFL stars on this defense. Woodson is the closest, but is probably best rated as a "Red" player - a solid NFL starter. At their best, Jenkins and Barnett are "Red" minus guys. We see a lot of great NFL defenses without standout "Blue" players but full of "Red" and "Green" guys. The Greens are adequate fill-ins and strong situational players.

AJ Hawk is looking more Green than Red these days. Mike Montgomery, Jeremy Thompson, and Jason Hunter are struggling "Yellow" players - warm bodies that might be worth keeping around to see if they get better if there is no one better.

But I am not arguing for a wholesale house cleaning. I think there is some talent here. It's just not coming together this year. MLBs tend to come back slowly from ACL injuries. Barnett's injury surely will impact the Packers off-season strategy. So will the evaluations of Jolly, Cole, Montgomery, Thompson, Propingga, and Hunter. Cole & Jolly might grade out as "green" players but the rest are "yellow" in my book.

What is emerging is the need for another Blue-Red player on the DL to help Kampman and smart Red-Green LB who can allow Barnett to comeback at his own pace. That doesn't mean the Packers should reach for some Joe Johnson-type FA, but if a "blue-red guy" is available, they shouldn't worry about current players complaining about the unfairness of Free Agent salaries. This year's guys have no claim to top money.

Cory Williams was a "red-green" player. Having that extra dependable body made a lot of difference last year. He could be playing RE now if he were here. There is an exponential effect that strong depth can have on a DL. That could well explain why Cory Williams is having a "green" season, not a "red" one with the Browns. Now McCarthy and Thompson can fess up to that. It will be interesting to see if defensive coordinator Bob Sanders gets to play sacrificial lamb.

The tendency of McCarthy to play guys who can't run due to injury is alarming. Not only were Rouse and Bigby limping around out there so was James Jones. Where the heck is Ruvell Martin? His catches came after it was over against the Saints. McCarthy keeps saying things in the media like "James Jones has got to learn to deal with his knee injury". Jones plays, but can't do anything against a beat-up secondary. Then Jordy Nelson has a bad rookie game. This is a coaching issue. Why not throw to Donald Lee, Tory Humprhies, and Ruvell Martin more?

What is encouraging is the