Week 13: Texans 24 Packers 21

Week 13: Texans 24 Packers 21

Well that was bloody awful… losing in December at Lambeau to a southern dome team no less. In past years, a score like that means Packer fans would be talking about how they let the Texans hang around. But it was the Texans who controlled time of possession, scored first and played most of the game with the lead. The Texans amassed 549 yards offense – running and passing almost at will but turning the ball over four times.

LeRoy Butler came down harder on the defensive players and coaches citing no efforts at communication between plays, no adjustments from the sidelines, and no hustle. It’s sometimes hard to judge those things on TV. Butler also said they did well to only give up 24 points with the kind of yardage they gave up.

Charles Woodson in the box? What is Bob Sanders thinking? I didn’t criticize trying Woodson at safety on announcement. It got the best guys on the field. But it didn’t really work that well. I hope they scrap this and let Charlie Peprah play. It’s time to see if he can play. That goes for whole lot of guys on defense. Butler says go with Woodson at CB and Rouse at S.

The New Hampshire Packer Backer would like to call your attention to how the Patriot defense is saddled with as many injuries as the Packers yet continues to play at a high level. Desmond Bishop played well but was hopeless in coverage. NHPB also points his finger to the Defensive Coordinator’s ability to work with the personnel available to win games.

Everybody knows my fear about how blaming coordinators for losing undermines player evaluation. A change in coordinators usually leads a team to stand pat on moving players to see how the current roster fits into the new D.C.’s scheme. Greg Bedard doesn’t like the Bates / Sanders defense. I’m more concerned about personnel, but watching the same sort of deterioration that we saw in 2005 should be reviewed.

Bedard also argues that the stop-gap street veterans like the Patriots have signed have worked out for them. Ted Thompson promotes guys from the Practice Squad like Alfred Malone, at DT. Malone is the latest Daniel Muir at the end of the bench. Guys like this are functional back-ups on other teams. With Justin Harrell back in the tub, we’ll get a look another look at what the elite Packer scouting department has come up with in Malone.

As we have seen, top DTs are often top drafted in the first 5 picks of the draft. When you can find a serviceable one on the street you have a real coup. I think you can go back to Gilbert Brown to the last gem in the rough the Packers have found. I think that was 1994 or 1995 when the Grave Digger was picked up from the Vikings. Remember how Mike Sherman shored up the Packer DL with John Thierry who played both DT and DE in 2000? I think Thierry was in camp, but him and David Bowen gave the Packers the depth they needed to be competitive that season.

When Cullen Jenkins when down and Harrell was still hurt, that was really the Andre Rison moment this year. When there was no help from the front office, the grind accelerated. Nick Barnett, playing hurt soon succumbed and was lost for the season. Then Atari Bigby whose injury has rendered him a non-factor. You could observe the tough Mark Tauscher grind down to an ACL on offense. Playing hurt often leads to worse injuries. We really saw too much of that this year, I think.