What Cost Us The Game? [POLL]

[Deleted member 6794]

You hit the nail on the head............ all season team sucks in red zone that's poor coaching !

The Packers were 8th in the league in TD percentage in the red zone and 9th in points per red zone appearance. In case you wonder if this is really a meaningful statistic the Oakland Raiders (who went 3-13) led the league in both categories. Teams that have a lot of red zone appearances will get stopped from time to time.

 

[Munch]

The funny thing is if one, just one, of those plays goes the other way we still would have won but for them all to go sideways is unf*ucking believable. I'm still in shock of the pure stupidity.

 

[Packerlifer]

The funny thing is if one, just one, of those plays goes the other way we still would have won but for them all to go sideways is unf*ucking believable. I'm still in shock of the pure stupidity.

A football game, particularly a championship game, is the sum of all its parts and events. But there's usually one moment or play in these kinds of games that it all wins or loses on. For Sunday it was the on-side kick failure.

In the New Orleans-Minnesota NFC title game 5 years ago the Vikings turned the ball over 6 times total. Any one of them could have made the difference but it was the Brett Favre cross-body interception that was the daggering play of the game.

All else being equal, if the Packers make the recovery on that on-side kick they deny Seattle a possession and time in the final two minutes to get the go-ahead score. Then there's no overtime. And no Super Bowl for the Seahawks.

The Packers knew the on-side kick was coming. They had assignments in place for it. Brandon Bostick decided to play it his way and played it wrong. In a team game one man going rogue can destroy it for the entire team.

 

[Wood Chipper]

Simply capping those TD's instead of getting FG's would of devastated the Seattle team and none of the end game miscues would of happened.

 

[Munch]

A football game, particularly a championship game, is the sum of all its parts and events. But there's usually one moment or play in these kinds of games that it all wins or loses on. For Sunday it was the on-side kick failure.

In the New Orleans-Minnesota NFC title game 5 years ago the Vikings turned the ball over 6 times total. Any one of them could have made the difference but it was the Brett Favre cross-body interception that was the daggering play of the game.

All else being equal, if the Packers make the recovery on that on-side kick they deny Seattle a possession and time in the final two minutes to get the go-ahead score. Then there's no overtime. And no Super Bowl for the Seahawks.

The Packers knew the on-side kick was coming. They had assignments in place for it. Brandon Bostick decided to play it his way and played it wrong. In a team game one man going rogue can destroy it for the entire team.

That's what I was saying but it wasn't just the botched onside kick. If Burnett runs to daylight and we at the minimum burn some time and kick a FG, Bostick or someone else handles the onside, we get a first down when we need it, HaHa defends the 2 point conversion or we punch in 1, just 1, TD instead of a FG we win or we defend a 3rd and 13 play. It wasn't just that 1 play it was all of them and, like I said, converted 1 of these we would have won.

 

[Sunshinepacker]

Confused on the poll...isn't the red zone offense and coaching pretty much the same thing? I mean, the consertative coaching was one of the issues in the red zone. For the life of me I can't figure out why some intelligent assistant coach hasn't burned that Kuhn dive play out of the playbook.

 

[Sunshinepacker]

A football game, particularly a championship game, is the sum of all its parts and events. But there's usually one moment or play in these kinds of games that it all wins or loses on. For Sunday it was the on-side kick failure.

In the New Orleans-Minnesota NFC title game 5 years ago the Vikings turned the ball over 6 times total. Any one of them could have made the difference but it was the Brett Favre cross-body interception that was the daggering play of the game.

All else being equal, if the Packers make the recovery on that on-side kick they deny Seattle a possession and time in the final two minutes to get the go-ahead score. Then there's no overtime. And no Super Bowl for the Seahawks.

The Packers knew the on-side kick was coming. They had assignments in place for it. Brandon Bostick decided to play it his way and played it wrong. In a team game one man going rogue can destroy it for the entire team.

Why does it have to be a play at the end of the game? If McCarthy runs Lacy into the endzone on fourth-and-goal from the one, I'm sure he gets in at least ONE time (since the Packers were there twice) and then the Packers win the game by a point instead of going to overtime.

What about HaHa looking about as lost as a safety can possibly look on the two-point conversion? Or how about Hawk leaving his man on the fake field goal?

Or does it have to be a play in the last five minutes?

 

[Sunshinepacker]

I´m absolutely fine with the way McCarthy prepared his team for the game and the way he called the offensive plays for 55 minutes as we had a comfortable lead at that point. Yes, that even includes kicking a FG twice on fourth-and-1 from the one yard line. While it´s possible to question those calls the players deserve some blame as well as they weren´t able to pound it in from inside the 10 yard line a total of six times.

Once again I can´t explain what happened within the last five minutes and overtime and McCarthy, Capers and Slocum deserve blame for giving away the game, but the various doomsday scenarios being posted here if we hold on to MM being posted on here are unwarranted IMO.

The playcalling was about as conservative as you can get. Why didn't the Packers try and go deep while Earl Thomas was out? He's the key to their whole defense. Why didn't the Packers pick on Sherman when he was playing with one arm? Again, McCarthy is great at preparing teams but terrible at making in-game adjustments.

Their is no such thing as good coaching when you have a terrific offense that's given FOUR turnovers in the first half and manages to score 16 points.

 

[Deleted member 6794]

The playcalling was about as conservative as you can get. Why didn't the Packers try and go deep while Earl Thomas was out? He's the key to their whole defense. Why didn't the Packers pick on Sherman when he was playing with one arm? Again, McCarthy is great at preparing teams but terrible at making in-game adjustments.

Agree with not going after Sherman being a terrible mistake by McCarthy. I tend to agree they should have thrown some deep passes while Thomas was out but I´m not sure Rodgers being capable of throwing accurate deep balls because of his calf injury.

Their is no such thing as good coaching when you have a terrific offense that's given FOUR turnovers in the first half and manages to score 16 points.

The offense had six chances to score a TD from within the 10 yard line but weren´t able to, McCarthy shouldn´t be blamed for a lack of execution.

 

[Sunshinepacker]

Agree with not going after Sherman being a terrible mistake by McCarthy. I tend to agree they should have thrown some deep passes while Thomas was out but I´m not sure Rodgers being capable of throwing accurate deep balls because of his calf injury.



The offense had six chances to score a TD from within the 10 yard line but weren´t able to, McCarthy shouldn´t be blamed for a lack of execution.

Yes, he should. How often has the Kuhn dive play worked? Why not run the ball with Lacy three straight times from the one? Nope, let's kick a FG instead. Three minutes later we again decide to kick a FG from the one yard line. That's MM's playcalling.

We were only in the red zone three times all game. Two of those three times we go to the one-yard line and settled for a FG. We scored a TD on the other one.

 

[Deleted member 6794]

Yes, he should. How often has the Kuhn dive play worked? Why not run the ball with Lacy three straight times from the one? Nope, let's kick a FG instead. Three minutes later we again decide to kick a FG from the one yard line. That's MM's playcalling.

We were only in the red zone three times all game. Two of those three times we go to the one-yard line and settled for a FG. We scored a TD on the other one.

There´s no guarantee the Packers would have scored on any of the fourth downs from the 1. The Seahawks stopped us three times on such occasions. You would probably criticize McCarthy for going for it if the Packers ended up with zero points instead of six.

 

[packergreginflorida]

You're right there's no guarantee, but if MM went for it and failed, and he didn't run up the middle 6 straight times during the meltdown and thrown to Shermans side perhaps and failed, then I could say the better team won and we played to win. I would of been happy with that. But MM taking the game away from his players like that is a shame. He should be apologizing to every player for his game time incompetence. OTE="captainWIMM, post: 595542, member: 6794"]There´s no guarantee the Packers would have scored on any of the fourth downs from the 1. The Seahawks stopped us three times on such occasions. You would probably criticize McCarthy for going for it if the Packers ended up with zero points instead of six.[/QUOTE]
You

 

[pacmaniac]

Not going for it on 4th down probably was the correct decision, just because MM is so dang predictable with his play calls. Tries to just run it up the middle every single time. If he had more creativity, then going for it on 4th down might actually work.

 

[MadCat]

With five minutes remaining and possession of the ball, despite: 1) that there were still five minutes left in the game and it was nowhere near over, 2) seahawks have been a 4th quarter team all year, 3) we had the top offense in the nfl, 4) we had the mvp at qb, 5) sherman was playing with one arm, and 6) the 12s were heading out of the stadium, taking much of the noise with them, MM chose instead to run just a few seconds off the clock with three weak rush attempts and put a prevent-mode D that had been out on the field most of the second half right back out there. He's the coach, so it was his call to make, but personally I would put my money on our O 100 times out of 100 in crunch time.

 

[King of Jeans]

I agree. Winning games with defense is not our strong point. Winning with the offense is. Put the ball in the hands of the MVP.

 

[Sunshinepacker]

There´s no guarantee the Packers would have scored on any of the fourth downs from the 1. The Seahawks stopped us three times on such occasions. You would probably criticize McCarthy for going for it if the Packers ended up with zero points instead of six.

Nope. No coach should ever be so afraid of the defense that he doesn't think his team can get a yard. That was scared coaching. That was classic, conservative, "coaching not to lose" NFL coaching.

 

[Spike Mullin]

The Packers were 8th in the league in TD percentage in the red zone and 9th in points per red zone appearance. In case you wonder if this is really a meaningful statistic the Oakland Raiders (who went 3-13) led the league in both categories. Teams that have a lot of red zone appearances will get stopped from time to time.

Look at MM's play calling on those drives. His pattern was different than it had been all season. He ran it up the middle with Kuhn and Lacy, whereas during the regular season, the Pack passed more in the red zone which had the affect of spreading the defense out, and kept the defense guessing. None of those elements were present on Sunday.

 

[Spike Mullin]

With five minutes remaining and possession of the ball, despite: 1) that there were still five minutes left in the game and it was nowhere near over, 2) seahawks have been a 4th quarter team all year, 3) we had the top offense in the nfl, 4) we had the mvp at qb, 5) sherman was playing with one arm, and 6) the 12s were heading out of the stadium, taking much of the noise with them, MM chose instead to run just a few seconds off the clock with three weak rush attempts and put a prevent-mode D that had been out on the field most of the second half right back out there. He's the coach, so it was his call to make, but personally I would put my money on our O 100 times out of 100 in crunch time.

One more of a score of coaching miscues.

 

[Spike Mullin]

There´s no guarantee the Packers would have scored on any of the fourth downs from the 1. The Seahawks stopped us three times on such occasions. You would probably criticize McCarthy for going for it if the Packers ended up with zero points instead of six.

I never criticize a coach for going for it on 4th and goal at the 1. I rather expect a coach to go for it, and I admire it, and also expect that sometimes they're not going to make it.

 

[Spike Mullin]

Agree with not going after Sherman being a terrible mistake by McCarthy. I tend to agree they should have thrown some deep passes while Thomas was out but I´m not sure Rodgers being capable of throwing accurate deep balls because of his calf injury.



The offense had six chances to score a TD from within the 10 yard line but weren´t able to, McCarthy shouldn´t be blamed for a lack of execution.

But McCarthy was calling those awful plays. I'm not going to blame the players for not executing plays that Seattle knew we were going to call.

 

[pacmaniac]

Everyone says the Packers dominated for 55 minutes, but the truth is only the defense dominated for 55 minutes. The offense was nowhere to be found most of the game. So many possessions starting deep in Seattle territory and all but one of those they did nothing and had to kick a FG. This is the greatest offense in the league? Laughable.

 

[Mondio]

Not scoring TD's obviously cost them, but it's not like they weren't gaining yards, first downs, eating time, and keeping Lynch and Wilson on the sidelines. In case you didn't notice, they were playing the Seahawks who were allowing around 8? points per game in the 2nd half the season. Did you expect 40+ on the road in the NFC championship game in Seattle? It's a game of inches, and a couple more and Kuhn scores 6, Lacy scores 6, a couple inches less and Jordy scores 6.

 

[PackerfaninCarolina]

I'm not sure if the Redzone offense and conservative coaching shouldn't have been mixed since that's mostly going hand in hand. I certainly think not keeping the O on the field and punching it in on those 2 4th and goal plays is a big reason why we lost though certainly Clinton-Dix's failure to knock down that pass and of course, the guy who I still respect but have to admit he did make a mistake, Brandon Bostick on that onside kick. But I tend to think those guys would not have been demonized as badly as they were if we had gone for it on 4th and goal.

 

[pacmaniac]

As much as our D dominated, the time of possession ended up about the same (GB 32 minutes, SEA 31 minutes), so our offense didn't really keep them off the field. Like you said, so many opportunities to gain an inch or a yard here or there, and our vaunted offense doesn't convert on ANY of them? I don't care if it's Seattle, an offense like ours should be able to gain a yard on some of those, but we failed every single time.

 

[Mondio]

Considering the last 5 minutes and all of overtime GB had the ball for maybe 4 seconds, they did a pretty decent job thru 3.5 quarters in terms of TOP. on paper this game doesn't look too far off according to final stats, but of course not much happened for Seattle till the wheels fell off.